Visual Argument / Rhetorical Collage: Final Reflections

[benmiller314]

This is a space where you'll be able to post your final-for-now thoughts on your visual unit projects, your rhetorical collages. We've talked in class about what that should include, but the main goals are to give a sense of what you've learned from doing this project, the work you put into it, and whether it accomplishes what you wanted it to.

At a minimum, please include:

• At least 500 words
• Your own assessment of how you met the baseline criteria and goals for the unit, as well as any aspirational criteria or self-assigned stretch goals, as appropriate
• At least one screenshot of feedback you used (and please say how)
• At least one or two screenshots of your work in progress (ideally, related to the discussion in the previous two bullets)

NB: After using the formatting buttons and drag/drop tools to add images here in the Issue queue, you can optionally copy the source code and paste it into a new reflections.md file in your repository: it should then have the same formatting there!

[AlexaSpaventa]

Visual Argument Reflection

Starting off, I knew I wanted to focus my project around an environmental issue. I went through a few ideas of different issues to cover until I came across some statistics regarding the amount of deaths caused by air pollution. The article also talked about countries where in some regions the air is not safe to breath and therefore the people in these regions have to wear masks when going outside. This fact inspired me to use masks as a part of my argument since many people across the world have to wear masks on a daily basis due to another airborne threat, the coronavirus.

For my preview I found some facts related to air pollution related deaths online and came up with a title for my image “Let’s Not Make Mask Permanent”. I then added in a dead tree and a figure wearing a blue mask. I centered the image on a gravestone to highlight the idea that air pollution can be deadly. I also included a gradient background in this draft that I later decided to remove.

For my first full draft of this project, I started by adding leaves to one half of the tree to show that it is healthy when the air is clean and dies when the smoke (air pollution) goes over it. In this draft, the brown from the living tree shows through overtop the dead tree and this is something I later removed because I felt the image looked cleaner without the brown overlapping. In this draft, I also added both alive and dead grass to further highlight the fact that air pollution is also harmful to nature.

In my final draft, I started by cleaning up the mask on the tree using both the mask tool and the eraser tool. I then changed the mode of the smoke and decreased the opacity so it appears to envelop the tree. I also felt like this made it clearer that the pollution was what was causing the tree to die. To address the feedback I received I changed the font of my title as well as the color of some of my text. Additionally, I cleaned up the rough edges on the grass and smoke using the eraser tool and the distortion tool. Overall, I was pretty happy with how this final draft turned out. As far as meeting the criteria goes I think I managed to complete all the baseline requirements and most of the aspirational requirements. For baseline, I think I was able to incorporate the concept of dominance and hierarchy and draw the viewer’s eye to the most important aspects of the piece first. I also felt like some of the changes I made in my final draft helped to clarify the message of my piece as well as the text I included. Additionally, I include more than 3 layers and used multiple different tools. For aspirational, I tried to make my project in a minimalist way with a clean understandable design. I used multiple different tools and tried to gain a better understanding of Gimp as I went. Overall, I really enjoy this project. I wasn’t a huge fan of Gimp but once I got more used to it I started feeling comfortable with the tools but I found it to be a bigger learning curve for me than Audacity.

[LDib]

As with the soundscape, it took me a while to come up with an idea for this project. I think I only note this because usually I come up with an idea for a project, and then go do the project, so it was a little strange for me to have a medium for a project and then need to come up with the idea as a second step. Anyway, I eventually thought of blog posts that I liked, and especially one that tried to visually represent the amount of times you had left to do things in a rather stunning way. I thought I could try to emulate that.

I thought that days or years was too easy, and hard to represent, and presidents was kind of a weird way to show someone's life, and amount of books read was too variable, so I eventually settled on seasons. I doodled a bunch of different ways to have icons representing seasons on an image, and liked the way I ended up doing because it has a good rhythm to it, with the seasonal icons dwindling toward the bottom of the screen.

For the preview, as with the soundscape, I got very little actual work done, it was mostly brainstorming and finding materials, but for the rough draft, I did most of the actual work. Here's a screenshot of the preview and then rough draft:

As you can see, the icons are all there and arranged, as well as the fonts. I felt like it was quite good: I thought that the green faded in a symbolic manner well (and I had to use some non-basic tools to do so) and I was glad about the way that I got the icons to fit on the screen. I was also very conscious about the typefaces that I chose, and I assumed that they were good because I was intentional (more on that later). I was pretty sure I wasn't done completely, so the feedback I got was very helpful. All three people said similar things, which was also very helpful, because it showed me what to focus on. Here's a screenshot of just one of the comments, because it outlines the suggestions that all of them made quite succinctly and clearly:

