Design Ideas
For my week 3 task, I continued my software skill development by creating three creative images in Photoshop. This task aimed to help me to explore further and expand my creativity. From the last term, I demonstrated my design skill on the topic of a podcast cover. Therefore, I decided to accomplish another topic choice for this time. I always wanted to create artworks for my cat, but I never had a chance. This task was an opportunity for me to achieve it. In my last term, I watched a bunch of videos to help with my skill development. Nevertheless, I nearly forgot all of them that make me realised the balance of quality and quantity. Instead of watching numerous tutorial videos, I decided to focus on one skill topic and practise in-depth. The first two design are both oil painting portraits of my cat. I watched the same tutorial video but with different authors to compare their approach towards this topic. For my last design, I made it a review practice of what I have learnt in Photoshop so far. I combined all the skill and created the final piece.Design Process
Design 1











Software Tutorial
This video is a tutorial on how to create an oil painting portrait for your pet. The author applies different layers of filters to edit the image from a digital form to an oil painting. I followed his instruction of stylising the pet image with an oil paint filter. This filter can add a brushstroke texture to the image and creates harmony with the original painting. Apart from using filter layers, he makes level and colour adjustments to the image to achieve a more satisfying result. The level adjustment depends on the original value of the photo. It is impossible to copy all of his value changes because we were using different pictures. Therefore, I had to adjust to other value levels to see if it works in my case. https://youtu.be/olxy6AH73Go This tutorial video has a similar process as the previous one. However, one point that is worthy of drawing attention to is the use of the stamp tool. Although the content-aware fill can approximately cover up the head, the texture near the neck will get blurred out. As a result, the author finishes its touch up by using the stamp tool. He uses the stamp to copy the pattern of the collar and starts pasting them around the neck. For my second design, I followed his way of creating an oil painting portrait. Compared with the first tutorial video, his method can keep the detail part of the collar and makes the whole piece look more well-finished. Overall, I prefer this tutorial more. https://youtu.be/nJxM5V40_0c The following tutorial is an introduction video of the brush tool. The brush is the core tool that I used in my third design, so it is essential to learn about its functionality. This video talks about the importance of adjusting different brush hardness levels. A softer brush can build up layers and create smooth edges. It usually uses to blend colours. A soft brush can also embellish an image easier. On the other hand, a higher brush level can draw out a sharp line, so it generally uses for outlining. Therefore, I adjusted the brush hardness to 0% when I was blending. https://youtu.be/Q7MnXostsac After finishing this task, I am interested in exploring further with the brush tool, especially experiment with different types of brushes. I have experience in drawing in Illustrator but never tried to draw in Photoshop. Accordingly, I will start to develop my drawing skill by practising with the brush tool or watch some drawing time-lapse videos to observe how people utilise the brush tool in Photoshop.Resources for Research and Inspiration
https://mymodernmet.com/dogs-playing-poker-painting/ My main inspiration for this task is the series of oil paintings named 'Dogs Playing Poker'. General artists usually express an image by painting a human as the character, but Coolidge used personification to paint dogs playing poker. This surreal approach is interesting to investigate and discover. Therefore, I put this idea into my first two designs, editing my cat head onto a human portrait.



Design ideas
My chosen discussion task will be formatting a flyer in InDesign. This was the task I struggled with the most, but also, I think, benefited from the most. Although I do have experience with formatting text in InDesign, it is something I find difficult, so I wanted to explore this task fully so that I could build up this skill a little more, as I believe it is an important one to have as a designer, especially as a designer interested primarily in typographic design. Initially for my design I wanted to create something that mirrored the aesthetic of other promotion used for the podcast. After looking at the podcast website, as well as the promotional material online, I came up with a first design idea. [caption id="attachment_17563" align="alignnone" width="211"]





Design process
I wanted to keep a similar colour scheme, yellow and blue, to match the official promotional material, as well as some of the key imagery. One design in particular caught my eye, which was one featuring a silhouette of a head with the title “rethink’ where the brain would be. I used this as inspiration, creating a forward-facing silhouette in blue with an open eye in yellow. While experimenting with this, I decided that I simply didn’t like how the shapes and colours worked together and decided to move on to a second idea. This time I planned to use a different silhouette, more like the one in my original inspiration. Again, although I had used a similar design, I found it looked slightly wrong, and decided it would be best to move away from this idea. Eventually I settled on a new, somewhat simpler idea, using an image of the presenter, still using the gradient blue hues I liked originally, and combining two fonts that I felt worked well with the tone and image.

