Fall Final Winter Wonderland!

Here is the final project for my final! I did a Christmas tree with ornaments. I used the pen tool for the tree and then added a scribble effect; after that, I gave it an outer glow so it would have a bright, happy fell. For the ornaments, I used the ornament tutorial on the project sheet (I couldn't copy the URL because for some reason it won't let me post this if I have a link in it). Everything else I created by myself. I used the quote at the bottom right. For the background, I used my pattern and then I put a square with a gradient fill on top of the background; then I used the overlay transparency effect to make the background look nicer and have a sharper contrast.

 Here is the pattern creation by itself. It looks a little different than above because I don't have the gradient square with the overlay effect over it, but it's basically the same. I just used the pen tool to make the snowflake and then copied it a couple times, rotating it and making it different sizes.

 Here is the original square I used for the pattern. I just created one snowflake using the  lines tool and then I copied it, rotated it, and made them different sizes. After that, I dragged it into the swatches panel to make it a pattern. Well... that's my project, hope you enjoy!

Frozen Delights Ice Creamery Pattern!

Here's my pattern for the Frozen Delights Ice Creamery packaging. I basically followed the same steps for that other pattern creation thing: I made a box and turned it into guides and then put the pattern inside. I used the logo for the ice cream cones; I just got rid of the "F" on the cone and then changed the ice cream to 4 different "flavors." I put a red box as the background. Then, I got a large chocolate ice cream cone and made it transparent and put it in the background... hope you enjoy!

Frozen Delights Ice Creamery Logo!

Here's my logo for Frozen Delights Ice Creamery, the fake company I made for the product packaging... hope you enjoy!

Pattern!

Here's my pattern! I just used the illustrator file because the other image was really blurry when you put it in illustrator. I made my own "corner ornament" things using the same shapes and colors of the central ornament. Then I just followed the rest of the steps to make the pattern. It was pretty simple, and at the end i used the scale and rotate tools to make the pattern smaller and rotate it.

Business Card

Okay, here's my business cards! The top one is the front of the card, and the bottom one is the back with most of the information. I used similar gradients for the backgrounds of both, and I used a lot of transparency. I wanted to make a business card that was simple and professional, just like the logo. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

CATE Logo

Here's my CATE logo... I'm not sure if we have to post this to our blog, but I guess I will. I tried to make a logo that matched what they said: serious and friendly. I decided to have "AMCHS" in the logo because I think it's supposed to be a logo for our school's CATE department. I also added the tiger. Anyway, enjoy!

My Logo!

Here's my logo! My company's name is "Invent Design." I wanted to make a logo that looks professional and modern. I decided to make the top 2 that I like, although only the one with the gear has a scaled down version. Anyway, hope you enjoy, and you can comment and tell me which one you like best!

Personal Expression

Okay, so here's my personal expression! I guess I should write about the "techniques" that I used. First, I used the 5 different fonts, the maximum you can use, that I felt matched all the different traits I put in this picture. I have a radial background gradient to the major parts of my background. The blue side shows that I can be calm and serious when I need to be, but the orange corner expresses my randomness and energy. The blue part also has fading rounded rectangles that are arranged in a pattern to show that I can be honest and rigid and routine; the orange part has a bunch of circles and triangles thrown around everywhere to show that I can be random, and the diagonal lines represent motion, or energy. For the blue part, I used mainly horizontal and vertical text to represent stability, formality, and alertness. As you move towards the center orange part, the words begin to become slanted and curved; a used the "Text on a Path" tool a lot to curve the words around my picture and the gradient. I also used that tool to make the word "inquiring" look like a question mark. I experimented with some of the stuff to make the words the color they are. They started out red, but then I went to the transparency panel and changed the thing for all the words to "overlay" and left the opacity at 100%. I thought it looked cool how the color changes with the background color, so I left them like that.  I think that's about it... oh, and make sure you look for the special square about chocolate!  

