Category Archives: DesignAssignments

Tattoo that describes you

M. Marshall 1.31

When I was 17, I knew I would get a tattoo. When I was 18, I was like, “I’m 18, I can’t make a choice for something to be on my body longer than I will be in it”. When I was 19, I knew I would get a tattoo if I felt really committed to it and had wanted it for a while (like, at least a year). Now, I’m 20. I don’t have a tattoo, and I probably won’t get one anytime soon. If I did, it would be something for my siblings or my pets or something, but that’s not a super fun idea for an assignment. Gun to my head, right now, if I had to get a tattoo, I think I would get one on my ankle or arm of the Japanese maple tree growing outside the front of my childhood home. The beauty of Japanese maples is how colorful they are, and getting a tattoo with color ink and not the regular black has a higher risk of allergies, so I don’t know that I would ever risk it.

The Japanese maple in question, in all its glory.

In a perfect world; however, I could get whatever tattoo of whatever color, it would have no negative repercussions, and I could remove it with a snap of my fingers if I ever didn’t care for it anymore. If this were the case, of course I would get the gorgeous tree of my childhood home tattooed on me. I would get something like this! It’s obviously not perfect or exactly what I would want, but I’m happy with how it looks.

It was lots of fun getting to design something meaningful that I would put on my body forever (maybe).

Course Character Business Card

So, while I’ve created my course character, I haven’t been able to get the writeup posted yet. Nevertheless, I thought that since this week’s theme is visuals and trying to relate them to our course characters that a business card would be a great way to introduce my character, Lenore Glaphyra, a femme fatale self-made gothic event promoter. Networking and connection are basically her whole thing as an event runner and promoter and she’s incredibly skilled with it as well.

I created her business card to showcase her personality and add in some slight subliminal messaging. The colors and fonts keep with the gothic theme, but I wanted to incorporate spiderwebs surrounding the border to symbolize the schtick of creative, charismatic networking. In old myths and stories, spiders are cunning, persuasive, and ingenious. Their webs are literally made to catch anything and everything the spider needs and that’s exactly what Lenore does with her networking skills. I also used the splice text effect on Canva to show depth as well as something lying below the surface. This symbolizes Lenore’s past which haunts her (also shown with the addition of the ghosts); she’s more than meets the eye and she wasn’t always the person she is now.

Business card for Lenore Glaphyra, femme fatale

This design was pretty simple, but it took quite a bit of planning and thought to make sure the messages I wanted to use were shown in a way I felt fit in with Lenore’s aesthetic as well as her internal character traits. It wasn’t very difficult, I know Canva well, but it did consume quite a bit of time.

My Logo

I’ve been developing an online portfolio to showcase my work for internship applications, so I knew this logo project would be an excellent opportunity for my website and me. I added the logo to the navigation bar to serve as a link back to the home screen and to use as the website’s favicon. My hope for this logo is that it demonstrates my skills to potential hiring managers.

I’m not very good with graphic design software so for this assignment, I used Canva, which I don’t know if that’s classified as a graphic design software, but I wanted to show that I at least have an eye for aesthetics. Typically, I prefer bright colors and bubble letters, as those better reflect my personality. However, this logo is different because I want to convey a sense of professionalism and class. I incorporated my initials and intersected it with my first and last name, so that viewers can easily identify who I am. Adding my role title was a difficult decision because I didn’t want to limit myself. However, I realized that I currently manage social media to market events, and the internships I’m applying for are in social media marketing. So, I figured if the shoe fits, wear it. I’m pleased with how this design came out because I think it is versatile and I will be able to use it for years to come.

I Lost My Wallet

As one of the assignments for this week, I created two ID cards for my course character, Bethany Smith.

For this card, I used an ID making website and then saved the PDF. It was a little hard to use as the website was quite laggy, but I think it turned out nice!

Bethany’s ID Card for her job at the funeral home.

For the library card, I just searched for the Chicago Public Library card and erased the example name and signature on Photoshop. After that, I added back in Bethany’s name and signature using the text and paint tools, respectivley.

Her library card, because of course she’s a reader!

Week 3 assignment

This tattoo inspired by The Dark Knight Rises represents how batman fights for the right thing from the shadows and no matter how many times he fails he gets up and try’s and try’s until he succeeds and overcomes whatever he is fighting for. It also serves as a constant reminder that no matter how far deep you think you are to get up and overcomes any and all obstacles thrown at you

Classic Blunders

I chose the movie The Princess Bride because it’s a classic movie that was a comfort movie for my sister. This in turn resulted in me being stuck watching it many times (the younger brother never wins the battle for the TV remote). There was one scene that stuck with me during the times I involuntarily watched the movie and it was the Battle of the Wits scene. I wanted to do this as a connection to my sister because it is because of her that I will watch this movie every once in a while.

Go Bills!

If I hadn’t advertised it already, I am a huge Bills fan. My whole entire family is from Buffalo, New York, so naturally this comes with being a Bills fan, as well as having bleu cheese with your wings (although I also do like ranch with my wings but do not tell them I said that). So, when I saw the sports poster assignment, I thought I would try my best to do my favorite team of all time. I wanted to recreate a graphic you could see on Instagram or social media when it is time for game day. One that captures the essence of the team, as well as the sport itself. I used the colors of the team, blue, red and white, as well as highlighting the current major players that make the team what it is, such as Josh Allen, James Cook, and Khalil Shakir. I then found symbols that are associated with football and play-making. Overall, I had a lot of fun creating a graphic for a team I truly love (although I am still grieving them losing in the playoffs but it is okay, there is always next year)!

New Game! – Your story as a game!

I chose to do a design assignment for my character Krissy Ryan. I don’t know why, but I always pictured Krissy as a movie character and less of a video game character. However, I thought the prompt of making a video game home screen was really cool, and I have been inspired by other people doing this prompt so I wanted to take a swing at it. This prompt was challenging for me because I don’t play a lot of video games, and the ones I do don’t have that classic “Game Over, Play Again” screen, so I needed to look for inspiration. My goal for this assignment was to get a very basic sense of Krissy’s story (to really boil it down, she has a very dramatic change in scnery) from the home screen, while still keeping the video game look.

*****Flash Warning*****

I used Canva to create the screen, and I was messing around with the different elements they offered. I love Canva, but I often forget that you don’t have the most freedom when it comes to designing your image. If I had the skills, I would use Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, but I don’t so I have to settle for Canva and whatever it has. Like I said, my goal was to show the general sense of the story from the home page, so I did a split screen of Krissy in front of her normal life and Krissy in front of the future. The image I used for the Cyberpunk future was inspired by one of the readings we did from the first week where it says the vision for Cyberpunk is “Tokyo on a bad day.” I added some glitch effects to add to the cyberpunk theme. Other than coming up with an initial concept for my home screen, the hardest part was the play button. I wanted the A to be in the symbol of a triangle, but the spacing was really hard to get just right.

I like how my home screen came out and although I still picture Krissy as a movie character, maybe this can be a video game made to market the movie. I’m not a video game fan, other than the classic Dress to Impress, but I think I would play this game!