Category Archives: Tech Noir

Photos on Photos on Photos – Weekly Summary #3

I appreciated the focus on photography this week, as I have been trying to take more pictures this semester. Perhaps it’s the senior regrets, but I feel like I hardly have any pictures of the last four years! I spent some more time with my course character, Bethany, as I worked on finding her a house that I know she would love! I also took the time to scan in some of her IDs, just to keep them on my laptop in case she looses her wallet. Neither of these assignments required any intense technical skills, as I just used browser based programs for both.

Along with my time with Bethany, I spent some time deciding which of my things I would save in a fire. I discussed this in the assignment post, but I opted to work on my iPad (and in bed) instead of on my laptop (at my desk), so I likely didn’t approach this in the most efficient way. However, I enjoyed reverse coloring much more than the lasso tool!

I could see myself continuing to check back in with the photoblitz tool, as I think the collection of prompts combined with the idea is so interesting! I think it could be fun to do in a bigger city or someplace that I’m unfamiliar with, as this assignement felt more like a seek-and-find than a true act of detection. I didn’t find myself using the whole time because of this, as I already had ideas in my head.

In terms of design, I feel like all I think about is design design design. Lighting design, graphic design, “does this look good on the wall here?”, crafting- the list goes on. I always enjoy reading about these things, if just to fill in trivia facts.

Design Reflection

From watching the Stranger Things video using I learned about how they used typography from 80’s albums and books to make Stranger Things feel authentic, by using mistakes from early technology equipment they were able to make the letters come alive and have an authentic feel. The use of negative space is very powerful. Running down the street with a blue background represents the thriller genre, the use of body parts can let you know what type of content you’re consuming and also help show what is going on, yellow is a quick way to catch the eye so it is typically used for cheap indie movies, and finally I learned that black and white to represent masculinity with orange flash for actions movies to have intense look. Below I linked an example of the three types explained.

Action

Indie

Thriller

3rd week summary

This week was a fast one, I feel like it was just Monday yesterday but somehow here I am writing another weekly summary post for this week. I showed off an amazing bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich which I believe is the best, I did a SnapChat Photoshop of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce which came out perfect for what the assignment goal was, and last I attempted to make a class header and while I was the first to upload I came back to take a glance and saw some of the amazing header my classmates made it quickly made me realize just how amazing a simple header could be I was really impressed by their work. This week I went with all visual assignments as I hope to improve me editing creativity.

Visually Stimulate Your Brain

Stay home – living is dangerous

This is a Anti Nike parody poster going against their just do it slogan.

I attempted to put workout images and a similar color theme as I wanted it to be know it was a Nike parody but didn’t want any exact copy.

Yohan The Brave ONE

My created character is physically tough but he gained this great power from superior mental strength and discipline in first mastering the mind the body came with ease.

A short and simple quote I came up with to represent the type of charterer Yohan is.

Weekly Summary #3: Getting the hang of it

M. Marshall 1.31

Another week another summary, let’s get into it.

I felt pretty good about the work I did this week. I definitely did better with the procrastination issue. I am taking 17 credits, which gets pretty overwhelming pretty fast. To counterbalance this, I made sure to spread out the work for this class instead of having to do it all Friday night. Of course, I am here Friday night, so the process isn’t perfect. I think sometimes I feel like if I do an assignment before the last minute, then I will realize that there was something I need to fix, and doing it last minute puts just the right amount of pressure on me to do it well and in a good amount of time. In reality, when I do something early, I am completely relieved and don’t feel so stressed.

This week I leaned in to the design aspect of this course with my assignments, these turned out pretty cool and I was pretty proud of myself. I showed my girlfriend my guess the song photo, and she got it immediately.

I was relieved to only have 3 daily creates this week, as keeping track of them every day last week was pretty tiring and I would get stressed when would accidentally leave them to the end of the day.

Edit: I tried to embed these, but WordPress did not like the link. Maybe next week I’ll have the hang of it.

Day 1: Design a header for @creating

Day 2: How woke is your sandwich?

Day 3: Obviously photoshopped

Day 3 was definitely my favorite. I got to combine my two favorite things!

Overall, this week was pretty fun and I’m glad I’m doing this class. I’m excited to continue learning and trying new things. I can’t believe next week will have been a full month of classes.

Designs!

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This is my response post to the two videos we watched. First, Movie Poster Expert Explains Color Schemes.

White background: Controversial opinion: I’ve always hated red and white. I understand from a marketing perspective why you would want a poster that immediately grabs people’s eyes, but there are so many other ways to do it that would be visually appealing for me personally. I also don’t really care for raunchy humor, which may explain my distaste for this style of poster.

White (in general): I find these to be cleaner and classier than their red cousin, which I appreciate. It also stands out in a similar way which is good for marketing. I thought it was interesting that he said it portrays what to expect from the movie. I can appreciate honest advertising.

Blue: I enjoy a sleek blue that provides a mysterious vibe to the movie poster. They are often used in action/thriller posters and have the (main) character running in the middle. To me, this poster specifically was a great example of this color scheme and I really liked how it looked. And, he says it, “has its roots in film noir”, very cool!

