Author Archives: Rebecca’s Radiant Realm

How do you read this?

Learning about design and what goes into it was a lot more than I expected. When I design things like wallpapers and posters I tend to do these things without thinking. I had the opportunity to check out the book by Chip Kidd and learned a lot from his book. I liked how everything was described by using the design or typeface he was writing about.

The part of the book that caught my eye is something that I have never seen before, reading from right to left! Chip points out the cover of this book “Things We Didn’t See Coming” by Steven Amsterdam.

I have never thought about this type of design and it fascinates me. I have no idea what this book is about but I wanna read it.

I learned that design is both straightforward and complex. Design can be exactly what it means or it can be the complete opposite and all of it translates super well depending on how well you designed it! I also learned how to balance designs better. How too much color can be hard to read, or using a certain font will translate differently than another font might. I really liked digging into learning about design and I now have a better eye out for these things as I go through the day!

How long did that take?!

At first I was confused by the photoblitz but I had a lot of fun doing it!

Code: 19:03

Start time 7:03pm

My starting photo that shows my start time was my phones lockscreen that has my duolingo streak (need to do it for today) and my bookly books (how I track my reading!) A new photo of one of my dogs also goes on my lockscreen every hour!

1. Find a grid pattern somewhere (brick sidewalk or ceiling tiles).

For this task I did a photo of the door to my balcony at the UMW apartments! Don’t mind the bird seed on the floor. While looking around my house I had a tough time doing this one which surprised me! There aren’t a lot of grids around me.

2. Numbers are all around you. Find your favorite number.

I don’t actually have a favorite number…BUT I do love this clock I have on my desk. I like how clear the numbers are and the base of the clock can charge my phone wirelessly! Don’t listen to the time it tells you though, its been wrong for four years.

3. Wood has a lot of character and variety. A photo of something wooden.

There is sooo much wood around my house. But I chose to capture this wooden corner shelf that we have above our dining table. It is holding a bunch of our knick knacks and I couldn’t think of a better home for them other than this shelf. Fun fact: this shelf was found in one of the donation bins in the UMW apartments.

4. They’re all around. Make a photograph of a wheel near you.

This wheel is apart of a utility cart that currently houses a lot of my roommates plants! My roommate is currently teaching me how to care for plants so I regularly stare at my plants and hers, just admiring them. So this cart came to mind when I was tasked to take a photo of a wheel that is near by.

5. Play with contrasting scale: juxtapose something small with something big!

So here is where I realized I messed up. Ive decided to keep it because the following task is basically the same thing but in my brain with haste I thought that “juxtapose” meant to use perspective to shift the size of objects. So I took a rubber duck and put it next too and in front of one of the plants in our house and tried to play with the perspective to make it look like the rubber duck is bigger than it actually is. A cool concept, wish I didn’t do it wrong…

6. Take a photo of two related objects of drastically different sizes.

This photo was fun because let me tell you, we have so many frog things in our house. so I took a mini glass frog that is currently living in a plant pot and put it next to one of our many frog plushies that lives on a shelf (with other frog plushies might I add).

7. Two contrasting things, e.g. light & darkness, life & death, cats & dogs.

This is a card I got at the Fredericksburg stationary store. It was one of the first things I bought when I decided I wanted to put more decorative things in my bedroom wall. I really liked the daintiness of the flowers and the black and white with a bit of green. I also like how the saying “I love you more” is on a black card because I feel like that saying brings more light which also ties into the task at hand.

FINISH: 7:23pm

Here is a screenshot of a “relaxing clock” website that shows the time and subsequently the end of my photoblitz.

Thank you.

New Tattoo Who Dis?

In the assignment Tattoos that Describe you, I did a tattoo that my character Evelyn Calico would have.

The top right corner tattoo is what Evelyn would have and its a straight spine tattoo. Evelyn is a classy gal and whilst she is a writer she also loves to read books (her favorite are Agatha Christie novels). The roses are her favorite touch to this piece because roses mean so many things. She loves how dainty they are but that they can be thorny and prickly. The sword was added to the design last minute because while she was waiting to get the final design she was looking at the drafts and realized that she wanted something that not only can be straight on her spine but also strong and can show her independence, so she asked for a sword to be integrated into the design. She also wanted a pop of color so she made only the flowers be colored in.

To make this assignment I scrolled through Pinterest and looked for “writer tattoo ideas” and found this one. I then imported it into Procreate for Apple and decided that I wanted to color some part of this design so I decided on coloring the roses and thorns. The assignment also stated to “make multiple copies of that, and add different color effects to each copy. Each Color is unique, and can depict different mood.” So I made multiple layers of the finished product and put them into a grid. I “alpha locked” every layer so that when I made a edit to a layer it would only affect the one selected. I added a transparent color to each layer except the top right corner to make them different colors without hindering the roses. I then played around with canvas textures and hues, each square a different adjustment type. Once I was happy with how each layer looked I had the finished product!

Mickey’s Not So Scary Christmas Party

This assignment is the Color Changer. I chose this assignment because I think its really cool to alter photos with different hues and finding out how that changes the scene and the mood of the photo.

This is a photo of Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida during Christmas time. I knew that I wanted a photo of Disney but I wasn’t sure what I would do with it. As I was browsing different events that Disney has I remembered the classic “Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party” that they host every halloween where patrons are able to dress in costume for one night and trick or treat around the park. The idea is that I would like Disney during Christmastime and adjust the hues to make it look more halloween themed and name it “Mickey’s Not So Scary Christmas Party”!

I used Procreate for Apple for this assignment. I imported the original photo into procreate and only used the canvas editing tools (no coloring!). I started with the hues and made it more green and kinda ugly and make the saturation higher. I gave the canvas more noise and used the “Chromatic Aberration” adjustment and gave it a mild screen print look which made it more grainy. After 10 more minutes of messing with the hues and saturation I settled on this look that was bright so it gave the Disney aesthetic, but had completely different colors than the photo before! See below!

Happy Halloween I think?

Contact me – Or don’t I really don’t care

This assignment is the Create Your Own Business Card. I chose to make a business card for my character Evelyn Calico. She works at the New York Times as a journalist and doesn’t really care to move up in the world. She likes where she is and will continue to work her wage and no more.

Evelyn gives very few out but when she does, its because a story has really interested her and knows she can do well with it, or a supervisor is watching her and she needs to give them out like candy according to them. The stories that Lynn looks for are stories that tend to bring controversy to the public. She likes to listen to gossip and make news out of it, but professionally of course. Her business card consists only of work contact information, she will not tolerate those who go contact her personally (i.e her personal phone, email, and landline – yes she still has one).

I made this business card using this Canva template and I made up a phone number using the area code from Montana as that is where Evelyn is originally from. To make her email I used the classic first initial and full last name email that most professional companies use. I then went to a “contact us” page on the New York Times to see what kind of email url they typically use. I then make the address be the New York Times headquarters building. I imported the New York Times font into canva to make the header and the “T” logo in the corner. Overall, Im happy with how minimalist the card ended up looking and I feel like it fits my characters overall vibe!

Daily Create 1/27

Prompt: Me Then and Now Doing Technology

When I was a kid I would play the Nintendo wii non-stop and one of the games I had was the Beatles Wii Rock Band which was a wii game that came with a rock band set of drums, a bass, an electric guitar, and a microphone. The mechanics were mush like Guitar Hero. I think that this was the start of my love for guitar which is something I pursued from middle school to college!