Software tutorials
Although I already knew the basics of formatting text in InDesign, it was definitely helpful to have access to and have the opportunity to find tutorials to make the process more simple and more effective. Looking at the tutorials for formatting text to refresh my knowledge really helped me get a better understanding of how I might bring my knowledge of formatting text for book design into formatting text and image for a flyer or magazine. Although the two processes were somewhat different, with the help of the provided tutorials I was able to use a combination of fonts, weights and sizes relatively easily in the setting of a flyer alongside image. While I have never had experience with using hyperlinks in text before, I found it to be easy to understand and incredibly useful for other projects, especially for its usefulness in designing for screen or in web design. I also found it useful to be able to format a hyperlink directly into text without disturbing the layout and being able to apply paragraph styles to it. I was unsure how to use certain text formats that I wanted to try, so I looked at some simple software tutorials to help me further my understanding. I wanted to learn how to type around an ellipse, so I looked at some software tutorials that advised on how to type around a pre drawn shape or line. This tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SU8FwJhNiQ) on creating text along a path. This was a simple tutorial, but I feel it will be incredibly useful in the future with other projects. I would like to further develop my skills in using typography on indesign following along with the more complex provided tutorials.Resources for research and inspiration
When beginning research for this task I wanted to consider first what the current promotional material for this podcast might look like, and how I could incorporate that into my design. I went to the page for the podcast itself, noting colour scheme, font, image and layout. Again, this was a combination of blue and yellow colours, which I really liked and tried my best to incorporate into my final design, specifically keeping the blue gradient colours, matching them to the image used, in complementary contrast with the orange/yellow tone for some of the headers, and an off white for the main body. Once I had landed on my third and final design idea in the process, I wanted to do some research outside of the provided software tutorials and design tips on how flyers and magazines are designed. I first looked at some sites on magazine design, such as this one (https://yesimadesigner.com/anatomy-of-a-magazine-layout/). I also looked at Pinterest for inspiration and ideas surrounding magazine, leaflet or flyer design. I decided I liked the use of a large image with an abstract shape being used for the title text, with the key text around or underneath. I also liked abstract, bold fonts in combination with simple, clean ones, using bold colour combinations to create a contemporary yet welcoming effect that draws the eye. I looked at further image and design for media collections for inspiration, this time specifically centred around podcast or video promotion or informational design. Again, these often use an eye-catching logo or the presenter or creator in an image to draw attention, using large or bright yet simple lettering and phrases combined with smaller, slightly less visible from afar text to draw the audience into reading further about the media. I attempted to achieve a similar technique through my design, while trying to maintain a simple decorative aspect.



