Photoshop Project Compiled

Photoshop project

For my photoshop project I choose to do a series of fake magazine covers. Despite the magazine covers being fake, I aimed for them to look as realistic as possible so as to make them look more professional. The image depicted here is my meme portion of the project. This one was especially tough because putting a meme on the cover of a magazine was difficult so I tried to frame it as a hit news story that is trying to make use of popular culture to garner attention.
Admittedly, since my primary focus is emulation, my creative process is comprised of trying to look like a real Newsweek magazine cover. To accomplish this, I looked at plenty of different Newsweek covers and then tried to apply techniques and aspects of a real Newsweek cover onto mine. I took some liberties though as usually Newsweek depicts a person on their cover. I tried to explain this by adding the 'Special Edition' headliner and College Rankings--which further explains why the cover depicts UCSB.
I also specifically choose yellow as a direct contrast to red to highlight the breaking stories and interesting tidbits that were to be crucial to the Newsweek magazine selling copies.
Ultimately, I feel I was pretty successful at accomplishing my goals that I set before I had started this part of the project.

This is a shitty first draft

A huge portion of writing is knowing your audience; by extension, this also means having a well defined and targeted audience. This importance is the reason the process of writing changes depending on what medium with which your writing will be displayed. Most relevant to us currently is the writing of a podcast: because the podcast will be spoken I will probably want to tailor my writing so it sound more natural spoken versus what I would write during an English essay. When making a poster for a specific event, I would probably have to keep the writing short and to the point so as not to overwhelm my audience (which would be people walking by).

The most profound reading in the class thus far for me has been 'Shitty first drafts'. I incessantly have difficulty starting my writing projects because I have this insatiable desire to write masterpieces from the get-go. This is seldom possible, especially for me. This tendency can be very debilitating in my creative process and I eventually end up hating my first draft. Reading 'Shitty first drafts', then, opened my eyes to this. I still feel a little anxiety when writing, but I can remind myself that my first draft--hell, even my second draft--need not be perfect.

I think that is a very important lesson in writing. A lesson that surprisingly took me 20 years to learn.

Simple

"Amplification through simplification" is a simple expression that encompasses a very complex process. McCloud challenges us to realize this through his comic not only by explaining how this is effective but ultimately using the comic to demonstrate the power of icons and how simplification can leave a more profound resonance that perhaps a more intricate design could.

This notion is powerful.

I firmly believe simplicity is always better. "K.I.S.S.", or 'Keep it simple, stupid', is an acronym I was introduced to early on and it has dictated a lot of my approaches to design. It is far more pleasant to look at less busy pieces of art, websites and much more. Simplicity also gives off an aura of professionalism.

Straight lines, simple expressions, solid colors--all modes to achieve amplification through simplification. For this reason I always evaluate my piece of work when I am done and question if it is too busy, because, ultimately, if it is too busy, chances are it is also annoying.

Having the audacity to use Audacity

Audacity has been no easy task for me, despite my experience with sound editing software. There is always a learning curve that needs to be confronted for any new program. As I learned the intricacies of the programs, however, I found it to be far and away more advanced than programs I had messed around with in the past. The editing functions allowed me to have full control over what I wanted the podcast to sound like; I had the power to control spikes in audio where I was too close to the mic, and, likewise, had the power to increase the volume in instances where I was too far from the mic. I was also able to delete unnecessary silence (which ultimately cut 30 seconds from the podcast). With these tools at my disposal I feel I was able to showcase my idea and writing in the best way possible.

When recording the actual podcast while using the script I found that you are not bound to the script. In fact, the script serves more as a skeleton to the podcast that is to be followed, but not necessarily word-for-word. Because I enlisted the help of my best friend Alex, when he read the script the first time through he often had a hard time reading it naturally because it was my writing, not his. I was forced, then, to realize that he doesn't need to follow my script verbatim, but more so just use what I wrote for a point in the right direction for what I'd like him to say. This made the recording process more natural, especially when compared to our first run through.