So, for the final edits, I tried to do exactly what the feedback pointed out, because I agreed, and in some sense you can't argue with very similar feedback given by three separate people. I wanted to rearrange the symbols so they made more sense chronologically, as well as doubling the size of the tulip, mess around with the colors, and change the fonts. The tulip part wasn't so hard, and in changing the font on the bottom and realigning the text, I realized I had empty space at the bottom, so I extended the sun icons out, which I think was all very positive and symbolically meaningful change. I also aligned the bottom left text to be left-justified, which I think helped with the rhythm of the piece. Additionally, I played with the colors and gradients to make the background less dull. Here's a screenshot:

I think that I met all of the baseline criteria. I think the piece guides the viewers' eyes from the headline at the top, down the icons in their pointed, funnel-shaped rhythmic way, and then left to right for the bottom text, and there's even some important negative space around the suns at the bottom that emphasizes those last seasons. I think the message is very clear, as evidenced in the feedback (We all have limited time, so how will you use it?). As I said in my rough draft reflection, I carefully chose typefaces. I originally chose Gill Sans for the top, as it is more familiar and old and comfortable, as the top text is more reflecting on the past, and Franklin Gothic for the bottom text, as it is more harsh and future-focused, like the message of the bottom text. That changed, which I'll talk about in the aspirational section. I used more than 3 layers, which I believe is shown in my GIMP file, although I did collapse layers together at the end to move things around easier, so it may not literally show three layers on the GIMP file. I used at least one tool beyond select, move, and text.

As far as aspirational goes, I think that the rhythm of the piece is very solid, and the negative space emphasizes the sun, which all holds together the message quite well. The message was clearly obvious to the people who gave feedback, and I think it only could have become more clear with the improvements I made based on their feedback. I used several tools above the basic ones, including the paint fill tool, and the more advanced gradient tool. I think my repo is very well organized and I used good commit messages, and I credited the images I used correctly. I also carefully chose two different fonts for the top and bottom for clear reasons, and then changed the bottom one based on feedback. I think people didn't like the Franklin Gothic text because it was too harsh even for the message I was pushing, as the picture itself is not a harsh picture, it has mostly light green and black as its dominant colors. To fix this, I made the text Franklin Gothic italic, which I think actually softens it a little bit, as it's more curvy and slanted, but also emphasizes these very important lines.

[leiawerner]

Visual Argument Reflection

When I heard the prompt for this project, I knew immediately that I wanted to do something regarding mental health. Breaking the stigma on mental health is a cause that I am very passionate about. Once I decided upon this topic, I decided to go from a different perspective and make the main focus men's mental health. I chose this because this has affected me personally and men's mental health is normally slid under the radar. I was always sure of my subject - but how to portray the message got me stuck. My original idea was to include images of a man living his normal life and then contrasting pictures of him being depressed, exposing the truth of what's behind the curtain. However, I thought this would be 1. a little too difficult for me to execute with my little experience using GIMP/other photoshop methods and that 2. if not executed correctly, it could look very cluttered and confusing. So for my preview, I was still very unsure of what I was going to do. This is what I had for my preview:

After turning this in, I had more time to mess around and play with different ideas. That's when I found the image of the man I wanted to use. I decided to get rid of the title 'Men Cry Too' and use thought bubbles to portray the intrusive thoughts of the man. I made the hashtag bigger and be the main focus - as it is the main argument of the piece. My rough draft then became this:

I received some good feedback from my draft. One of the things I changed was making the thought bubbles all one size. At first I was trying to make each one different but I don't think it was clear enough so they just looked unequal. Another thing each person suggested I do was rename my layers in GIMP. Once I did this, it was much easier to distinguish each layer. Other than that, I didn't receive any major feedback and I was able to just make a few small finishing touches.

I think I met all the baseline criteria. I thought my message was clear, and my classmates were able to pinpoint the message that I was intending (breaking the stigma on men's mental health). I used multiple layers, and I thought my theme was cohesive throughout. I used a color palette that was connected throughout the entire image. I put my main hashtag in a contrasting font, making it pop and draw the viewer's attention. I also got feedback that they liked that I used the small statistic to pull the whole message together, which was my intention. I think all of the fonts work well together and I used the technique of hierarchy for my text at the bottom. I used basic tools like move and text. I also think I met a lot of my aspirational goals for this project. When I first started, I'm not going to lie, I was very worried. I was so confused by GIMP and I couldn't figure out how to do anything. After watching various YouTube tutorials, it all started to make a lot more sense. I was able to erase backgrounds of my images, scale them, and layer them on top of each other. I also used multiple fonts that I think all work well together. I used 3 different images and edited each of them. Though it might not be extremely advanced, I definitely felt myself utilizing a lot of tools. Overall, I am very pleased with how my project turned out. This project was also rewarding in the fact that I really learned how to utilize a new software. Though I am still not a huge fan of GIMP, I am glad that I now have the knowledge to use this if I would ever need it in the future.

