JordanP Digital Design

What is Art Final Paper

2009-03-12T21:58:00.001-07:00

I believe that I do use the software’s potential often, and by often I mean that when I have to do serious work and when I really want to try and make a design. Because usually since I’m still learning a lot of programs such as Photoshop, I have fun with it and just mess around time to time because sometimes just messing around gets me to new places I haven’t used or seen before and I believe it’s a good way to explore. That and learn and take away a lot from many great tutorials out in the Web. For my Art piece I used a lot of techniques I have learned in the last year ever since I took designing really serious, I used layer masking, gradient maps, played a lot around with adjustments such as levels, brightness and contrast, image exposure, etc. My work always comes as it goes, I never have an original plan or idea when I start working on an image or design. I’m always making changes and after I think im done I always look at all my layers and check if the certain effect on the image is too much or if I need to increase effect on it.

I mean, the reason why I chose to work on Photoshop to work on the project is because I know what it’s capable of and how I can use it to my advantage. Also because I’m still getting familiar with it, I am no where near knowing Photoshop 100% and I doubt anyone is because this software is always being modified and every time it does it has even more features than the previous and it takes a while to really get familiar with all its tools. That’s why a lot of designers I believe is why they develop their own style because each get comfortable with different settings, filters, techniques and its all developed on how you get to learn Photoshop or any other program in general.

I Believe that my work compares with other artists because when I’m working on a design I actually enjoy doing it because I have enjoyed art all my life. Its not the fact that I know but I think that there are a lot of good designers out there who don’t do it for the joy of doing it, they don’t really have the passion as other artists that I know when it comes down to creating a design. To the designers that don’t enjoy creating designs as much as I do, to them its just another day, another job, and of course the money. But I don’t see the money, I know it’s there but that’s not why I do it. I do it because I get to learn new things and get to work with different people to the point where you meet people you would expect to never meet and hopefully build good friendships because you never know who you’re going to meet and anyone can be a great benefit to you. Whether it’s financially or personal.

Well, one night I was browsing for space wallpapers on a website and I came a cross a high resolution free to use image of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and as I was still browsing I found a couple of images where some skies in them had the moon added to it. And an idea struck me out of no where and I decided to download a high resolution space image that was originally meant for my desktop wallpaper and the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge picture I came across with and I decided to test both pictures in Photoshop and test how they looked and I just like how everything really flowed and decided to take it further and created a wallpaper with the images. Unfortunately I don’t have any screenshots of the process but as I went along with the images I tried a lot of new techniques and tricks to get the results I got. I was going to go on and on with this new space themed sky in different cities but Typography grabbed my attention and totally forgot about the space theme sky on different cities I had originally planned for my project, so instead I went on to finding more images done by other artists to find out what Typography was and the history to it and also a few designs to get a some-what inspiration for a Typography Wallpaper/Final Art Piece I wanted to do for class. After a lot of experimenting and placing the text here and there I was satisfied with what I came up with and all the new techniques and tricks I learned by trying something new and giving it an original look to it.

I believe that the quote pretty much explains the message that I was trying to get across to any possible viewers. The quote states “I’d rather be rich and unhappy than be broke and miserable.” By Immortal Technique. The reason why I chose this was because everywhere I go I hear people talking about the same thing, which is basically what it says in the wallpaper. Also I highly agree with the quote because those who are rich might have the money, cars and jewelry but underneath they are really unhappy with their life which money had consumed. And in the other end those people who are broke (poor) truly have it bad and really wish that they would rather be unhappy and miserable because not that I truly know about that certain situation but living from pay check to pay check, barely afford rent, afford clothes, food, healthcare. Of course anyone in a situation like that would rather be unhappy any day.

