National Portfolio Day at OCAD

If you are serious about building a portfolio to enter College or University this is the event for you!

ABOUT THE DAY

At OCAD's National Portfolio Day event reviews are held from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. and take place on a first-come, first served basis. No reservations or advanced registration is required. We recommend that participants arrive prior to the event to secure a spot in line. You will be waiting outside prior to the event so we suggest that you protect your work, bring an umbrella and a snack. Once you are inside, you will be given a map and you can join the line for the school you want to meet with.

See more at: http://www.ocadu.ca/admissions/undergraduate/preparing-a-portfolio/national-portfolio-day.htm

PHOTO BASED ART - PHASE ONE (Year Four)

For your photo-based independent project, consider the following two artistic questions:

1. How can I express the theme Black and White + One through photo-based artwork?
2. How can I explore using the medium of photography in a way that stretches my current knowledge and understanding AND suits my interpretation of the theme?

In class we began to brainstorm and deconstruct the meanings of Black, White and + One. Use this as a starting point and continue exploring until you find a way to express this theme that feels right to you.

Design Process - 
Step One: Understand the objective!

Step Two: Research 

• Continue to explore the theme and also to explore possibilities. 
• Search for contemporary photography and photo-based art or photo-based digital art. You can choose motion or audio-visual work, a documentary series, portraits etc.
• Research the technique you are interested in exploring further.

Step Three: Brainstorm

Sketch, jot down notes etc.

Step Four: Test and Analyze

Try out your photo technique and see if/how it works. Then try your idea out and see if it needs any tweaking or adjustments.

Due: Friday October 10, 2014
Please show me your initial research in your sketchbook AND post a minimum of two paragraphs in a blog post as an initial proposal for your project. Each paragraph should address each of the two artistic questions.

Rating your photos - Using Adobe Bridge -YEAR ONE

Using Adobe Bridge CS6 - tips and tricks:

How to rate your images and move them to a specified "Best of" folder

1. For best operating speed - drag your image folder to your desktop and open up bridge. Find your images on the desktop folder you created. In the end you can create your best of folder in your home drive, or on your desktop. For working digital files, using the desktop in the CyberARTS lab will always give you faster processing times.

2. Rate your photos using a star rating system that works for you. I tend to rate only the ones I want to select. 3 stars = pretty decent but might need some tweaking during the editing process, 4 stars = really really good, focus is bang on, exposure is great, composition is great, 5 stars = award winning.
You can find a system that makes sense to you.

3. Filter your chosen selections so that you have only the ones you've narrowed down in your window. You may need to go through them again to narrow them down further if you have too many.

4. Select All - through edit - select all, or use the keyboard shortcut (Apple/Command 'A').

5. If you haven't done so already, create a best of folder ie. "Best_Garden1_Name" and put it in a location that makes sense to you - probably in your home drive and/or also on your desktop (you can always copy it to the desktop later)

6. With your best images selected in Bridge go to FILE - Move To - Choose Folder and find the best folder you just made. Click Open and the images will move to that folder.

7. Congratulations, you've just done your first edit!

Living Movie Stills - Year Four

Posting your gif.

Please post the animated gif on your blog. Title the blog post Cinemagraph or Living Movie Stills and put the quotation you chose and the name and year of the movie.

Also, briefly explain the context of the gif and how the quote contributes to the impact of the scene you chose.

Now continue to work on your personal cinemagraph!

HTML Basics - Year Four

In the 1059 folder on your desktop, go to the PickUp folder.
Find Ms. Silverman - CyberARTS - Year Four. Open up the html WITH Dreamweaver.

That will give you the code and you can replace the image (YOUR IMAGE), with your animated gif file.

You will save your finished coded file as index.html as well.

Year One Tracing Assignment

Objective:

You have been asked to choose an object or animal that you think represents you and use that as something to trace in order to learn the pen tool in Illustrator and also create a personal logo.

You will need to think about what qualities the object/animal possesses that you relate to, or that expresses something about you. I will ask you to explain this in your written artist statement when you submit your final work.

Procedure:

1. Select an object/animal that represents you in some way AND that will work well as a graphic pictorial representation. (Think distinctive shape and considerable pattern, lines or shapes within the outline of the object/animal) You MUST choose a photograph to trace and not a graphic.

