Email Newsletter

An email newsletter sounds basic, but it was more involved than I expected. I decided to make one for kl5ferdesigns, like an inaugural newsletter announcing the design services I can provide, along with images of things I've created. I found out the hard way that each image needs to be uploaded prior to uploading the entire folder, in order to get the web address for each image. In Dreamweaver, the image web address must be copied/pasted into the Src box. Normally, the Src would be the image location in the folder. Once it's on the website, I selected all, copied it and pasted it into an email. I gave it a test run by emailing it to myself. It's basic, but ok.

Web Template

For this assignment, we were to find a web page template and make it our own. I chose a gallery template to put art and photos into. It took some time to change the color of the navigation buttons because I had to find the right class style. Then, I had to search the CSS styles to locate the gallery slider in order to change the size. The numbers had to be changed in 3 different classes. It took some effort, but I'm pleased with the result.  It's clean and simple.

Shape Animation

We were required to animate shapes for this assignment in After Effects. I enjoy using After Effects because it's fun and I always learn something new. I haven't even discovered half the things that AE is capable of doing. First, I made a ground and sky background. Then, I converted text (tree), into shapes and animated each letter. I turned the "T" into a tree trunk and added leaves that are animated. I made a sun pulse across the sky using stroke/dashes and changing the width of the dashes. Using a star shape, I changed the number of points and used "pucker and bloat", altering the "amount", to make them into flowers. Then I changed them back and had them rise into a night sky. I created a cow in Illustrator that I imported into AE and set key frames to make it jump over the moon. I changed the width of the dashes in two different strokes to animate the moon. In Premiere Pro, I chose a country tune for the music because it fit with the cow.

Web Page

For this assignment we had to design a web page in Photoshop, slice it up into sections and put it back together in Dreamweaver. I chose urban art or graffiti as my theme and displaced images onto a brick wall background. Using the slice tool, I cut up the web page into 5 sections. In the "save for web" window, I determined how each section would be saved. PS automatically creates an images folder when it saves. In Dreamweaver, I created 5 div tags for each section with the appropriate size for each. It matters how the sections are added. The left section had to go after the header and be floated left. Then the navbar and content sections, both floated left, so that it all fit together correctly. I had trouble getting the footer to work until I floated it left as well. It was an interesting assignment.

Thematic Text

For this assignment we had to create thematic text. I chose building for my word. I put each letter on a separate layer in PS so that I could stretch the letters to various heights, like a city skyline. I used my photo of downtown Tacoma for the image behind the letters and added a mask to put the photo in each letter. It should look like the original photo extending through all the letters. I also added a spire and an old-fashioned antenna to two of the letters.

SLAM Covers

This assignment required creating 2 covers for SLAM, the Student Literary Arts Magazine, and 2 folios. I chose to use images I had already created. For the first, I used an image of a painting and cropped off half of it. The second is my line art assignment from Photoshop. The most difficult aspect was deciding on a font that matched the feel of each cover.

Digital Pen & Tablet

For this assignment we were to create artwork using the tablet and pen. This was the first time I used them. I was totally unable to draw a straight line, very frustrating. It is not the same as drawing with pencil and paper. Fortunately, the more I used it, the easier it became. It looks like a kid's drawing, but, I believe with more practice I would get better at it.