Both my pieces of art that I created have a clear message of what I think art is. I believe my view of what is art are evident in my art pieces because they both say something different but at the end they are very similar because my space theme says that no matter what world we live in, whenever we look up when can see anything we want, whether we see it or imagine it the world can be whatever you want it is to be in your mind and on my other piece I expressed that everyone has the same goal. Nobody wants to live in a community that doesn’t progress, that never changes, and the situations get even worse. Everyone wants to make it and be unhappy one way or another,

I have explored art ever since I can remember, art can be expressed in anyway necessary but it has to have a reason behind, because in my personal opinion if you don’t have a reason why you create something art related which can be pretty much anything these days you are not creating art. Even if it’s the best art piece or design ever created, if there was no feelings or expressions behind it than it’s just a waste of time and a disgrace to artists who really put their very soul on every piece they create. I put a lot of emotion into my art pieces believe it or not because whether it’s for fun or not I always make sure I do my best and enjoy doing it.

Usually I get ideas out of no where and get down whether its on a piece of paper with a pencil in my hand or getting on the computer and be creative as possible as I can and put in my best effort and quality into my art. But for some reason while we started the 2^nd semester my ideas were hiding from me for a while and I couldn’t come up with anything really fresh, so I looked around the web and think of something that I would think be meaningful and still be creative and thoughtful as possible and still be learning more Photoshop at the same time. I always double check all my layers when I’m done with any piece that I do to make sure that is what I was going for and everything I can improve is improved. I check all my layers try out another color and see it that works better and if I find that color better I literary delete all the adjustments I had before and start over because I hope that the second try would turn out better than the first but if I ever regret it, I make sure I have all the layers from before grouped just in case. And I learned all this from mistakes on other designs that I regretted and I couldn’t do anything about it because I had already deleted them. To make my art pieces possible I used all the told necessary and trying out new ones to experiment which one would be much easier to use, to accomplish more, or if it can even save me time so I don’t get so distracted and stay focused.

I believe that my definition of art grew over this project but I wouldn’t call it enough for me to stop there, art is continuously growing and expanding and its hard to know everything about in a lifetime but of course that is just my opinion. My knowledge about what is art really grew and expanded and I think that it would really take me a few years before getting down my own very definition. A few setbacks I had while working on this project was pretty much coming up with ideas in the beginning and the difficult steps I went through in order to make my designs the way I want them to. I spent a couple of days on the golden fate bridge manipulation because I really wanted to try new things with it and I tend to do that with every project that might come my way. Of course learn as I go because like I said every project I tend to do I always use a different technique to keep it interesting for any viewers and also for myself. I didn’t get a chance to get any feedback from my peers but whenever I have the chance I will try to because its always great to hear what other think about it and I always look forward for any feedback possible. yea.

Final Art Piece

2009-03-12T20:54:00.000-07:00

After alot of hard work I finally finished my Art Piece and I decided to do my first Typography Wallpaper design with it and I am please with the results I got. I decided not go with the space theme I talked about in the beginning because Typography seemed way more interesting as I got into it more and more. Bottom line for my final art piece project, you can see it in full resolution in the following link:

http://www.grahamphisher.com/forums/gallery/239_21_02_09_4_18_06.jpg

Progress: "Final Art Piece"

2009-03-12T20:15:00.001-07:00

So, as you can see below I started out with a canvas in Adobe Photoshop CS4. and I made the canvas 1920x1200 pixels at 72 dpi. I merged a few textures together for a nice effect.

Image link: http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b148/lilziko/Picture9.png

For the next step, I played around with a few settings on the menu bar to give it a nice darker look.

Image link: http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b148/lilziko/Picture10.png

Next, I chose a font I liked and placed it nice and aliigned and messed with the positioning for a while and got the following results. I also used a few grunge brushes on the text to give a more grungy feel to it.

Image link: http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b148/lilziko/Picture11.png

In addition to using grunge brushes that I found on www.brusheezy.com I decided to give it a few splatters here and there just so it doesn't feel that there is wasted space.

Image link: http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b148/lilziko/Picture12.png

I also added a grunge border and prototype logo (for myself "EVO Desigs") just to give my very first Typography Wallpaper a little more kick.

Image link: http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b148/lilziko/Picture13.png

For the last final touch I hit the Wallpaper with a few adjustments to bring it out a little so it's not so dull damp.

