Steven Parker's e-Comm Blog

Decisions When going into the project, I was searching for ten quotes for either inspiration, or to do typography work on, and needed at least four to pertain to my everyday thoughts, or events/ activities. So I began searching for quotes pertaining to four things: music, scouting, chess, and life in general. As soon as these were written in my sketchbook, I went for fonts to fit the overall theme of each quote, fonts that represented words or the phrase overall. Some of the chosen fonts were universal in my project, as I used them in almost all of my drafts simply because of how they seemed to work with other words and its environment.  Development I started by creating four art boards, and placing my top four quotes on each one. I then brought up my list of each font that I had downloaded from DaFont.com, and scrolled through each one while my phrase or quote was selected so I could get an overall preview for each one. After deciding on specific fonts, I proceeded to ...

Highlighted Graphic Design Projects Photoshop Challenge #1--"Nature Man" At the beginning of the year, we were re-introduced to Adobe Photoshop, and had to go through several tutorials to enhance our understanding and capabilities with the software. After these were finished, the class was tasked to use our abilities to create the "Nature Man." This project took about 8 days to complete, start to finish, with a few minor complications in between. These include masking problems, effects errors, and a few visual difficulties in the end. However, I learned how to alter the appearance of the image, without taking away the textures of the original image itself, as well as using some complex effects to complete the hair. Along the way however, I was given advice on how to go complete a function in a new manner to save time overall, most of which related back to masking, and how to properly go about it.  At this point, I was happy with my overall result, as I had ...

 In the Beginning When the assignment came up in class, we were to print two of our projects that we were the most proud of. They were going to be prints of out personal top two picks from our unit in photoshop. The dimensions needed to be an 8in.x10in. in a new photoshop project. After this was finished, our picks needed to be altered to our liking, and transformed to be ale to fit both projects onto one sheet. Now they needed to be flipped horiOnce everything was aligned with even margins, the new project was printed and kept until they were required down the line. Watercoloring Once the projects were put onto paper, we used two pieces of cardstock, and began to create abstract watercolor paintings. When painting, I recalled which parts of the images would be heavily influenced by color. Areas of white become more susceptible to taking in color than colored areas. Colored areas would be emphasized when met with similar color. When finished, these would be left to dry b...

Relief Printing Relief printing was originally for hand pressing, rather than using an actual press. To do the process you would lay a piece of paper over a wood block, in which has an image with ink in cut sections. Beginning to make the block involves painting over it with a light black ink. After, you would lay a template down to draw the outline of the design desired. When carving the wood block itself, various white and black lines would be used to add or remove detail or additional texture to the image for when it transfers over to paper. After carving is completed, an ink roller goes over the block to prepare for pressing the paper. Linoleum cutting is similar to that of wood cutting, except removed material has a white finish, and anything that was left untouched remains black. Any tool that may remove the surface for either method will work for when you print, but blocks must be made backwards in terms of detailing to have a project that makes visual sense.  Intag...

        When I had visited Washington D.C., it was with my school as a summer trip. I woke up at five in the morning and made my way to our schools, where we would travel to the airport to take off. When we landed It was a dizzying mess as we were trying to make our way through luggage and find the tour guide for the four day trip. As we completed this, we moved into a malls' food court to get with another school and become familiar with each other. From there, we traveled to our bus and went over some of the ground rules, such as always stay with the group.          Once we were on the road, the rest of the trip was fast-paced, with little to no stops in between our visits to the various museums, sights, and other memorials in Washington D.C. We began with the Lincoln Memorial, and viewed the area around whilst receiving a brief history lesson from our guide. After we were released we were to return at a set time, go to the bus, and...

Making Something Pop To Start Things Off I was never a huge fan about pop culture, or art, but I received my inspiration for my creation from pop artist Andy Warhol, in a way. This is because I have contrasting colors, as well as various textures and a few shapes mixed in. To begin the project itself I had to have a subject to have a photo of other than myself, so I had a classmate fill the role for me. After uploading the picture to Photoshop, I got to work on separating body parts into layers and groups, and keeping the background within its own area.  Certain Parameters to Meet Although I had everything separated and easy to access, I didn't know what all I wanted to have, and if it would turn out to be alright. I had to have filters for layers, use different blending modes, and mask layers to get to my end-goal. I then decided to use the same filter for the skin (face and arms), and a similar filter for the clothing (shirt and shorts). After developing these aspects ...

Photoshop Challenge Original Ideas Before On day one of the challenge we were introduced to a video explaining rules, and what the main objective was. When going through it, we were required to use a picture of a man with a blank background, then integrate parts of nature into the image itself, but we were to keep the textures of the image when doing so. Int eh video, he showed us versions with trees protruding from his head, and roots and soil made up his suit. I wanted to make my version of the project look similar originally, but lost the idea after thinking back to a cooler theme, one with ice, frost, snow, and polar-based trees. But of course, as with most projects in the learning stage, the idea had major complications and reworks. Starting Off To begin the challenge, I loaded the image above into photoshop and began brainstorming more specific ideas for what I wanted. What time of day would it be? Do I want objects protruding from the main borders of the man himse...