Learning Visual Concepts

      This project pertaining to the postcard we each individually made ourselves was very fun and entertaining to work on. This was an essential exercise to get me to visually think about concepts and about what visuals apply to it. I feel like it trained me to think like a graphic designer and to understand the significance of being able to coherently display an image that makes sense and which ties into one concept. A lot of the problems that I have when doing an assignment like that is how to have my graphics tell a story. I usually can think of many ideas but have a hard time trying to connect it to an overall image. The colors I used were in replication of a ticket with a font called Superclardeon. It is a font that resembles one you would see on a ticket stub. 

    I used the hierarchy with making a logo with the event time’s stand out more than the bio of the postcard about myself. The blue and red lines that are essentially the boarders of my postcard give my postcard a sense of balance. That was with the intention that that information was more important because it gives a stronger visual display of it being an actual ticket to a Bills game. Then I believe the font is coherently tied into the theme of the postcard with it being alongside of a playful photo. I believe visually it all ties in or in other words fit. The requirement of using all three applications is pretty simple. 

   Some people used professional photos or half upper body “selfies” to portray their message. However I used a photo of me kissing a trophy which I was thought would exemplify positive emotions of having a good time. The bio should be irrelevant, having the graphic designs tell your story. This picture highlights what is written in the bio about working hard and having a good time. This photo and postcard is intended to show how I like to enjoy myself doing specific things.     

  For photo work/alteration we use Photoshop, for custom illustration work we used Illustrator and to design the concept we used InDesign. These three applications are used to professionally create your own (custom) flier, postcard, business card, brochure and website. All three applications are used for the intended purpose, which allows you to skillfully work on each aspect of whatever you are working on and to bring all aspects of the project together to effectively design and make what you want. Illustrator is where I feel like I made the biggest improvement on throughout this project. It takes many meticulous hours to get good at creating custom illustrations of your choice. The pen tool exercise earlier in the semester enlightened me when doing it and then ending up being extremely beneficial when trying to create the bar code and boarders of my postcard.

  Photoshop was used to alter my photo to the levels of brightness in the picture. This added to the contrast of the photo making it appear better after tweaking.  The third application was InDesign that was used. This was the application that I brought my illustrations made in Illustrator and where I imported the enhanced photo from Photoshop. I created the template of the postcard with exact measurements that would replicate the side of a postcard. Once I had all of my information, pictures and graphics in InDesign, was where I assembled and aligned the making of a Buffalo Bills ticket stub to the 2016 home opener. Spacing took time to get perfect; also matching to have equal balance throughout the postcard did too. I enjoyed this project once I fully understood how to construct something like this using the three different programs to assemble and design this custom postcard.

  This project turned my knowledge of these applications and made them tangible. I am much more comfortable when using these applications to construct something like this. The time and meticulous work were two things I could take away from this. The tasks aren’t hard, but require a lot of mental thought. The key throughout this project was to get down to one consistent image to portray the message you are trying to send. Everything that is involved and implemented in this postcard holds some sort of significance in the meaning of the message that is portrayed. The text wrap boarders are only one example where little meticulous advancements provide much better visual imagery. The postcard project tested my knowledge and then solidified them.