Reflection

In my reflection on the year, there has been a lot of information that has been extremely useful to me and my degree.  Even though I am not a Design Student, I learned new concepts, elements of design and new visual concepts that will help m,e in the future.  In fact with the understanding of Illustrator and how it can be used, I now can help develop web-sites, banners, flyers, and as well I can use this program to help with texturing in Maya, a new idea that I learned this weekend.  I recommend a design course to anyone wishing to be a part of 3D Animation, Game Design, Photography, Web Development, and Design.  If you decide to go to a community college, come to Parkland College in Champaign,  they have a great program that will help you develop the skills that you need to become successful in the area of Digital Media.

One Image, Many Thoughts

The immediate response is April.  Baseball season.  Warm air, the smell of hotdogs.  The taste of a cool refreshing beverage.  Remember little league.  High School, the games with dad in Boston..  Its amazing how an image can bring back so many memories, all good, with the simple image of a round object.  That's why I choose this image this week.  The simplicity, the reference, the metaphor, the cliche.  It all is there in the simple round image of the baseball.

Where are you?

A great use of color, lighting, balance, and layout.  There is much drama in this image and a bit of a metaphoric idea.  I say that because the image is in a perspective layout that comprehends colors that give you a sense that your are on a hill getting ready to move towards the town.  Maybe you can relate to the image by thinking how far the travel is to get where you want to be?  What type of obstacles are in your way?  If any?  Are you feelin cold or warm in this image?  Where are you in time?  When you look at this piece you find yourself not just looking at the image in whole but in bits and pieces throughout.  That is what makes this image so powerful to view and comprehend.

Maps

Our next project involves the concept of maps.  So what is the goal?  To create a map using design techniques and Adobe Illustrator.  My goal is to create a map that is based off of my trip to Parkland College each day.  The roads I take and the area that I pass by.  Not too crazy, but still a little more difficult to accomplish.  I have been research colorful maps that present cool imagery without emphasizing on street names.  Here is a great example of such.  The Tampa Bay area, looks small, but the map does create this excitement that sends a thought of vacation.  The addition of the cruise boats to the pirate ship and the neat illustration of the downtown and of course the waterways.  To me this is what I would like to recreate for my own map. 

How We Percieve Color

Color can be used for so many different things.  In fact certain cultures use colors for worship and usually that same color means something different in another culture.  But all in all we see color everyday.  We see it, we associate it with that image and usually it makes sense.  Cheerios uses yellow for their box, what if the box was black?  Would you still buy it?  Yellow can represent happiness, warm, clean, and healthy.  But in some cultures yellows can be used for worship, maybe even war.  All in all color is amazing and you can use it in so many ways.  I believe that any color can work with other colors, it just depends on how you balance that image.  In the photo above you see a grocery store.  Lots of yellows...Oranges, blues, whites, greens...they are all in this image.  Is it a great image?  I think so.  I love how the photographer used what we see everyday to show us that colors are used in hidden advertising techniques.  We see it but we usually do not put the two together.

Colors

The use of color can increase a composition's character, design, emphasis, balance, rhythm and space.  In this image we see the use of all the colors on the color wheel smudged across the page.  This image creates a great rhythmic flow, but there really is no emphasis in any particular place.  I wanted to use this image to show that colors can all be added to create a composition that flows, has balance and unity.  But there is no emphasis.  In fact it is a hard image to look at for a long period of time.  The mixers of colors create tertiary colors and keeps the image both cool in some spots but hot in others.  The magenta, yellow and blues are the main point of this image, but there still are some greens and yellows to balance the image.

Unity

This was an image that I found that def represents unity by grouping, repetition, proximity and continuity.  I love the how the artist used fingers as the shapes to create the shape.   A very clean and well flowing image. 

Rhythm

I was searching for some nice rhythm images, and found this referred as a "joie de vivre" which means "joy of living."  I love the use of color as they do not overwhelm you in the image, but they create a nice smooth transition between the colors.  It is a "joy" to look at and relaxing. 

Saul Bass Project

This was my take on the Saul Bass project.  I did edit the flyer some more in class but I do not have that copy at home.  But I still wanted to post some of my work.  Thanks for checking it out..

So Little Time To Get Things Done

Currently I have been extremely busy.  In fact I am stressing just to write this post cause I have soo much going on.  But in life that is how it goes.  Soon there will be images of the project that I have been working on, just need to upload them to this page.  Some Saul Bass work I did and my current 3D project that I have been working on will be featured soon.

This is an outside of class project that I did for my band "The Sugar Prophets."  It was a lot of fun creating and designing this handout, which will be passed out during the 2012 International Blues Challenge in Memphis this year.  I was able to have the creative control, however the band manager stood over my shoulder the whole time critiquing the project.   So that was the most stressful part of this.  But wanted to show some of my work outside of class projects.  Everything was designed in Photoshop.  The other image was designed for the ad in the IBC book that will be passed out.  Again same situation, the manager was over my shoulder the whole time.  But we do work very well together and he is a very close friend of mine.  But still it can be stressful working with a "client." 

Tough Decisions

Everyday we are hit with difficult challenges to overcome.  Me I have been going 3,000mph in every direction for the past 3 weeks.  So I am still trying to accept some time in the day to do some creative work.  Hopefully within the next few days or this week I will have done some new work.  Currently I am just having fun drawing characters to get my skills back up.  So primarily Disney characters, just to conjure up some new and fresh ideas to work with.  As well I have been looking at a lot of different images from the 1940's marketing in hopes to revive that long forgotten culture.  I guess I will post some new material by Saturday...Well I hope to....

Shawdow Work

 Joe Asselin 
"Shadows"




While my love for music is a definite, I also have a huge respect for all other art forms.  Photography is one that I have a huge aspiration for.  To the left is a photo of shadows.  The only thing that I doctored up was the blacks.  Other than that the light above and below are too separate flash lights lighting the scene.  The character is a boy and a dog Christmas decoration.  The project I did consisted of 10 different images regarding shadows and revolving around this boy and dog and their travel to go fishing.  Hence, the title for this Self Directed Portfolio is "Going Fishin'."  The play with shadows can be used in many context's and I believe that we still have not perfected the ability to create shadow based scenes.  However the game "Limbo" is a fantastic example of shadow usage and the layers of shadows based over each scene is amazing.