Television (Personal 3D Creation)

Here's my personal 3D creation. This was actually pretty difficult because I didn't know how to use some of the tools, and some of their steps were confusing. I think it looks pretty good. They said you could use any symbol you wanted to use for the screen, so I just made an "S" with a face... not sure why, but I just did. Anyway, enjoy!

Vase

Here's the vase we had to do. It was fairly simple; the only annoying thing was trying to use the "Map Art" thing to get the flower on it. On the tutorial, their vase only had 5 surfaces, but mine has 22 for some reason; I couldn't make the flower very big because otherwise it would get cut off. Other then that, it was pretty easy. I added another copy of the flower and used the 3D settings to make it look 3D. I also used the pen tool to make a stem and made that 3D using the "3D Extrude and Bevel" effect. Hope you enjoy!

Flowers!

Here's my flower thing. It was pretty easy, I just followed the directions on the website. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

Snowboarder Guy Picture

Here's the snowboarding picture thing that I guess was used for the Olympics or something. I just followed the directions; most of it's the same as the original except for the swooshes and the font (I had to use brushes to make the font look special since I didn't have the font they used). The only other difference is the snowboarder in the background. I couldn't find the picture they used, so I just found my own and then used the Live Trace tool and got rid of the background. Anyway, enjoy!

Meiji Bar!

I decided to recreate this delicious Japanese chocolate bar (one of my favorite kinds of chocolate!) for my picture recreation. As you can see, the one on the top is mine, and the one on the bottom is the photo I used. I used the pen tool for much of the picture, such as the line designs, the little tear drop looking things in the corners, and for the word "Meiji." I decided to use the pen tool for the word "Meiji" because there was no font that matched the word. I used the text tool for the word "Milk Chocolate" because the BrushScript font was also a cursive font that seemed to match the word "Milk Chocolate" close enough. I replaced the Japanese writing on the yellow sticker on the right with "It's Delicious!" because I thought it was fitting... and I didn't want to try to recreate the Japanese characters because the picture was so blurry. The only challenges I had would be trying to get the right curves using the pen tool, but other than that, I didn't have too many challenges. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoy Meiji chocolate!

Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada!

Here's my sign! It was fun to make, but some of the steps were a little hard to understand. It's not EXACTLY like the original sign, but it's pretty close! Anyway, hope you like it!

SPLAT!

Here's my splat text thing. It was pretty fun to make, but the letter "P" was being really annoying; the 3D effect on it got messed up somehow so I had to erase it and make a new letter "P".... and yes, I know the shadows look really bad; they're really hard to make. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

Quote... 2.0!

I wasn't really sure what to change for the revision of the quote. I left the words "afraid" red with a black outline and a different font to make it look scary. I left "heights" vertical and in a thin, blue font to make it look tall and remind you of heights. I changed the word "me" from brown to purple because I think the author of this quote is trying to make himself look good by saying he's not afraid of heights... and for some reason that just reminded me of royalty and purple. I also changed the words "widths" to a lighter, olive-colored green because olive green symbolizes peace; I think this makes it ironic because the author is saying he's afraid of widths, but widths aren't very scary, so I put it in a color that evokes the feeling of peace. I also outline the author's name in the background with a darker colored gray to give it more emphasis and to make it easier to read. Anyway, here's quote 2.0!

Spiral Type

Here's my spiral type thing. I guess this is all we had to do... it was pretty easy. I just wrote random stuff on it, but the font is really small... I guess I wrote too much. I made a copy to put in the center of the spiral, but you can't read it. I made the picture X-Large since the font is so small. Anyway, there it is.

Glyph Monster

This is my glyph monster. I based him off of the jester picture. To make him, I first made the base structure of him using all the shapes and symbols so that he looked similar to the picture. Then I added shapes all around him and changed some shapes so that he looked abstract. I tried to use as many small shapes as possible so that the picture looked sort of hectic and exciting. I chose green as the background because I think green is more of a happy color, and jesters are happy.