Image link: http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b148/lilziko/Picture14.png

Now of course I did not complete this project in 5 easy steps, it actually took me 25+ layers in Photoshop to accomplish what I was going for. Also placing the text around took me a while to finish because I wasn't really sure where exactly every letter would go. it took me a couple of hours but I enjoyed working on it and putting a lot of effort. Note, this was my very first Typography design and soon more to come.

Worst Websites of 2008 Response

2009-03-02T10:02:00.000-08:00

All of those websites are an example of bad designers. And if their lame excuse for that design would be like "that's what the client wanted, and i got payed for it." I don't think that is acceptable because the point of what you're doing is for your client and get paid, yes. But you also have to give it your best you can because after a design like that, who is supposed contact you to hire you if you're a crappy web besigner. You're work shows who you are and you don't give it your all, you won't be able to succeed and make it.

Good Web-Design,

-Shows clearly what the website is and offers.

-Different techniques and styles are used (the same style is not overused)

-Colors are chosen wisely

-Well organized and the information isn't random

-Text is readable and pictures doesn't drown the website.

-Navigation of the site is nice and clear.

Bad Web-Design,

-Pictures and text is stacked on one another

-Over 15+ colors are used

-No clue of what they website is about (bad intro)

-Text is hard to read (bad font, color)

-misleading images

-takes way too long to load

Group Diversity

2009-02-26T14:01:00.000-08:00

The way our group is diverse is that we all come from different cultures, and family backgrounds and that we also have both genders in our group. The fact that I'm a senior and they're in junior year I am expected to be the leader and teach them and show them how important it is to get your work done.

We have nothing but differences, I am good a photoshop and and have somewhat of a modern artist, and Will is a great writer which is really going to come and handy, and Damina is brings a lot of motivation, so that is going to be really helpful to the group.

The challenges that we have ahead of ourselves is get used to working with each other, because we have never worked together in any of the classes until now.

Tools and Technique

2009-01-29T15:01:00.001-08:00

Blog Post #1: What is Art?

2009-01-15T20:23:00.000-08:00

This is an image that had my eye on since i first saw it, but the artist in general has messages and real reasons behind his work. The name of this image is calles HipHopcracy and his quote for this image was "This is a conceptual place. The concept behind this piece is that hip-hop and street art is invading the world, and will soon consume everyone." I call this real "Art" because an artist has a vision of what he wants to create, and its inspiration and willing to work on it and perfect it, is what makes an artist and what make art.

More great work from this artist: http://www.thefifthorder.net/

Blog Post 5: Connecting my Project to the Definition of Art

2009-01-12T09:37:00.000-08:00

1. What is your complete definition of Art? What is your definition of "not-Art"?

I believe that i have not come up with my own true definition on Art because I'm not as experienced as other great artists out there, but I am getting there. But in my point of view, Art is created when you are inspired and use your feelings and emotions in it, I use art to express what I'm feeling and most of the time is when I see a piece of art that inspires me to create my own, and try my best to make as best as i can and give my all, and not just take shortcuts and do it the lazy way. I consider my self an artist because I don't do it because I'm bored and its a way to make money, I do it because i enjoy doing it, and I'm always open to learn any form of Art possible and I've never gotten bored from it, and always look forward to what's next.

2. In what ways is your art project a good example of your definition of "Art"?

The ways my art project is a good example definition of "Art" is that you can see the type of mood i was in. In my theme, I'm using a space theme, over the city of San Francisco, but I do not only want to stop there, with this new style of mine, i feel that other cities are next, such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Sydney, etc. Also, when I came up with this theme, i was in a good mood, and at the time i was looking for a space wallpaper, and i came across an image of the moon over a landscape with a lot of stars and such, and i like the idea but i didn't want to copy this image or the designer, so I went in a different direction and it worked really well.

3. What moods or feelings does your art project communicate?

The moods and feelings my art project communicates would be a happy mood when you enjoy life and you are proud to be a part of it, and thankful for what you are given, and every day you get to stare at the sky and wonder the impossible and the possible. In this case, I wish I would look up and see the sky exactly how it is on my illustration, and that's also another thing that i bring to my designs, dreaming. Like i said above, I wish I looked up and see space happening right above me, allow yourself to dream, even if it never happens, in the end its the thought and meaning behind it that matters.

