Magazine

I have never designed a magazine so I thought this one would be interesting. I had sketched of a travel magazine, snorkeling, and lighthouses. I contemplated between the images and I thought the design of the lighthouse looked cool.

I began messing around with the main font of the name of the magazine "Lighthouse Weekly".

With the text going behind the lighthouse, but still being visible through the glass added a neat effect I thought.

I forgot to take screenshots throughout the project so here is the final.

Beer Label

This project was an interesting one because it relates to us college kids. We got to have fun with this project, while also reserving the style of art nouveau.

I came up with 3 completely different designs and sketches to have a variety to choose my final from.

Here are those 3 sketches:

I think all of the 3 concepts were good ideas, but I ended up choosing the Olta beer label.

The reason behind that was because I already done a Cannabis logo and I enjoyed the composition of the Olta label. 

This project was fairly simple, as we were just recreating our drawing on the computer.

I ended up messing around with slightly different designs also and came up with this label.

The guidelines to the project also called for 2 other labels for your brand. I got inspiration from Blue Moon's different seasonal beers and created a Christmas Holiday Edition & Pumpkin Spice Edition.

Here are what the other labels turned out to:

I like how these turned out and can see them on a beer people would drink.

Rotoscoping

When hearing we will be doing a rotoscoping project, I started confused, until after seeing examples, I was clarified on what "rotoscoping" is. I thought of a cool smoking video immediately, especially when the professor said you can create imaginary objects as well.

During this project, I'd say I had the more enjoyable/annoying moments in this class. I got to use the Wacom tablet which helped tremendously. I had fun creating the special effects and everything, however the fact of drawing almost the "same" contour lines image for 150+ frames. This project took over 20 hours and I definitely couldn't do it all in one sitting.

I think this video looks good and I was really excited with the way it turned out. I can see myself possibly adding other little effects in the future to make this video better, but I think it is completed as of now. This might be one of my most favorite projects I have done.

Rotoscoping Video Youtube Link

Multiplicity

With this project having no guidelines to the theme besides the main multiplicity aspect, I had many different ideas to do. I ended up going with a streaker at a soccer game as my theme for the shot. My friend Rob helped me take the pictures as he was the man behind the camera.

This project only called for 20 pictures to start and I ended up having roughly 100 photos to chose from. With the abundance of photos, it took me a little longer choosing which "characters" of myself I would want to use, but in the end it was worth it.

Since I had so many pictures, I'm just going to show you the final product of this project. The hardest parts were keeping all the shadows intact and to make everything look natural.

I am very pleased with the way this one turn out and can see more like this being done.

Photo Restoration

After hearing we were restoring an old photograph, I texted my parent to see if they had any that were burned/torn up. They searched and couldn't find any, so my mom sent over a scan of my great grand parents, in which I printed out on glossy paper, and torn it apart.

Here is the image I restored:

With this also being the first major project in Photoshop, it was in my advantage because I have more knowledge in Photoshop than Illustrator or any other adobe software. 

This was one of my least favorite projects of this class though. I think that because you don't really get to express creativity and its more so just knowing what to do with the right tools.

These screenshots show some progress into the final:

This was the hardest part in my opinion. Getting the flowers to look good because of all the positive and negative space interacting with each other.

Overall, I think I did a really good job because you cannot really find any of the rips or tears in the restored image. Here is the completed image side by side with the old.

Propaganda

Going into this project, we had deliver a constructivist style poster to show propaganda. My sketches included something I liked, something I wanted to have a message for, and the one was something I want to have passion for. These are the sketches I have came up with.

After talking with the professor, the whole design concept of the 2nd sketch sounded good and I decided to go forth with that one. Originally I have the "dab tool" going through the brain, however that gave off a wrong message as negative, so I ended up having the tool just in front of the image.

I mainly enjoyed doing this project for the most part, but I had issues when putting the vector of the hand and dab tool on the image. I created the vector in another document and when I moved it over, Illustrator crashed on me. I did not save the vector created so I ended up creating that again. Then I brought it in for a 2nd time and crashed again. Luckily I had saved the image so I did it again and it had worked.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take screenshots while working on it, so here is the finished image.

I am really pleased with the outcome of this project and I can see myself doing more Propaganda posters in the future.

Logos

After hearing that we would be doing logos as our project, I immediately began brainstorming ideas that I could do. I have attempted logos in the past before, but never achieved to finish a solid one. I had always used Photoshop and whenever I tried to make one in Illustrator, I failed every time. After the calligram project, I had more confidence that I can make the logo to what I would want it to look like.

