Yesterday I was struggling to finish a project for my Advertising class where we were instructed to design something that incorporated three elements about us.
Barf.I came up with a concept to take my favorite era of design, the late ’6os and ’70s, and incorporate things about me into a vintage Fillmore poster.
Besides the fact that the project was indeed due next week (instead of today like I thought), this was a large challenge for me from concept to finish.
My original inkling was to swap the profile of this woman with a profile of my mother from a photo taken of her in the ’70s. I tried and tried to make her look “chic” but all my efforts failed miserably. Two little birds on my shoulder (Victor and Dan) kept updating me on my “vector mom” journey, describing her first as “vector mom” then as “ape vector mom.”
So, the moral of this story … I have learned I suck at vector faces. So I wimped out (and since I THOUGHT I was running out of time), just traced the original poster’s face, and that was that.
My final project is shown above. NOTE TO SELF: Add Victor and Dan to my hate list.
During the fall semester Matt came to visit me at WSU and we decided to make our mark on the Zen.
As Matt is very artistically inclined, and I would like to think that I am as well, we packed up some spray paint and made the mile trek from my apartment to the Zen. Rumor has it that the Zen staircase began in the ’70s in effort to discourage vandalism on other structures on campus.
While some students go there to huff spray paint rather than to draw with it, the staircase is usually patrolled by policemen on a regular basis, and conveniently, the police station is located next door.
Since I can’t properly draw anything without a picture to copy from, Matt was in charge of drawing our “graffiti” and I merely colored it in. Here it is!
“Rollerman” is about 8 or 9 feet tall and sits on the third of the seven Zen flights. I went back the next day to take this picture, and there was already spray paint covering our creation.
With the increasing pressure for newspapers to dazzle and draw in readers using design, page designers should start thinking outside of the box.
This article brings up a great idea that many graphic editors do not consider: scanning.
Scanning can capture the true textures and colors of an object that a camera cannot. Plus, it’s easy.
When scanning using Adobe Photoshop simply click file – import – and then pick you scanner. A preview window will pop up showing your previous scan. Make sure to preview your object before you scan, in case you need to make any adjustments. Then press scan, save your picture, and you are done. No captions needed.
Check out this article for great examples of newspapers that used scanners to capture an image.
