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I have produced at least 5 projects that reflect my passion for graphic design including the New York World’s Fair, currency recreation, and the handmade film poster from the first semester of my junior year and from the second half up until my most recent project, a book jacket, and an organic drink package design. I had to create a handmade documentary film poster within the limited color palette: red, black and white to compare to inspirations like Loll Moss and Saul Bass. For this project, I used the movie Vito starring Vito Russo and his continuing inspiration for the LIGHT community.
In his journey, he was resourced for being openly gay and for a public disturbance during rallies for the gay community, which is where I got the idea of handcuffs for my main design. Incorporated into the handcuffs are male symbols, which are actually derived from the astrological symbol for Mars (masculine) to represent gay relationships. I used only construction paper and an exacts knife to achieve the look that I wanted. This was by far the most challenging project in the beginning of the year because it was the first composition that had to be completed by hand.
Cutting out the text was the most challenging art but I was very satisfied with my project outcome because I learned in this particular project how to zone out, focus completely and manage my time. Another challenge was to recreate a book jacket from only found materials from the following books: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Crucible, The Awakening, and The Great Gatsby. With these books, the task was to get the reader to get the idea of what the book would be about. The template was 17. 5 by 8. Divided into 5 parts: back flap, back cover, spine, front cover and front flap. The compositions was to be made by hand and scanned in to add text agitatedly. For this assignment I got to pick The Great Gatsby. In the beginning I read some plot summaries about the characters and symbols in the book. The symbols that stood out to me were the green dock light and crave for status, but then I watched the movie and seen that Jay Gatsby had a remarkable appearance all the time. His quality suits and champagne all said money to me.
In one scene he was wearing a bright pink suit which Tom comments on, and I thought that it would be a good cover. I sketched many compositions and finally came up with one that worked. The materials that I seed were pink foam paper for the suit, beige felt for the collar and buttons, a pink bedsides-like material for the shirt and gold and burgundy foil-paper for the tie. The background was created with a light brown watercolors for texture. For the back cover used more gold foil paper for the champagne topped with a clear paper in the shape of a champagne glass.
I used a glue stick and double-sided tape to hold everything together. Once scanned it in, on illustrator added reviews from the Daily News, New York Time and the Boston post on the back cover, a portion of the first paragraph if the book on he front flap, and a short autobiography of F. Scott Fitzgerald and how The Great Gatsby came to be. After printing it, I used an exacts knife to cut off the excess paper, used a bone folder to crease and fold it, placed on a book and photographed the cover. Finally, extracted the photos and cleaned them up in Photos.
I was more than satisfied with my final book jacket because all the work and effort that I put into my design made it look like an actual book jacket. The quality of the paper made the photographs look professional and portfolio ready. Would like to improve on my cutting skills with the exacts knife to make more precise cuts to have smoother edges. The final challenge was to create a completely organic energy drink or bar mad from natural ingredients. When deciding the path you wanted to take, you were expected to come up with a logo, a slogan, a color scheme and an overall brand identity.
For the rest of the students, the majority used templates provided to them, but I decided to use my own bottle to create a different feel. The product was supposed to aim to the younger crowd, from 13-25 When I began designing my product, Zoe (which means life in Greek) , I began to rainstorm what fruits I like to drink, and the colors usually associated with a light, and natural fruit energy drink. Colors like teal, yellow, white and beige are colors that I thought Of when I thought of natural. Zoo was specific to the incorporation of lemon, so thought using the lemon flower would be a great logo.
When creating the logo and logotype, used a downloaded font called SUN in a teal color and remade an image of a lemon flower with vectors on illustrator which was my final logo. The slogan, I thought, should be a witty yet relatable saying to my drink, one that would stick to people’s minds when hey drink it. “For when life doesn’t give you lemons” was my final slogan. The reason used it is because the familiar saying when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, so when it doesn’t give you lemons you drink Zoo.
For my package design, used the Voss water bottle and I put the flower on the top and glued down the name of the bottle directly on the bottle. The label had the two flavors Lemon Berry and Lemon Lime, which had all the details (gluten-free, O grams of sugar, no added preservatives, USDA Organic) and a vector design of the fruits that were added. After I completed both packages, I ad to photograph them on a white background for our portfolios and make small changes on Photos to fix any blemishes.
For one of my advertisements, I had My friend pretend to drink it so I can have a picture of someone enjoying the drink for the banner ad. I used the dramatic crop effect to fully capture it and the bus stop ad and a billboard used the images with a white backdrop. Was satisfied with my final package design because I put a lot of effort and thought into my design. This challenge has shown me exactly what skills I need to improve on, like cutting with an exacts knife and using he hot glue gun.