Post 8

I'd like to take this time to blog about some of my frustrations in this class. As much as I enjoy working in this class and coming up with my own designs, I sometimes get rather frustrated while working in the programs I've never used before. The biggest issue I have is some of the exercises, more especially, the Photoshop ones. I have never used the Photoshop program before I started taking this class, so this is all still very new to me. When we are shown the exercise for the first time, I usually start out trying to follow along with the professor. As the exercise goes past the first few steps, I find myself stuck ten steps back past where the rest of the class is. This sometimes gets discouraging for me because I feel like the rest of the class can do something that I cannot.

I understand that there is a professor that helps us for a reason, but when you're one of the only ones in class who constantly needs help with completing the exercises, you shy away from asking all the time. I also feel like how can I be the only one who is lost? I wonder if I am the only one who feels this way. I don't understand how everyone else can be photoshop and indesign professionals. Maybe it would be helpful for the whole class if the exercises were explained slowly, in a manner that would be easier for the class to follow along.

Its also difficult to master the use of these programs because the only time I have access to them is during the two hour time frame we have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It is really hard to get used to new programs in such a short amount of time. Although I have been having some issues with the exercises, I really enjoy the projects where we get to use our own creative ability to come up with designs. Even if its only using a few tricks we've learned, I can still make a pretty cool looking design!

Post 7

I remember when I first saw this poster on a bus stop in Brooklyn, NY. I live in Queens, and over winter break I was driving to my friend's house in Brooklyn. My first reaction was to take a picture of it. Just driving by, I didn't get a chance to read everything that was on it. All I saw were the big bold words, "Stop being black". This caught my attention because without knowing what else the poster says, you would assume this poster is racist.

After reading the poster close up, you then realize it is stating the facts about the percentage of times black people have been stopped by the police and the amount of times the police were in the wrong. These posters are on bus stops and billboards all over Brooklyn. It is part of a larger group called RISE or Racism Still Exists, which is an anonymous group whose mission "is to illuminate some of the ways in which racism operates in this country".

I definitely think that this is an effective poster because it catches your attention, and makes you read the rest. The group that created this design makes these posters every month, and displays them on the streets of Brooklyn. This is a convenient way for them to get their message out to the community, and people can take the information and do with it what they want. The people of Brooklyn have definitely been talking about these posters.

Post 6

When we were first shown all the different pieces of information needed to begin working on project number two, I felt a bit over whelmed. There was so much to read on magazine layouts, grids, and much more, that I wasn't exactly sure where to begin. I am not going to lie, at the start of this project, I didn't read the article text. This made for an extremely uncomfortable feeling when I began to design the layout. After realizing that it was a bit challenging to create a design for something that I don't even know what its about, I went back and read the article. I actually found the article, The Psychology Of Color In Design, very interesting. Not only did I learn about what different colors stand for or what they mean in this world, I found it useful for this class, and my future career in the communication field.

After I had an understanding of the article, I found it much easier to create a design that would be useful for this magazine spread. I found an image of different colors changing from one to another. There was no object or image in the picture itself, it was just color. I then realized it would be cool to have this image as the background of the entire article, opposed to just a rectangular picture box in a random spot in my spread. I played around with the transparency of the background, to find the brightest possible way I could leave it, without making the words difficult to read when printed.

There was one other picture that I found while searching the web for colorful photos. Here it is

I wanted to use this picture in my magazine spread somewhere because I felt as if it shows all the different colors the article was talking about, and it spreads them out in a way that is visually appealing to the eye. Because the image is sort of "cut off" on the bottom, I tried putting it in the bottom right corner of the page. I found that it just didn't fit in with the rest of my layout, so I ended up taking it out and leaving the rest as is.

I am confident in my design, but I am interested in seeing what the rest of the class has to say!