4. What has been the most difficult part of this project so far? How have you gotten over challenges?

The most difficult part of this project has been looking for websites that have exactly what i need. For example the image resolution, i was looking for a golden gate bridge picture at 1920x1200 but almost all of the pictures online have to be purchased. Luckily i found a website where they actually had images at this resolution for free and took advantage and I've been using it since. I have gotten over several challenges in photoshop in order to accomplish certain effects and perfect them. Once these challenges come up i try my best to solve them right away to not waste any time.

Progress Post

2009-01-08T14:22:00.000-08:00

So I have gotten my first image done and I believe it came out exactly the way I wanted it to. I feel that blending is really great, but i need to work on my reflection technique because i feel that it has more like a smoke effect than water ripple. I worked through the frustrations and challenges that came up in the moment and although I got frustrated myself, I try to not to get pissed and just come up with a solution. Anyways here is the first of many and I hope to create better quality images as I go.

Goals and Trajectories

2009-01-08T14:05:00.000-08:00

My Art project: Series of images of a "Spaced Out" San Francisco using

What do you want the message of your finished project to be?

I'm not going for a certain message but a certain wild goal, by i want to call it a futuristic theme but i don't quite see it that way. I came up with this idea when i was looking for golden gate bridge wallpapers, meanwhile looking at space wallpapers. where before i have seen in some websites/tutorials that when they are editing a landscape, they mostly like to add a moon image. from this is where my inspiration came from, and combined the two. also i wanted to test myself and not look at any tutorials while working on this, i wanted to test my self in how well i get along with photoshop after a lot of practice in a matter of less than a year.

What artistic effects do you want to achieve?

Besides just adding some space images i want everything to blend really well as if it were really there. to do this i took fro what i know and experimented alot with this. i went back and forth to see what technique i knew the best. I found a technique that took more than usual but it worked at the end. Also i though it was time for me to start finding my own technique and style with photoshop and i have to say my piece is really going to prove this becaue i have not seen it anywhere else and i have a pretty good picture of what its going to look like but first i have to find my tools and get started right away.

Argument Collage Artist Statement

2008-11-13T14:53:00.000-08:00

My first argument was "War often results in deaths of innocent people." I tried fitting this statement into a collage by using my evidence and examples such as the 1945 bombing in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Because when this occurred hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens and innocent civilians were killed and injured. When I had all of my information on point I started looking up images from what was left of the cities, people who were injured from it. and also images of mushroom explosions. After that, I was mixing different pictures in my collage and lining them all up. after that is done I started blending everything in better but since the pictures were really old and they were scanned so they were really tough to work with but at the end I did the best I could. I wasn't going for a particular effect, whatever I have at the moment is what I go for.

My second argument was "War is economic waste." for this statement I referred once again to my evidence, my evidence was based on the current war in Iraq, which showed that the US is currently spending $5,000 dollars a second, and for each troop that they deploy to Iraq costs over $300,000 dollars. Also the US anually spends $27 billion to $200 billion dollars on an endless war that we are currently loosing. But not only is the money the biggest concern, but also all of the US life's lost in the Iraq war. So with all of this gathered information I took a picture of the capital building in Washington D.C. a picture people protesting with picket sign that said to stop the war. Also pictures of soldiers, oil rigs, US caskets filled with dead soldiers and the American Flag over them, and a soldier with his head down praying, also images of money burning meaning that this is what we are basically doing with the money that's being spent in Iraq. I took all of these images an I placed them on the sky of the picture hovering the capital building with a dream/hollow look and got another final image of clouds to put them behind the hovering images.

My third argument stated "War never accomplish its main goals." once again i looked back at my evidence to look for the leaders, main purposes of war, resources, who was mainly involved and the casualties of war. I first started with looking up for some images of Adolf Hitler, soldier casualties, tanks, planes, soldiers fighting(shooting their weapons) soldiers moving into enemy territory, navy ships ready to deploy and advance soldiers and lastly clouds to give it a swell look.

