Digital Design

Using Adobe Illustrator, I integrated the Gestalt principle of continuation/closure to design a podcast cover. For the assignment, I generated a podcast cover for the podcast CP 101: Learn by Listening, presented by KCPR 91.3, Cal Poly's only radio station.

For this project, I needed to find a newspaper front page and clone it using Adobe InDesign. I struggled with trying to find similar typography to the ones depicted in the original newspaper cover. I tried to balance out the negative space in the piece, but I think my header ended up being slightly bigger than my footer, highlighting another spacing struggle I encountered. Nonetheless, it was very rewarding to see the final project come together with a solid balance between the text and pictures.

For this project, I chose to use the topic of St. Fratty's, as St. Patricks Day was approaching. I had already written a few scripts on it for my internship at KCBX, so it was fairly straightforward to formulate the text for my piece. I also had a few pictures in my camera roll from last year's activities that I integrated into the piece. I chose to incorporate some statistics on citations from last year's St. Fratty's celerbation in an infographic. I also incorporated numerous photos, playing with different levels of opacity for the cover and headline photos. I also incorporated drop caps for the first letters of my stories and page numbers in the bottom corner of each page to give it a true magazine look. I incorporated continuous text boxes that wrapped around some photos to keep the flow. I also made the titles and subtitles in a bolder typography than the rest of the article so that they really stood out.

For project two I was inspired by an article that focused on the high number of Americans using weight-loss drugs to treat obesity. This article re-emphasizes the concerning number of Americans with obesity, which is what I chose to focus my infographic on. I used McDonald’s colors as a palette inspiration for my piece. I first created my bar chart, which shows the daily number of calories consumed on average by a single citizen in different countries. I then moved to my pie chart, which I wanted to symbolize a plate. This chart depicted the percentage of the American diet that is made up of processed foods. I incorporated a map by highlighting the percentage of obesity in each state’s population. I wanted to add a few more visual components to my infographic, so I drew some stick figures and added a fact to fill in the remaining white space. I then used the line tool to separate the individual segments of the infographic so it didn’t feel too messy or overwhelming.

For this assignment I had to familiarize myself with Adobe Illustrator by recreating a pizza shop logo from scratch. The guidelines emphasized creativity in the toppings, so I opted to include pineapple because, despite what many say, I do believe it belongs on pizza.

For this assignment, I chose to do my illustration for a story done by the New York Times titled: “For Uncertain Times, Some Clothes That Genuinely Shock.” I felt that the title provided me with the opportunity to add some humor and do a play on words to depict a runway full of electricity. The piece was about a recent runway show that employed vibrant colors and huge statement pieces that left audiences in awe. I began with a cartoon picture of a runway, I removed the background and replaced it with a black fill so that I wouldn’t have as many distracting colors. Then, I downloaded a photo of electricity bolts, and manually cut out each bolt, copy and pasting the cutout onto my original background of the runway, angling the bolts so that the electricity was running toward the crowd. I then used the white radial gradient tool and placed the point of focus in the center of the runway, bringing the opacity to 100% to create a flash of light effect where the models were entering. This made the surrounding background overexposed, so I adjusted the brightness and contrast on the photo to create more unity. My final piece reflects an animated depiction of an electrical explosion on a runway that shocks (literally) the audience in attendance.

For this assignment, I had to use tools on Adobe Photoshop to blur the background behind the musician.

For this assignment, I manipulated the sky above and water below the original cityline photo.