It is Time to Begin

I finally made the move on purchasing a package from Adobe. I purchased Adobe Design Premium CS5.5 and   in the process I found out the students and faculty members get a whopping 80% discount! All I had to do was submit a photo i.d. from CMU and explain my purpose for how the product would benefit my education. I was originally going to only purchase Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Dreamweaver, but with the discount the entire package was cheaper than buying the two software programs separately. The software contents that came with this package were Adobe Bridge, Adobe Device Central, Dreamweaver, ExtendScript Toolkit, Extension Manager, Fireworks, Flash Catalyst, Flash Professional, Illustrator, InDesign, Media Encoder, Photoshop, Pixel Blender Toolkit, and Adobe Content Viewer.

When I saw all of the programs that came with this package I was a bit overwhelmed. I have only had minimal experience with Photoshop and Dreamweaver, so I decided to start with one program at a time to learn the fundamentals of each before I start learning new techniques and combinations between the programs. I started earlier this week by re-acclimating myself with Photoshop by taking some photos from the past and Halloween photos of my friends working with layering and other tools.

Here are the originals:

Here are the transformations:

I had so much fun with these photos and I provided a good laugh for my friends when I uploaded them to Facebook.

I also have been watching tutorials on Youtube. Today I focused mostly on learning about Adobe Bridge which is, in a very broad perspective, a photo organizer. This will come in great use for next semester since I will be taking Art 140 (Introduction to Digital Photography). I'll have to purchase a Digital SLR camera for that class. Any suggestions on what to buy? I'll have to do some research and snag up a deal on Black Friday.

Here is the link that I found very helpful for learning about Adobe Bridge: All You Need To Know: Adobe Bridge CS5

I'll be looking into Photoshop tutorials as the week progresses because I know I have much to learn in that program. Well Its pushing towards 1:00 a.m. here and I have class at 9:00 so that will be all for today.

Learning From Scratch

Hello everyone my name is Andrew Russo and I aspire to become a Graphic Designer. I decided to change my major last year from Marketing to Graphic Design last year because I realized my passion lies within Art. I am in my third year of college, but I am behind in school partly due to my change in career focus, but I also  participated in an internship through the Disney College Program during the spring semester of 2011. When coming back to Central Michigan University this year I had to make the decision of pursuing my marketing degree or make a drastic change by pursuing graphic design.

Ultimately I decided, with the help of family and friends, to put aside marketing and pursue what I knew I would really enjoy. The reason why I knew graphic design would be the perfect degree to acquire was because I had always loved art, I spend the majority of my free time on the computer, editing pictures, creating advertisements on ebay, learning a little bit of code and embedding files, and creating my own website my senior year of high school.

Not only do I plan to work for a company someday, but I plan to create and manage my own social network. As far-fetched of an idea as it is right now, I am aspiring to learn all of the necessary tools in creating my own unique social network. I have had the basic fundamentals of it written out and drawn up since 2009, but I had brushed it off to the side for the past couple years because I had no idea where to start. Now that I am pursuing a degree that will help me with this in the long run I have found my motivation once again.  I will have the basic skills necessary to begin the project once again. I will use tutorials from Youtube.com, other webpages to learn to create it, and if you have any supportive tips then I would greatly appreciate it as well.

As for school, I am working on building a portfolio to get into the Graphic Design Program through Central Michigan University. They only select a limited number of applicants into the program, so I am in great need of assistance on what kind of work I should put together for my portfolio. I am currently in the basic art classes, but intend to start posting my work onto my blog for all of you to see. Next semester I will finally be in Intro to Graphic Design so I am very excited to show all of you my work progress throughout the semester. I will try to post videos and tips as I pursue my journey to becoming a Graphic Designer.