Here were my first 5 sketches:

I only had to choose 3 from those and while really liking the Maxks Premium Diving Masks logo because of the vectors I would be creating, I ended up picking the LipHookers     Cannabus       and      Peace, Love & Shakes  logos.

All 3 of these logos had a different concept to them and is which is why I enjoyed creating each one. The first logo was the LipHookers logo. The company is a manufacturer and distributor or fish hooks. I wanted to have a general symbol for this company and to keep the color scheme to natural colors with the blues and greens. I like how this one turned out and I think it gets the point across.

Next up was Peace, Love & Shakes. This idea originated because I was probably craving a milkshake at that time. I was originally going to do something with 3 brothers milkshakes (because I am 1 of 3 boys my parents had), but then I had changed it to relate to the common phrase "Peace, Love and Happiness". The colors green, yellow, red go very well together and that is why I had chose to put it as the symbol colors on the milkshakes. I am pleased with how this turned out and could definitely see this as a real lit up sign on top of an classic looking milkshake place.

Lastly, Cannabus. A marijuana delivery company. Yes, that sounds awesome I know. I wanted to separate the "Canna" and Bus" in the logo but overall have it together as a whole. I chose to do the Bus in a yellow with the black wheels only on that word. When I had moved the back wheel towards the start of the "Cannabus", it cover part of the cannabis leaf and didn't work that well with the logo.

I really like how the end of this turned out and it would be cool to see this happen in real life sometime in the future.

This project was enjoyable because of the variety of things we got to do. We had freedom to choose what everything was about that company and then design a logo from scratch. I think all of the logos came out very well and could see them being used as an official logo for a company as well!

Calligram

For this calligram project, I started with really elementary school designs as my sketches. I had used a peace sign and a football. The text was not altered at the vector level (on my sketches) and it was just plain text on curved paths. I then chose to do a different design and in which I chose a turtle. I am big into snorkeling and the marine life so this project was fun to do. The turtle is my favorite marine animal and I even have 2 turtles tattooed on me.

I started out with looking at turtles online on Google for inspiration and then came up with this sketch of a turtle:

After scanning it on the computer and importing it into Illustrator, the design started. I wrote a list of words related to the subject to help start and get the process moving quicker. Manually sizing the text and then creating outlines so I can individually edit each anchor point took hours and hours to get the shape of the turtle. I would run out of words every so often in which I would stop and think of a few more to keep going.

Here are some screenshots while creating it:

After completing the turtle, I ran through many different sets of color combinations and eventually chose this as my final.

Overall, I am really pleased with the outcome of the calligram and could definitely see myself making more in the future. I think the text coming together is very easily read and the composition of the turtle is easily defined.

Doing this project really helped me start to get into Illustrator because it helped teach me how to edit each anchor point and path to make it in whatever shape I would like it to become. I think this project was a great choice to help the class gain knowledge about Illustrator to help for future projects.

Blog #1

        Whats up guys, I'm Jesse James DiSabato. And yes, my parents did name me after one of America's most wanted outlaws. However, contrary to what you would think with that with name, I'm more on the friendlier side. I am 18 years old (turning 19 on September 12th), originally from Long Island, New York. I had moved to Florida during the middle of my middle school years. With myself attending high school in Florida, I then chose to stay inside the state of Florida in which you now see me here at the University of Tampa in my 2nd year as a Sophomore.

         Growing up I was always fascinated in digital design and liked to see the hidden messages behind the art so I took Digital Design classes all throughout high school. I loved expressing my mind in creativity on the computer. During those years I had learned logo design, web design, animation art, etc. and wanted to continue this through my collegiate experience, then eventually my career. With that being said, I am excited to learn and extend my creativity this semester especially now the classes are beginning to move into the field of what my major is: Graphic Design. I had a very positive first class. My classmates seemed as interested about this class and the semester to come as I did and the professor seemed to know what he is talking about.

         I expect to learn a lot in this course and engage with my classmates about difference design aspects. I would also like to mainly learn how to master the pen tool to draw out what ever vector image I would like to create. That will definitely help me exceed past my fellow designers and hopefully land a solid career spot with a company or even my own business. I love things sports related so getting a graphic design job with a sports team would be an awesome job for my life.

         With this year coming up, I definitely think this class will open up new ways to look at designs and I can't wait to start working on fun projects!