For my Alternative Representation project I decided to use the image of a balloon. When I first came up with this idea I had some ideas. But as I actually started I found that it was harder to actually think of ideas that would work well. One idea that I came up with and really liked was to make the balloon out of cake. But then I realized that that would be very difficult and in the end it might not even be obvious that it was a cake, it might just like like a block of something. So I changed that idea and simply made an icing shaped balloon on the top of a cake.
The image that I had someone else make was the balloon pillow. This one I had my mom make, because even though I can also sew she is better then I am.
Then there were the two images that I altered in Photoshop. The first one is a lighter where I tried to change the flame into the shape of the balloon. The second on is where I had a picture of a cloudy sky and I changed them into the shape of the balloon. This one worked a lot better.
Here is the link to my photo album for this project.
http://picasaweb.google.com/TCunninghamDesign/AlternativeRepresentationProject#

Illustrator Logo

We started using Illustrator to recreate a logo that we drew by hand. The logo that I decided to use was a combination of a pill and a piece of candy. The pill is in the center as the piece of candy would be in the wrapper, then on the ends there are the pieces of wrapper. I decided to alternate black and white on the separate pieces so that the different sections were all more visible. The ends of the wrapper had lines like they would if it were real but they weren't very necessary so I removed them. Also since the ends of a wrapper are generally bigger than the candy i decided to make them much larger then the pill. But when they were significantly larger then the pill the whole image didn't read correctly. So I made them larger then the pill but not as large as they had been. When I was using Illustrator I found it fairly easy to recreate the hand drawn logo. Having the scan of the original and using it to redraw the logo made it easier to keep it more natural but also to improve those parts that could be better. While at times I did find it difficult to make some of the tools in Illustrator work how I needed them to I eventually completed the logo of the pill and candy.

Logo

When we began making our logos I was apprehensive because I had never began a drawing of anything by making lists of words. Once I started making the lists I still didn't quite understand how this would work. I spent a long time drawing out little pictures for all of the words that I had written out. When I had all of these images drawn up we started to combine them. I found it hard to figure out how to combine very different images into one. But then it began to come together and it became easier to see connections in two separate images and combine them. I made several combinations but the one that stood out the most was of a dress and a curving road. While it did begin with a swimming suit instead of a dress but the shape of the dress worked much better with the way the road looks. After many different alterations to the shape I came up with one that both showed the curving road going into the distance and the image of a dress. While I didn't know how this way of working would go when I began I found as we went along that this process was very helpful for getting your thoughts in order to make a better logo as your final product.

Gestalt

Gestalt psychology shows that the mind can create a whole image even when it is not all there or can see an image even though it is simply a group of lines. There are four main principles that make this easier to understand.
The first is Emergence. It states that an image can just be seen and that there is no actual explanation for it, it is simply there. The next is Reification which states that all of an object doesn't have to be visible in order for the whole image to be visible. An example of this is from my Drawing 1 and 2 classes. we had an assignment where we were onlt supposed to draw the still life by using the corners of the objects. This was to teach us how to empahsize lines but also that an entire object doesn' t have to be drawn for the whole object to be visible. Even though there were only corners it was very apparent that they were drawings of boxes and gourds. The third is Multistability which shows that one can see two images bounce back and forth in a single image. This appears in optical illusions where for example you can see a vase, or a face on both sides looking at each other. The last is Pragnanz which says that humans like things to have an order so we manage to find one in everything so that it is easier to digest and understand.

Story Graphic

With the story graphic I began with the theme of "Impressive outcome". When I thought about something that had an impressive outcome all I could think about was something growing, and I began to think about a tree. They begin as seeds but they grow into massive trees. From this i came up with three images, one of a seed in the ground, one of a small tree coming out of the ground, and one of a fully grown tree. These three images became my first graphic.
But this image contained three separate images and they were all only lines and not really any shapes. To make this graphic work better I combined the three images into one image and I made it into more one shape. The second image contained a fully grown tree with the image of a small growing tree inside of it and a seed under the ground at its base.

Semiotics Lecture

In the semiotics lecture I learned that semiotics is about what things mean. It has to do with someone understanding symbols and the reasons they have the meanings that they do. The example of the symbol of a man meaning Restroom really showed the way in which people assign a common and universal meaning to a simple symbol. I found it very helpful the way the sign could be broken up into two separate parts, the signifier, or the form the thing being represented is in, and the signified, or the meaning given to that image. We are surrounded by signs all the time and it is fascinating to think of them in this way.

College Courses

I am a sophomore Graphic Design major. In my Freshman year I took Drawing 1, Design 1, Ideas and the Visual Arts, Drawing 2, Design 2, Painting 2, and Fundamentals of Printing Processes. This semester I am taking Intro to Graphic Design and Illustration, Typography, and Art History urvey 1.
These are the classes I plan on taking for the rest of my college career and when:
Sophomore-Second semester
Intro to printmaking
Art History Survey 2
Design 3
Logo/ Trademark Design
Junior- First Semester
Design for Advertising
Ceramics 1
Watercolor
Graphic Design elective?
Junior- Second Semester
Package Design
Contemporary Art and Design
Graphic Design elective?
Senior-First Semester
Publication Design
Art Elective?
Graphic Design elective?
Senior- Second Semester
Interactive Design
Studio Seminar
Artists in Contemporary society

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