Quote

I chose to make the word "afraid" red, outlined and black, and larger than the rest of the words because I felt it was an important word in this quote, and red is a very exciting color.  I made "heights" blue and vertical because it makes you think of heights, and the blue reminds me of the sky, which goes on forever and makes me think of heights.  I made me larger than the rest of the words and a different color to grab people's attention because I feel it is an important word because the author is trying to make it clear that he isn't afraid of heights.  And finally, I made the word "widths" green and very wide.  It makes me think of a wide field of grass because it is green. I think the way I laid out the quote is asymmetrical because there is a lot of open space in the middle and there is nothing on the left side. I think it has a linear rhythm because there are a lot of straight lines to represent "heights" and "widths." I tried to put a lot of emphasis on the words "afraid", "heights", "me", and "widths." I tried to align things so that it portrayed "heights" and "widths" well, and I left lots of open space in the middle so I could position the author's name so that it is in the background but still very visible.

Elements of Design

Direction

This picture of a car has a lot of diagonal lines that represent movement and action, parallel lines that gives it a feeling of speed, and curved lines that give it a graceful look.  The direction of the lines also gives the image a perspective. This picture creates an emphasis on the car; the company wants you to focus on the car because they are trying to sell it.

Line and Color

This picture has a lot of narrow, sharp, and jagged lines going in all directions that give it a feeling of excitement and chaos.  The color of this image is very blue, with the center being lighter and the outside being darker, which makes the background more interesting and gives it a cold feeling. This picture is very asymmetrical. There is lots of negative space around the picture, and there is nothing that looks like a duplicate of something else. There is also a rhythm of repetition because they use the same straight, jagged lines on the "hair" over and over and over again.


Texture

I

 I think that this picture of seashells has a rough texture.  The ridges on all the seashells makes it feel rough but also orderly because the ridges are spaced very evenly.  There are lots of broken fragments of seashells which adds to the rough and jagged feel of the image.  The sand scattered over the seashells also adds a gritty texture to the picture because of how sand looks and feels. I think this image has a rhythm of repetition. It uses the seashells over and over and over again to create a patter, creating a sort of uniform look.

Shape

This picture of the house "Falling Water" has a lot of square and rectangular shapes.  It think that all the squares give it a feeling of stability, uniformity, and rigidity, so even though half the house is hanging precariously over a waterfall, it still looks stable. I think this picture represents unity because of the way everything fits together. The house was built over the waterfall, and it looks like the house was meant to be there. The house also fits well in the forest and river.

Size

 This picture of a chameleon on a person's finger helps you see how small the chameleon actually is using comparison.  This also helps because if it was just a picture of the chameleon, you wouldn't be able to see how small it actually is. This picture is in proportion; it is a real chameleon and a real finger. It shows how this chameleon looks compared to the finger... very small.

Value

 The lighter hue of the grass shows that it is sunny outside, but the darker hues in the sky, the mountains, and in the bottom of the clouds make it seem dreary, like a storm is coming. This picture uses a rhythm of gradation because it is darker at the top and gets lighter towards the middle; however, from the bottom it goes from lighter colored to darker when it reaches the horizon. I think this focuses your attention on the center of the picture.
  

  

   

 




 
 

Travis Stebbins - MY BIO

My name is Travis Stebbins.  This summer, I didn't do much.  I was home most of the time, but I also got to visit my grandparents who live southeast of Houston. I also went camping in Oklahoma.  I'm 14 and I have 2 sisters, Ashleigh (20), who is going to Texas A&M University, and Elyssa (12), who is at AMCMS. I also have one older brother, Chris, who is 17 and who is also going to AMCHS.  My dad was in the  Marine Corps so we moved to lots of different places, and we lived in Okinawa, Japan for 10 years.  We lived on a military base and I went to DODDS schools (Department of Defense Dependents Schools).  It was fun living on the island and there were lots of great things to do on and off the base... and no, I don't speak Japanese fluently; I only know how to say a few things.  Both of my parents work at Texas A&M now.  I like to spend my time watching T.V., reading, or spending time with friends or family.  My personality colors are green and gold.  This school year I am looking forward to learning new things and and having fun with my friends.  I hope it will be a great first year of high school!