2. Trace your photograph. Remember to label ALL layers and to put the photo on layer 1 and lock the layer.

3. Once you've traced all the portions of your image, you can begin tweaking the outlines using the white arrow to move any nodes or reposition curves. You can use the Convert anchor point tool to change corner points to curves and vice versa and you can add or subtract anchor points as well. Use the black arrow to move the whole shape without moving individual points.

4. Begin filling in different areas to create 3 versions: 1 - Black and white only 1- Grayscale 1 - Full colour

5. Experiment with how it looks to create the maximum contrast, emphasizing the important areas. Check the links below to understand some of the important aspects of logo design.

6. Colour page - using your base outline - copy and paste your graphic 8-10 times on one artboard in Illustrator. You can then work to create variations on your colour scheme. Think about some of the associations we make with certain colours and try to match the colours you choose to your personality and also to the object/animal you chose.

7. Finishing touches. You might choose to put the graphic image of your logo inside another shape to help contain or emphasize it. You could also have a partial shape, or have the logo overlapping a shape. See below on the colour emotion guide for some ideas about that.

Click here to read more about colour in design. Or check out this handy dandy poster.

7. Bonus - Add typography. If you have time, you can add text to your logo the might include your name, or your name as a graphic designer (ie. Silverman Designs) You can save one final colour version with type for bonus marks.

Submission requirements:

1. Print your final full colour logo with either your black and white OR grayscale (whichever one your prefer)

2. SAVE your logo in your logo folder. First create a folder called AI (or Illustrator files) and also a folder called PNG (for PNG files) labelling each one accordingly (BWlogo_lastnameFirstInitial.ai, Grayscalelogo_LastnameFirstInitial.ai, Finalcolourlogo_Lastname_Firstinitial.ai, Colourversions_LastnameFirstinitial) You will also need to create a web version (png for your blog because you can not put a vector file directly onto the web. From Illustrator choose Export from the File drop down menu. Choose png and save all three versions as pngs.

3. Post your FINAL 3 version (BW, grayscale, final colour) as well as your full page of colour variations on your blog in a blog post titled Illustrator tracing assignment - Logo. Also please post the original photograph that you used to create your logo.

4. Written Statement. You must include a written statement that follows the format below:

    WRITTEN STATEMENT: WHAT TO WRITE

1. Where did you begin? 
Start by explaining your choice of images and how and why the object/animal you chose connects to you in some way.

2. Elements and Principles. 
Now discuss your choices of shape, colour, line quality, direction (thick, thin, gritty, smooth, diagonal, horizontal, curvy etc.), texture and space. Also discuss your choice of typography if you added any. What do those letterforms (the way the letters look) say? Are they edgy, artsy, confident, corporate? Be as descriptive and specific as possible. State the shapes used. State the colours used, the name of the font, the description of the lines. And then, explain the meanings behind all of these design choices. (ie. I chose a circular shape because it represents the sun, the moon and all of eternity (or whatever it represents to you). I chose to place the pictorial image so that it overlapped the circle to represent the idea of leaping forward etc.) Also discuss principles of design such as emphasis, rhythm, contrast and unity.

3. Get technical.
Discuss your technical process. What did you learn and how did you use Illustrator? What tools, use of layers, any effects etc. Please be specific in correctly naming the tools you used and their functions.

4. Your thoughts and opinion.
Are you happy with the logo and how it turned out? Would you do anything differently if you had more time? What did you learn about designing a logo? Now that you know more about Illustrator, what do you want to do next? What do you want to learn more about?

Resources

Here are a few more interesting  sites to check out on logo design.

http://www.demilked.com/logo-history-future/

http://www.fuelyourcreativity.com/50-kick-ass-logos-for-inspiration/

http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/inspiration/72-creative-and-smart-typographic-logo-inspiration/

Types of logos
http://www.logodesignsource.com/types.html

http://www.nodinx.com/5-basic-types-of-logos/

On making logos - tips

http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/web-design/logos/

Adobe TV tutorials

http://tv.adobe.com/show/visual-design-cs6/

Living Movie Stills - Year Four!!!

In your handout, I suggested that you check out IWDRM for inspiration.

You can also go to Tech Noir for more inspiration of great living movie stills.

Also known as Cinemagraphs

This seems to be a pretty good blog as well and it might help you create your cinemagraph.

Here's another How-to blog about making cinemagraphs.

Please google this. If you look up "creating cinemagraphs in Photoshop" you should find tons of links.