Final Homepage Assignment

I decided to work with a combination of photoshop and wix.com.

After I assembled an idea of what direction I wanted to go in (using a Wix template as my outline), I did a quick sketch of the page layout to make sure the alignment looked okay as a whole. I wanted my homepage to be very minimal and flow well. I chose three colors that I felt were visually calming, inviting and also seem to compliment each other well.

rough sketch of outline

light pink, blue and yellow.

   

I separated each section by the "sense" that is used while participating in it with links to the original sites.

- looking - images of work- link to design gusto class portfolio

- listening - song players- link to my Soundcloud page

- touching - correspondence- direct link to my email

- I used photoshops magnetic lasso tool to crop the picture of this book 

vintage public domain photo of an open journal

I watched a few tutorials on how to use photoshop as a tool for designing webpage templates for clients and learned only a small fraction of what there is to know. Here are a few...

Grid systems are very useful in outlining a homepage into sections that flow well (ex. guideguide extension for photoshop)

There are many websites that help make converting photoshop pages into css code a much smoother process.

http://www.piliapp.com/  Is a really awesome tool for measuring out the exact pixel dimension of a square or rectangle. This is especially useful when making grids in photoshop for borders, images, etc.

http://lemonade.im/  Is just one of several sites where you can download free  grid template codes that help in the transition from photoshop to html.

I thoroughly enjoyed piecing together this project and am excited to finally have an online website/portfolio to show others the variety of my work.

This class has been a huge inspiration for me to pursue graphic and web design further and to maybe even make it into my full-time vocation one day.  I still have so much to learn..but definitely look forward to the journey.

link to website

amandatar

Final Book Cover

Sketches for "Philip Glass bookcover" (in progress)

I chose Philip Glass as my contemporary classical musician. Below are sketch ideas and a rough draft of the front cover. I plan to use a black and white photo of Philip and layer the text by hand using a bright color (yellow or blue) so it stands out. The bottom draft is a bit pixelated because I enlarged it beyond its limits. I will fix this in the final draft.

Final Poster Design

poster preliminary sketches/project concept

I wanted to somehow combine the composition lined notebook paper used by pre-k students with the image of an African American boy behind bars. For the type I used the scribble tool to hand write the text in order to mimic the handwriting of a child. My purpose for doing this was to get across the message of racial inequality within the education system and the criminal justice system. Even though these seem like two separate issues, I believe that they are strongly related. I was inspired after reading several articles like this one. If a child is born into unfortunate circumstances and is not given equal opportunity based on the color of their skin, then what is to prevent them from becoming another unfortunate statistic? 

                       

Band Concept and Meaning

I chose the word "Metre" to represent my fictional band because by definition it's a unit of measurement for time and rhythmical patterns within poetry.  Its actual meaning is: the regular arrangement of syllables in poetry according to the number and type of beats in a line.

The historical heads represent notes(beats) within a time signature (timeline). The electrocardiogram line represents the heartbeat (lifespan). The mountains in the background represent the natural composition within nature over time. I love that the mountains are on an island because it reminds me of the famous
John Donne prose which seems to fit the theme of the image...

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be    washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy  friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and  therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.” 


Metre is a poem cover band that uses obscure poetry as lyrics for their songs.
Reason: To expose their beauty in an alternate form and give them new life.


I imagine them to have a haunting and ambient sound. Simplistic musical arrangements (background) to highlight the words/vocals (foreground).