K is for Karl

My buddy Karl was kind enough to be a model for my portrait photography assignment. Dont let his tatoos fool you, he wouldn't hurt a fly.

More wedding...

So, in an earlier post I had mentioned a stamp I as having made to use on the front of some boxes that will be available when my guest check in to their hotels. My stamp has arrived with its green ink, and I must say I am very pleased, its a little hard to read in the picture, but I wanted you to be able to see the entire box.

Mustache Sticks contd'

I have been working on my little mustache on a stick, making different styles and such. Now I have moved into glasses, I only have one pair done, but they are coming along so nicely even cash (my dog) wants to rock them.

Mustache on a stick anyone

Matt and I are having a fun photo booth at our wedding reception. For extra added flare I found these cute mustache and glasses made out of felt on stick at etsy.com for about $2 each. Well, I decided to make them instead. Below are my beginnings; my first baby mustache on a stick...I'm such a proud parent :)

Custom Stamp

For the wedding we will be having little boxes full of Nashville treats and other assorted items. The boxes are plan so I have decided to make a custom stamp to place on the front of the box. Below is the vector image for the stamp, 3-5 days until I get it!

For Sam, About Sam

This semester I am enrolled in portrait photography. Our first assignment was to use a single light source. My roommate Sam was nice enough to model for me, here are the results.

Final Project

Thumbs

Rough

Transparency for screen exposer

Canvas screen print

Screen print on taupe canvas, not such a fan. Harder to read the details on it.

I was so extremely excited about the leather, and although the color looks good on the leather the print did not turn out well because of the fact that the leather is not totally flat.

You can see above that not all the details came out because of the texture.

When this final project was assigned, my mind was going a million miles a minute. I have been wanting to do an alternative resume to give to interviewers; because I love to design, I feel as though a designer should have a resume that stands out, and my mind wondered about what that could be. I finally decided to to a 11x13 poster sized typography and vector filled resume that would give 7 great reasons to work together. We were assigned to "WOW" our professor so I wanted to take my fine arts element and screen print it onto fabric. Then I decided I would use canvas, and attempt a piece of leather. My target audience is any and all interviewers, as well as other designers. Call to action would be the contact information listed on the poster. When getting a price quote for the project, I talked with the screen print professor (who helped me finalize my poster) said that on average the screen cost about $15 and prints are about $1.25 per, and they only do 24 or 36 in bulk.

Magazine Ad

Full page thumbnails

Half page thumbnails

Full page ad rough

Half page ad

Full Page proof

Half page proof

For this assignment we were required to research magazine ad specs and design one of our own. During my research online I noticed this company called "crumbs cupcakes" I felt that their ad could use some jazzing up so I chose it to re-design. The name of the publication I designed this ad for was "real simple".

My full page ad dimensions are 8.625"x10.875" with a .125" bleed and a .5" margin on all sides. My half page ad's dimensions are 3.375"x9.875" with no bleed and .5" margin. My target audience is essentially all individuals who like to eat sweets, particularly mom's looking for sweets for birthday parties, etc. My call to action was my web address at the base of each ad.

VARIABLE DATA- also known as Direct Mailing

Male Front

Male Back

Female Front

Female Back

Everyone, (no matter who you are) gets direct mail, or “variable data” sent to them at least once a month or so. Direct mail is defined as “advertising sent directly to prospective customers via the mail”. I don’t know about you, but a lot of the time, when I get direct mail I slightly look it over and then toss it in the trash. Now that I have completed a direct mailing assignment for my digital file preparation class, immediate tossing of the direct mail will no longer be something I do.

We were given the task to complete a direct mailing piece that was 5x8”, and could be directed to at least two separate audiences. My original idea was to target residents and businesses that might be moving, advertising a moving company. I then decided to change my idea to, Night-N-Day Casino. My target audience was male and female, and my call to action was drink specials that advertised for nights that the casino was usually slow.

In my variable data I used elements such as a duotone on both of my male and female projects, as well as on the front and the back. I also utilized the COB (cut out background) lesson and completed that on all of my images as well. Finally, I used a hard drop shadow on my logo design, and a screen tint as well.

I wanted my design to be flashy enough to catch the eye of the recipient, (so to not get immediately tossed in the trash) but also be clean and simple. Something as small as a 5x8” card can fill up fast with cluttered text and images, my goal was to design a more simple and to the point piece of variable data that could appeal to men and women.

Four State Technology Conference

Pittsburg State University's Technology Center was home to the technology conference this year, and the option to attend informational lectures was a great resource for GIT students. The lecture that I chose to attend was one that talked specifically about photography. As a art student I have a lot of interest in various media of art, so the "photography review, going wild" title of the lecture caught my eye.

Upon arrival at the lecture we were given notepads, a pen, and informational packets. While I looked at the outline for the lecture while waiting for it to begin, I noticed a lot of the information that was planning on being covered was, in fact, a review. Also, while waiting, I noticed the notepad he gave us from his graphics department at his university; I don't know if it was because I had just recently completed a similar assignment in my digital file preparation class, but I noticed a lot about their notepad that I would want to prefect before handing it out to a fellow graphics department.

Once the lecture had begun I realized my suspicion had come true. This gentlemen's lecture started out as a complete and utter review; he discussed proper f/stops, and ISO's as well as the manual and automatic settings on a camera, (all things I would suspect someone attending a photography lecture would know coming in). This discussion went on for about 15-20 minutes of the 50 minute lecture.

After the review the lecture proceeded into a more promising subject, the dark room. I very much enjoyed his prints he had to show us, and how he developed a lot of techniques we use in photoshop (filters) by spending countless hours in the dark room, dodging and burning, resizing, etc. However, he never gave true instruction on how to complete any of these images in a dark room.

Overall, I did feel like the lecture left me wanting more. It started out slow, but once he started discussing some of his published works I was interested in the way he accomplished some of his prints, but he held back. This lecture started out as a mere review, and ended with him simply displaying his works and accomplishments, I feel that I came out knowing as much about photography as I did going in.