I did not try to give my images a certain look, all of my images come along as I go through them, I never have a plan of what the image is going to look like. All of my images come to their final form as I'm working and building up to them, ideas pop up as I'm creating them, and then when I think I'm done i look for more ways to improve them so it doesn't look like i was just getting it done for a grade, but for my satisfaction as an artist, I wouldn't be comfortable leaving an image halfway or leaving it with further improvements. As for my arguments I agreed with them at first as the topic I had to do, but once I began to learn more and more about it, I disagreed more and more and it was really hard to back up arguments that you do not necessarily agree with.

War Does Not Accomplish Its Goals

2008-11-13T14:15:00.000-08:00

WAR is an Economic Waste

2008-10-30T16:15:00.000-07:00

WAR always results in deaths of innocent people

2008-10-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

Troy Davis: Final Image

2008-10-06T09:55:00.000-07:00

"Troy Davis" Project

2008-09-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

Article Questions and Answers:

Who are the main players in Davis' story?

-The homeless guy he witnessed being pistol-whipped by a thug in a parking lot, the off duty officer he was accused of murdering, the seven of the nine non-police witnesses, and the justice system

What happened when he was arrested, and what has happened since?

-He was found guilty despite that all the evidence did point to him, since then his lawyers have fought hard for him to get his freedom back, but he still has execution date set for him for being accused of murder

Where are we? What scenery or backdrops are present in Davis' story?

-We are in a situation where, sometimes the evidence doesn't matter, only when it's to your advantage but in his situation i believe that they considered it as a hate crime and they don't really care about the evidence, the system believes that he was responsible for the crime.

Why is he still incarcerated? What evidence exists that might prove his innocence?

-He is still in jail because the court believes that there is not enough evidence to be presented to the court to show his innocence even though there might be evidence to show that he really is innocent. Also Davis' attorneys argued before the Georgia Supreme Court for a retrial or for a hearing to present new evidence. The requests were denied, by a 4-to-3 vote.

Which argument against capital punishment does Davis' case exemplify?

-Raciscm because majority of the people that get sentence to death are African American, and also that capital punishment is immoral and the government does not have the right to take anyones life.

Image Resources:

http://www.officialpsds.com/Court-Builing-stock965.html

http://www.officialpsds.com/Parking-Garage-stock519.html

http://www.officialpsds.com/Abandoned-Underground-Parking-stock357.html

http://www.officialpsds.com/Downtown-Atlanta-Georgia-stock820.html

http://www.officialpsds.com/Police-Riot-stock1487.html

http://www.officialpsds.com/police-man-PSD6021.html

http://www.officialpsds.com/Police-Car-PSD3466.html

http://www.officialpsds.com/homeless-guy-stock867.html

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/brodner/2007/07/troy_davis_500.jpg

http://blogs.amnestyusa.org/pub/amnestyusa/student-activism/Troy_Davis2.jpg

http://www.deathpenalty.org/img/pic/troy%20davis.jpg

New Campaign Ad

2008-09-20T01:32:00.000-07:00

Artist Statement

2008-09-15T10:10:00.000-07:00

1) What were the style elements you took from the example campaign ads? How did you make yours different from the examples.

The only style elements from the example campaign ads that i used was the logo, but the way i did mine different was, not to do the same exact thing by making the blue rectangles and then add the logo on the side. i did something different with my pictures, such as a badge effect, and and ipod commercial coldplay effect, and also creating the obama logo from scratch.

2) Which tools did you use to create your image? Talk about specific techniques you used (layer mask, quick selection tools, etc.) and how you used them to create a specific effect.

to create my images i used vectors, the pen tool, opacity levels, layers, smoke effects, 3d effects, and textures.

3) Discuss the experimentation you did on your three different campaign ads. What changes did you make? After creating all three images, compare and contrast them. Discuss what you like about each and what you would change if you had a chance. Which would be your "final version"? Or would you make a new one that is a combination of different parts of these?

Campaign Ads

2008-09-15T10:04:00.000-07:00