Design ideas and design process







Software tutorials
The essential and recommended videos that were provided, were very insightful and useful. Watching the videos reminded me of how to use the pen tool, shape tool, direct selection tool, and the shape builder tool in my designs. The 'Combine shapes' video taught me how to combine shapes, by selecting the objects you want to combine, and using the shape builder tool, drag across the shapes to combine them into one shape. I did not use this skill in my banner design either, however it is something I could use in future designs. I was unfamiliar with the Image Trace command, so that tutorial was insightful and I will definitely be using that skill in more of my designs in future, especially if I hand draw an image that I want to bring into illustrator. I was not sure how to turn my triangles pattern into a swatch which I could then place as a fill into any shape/outline, so I found a useful video to help me, called ' How to Create Patterns in Illustrator Tutorial', https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n34-YmNJMrc . Dansky showed two ways of turning a pattern design into a swatch/pattern. I trimmed my design into a square shape, selected the whole shape, went to window, pattern options, and at the drop down menu I just selected 'make pattern'.Resources for research and inspiration
To help me with my illustration for the banner, I read a summary of the novel on https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/3418/homegoing It helped me to understand what the novel is about, and to gather my ideas of how to portray the two sisters. The summary gave me insights into the existing book cover design choices. It gave me ideas about how I could portray the two women in ways that depict their similarity, differences and connections. It made me aware of their lost identities and also a sense of disconnect, because they are not even aware of each others existence. Reading the summary made me realise that there is a much deeper meaning behind the novel 'Homegoing'. It is not just about the two sisters, it is also about so many other women and men, and slavery, greed, racism, and injustice. However there is also hope for reunion and home-going. I found a very inspiring video tutorial called 'Illustrator Tutorial | Web Banner Design (Shopping)', https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9vzcdbPMOs Graphic designer, Kaukab Yaseen explained a variety of different skills and techniques to use, and showed how to create gradients, as well as blending an image into the side of his banner design and making the image to appear like it was fading into the rest of the banner. Although the gradient background did not work with my illustration, I did still take inspiration from this video, by fading in my drawing of Africa. It also further inspired the idea of fading away Esi's body by reducing the opacity, which I did to depict the idea of death allowing a slave's spirit to return home. I researched for appropriate typefaces for banner designs, and found useful information in a blog called 'Most appealing Banner Fonts to use in 2021' https://email.uplers.com/blog/most-appealing-banner-fonts/ ,and from this blog I found the typeface 'Avenir' which I found very suitable for my banner design.
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- include the text Typography & Graphic Communication
- include a background (colour/image)
- explore different ways to animate the text
- For my Classic design I wanted to demonstrate the process I have learnt throughout this task of applying text effects to my text. My intention for this design was to display those skills as clearly as possible. Therefore, I have chosen just two typefaces on three different layers, with one text effect on layer two and one on layer three. I went for a muted, natural colour pallet to reflect the simplicity of this design and so as not to distract from the applied text effects I applied.
- Each layer makes sense on their own and could be observed in isolation, and the style of the text effect reflects the connotation of the words themselves. The text effect on the word ‘Typography’ is a nod towards kerning, as the space between each letter gently increases. The effect on ‘Graphic Communication’ plays more with more with the graphic element of text effects, bringing one letter in at a time in a jumbled way to eventually reveal the words.

- This idea was inspired by my podcast work earlier on in this module. I really enjoyed exploring designs which had an urban, messy edged style which experimented with different ways of layering elements, playing with colour, and embracing imperfections.
- In urban environments there is often a lot of movement and bustle played in and around stationary objects. I continued to explore the impact of adding effects to all layers, one layer, or some layers. In this design all of my layers are animated, but I found having the ‘&’ as my stationary object once it arrives brought a solidarity and grounding to this design, enabling the chaos around it.
- I then wanted to explore how text interacts with the background. I experimented with colour, texture, and image.Here I applied an effect to an image for the background as well as applying effects to the text which sit on top of it using Adobe Bridge.
- This design was really fun to develop the use of bold text and unpredictable movements and it really portrays the style I was aiming for.

- Having made many explorations with the different text effects supplied by Adobe, I wanted to push myself to explore other ways to utilise the tools in After Effects, to bring movement and interest to my text through developing my understanding of the other tools available. This design really challenged me and grew my skills and understanding of After Effects and was the most technically difficult idea I produced. I am really pleased with the outcome and think the effect works well.
- My favourite idea explores the use of external movements of shapes, to simulate the movement of my text. I watched a few Youtube videos of water effects in AfterEffects and found one that explained the software really well and was easy to follow. This design creates the effect that the text is filling with water, and then it disappears in the same manner. I first followed along with the video using the text 'liquid' and then reproduced it again with the text 'typography and graphic communication' to meet the brief.
- To create this design I first opened a new project and created a new composition at 1200 x 695, 1080p, 25 frames rate.
- I then went to 'Layer' and created a new solid layer and set the colour to dark blue and locked the layer by clicking the lock icon.

- In the Layer menu again, I created a new text layer and entered my text. Using the select tool I moved it to the centre of the frame and pressed 'y' to adjust the anchor tool to the centre also. Adjusting the text to the font and size that I desired was rather simple as it echoed the same process as in other Adobe software.
- Once I was confident the text was in the middle of the frame, I created a shape layer and using the pen tool I drew a rough rectangle shape around the text and filled it in with a lighter blue thank my background. It was important that this blue was markably lighter than my background so that it could be easily visible, but still dark enough that I had room for two further increases in tint for the desired effect.

