Presenting

From presenting, I feel like the general consensus for constructive criticism was that the border may have closed everything in too much. Also, the typography was not as "refined" as the images, possibly the text was too big. Also it was brought up that it may be hard to make the right justify aspect work like I used in the brochure. People generally liked the earth target logo gradient which I'm happy about. Overall, I'm still satisfied with it but would definitely mess with the areas mentioned if I were to do it over again.

Final Done

I finished my final and I am very happy with the result. I basically kept the back side that I originally had a few posts ago, the side including the cover and back panel, but mixed and matched the two examples of the inner panel to get the one that I decided I liked. My favorite part is the Earth fading into the Target logo, because I feel like that is something that they would actually use. I also like the subtle wings behind the target earth logo in the middle of the inside panel. I purposely chose to make the red in the child reading vector slightly lighter, to emphasize that I think it is the most important grant on the page. If I were to do anything differently, I think that I would try a different approach instead of the minimalist approach... at least I think I followed the minimalist style. If done again, I would try a messy, paint splatter look with gradients of red to white still.

Printing Escapades

I completely re-arranged my inner panel today. The previous middle portion had only the world-target logo gradient and didn't provide any information, limiting the amount of room for other graphics that related to the different grants. I created a some what symmetrical layout with the field trip portion in the middle, while allowing to keep the target-earth gradient. I also made the text size 12px instead of 14, because 14 was too big. That also created a lot of extra room. I figured out how to align the paper in the printer (place the already printed paper upside down with the bottom to the left) to allow printing on the opposing side, so that I didn't have to glue two pieces together. The one problem that I ran into was that it slightly was not centered, but I adjust the image so that it lined up perfectly on both sides when folded.

Experimenting with vectors

This post is about last week's work. I felt that I really like to overall feeling of the layout, as well as the color choices, which I feel coincide with the overall color scheme of Target. Now I just need to try out different vectors in different areas to finish the detailed work. I keep duplicating the pages so when I modify a certain area so that I still have the original. For the vectors, I really like putting the slight gradient from red to white as the fill because I feel it adds a nice, subtle touch to the overall piece.

Three Target Brochure Examples

Creating this pamphlet for Target has allowed me to practice a lot with Illustrator, In Design, and Photoshop all at the same time, as well as going back and forth between the three of them with different files. I found some free vectors for most of the images. The only pictures that aren't vectors are the target logo that fades into the Earth, as well as the target logos. I saved the vectors in Illustrator as .PNG files so that their background's would be transparent instead of having a white box in place of what is suppose to be transparent. It took me a while to decide on a font, font size, and vertical spacing for all of the elements (title, sub-title, and information.) I was consistent with all three versions in that area. I decided to try switching up the grey gradient behind the information text. They were symmetrical in the third layout, with the dark area on the side of the edges of the paper. In the second layout, however, I decided that I didn't want it to be symmetrical, so I made them all fade to transparent from the left. I like the gradient feather tool a lot, much better than the gradient options that Illustrator has to offer (but then again it's probably my lack of knowledge.) I think all of the gradients in the layouts were used with that. I'm hoping I matched their style with use of red and white, as well as gradients and a slight touch of grey in certain areas. Overall, I put a lot of work into this, but I'm sure that the final result will look nothing like this.

Target ads

Target ads are very unique in their use of simple red and white colors. I often see them with simple, understandable movement on screen and a well written concept of advertisement. My favorite of the few I viewed was the bra commercial. The reason being is because I admire ads that are simple, visually stunning, and get a unique, original message across to viewers. I also like how they took a familiar thing, the target logo in this case, to viewers and put a different perception, or way of looking, at it to make it appear as something different. Doubling it and adding depth in certain areas to mimic different shapes is effective and even edgy to get the attention of viewers. In my brochure, I will probably try to add an eye popping text or picture that grabs the attention of possibles in hopes of maintaining their attention and desire to read it.

Still working on the midterm

I put a lot of work into the spread today. I'm pretty happy with the result, although I'm not done yet. I finally got the text in and instead of having it be four columns of around size 14 pt. font, I narrowed it down to two columns of size 10 pt. font, and left the other 2 columns for the 2 other pictures. I like how it has symmetrical values to it, with the text columns in the middle and the 2 other pictures on the outsides. I still have a lot of tweaking to do, such as adjusting the opacity and shade of the background green, behind the text and the title. It still looks like it could use some more work also, but I don't know exactly what. I'm going to google minimalistic magazine examples next time I work on it and see what ideas I come up with.

Figuring out how I was going to create a magazine layout was interesting. The way I would have normally done it compared to the way it came out in the end was very different. My first layout, which isn't shown here, looked very uninteresting and bland. But after looking at the tutorials and google-ing magazine examples, I came up with what I think are much more intersting and visually pleasing layouts. They are simple with white backgrounds, but sometimes I like to make graphics like that.

I have never worked with In Design and Bridge before so this is all a new experience for me. I had a hard time putting the actualy short story text in, so I did placeholder text for now, figuring that it wouldn't really matter, as long as the basic vidual design idea is apparent.

The examples from the book were very interesting and sparked new ideas in my head for revisions or new layouts. I especially like the example on page 18 which shows a fist with text surrounding it. Doing something like that with pine branches would look good.

Children Story Picture 2

Thought maybe the black and white on the stump could help better illustrate the story's themes metaphorically.

Children's Story

When reading the children's story about the wind king allowing the pine tree to keep its leaves in the winter because he helped a bird, I developed a few images in my head. I drew a bird in a nest on a pine branch, appearing warm and cozy with two barren looking trees in the background while I was listening to the story for the first time. We then went out for a re-shoot to try and take some more usable photos for the magazine spread. I edited a few of them, but decided because the assignment is for children, I would choose my original green sky pine tree picture because I think it fits well.