There Are No Brakes In The Car of Life

There is so much to tell you! But before I do I just want to say something in addition to the title that you read above. Even though there may be no brakes in the car of life, as long as you hold your head high, the road will continue on so you will never crash and burn. Enough with the motivational speech and time to catch you up. Where have I been since mid-September you may be asking? Well, I have been attached at the hip with my laptop because I decided at the last minute that I was going to build my Graphic Design portfolio for this semester rather than in the spring. I finally completed it on Monday and turned it in on Tuesday which was only one day before the deadline. I have been so busy that I haven't even had time to manage my fantasy football team. I feel like I'm letting those guys down! All kidding aside, it really has been crunch time lately between the projects, exams, homework, quizzes, and a majority of the time devoted to building my portfolio.

The contents required for my Graphic Design portfolio for the Central Michigan University Graphic Design program:

*A written form showing the grades I had in a few Art classes and included my signature

*One page essay of the reason why I wanted to become a Graphic Designer

*10 projects

*10 descriptions

Brownie Points (hopefully):

*Added a cover on the front of my portfolio that matched that basic design for the descriptions

*Laminated every page to give it a professional look

* For some of the designs I provided thumbnails for an easier viewing and to make my project flow more smoothly

Below is my portfolio from cover to finish:

That completes my portfolio! I hope you like it! I had to leave a couple parts of it out, but it shows all ten of my designs that I submitted for the program. Wish me luck!

This next piece below is one from my typography class. I decided to design the Ray Ban wayfarer sunglasses out of type. All of the type inside the image is about the history of the Ray Ban company and how it has been a significant part of our society's style for many years.

This piece below was created for my Art 117 (Intro to Contemporary Issues) class. It was created to match the similar style of David Hockney. It displays the style use of time and motion to represent what the human eye experiences in an event over a period of time. This particular project was created to represent a night of fun between college friends and capture the energy throughout the night. 

Below are a few logos that I am working on for my personal logo. These are for my Logo & Identity course where I have to create a business card, letterhead and envelop. If you have any suggestions I'm open to hearing any of them.

Well there you have it! These project are what I have been devoting the first portion of my semester to. Feel free to comment and share your knowledge with me to help me in the process of becoming a Graphic Designer. That also goes both ways, I'd be happy to help you if you are need of any advice on project ideas too.

Its Friday, Friday!

I can't believe how fast this week blew by for me. I've been deeply concentrated on working with Photoshop and the past couple nights I've lost track of the time. I'd sit down shortly after dinner and start working and then I'd look at the clock and realize its midnight already. I've been focusing mostly on working with projects on the 99designs website because those are actual projects for companies and you can actually make money off of them. I have noticed that my skill is far inferior to the skills of a majority of the people in the contests, but I am learning from their work and from the design briefs for my future and that was all I intended. I think the work I have done so far will be great for my portfolio because, of the three projects I worked on, they were all on a very different spectrum of design.

The first project I worked on was a t-shirt design. This person wanted a unique t-shirt design for their company, so I submitted a few ideas using an image that they provided for anyone to use in the contest. I don't have much skill in women's t-shirt designing but I thought I'd give it a shot anyway.

The next project was to work on a poster for a company that organizes parties to sell makeup. I noticed that  my skill was very inferior to the other competitors, but this was my first poster I have ever made using entirely Photoshop, so I learned quite a bit making this.

 

This final project was right down my alley. I had the opportunity to compete to create an application button for an online company and spent many hours creating different designs. I noticed I spent a lot more time on designing this than the others because this company interested me in the service that they provided. I need to learn to focus more time on designs that I may not necessarily have an interest in because any type of project could be given to me when I am actually in the field of work. Having a wide range of skill sets will set me apart from other designers that only have a specific skill set of design.

 

 

 

Spending this week on applying the skills I have learned was a great experience, but I realized I have so much more to learn to actually have the competitive edge against other designers. Most other designs were so much more intricate in the way they were created and I want to learn how they created their designs. This next week I'll go back to the drawing board and start viewing more tutorials rather than focusing my time on contests. I hope you like what I have done so far and please share any comments and/or tips you have for me. I'd be happy to hear from you. Talk to you all again soon!