- With the rough rectangle shape selected, I went to the effects panel at the right of the screen and searched for 'wave warp'. To apply this to my shape I clicked and dragged it from the results bar onto the shape layer in the timeline. I then adjusted the default settings, such as wave height and wave width, until it had the effect I desired.
- Through pressing 'p' on the keyboard, I could click the position stopwatch and create my first keyframe. To get the progression correct, I first set the keyframe for the wave at its highest, then moved to the start of the timeline and set the wave to being under the text, I then set another keyframe. I set a third keyframe in the middle of the timeline, at around the middle of the height of the text.

- To enhance the wave effect as we play along the timeline, I adjusted the 's path' of the shape. This meant it could weave up the screen like a snake, adding to the effect of water filling the text. To do this I moved the handles on the path line that was created from moving the shape downward from the last position to the starting point of the water.
- For a smooth transition from one keyframe to the next, I selected all the keyframes at once and hit F9. This activated 'easy-ease', creating seamless transition. I further added to the realism of the water effect by rotating the shape slightly with the rotate tool. With the shape selected, I clicked on the rotate tool and could click and drag anywhere on the shape to rotate it around the anchor point.

- Once I was happy with the shape, I turned it to 'Alpha Matte', this made it a mask over the text layer meaning the waves only appeared within the shapes made by the text. I could then copy and paste the text and shape layers on top of the existing layers (using command+c followed by command+v).
- With my two new layers, I selected the shape layer and adjusted the settings of the shape. I changed the colour to a lighter shade of blue, increased the wave height and increased the wave width. So that my first layer could still be visible, I then moved these two copied layers down along the timeline. I also adjusted the keyframe positions to see how this impacted the effect. It took a bit of experimentation to find the position that worked nicely in unity with the first layer but once I found a position I liked I could repeat this process again to create a third layer with a lighter colour.
- It was important that I didn't move the text layer each time I copied the layers, otherwise the shape of the letters would be distorted and lose form and clarity. For this project, it was not something I wanted to push the boundaries with.

- Having all three shape and text layers in a position I liked, I selected them all (excluding the background layer), right clicked and created a pre-compose layer and gave it the name 'text'. This brought all the layers into one, though when I double clicked on it I could still access all the layers within it. I copy and pated the third shape layer back into the composition menu and move it to the top.
- This layer is going to become a mask layer to the entire animation. Firstly I was to change the colour of the layer to something really obviously not part of the design. I chose bright green. This was so I was clear that it was a mask layer and not part of the design. Once the colour was changed I could see clearly where it was and I positioned it towards the end of the timeline, roughly where the shape of the text is just filled up.

- This bright green shape layer doesn't need any further detail adjustments, though if I wanted to do something different I could have done. Because it was in a different place along the timeline (and so out of sync to the previous shape) I didn't see the need to make any adjustments.
- Making sure the text layer was selected, I made it an 'inverted alpha matte', meaning that it will work out the previous animation as it rises up the screen.
- I then selected both layers and pre-composed them again.

- A nice additional detail to the design was the effect of rising bubbles inside the letters. To achieve this I added a new adjustment layer, and in the effects menu I searches for bubbles and click and dragged 'CC bubbles' onto my adjustment layer. I was able to change the setting to produce the size and shading that I liked, through pressing 't' for opacity, I reduced the opacity of the bubbles as well.
- Using the 'bubble amount clock', I added keyframes along the timeline. Starting with an amount of bubbles, letting then increase in number, and then decrease to zero as the word disappears. This was the most challenging part for me, to get the right number of bubbles at each keyframe. The same as I did to the keyframes on the wave shape layer, I selected all the keyframes on the bubbles and pressed F9, for easy-ease, ensuring a smooth transition between bubble quantities.
- Finally, I duplicated the final text composition layer above the adjustment layer and turned the adjustment layer to 'alpha matte'. This kept the bubbles within the text shape, like a clipping mask in Illustrator, and had a really nice overall effect.
To view this animation right click and open in a new window:
[caption id="attachment_17566" align="aligncenter" width="960"]
- Exporting my designs to a GIF was at first a much more fiddly process than I had thought and so I used a few websites to help me understand the process. First from Adobe Effects into Adobe Media Encoder, then export from Adobe Media Encoder as an mp4, import into photoshop, then export as a GIF at an appropriate size. This was a big learning curve for me as it was not something that I had done before but once I got the hang of it it became rather simple.
- Other challenges in this task were getting to grips with a new set of keyboard shortcuts. I also found myself trying to use keyboard shortcuts familiar to me on other pieces of software, however quickly found that almost every key seems to have a different but useful function in AfterEffects, once you know what they are. Becoming familiar with these shortcuts will be both useful, and important if I am to learn to work at a professional standard, which includes working accurately at an efficient speed. Shortcuts also help you to have greater control over your project.
- I also found adjusting keyframes and their default settings tricky to figure out at first as some of the ways of doing this changed with each effect, but I eventually enjoyed the process of combining multiple effects and learning how and where to position the keyframes.










































