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!  

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!

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.