Film noir: Definitely my favorite so far. I love old time-y movie posters. It reminds me of Archie comics.

Yellow: Apparently this is used to represent low-budget indie movies, which I wouldn’t have been able to guess, but it does make sense. I like yellow so I definitely appreciate this one,

Xerox Quality: I know I said film noir was my favorite, but this definitely takes the cake. I imagine that maybe one is based off of the other? I love these kinds of posters. This is the kind of movie poster I would put up on my wall. I know technology is all about getting better, more impressive, and more modern, but you just can’t beat perfection.

Black, white, & orange: I don’t know if it’s me and my lack of interest in action movies, but I don’t care for this at all. I find it to be too severe and has too much going on. Can’t say I like it, unfortunately.

Blue and Orange: I knew I loved it as soon as I saw it, but them, when he said that the orange is used to “lead the eye to the key focus of the narrative”? Too good. I loved Star Wars: A New Hope as a kid, if it could be made even better. No notes.

The second video was from Vox on Stranger Things’ Retro Title Sequence

When I watched Stranger Things, I didn’t really watch the title sequence because it creeped me out too much. I liked seeing the other typographics they looked at before choosing theirs. ITC Bengat is very recognizable so I thought it was a great choice. Using the kodaliths to look even more 80’s was very impressive to me. It’s cool to recognize the work that goes into something that I wouldn’t even notice, like a title sequence.

Guess the song

M. Marshall 1.31

In order to create this I had to dust off my Canva skills. I googled “Beach” and found the on this website. I used a website to invert the photo and put some transparent images onto it. It’s one of my favorite songs!

DON’T SCROLL PAST THE PHOTO IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO GUESS. I will put the answer well below it, there is a hint as well.

I am going to put the answer well below this; if you would like to know the answer, continue scrolling.

Want a hint? “Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes.”

–

Answer: Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift!

TDC 1/27 – 1/31

January 29, 2025

For the anti-word cloud, I condensed the first several pages of “The Yellow Wallpaper” onto a page, and then created negative space with the words that the text doesn’t use.

January 30, 2025

I went gluten free this last year, so my sandwiches probably score higher on the woke scale and lower on the “sandwich” scale. Always gotta be a ruben, though. One of my favorites is from Always Flavored in FXBG – giving this a 6/10 on the woke scale.

January 31, 2025

PhotoBlitzer!

This photoblitz was done in the comfort of my girlfriend’s college townhouse which had plenty of eye-catching decor and props set up and ready to be captured at my disposal.

The first prompt was easy. When tasked with capturing something that represented the moon, my eyes darted towards the disco ball hanging up in the corner of the living room. Similar to the moon, this disco ball does not generate its own light but reflects it from other light sources. They’re both associated with the nighttime and producing a dreamy atmospheric glow with their spherical shapes, transforming darkness into something more *dazzling*.

For the crowd picture, I gathered all the little figurines I saw scattered around the house and put them all together on the tv stand. Ft Snoop

For the pattern prompt, I looked around my girlfriend’s bedroom for an eye-catching pattern and picked up her strawberry-printed pillow.

My pay it forward moment was giving my girlfriend a banana around lunchtime so that she would peel less hangry. (Banana pun generated via ChatGPT)

I put my phone in a microwave.

There were some white roses dying in a Brita filter in front of me on the kitchen counter. An accurate representation of death.

A small goat stood atop the coffee maker. I .5x’d it up close and it reminded me something from a horror movie like The Witch.

My Opinions on Design (Because You Asked)

A lesson in hyperlinks indeed! As someone who participates in Wikipedia deep dives, I really enjoyed reading “A Kid’s Guide to Graphic Design by Iconic Designer Chip Kidd.” Not paying any attention to my own design here and just slapping the hyperlink as the name of the article, but that is what it is!

While I make no great claims about my design abilities, I do like to think about design more than the average bear. Working in the theatre means I’m constantly considering how to reach the middle point between what I need and what the audience will see as “good” or “polished.” Not only that, but everything that is on stage needs to be put there with both the considerations of the play and of the audience, which can lead to interesting challenges. I appreciated the article discussing graphic design as “problem solving,” as I feel the same about theatrical design.

The article about movie posters accompanied by the video of the creation of the Stranger Things logo made me think about book covers, which is something I spend more time looking at. Like movie posters, book covers are subject to trends- we’ve seen an increase in drawn/illustrated covers recently. This is not something that I connect with, and personally hope goes away soon. I don’t feel like I’ve felt that uncomfortable or alienated by other designs before. I suppose they must be popular or else cover designers wouldn’t keep making them and authors wouldn’t request them, but irrationally I wish they would just change this retroactivley.

While I can’t say that I didn’t learn anything from the readings and videos, its hard to identify one particular fact. I feel like a lot of the reading affirmed things that I subconciously already knew. However, I think putting language to these subconsious feelings is important as it allows us, as designers, to target them.