Design ideas, process and inspiration
I saw this task as a fantastic opportunity to build my very own logo for my art Instagram page. I have experimented and learned how to the different tools on Illustrator; some which were completely new to me like the scissor tool. The design you see above is actually a continuation from the first experiment I did in this task. After I had completed the task, I went ahead and explored the composition further and came up with a logo for my own social media design page. I added a square to the continuous line/path which acted like a border/bearer shape for the letters to sit in. I then took the brush tool and experimented with different styles until I found the perfect one which completed the logo design. I finished the logo by stating my social media handle at the bottom using a clear capitalised san-serif....
DESIGN 1
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Software tutorials and inspiration
My inspiration for this design is the logo for Louis Vuitton. I like the way they have combined both of the letterforms as a whole. However, I wanted to put my own spin on this, therefore I removed parts which I thought were not essential, but kept the parts which were needed to ensure the letter did in fact look like it was meant to be. To do this, I used 2 video tutorials which helped me. I understood that I needed to outline the text and the video provided in the brief helped me to do so. In terms of cutting parts of the letter out, I found a tutorial on YouTube which helped me remove the parts I did not need. I learned how the scissor tool can be used together with the line segment tool to cut out parts of an object and how the direct selection tool can come in handy to line up the corners of the object and deleting points if necessary. Helpful tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LMqhHkI76I&ab_channel=JanisDougherty (cutting shapes in Illustrator) Helpful tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz6P94HoZnc&ab_channel=StickerGiant (outlining shapes) [caption id="attachment_17195" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
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DESIGN 2
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Software tutorials and inspiration
Through this design, I have learned a new technique. I was always intrigued to know how people do this and now I finally got around to finding out as well as making my own thanks to this task. It's quite simple too. Not only do the tools do amazing things but after exploring a couple of the options on the top menu bars allowed me to see that most of the interesting stuff lives up there. I used my previous knowledge on manipulating shapes to change and enhance the background to make the logo the best it can be. Helpful tutorial and inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDWcrCzzwxw&ab_channel=DesignTuts (warp text into the custom shape)...
DESIGN 3
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Software tutorials and inspiration
I found a very useful tutorial to help me with changing up the letter form differently. Although the video showed tools and elements I already was aware of, it showed me how to do things differently. I can now use the pen tool better to by knowing where to add different anchor points which I can then pull out or draw in to curve the edges or extend the corners out. I was inspired by the Nespresso logo, more specifically the 'N' in it. It follows the same idea I have dealt with through this design. I think by adding this to the starting letter like the brand has done adds an excellent degree of style, whilst also being legible to users. Helpful tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NJojxyLM2c&ab_channel=RifkanCreation (letter logo in Illustrator)
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Reflection
Throughout this task, I gained a better understanding on how the pathfinder tool works – how I am able to use it to divide sections, overlay, combine as well as group together too. The 'create outline' function is extremely useful as it converts the text box into letters which have paths around themsleves. Working with this is easier, as you can take any point on the letter/shape and change it to whatever you feel suits the design and style. Doing this has improved my practice using the pen tool. I am now able to know where to put additional anchor points if I need them and where to remove them to get a softer curve. An area to improve is to explore the materiality of the letterforms (e.g. adding texture within the letterforms for a greater impact) I think experimenting with different letters of the alphabet can also be useful as by pairing different letters together you can use the shapes of them differently and intertwine them with one another.








