Digital Media Portfolio

The purpose of this assignment was to replicate a two-page magazine using inDesign. Since this was my first time using this program, I wasn't sure what to expect. I looked for magazine pages that were colorful, had many different elements, and looked good. I decided on these pages from Cosmopolitan. I took care to replicate the fonts and images as closely as possible, even finding the same photo as the original for some of them. If I could not find the same photo, I made sure to pick one that matched the colors as closely as possible so the color of the text I overlaid were still easily visible. This project gave me more appreciation for magazine designers because it is definitely very difficult to make a visually pleasing spread.

In this project, I was tasked with creating a landscape image in Photoshop using only body parts. I looked to different landscapes for inspiration and decided to replicate one with mountains, water, and tree branches. I began by manipulated pictures of noses to create the mountains, focusing on maintaining the pink hue in the original picture. I created the sky by using a close-up photo of an eye, and using many adjustment layers to give it a pink and blue hue. Then, I created tree branches using arms and legs, and then the tubes of the lung for the smallest branches. I made flowers out of a photograph of a hand that I duplicated and added gradients to. For cohesiveness I used the same hands for the plants in the water but made the hue more dull. The water itself is made of tissue, adjusted to look like it has depth. The rocks in the water are bent legs/knees, as well as the small boat in the distance which I included to further the illusion of depth.

(Left-Original) With this assignment, I attempted to restore an old photograph with tears, creases, and discoloration. I used various Photoshop tools like the spot healing brush, the clone stamp tool, and the blur tool. I paid special attention to the faces, because any mistakes are much more visibly noticable. The most difficult part was the plaid on the woman's shirt, as it was hard to distinguish the pattern from the creases in that area. I had to imagine what some parts looked like since they were so obscured, but I attempted to make it as realistic as possible. I tried not to use the dodge/burn tools because they took away from the sepia tone of the image.

The goal of this project was to create a collage in Photoshop using at least 15 images of living things. I cut out each image from its background, doing my best to make sure the outline was not too harsh or too blurry. Then, I arranged the images. I had to make sure they overlapped each other perfectly with no white space in the background while also attempting to make sure colors were spread out across the image in a pleasing way- for example, having green in opposite corners and surrounding a dark object like the tapir with lighter objects like the frog and flowers. My overall theme was rainforest/jungle creatures, making the panda a bit of an outlier, but too adorable to resist.

This was probably my favorite out of all the assignments. I found it enjoyable to use the blob brush tool in Illustrator and layering different colors to create as realistic of a self portrait as possible. Except the purpleness of course. I chose to use a purple hue rather than a realistic one because I wanted to differentiate this project from the previous project and because I thought it would be more interesting visually. I brought the picture I took of myself into Photoshop and adjusted the hue to purple so it was easier to recreate. I created the background also using the blob brush in order to make it cohesive. For the detailing of the hair, I used very thins lines at lowered opacity to make it look more convincing.

The goal of this project was to recreate a photo of myself using words to fill in the space. I began by drawing tentative lines over the photo representing the sizes and shaped I wanted to use. Then, I typed a few words at a time and then manipulated each letter individually to fit better and leave less holes in the image. I constantly zoomed in and out to make sure I was making the letters an appropriate size. This process was very time consuming, especially the lips and eyes. While I am satisfied with the face and shirt, I feel like with more time I could have paid more attention to the hair and made it look less flat. I chose the background color based on the background color of the original photo because I felt like it fit well.

The purpose of this project was to trace a pixel-based image of a character or logo in Illustrator to create a vector-based image. I chose the character Chun Li because I liked the thick lineart in the picture and the clear cel shading. In order to create the vector, I carefully manipulated the curves of each line to fit as closely to the image as possible and used the color drop tool to select the correct colors. I started off by outlining the image and creating a silhouette, then going back in to layer the details over each other until I had fully recreated the original picture. I attempted to preserve as much detail as possible, meaning I had to create a lot of intricate shapes.

The purpose of this assignment was to create a landscape in Dreamweaver, using code to create each element of the image rather than drawing it directly. I tried to keep a consistent color scheme using mostly lighter, pastel colors. I enjoyed trying to think of creative ways to make each element, such as using a parabola to make the tulips and the chicken's comb (the red thing). It was important for me to plan out the image before I began making it so I knew the approximate coordinates for each line. Once I mapped out what I wanted to do, I continued to create each piece and adjust them slightly until I was satisfied with the final product. Adding a smiley face to the sun was a last-minute idea, but one that I'm very happy with.

For these assignments, I was more concerned with experimenting and understanding the syntax and features in Dreamweaver than creating a complete image. My goal was to simply create rectangles and triangles of different sizes. I experimented with writing code and changing variables like the x and y coordinates of each point, the hexadecimal code for each color, and the line width. Ultimately, I learned how to manipulate these to fit the specifications of the assignment and to know what to do for the next assignment.