The Dream is not Only American - Final Layout Project

 

Above is the two page layout I created on my international Faculty Member, Mark Davidov. The layout contains a picture, a map, a sidebar, a story, and a pull out quote. I made his picture the focus because it was a strong picture and I wanted him to be portrayed as important. The story runs about 1,000 words long and has one pull out quote from it. The layout and map were done courtesy of Adobe InDesign, and the main photo was toned using Adobe Photoshop. I took the flags off the bottom sidebar from various sites on the Internet. This project took much work and overhaul but overall I'm pleased with it.

Midterm Redo

For this piece, I redid the Professional Bull Riders, Inc. website that I had created for my midterm. My changes included adding more space between the pictures, reducing the amount of links at the bottom of the page so I could create a larger font, and working on the headline so I could change the font size and color. I basically just touched up little things, though going back I could have probably changed a little more, like absolutely making sure the pictures were evenly spaced and that the top line was in perfect alignment with the headline and the logo.

Website Home Page - Midterm

For this assignment, I created a website home page based on pictures I took. I chose to do Professional Bull Riders, Inc.  because I recently attended their Chicago Invitational. I credited the information that was from their site and credited myself for taking the pictures. I didn't add a caption to my top picture because it was explained in the blurb beneath it about the PBR event being in Chicago. It's assumed that I also took that picture. I chose the pictures I did because I felt they highlighted the event the most. I didn't have any good pictures to use of the actual bull riding, but the pictures I used I believe gave the best idea. I talked about the event in Chicago from my firsthand account, and since I didn't have the results from memory I went ahead and   used the results from the actual competition website and credited them for it. I also made sure to create a logo and add it to the corner so that it was visible and a good advertisement. I also included the links at the bottom for various information, from explaining what PBR is to how to contact those involved. I found a good font for the topmost headline, which I felt gave the country vibe and gave the right impression that this is a southern based sport, but is advertised and presented all over the country. To edit the pictures I used Adobe Photoshop CS4, and to put the home page together I used Adobe InDesign CS4.  

Picture Restoration

I had to restore this picture using the program Photoshop CS4. For this picture, I retouched the holes, the marks, and the faded edges of the picture. I used the 'clone' tool in the program, which allowed me to make adjustments and restorations as needed. I highlighted the lighter grays at the top and the darker grays at the bottom for a more dramatic touch. I also added lighter blue to a lot of the picture to take away from the cool tones. This picture had to be put into an RGB adjustment, set to 72 dpi for resolution, and be made into a JPEG file to be posted online.

Infographics: Four Wheels for Four Bedrooms

This infographic is a table based on the prices of four bedroom houses versus the similar prices of vehicles. It's a comparison of what you could get instead of purchasing a house, or vice versa, if you were to purchase a car. I kept my layout very simple, because I feel like if I added too much that it would take away from the purpose. The table is composed of the houses, their location and price, the make and model of the car with its price, and a picture of the car. I chose the title to vary in color so that it grabs attention, but isn't the focal point of the image. It's a very bare bones replica of the original article, but I think that it does its job without confusing the reader.

Composition Ad

My page to replicate was a page from Rolling Stone about the television show Lost. I chose the image I did because it was similar to the original, and it was just as colorful. It was the focal point, as it should be for a story like this. The hardest part of this was finding the right font for the title and the right font for the "Watch List" boxes, because there are so many fonts that are similar. I decided to stick with a sans serif font for the boxes, but the title actually had a serif font. I'm not sure why it came out like it did. Overall though, this composition came out very similar to the original page.

Black and White with the Volume Turned Up

Basically for this week I took my old black and white project and turned it into something different using a warm color scheme and a cooler one. The contrast between the two is interesting, because of the color differences as well as how both images make someone feel. The warmer image brings a sense of happiness while the cooler image brings a colder sense. In addition, I kind of went for an asymmetrical balance in both images, because I liked how different it was. The warmer image reminded me a little of a sunset, while the cooler image reminded me more of winter.