Blog #5

Part 1

This weeks blog post deals with the use of images in your design. It is interesting how a simple cropping of an image or adding an effect can drastically change the focal point or the feel of the image. So for the first part of the blog, I chose different images, and decided to change the way the viewers see the image. Here are the images along with their changes:

Original

Changes

So as you can see, the original picture shows a bright sunny day, featuring the skyline of a park in front of a city. For the first cropping, I tried to get rid of some unnecessary space, mainly the open areas on the sides. I did this to highlight the the compact nature of the city. The second image I wanted to change the feel of the picture. By making the color more dull, I feel like the picture went from a nice cool spring day, to a more hot, dry summer day. Lastly, I cropped out the entire city. By taking away the buildings and focusing on the tree, it makes the picture highlight the features of the park.

Original

Changes

The original picture features two soccer players resting on the soccer field, probably relaxing after playing a few games. The changes I made seem pretty simple, but I did that for a reason. The first image, I decided to just barely crop it, but I changed its effect. The reason that I did this is because I wanted to change the meaning of the picture. The original picture, to me, shows the soccer players just resting in between games on a nice day. By changing the effect, however, the I perceived it to be more around dusk. Since dusk is approaching, the soccer players are resting from their playing, which was stopped because it is getting dark soon. So they are regaining some fuel before they head home for the night. Lastly, I drastically changed the image by cropping out the players, and just making the image all about the ball itself, rather than the players.

Original

Changes

The original picture displays what seems to be a group of people traveling on camel back through the desert. I decided to change up the story a bit by adding some effects, and getting rid of some emptiness of the picture. First off, I changed the effect on the picture to make it more dry. Since they are in the desert, I wanted the viewer to feel what it was like to be in that scene, so dulling the color can communicate that. Next, I tried to change the focal point of the picture. When first looking at the picture, personally my eyes were drawn their the scenery of the picture. To change that, I cropped out some of the extra scenery to make the focus more obviously the travelers. Lastly, I decided to take the picture in a different direction. I cropped out the rest of the travelers to leave one lone wanderer. I left the scenery of the picture in to create a story of one person taking on the extremely large desert by themselves. 

Part 2

For the second part of this blog, I decided to do the activity on page 197 of Design Basics Index. For this activity, I used a picture of someone holding a cup of coffee. The original photo does not contain a border, so this allowed me extra room to create borders for it. As you can see, I decided to create borders that had similar color schemes as the picture itself. The reason I did that was because I felt like it would blend the picture together, and make it easier on the eyes of the viewer. As you can see, I started with probably more basic borders, then experimented a little more with the color schemes.

Original

Changes

 (This has a white border if you cannot see it)

Part 3

The last activity that I did for this week can be found on page 303 of Design Basics Index. For this activity we had to create a book cover for a book titled, "Flirting With the Bully". For this activity you had to create a theme of your book, related to the title, and stick with that theme throughout the whole cover. My two covers are as follows:

Cover 1

So for the first book cover, I tried to go with a more dark, serious theme. The words "Flirting With the Bully" can take on multiple meanings. For this meaning, I went with literal flirting, but I went a little overboard with the bully part. To make this a dark, creepy book, I found an image of Charles Manson's girlfriend. I decided to edit the photo to make it look a little creepier. Then for the bottom part, I placed the title on what looks like concrete, to represent the prison that Charles Manson is in. So from this cover, the book would probably be about either their relationship, or distorted relationships like their own. (Sorry for the eeriness of it.)

Cover 2

The second cover took a different approach. In this cover, the bully is junk food, so "Flirting With the Bully" means giving into temptation in regards to eating unhealthy. I went with the red theme because red is often associated with Valentine's Day, which also goes hand in hand with chocolate. So the image shows a woman with red lips snacking on candy. Although for a nutrition type book, it does seem to be a little classy, so maybe this can serve as a fiction novel of a woman giving into temptation on many levels. This theme romanticizes the relationship between a woman's willpower and temptation.