I certainly think that graphic design is hard, but back in the 1980′s, before the Macintosh was invented, graphic design was much more frustrating than it was today. This article puts everything that we did this semester into perspective – we definitely have it easier today. Keeping this in mind, I think that it’s important to realize that even if you aren’t going into a creative profession, everyone can be a graphic designer of some sorts and that you may as well learn the tools of the trade, because it’s much easier to figure out photoshop than it is to modify everything by hand.
Oh, and Merry Christmas!
-Tom
For the website project, I decided to do a different nonprofit than my poster project, so I chose the Alpha Gamma Delta Foundation. The Foundation supports diabetes awareness and education, as well as gives back to the sisters of Alpha Gamma Delta Foundation. I wanted to show how all of the rewarding experiences the sisters of Alpha Gamma Delta have from Bid Day through their alumni days. I used the colors of Alpha Gamma Delta, red, buff, and green, throughout the entire website to reinforce the meaning of the Fraternity. At first, I used the Fraternity flower, the rose, in different colors as the background, but Professor Harper said that that was too busy. So instead, I included boxes as the reinforcements of color, but I did not want to include too many boxes since it cut off the flow of the website. I used the donate button on every page as a constant point of entry for viewers. The social media icons appear on the home page and the contact page, so people can connect with the Alpha Gamma Delta Foundation through other mediums like Facebook and Twitter. Overall, I think my website is effective in informing people about the Alpha Gamma Delta Foundation and soliciting donations for the cause.
RationaleThis project was a long one and to be honest not my favorite. I think looking back I enjoyed the magazine and poster the most. I was originally going to do my website on Runway Relief which is what I did my poster on however the more and more that I tried to find pictures and info for the website I failed. I then found “Project Earth Day”. Project Earth Day is an organization that allows emerging fashion designers to create clothing out of eco-friendly material and then the cause raises money for U.S. Green Building Council and other environmentally friendly companies in an effort for everyone to go green. If you look at the original website (www.projectearthday.com) it is awful and very unorganized. I kept similar color schemes but changed the layout completely.
On the first page of the website I created the “Project Earth Day” title in illustrator and converted it to outlines and then placed it in Photoshop. I like the color scheme of black, white, and green, as the black and white relates to fashion and the green incorporates “eco-friendliness”. As for the navigation bar, the green highlights what page the viewer is on. The top two bars were duplicated on every page. The bottom bar is the ‘copyright’ bar that I also duplicated on every page. Each page has dominant photos from the fashion shows and events. If the website were to be live, After each event the photos would switch. The bottom bar is the info section on each page. Each page looks very similar to each other as I wanted to keep it simple and easy to navigate. One of my biggest pet peeves is where there is too much going on. I like when everything is simple and classic.
On the second page is the About Us page. Like I said I kept the same two bars but highlighted about to let the user know which page we were on. The pictures I used on About Us Page is one of the founders and people working on the project and the second is from a runway show. I did a white text box towards the bottom because this page had the most text and I did not want it to be hard on the eyes with white on black.
The third page is the Support Us page, where I created a green donate button to be in keeping with the overall theme. Since the button is pretty big, I decided to use only one picture so that it does not take away from the overall page. Next to the button I put some text about the charity so the user knows where their donations are going before they donate.
The fourth page is the Contact page. The contact page has a “fill out form” where one who is interested can put their information and send an e-mail to projectearthday.com and ‘we’ would respond immediately. However, if the person did not want to contact us, but to learn more about the charity, then they can refer to the other websites and contact those people.
The fifth page is the events page. On the events page I posted previous posters for the events and then gave the user information about the upcoming event on earth day 2011.
Lastly is the photos page where I added photos from Runway shows to see the students work. Users can go and click on the button to look at the photo gallery. Also, I added a place where photographers can ‘apply’ to be the photographer at the next runway show.
The font I used throughout the website is Helvetica in white, green, and black. The only other font on this website is the outlines I created in Illustrator.
Enjoy!
In graphic design, nothing is what it actually is. Everything other than content is representative of something else. Additionally, much of the content is also merely representative of something other than what it actually is.
http://dzineblog.com/2008/07/best-photoshop-layout-design-tutorials.html
here is a great website to get ideas about how to layout our websites
For those interested in design as well as helping out a good cause, Relay for Life (run by the American Cancer Society) is holding a contest for their national event t-shirts. The winner’s design will be worn by more than 3.5 million people across the country. For more information, go here.
When I was looking online at magazine spreads in order to generate some ideas, I came across this website: http://bestdesignoptions.com/?p=4076. The website contains 20 different examples of creative magazine spreads. All of the examples I think are extremely well-done and effective. Hope this helps !!!!!!
This is from a cool little article from graphic designer Andrew Keir on how he developed his own personal logo. I love how he actually shows us step-by-step the creative process he went through to get to his end product, which I think looks pretty sharp. The article can be found here.
http://creativebits.org/cool_business_card_designs has some really creative businesses cards. I really like how the first one uses the metaphor of ” blank” on the name tag to represent his last name. The second is for an acupuncturist and the card has little holes. I really like the idea of using a visual metaphor on a business card. A well designed card is good, but a well designed card that makes you think will have more resonance with an employer.
As I am looking around the internet for ideas for our next project, I came across this website where it has all of these tutorials on how to make cool text in illustrator. Hope this helps you guys too and maybe even get ideas for a cool way to represent your name!
http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/design/illustrator-text-effect-tutorials/