[Maials268]

I initially knew that I wanted my visual argument to draw people’s attention to how the United States, as a first world country, is majorly lacking in a specific area: maternal care. I then wanted to incorporate elements of a call to action, and after a little bit of research, I decided that my main audience would be employers of pregnant women. The main goal was now to make employers aware of the situation and then effectively lead them to a resource that shows these individuals how they can help. The layout of the argument is supposed to resemble a flyer that could grab the reader's attention. Then the reader(employer) would hopefully go and check out the link I've left below to see what they can do to help. I also wanted the two main elements of focus to be the image of a pregnant and grim reaper in order for the argument to be more attention-grabbing. Initially, I didn’t include a website link on the “flyer” and instead had everything on the website depicted visually but I realized how cluttered and bulky the piece looked in appearance. I made this decision in an effort to lead my canvas in the territory of having a simple, minimalist design. The screenshot below is my project in one of its earliest stages: At first, I thought I would incorporate the design strategies for dominance and hierarchy with the pregnant women being larger in size than the grim reaper but I ended up scrapping that idea and giving my design a major overhaul. Screenshotted below is the draft presented for peer review: Now I noticeably made a substantial amount of changes. In terms of the baseline material, I believe I fulfilled all points. I had a clear message which I outlined in the words I chose to include. Moreover, I evidently utilized several design strategies throughout the work. The outlined images of the grim reaper and the pregnant both incorporate elements of positive and negative space. I additionally used elements of dominance and hierarchy in terms of the phrase “Our Nation’s Mothers Deserve Better” which is large in font size and bolded. The incorporation of both of these components lends itself to aspirational territory. Moreover, I used elements of color contrast as well as bolding to make certain words stand out

. In terms of other baseline criteria, the design includes 10 different layers, and assets are credited correctly. Additionally, I used two different types of font for the heading and subheadings which I believe complement each other well.

Now in order to create this design I watched a few tutorials from the channel Gurugal which I found to be very helpful. But before that, I first had to flip and invert the color scheme of both the grim reaper and pregnant women silhouette using view and select. I then removed the background of each image and the used Alpha to selection, Color to alpha, and the Eyedropper tool. My next step was to actually create the outline. That also involved Alpha to selection plus, Grow, and lastly the Bucket tool. Now, this process didn’t work fully for the pregnant woman silhouette so in addition to the effects and tools mentioned early I also had to use the Paintbrush tool, Pencil tool, and Eraser tool in order fill in and touch up the color in certain spaces. Moreover, other aspirational goals I attempted to achieve were using layer labeling and meaningful commit messages.

For my final product I took into account two comments that were made:

This comment led me to increase the size of the font at the bottom in order to balance the argument layout.

I additionally received this comment which led to me attempting to diversify my color scheme which ultimately resulted in the creation of something that I believed looks more “patriotic” in nature. I think this led to the argument ultimately being more eye-catching. Final product screenshotted below:

[carlystanford]

For this assignment, I decided to focus my argument on the environmental benefits of cutting down on meat for just one day of the week. I actually struggled quite a bit to think of an idea for this project in the beginning, being as it was such an open ended prompt. As I stated in my preview, an issue that I've always found interesting and have cared about for some time now is sustainability in our diet choices, so I wanted to focus on something in that realm. I initially shied away from the idea of promoting the reduction of meat consumption in our diets because I didn't want to be one of those vegetarians or vegans who never shuts up about it. I proposed the idea of exploring the benefits of buying locally grown food, but as I tried to compose something in Gimp, I wasn't feeling very inspired by the topic. I turned to the concept of Meatless Monday as a happy medium for discussing environmentally sustainable diet options without being too annoying or pushy about it. As far as the baseline criteria, I think my message was pretty clear, especially given that my classmates who reviewed my work were able to articulate the intention. I also used more than 3 layers. I used the strategies of positive/negative space and rhythm and movement to try to guide the viewers' eye. I tried to use rhythm and movement by arranging the text at the top of the image in descending width, so that the very first line is the widest, the second is slightly narrower, and so on, until you are led to the "punchline," if you will, of the statistic, which is highlighted in red to give it a sense of dominance and thus importance. From there you are led to the graphic of the map and the burger, which illustrate the statistic visually. When I was first composing my image, the background was a solid green color and the text was white to stand out against the background. I felt that the all green background was a bit flat looking, so I decided to play with some elements of positive and negative space to help this issue and also further emphasize the text in the top and bottom parts of the image. I also straightened the map element instead of having it on a tilt and replaced the arrow with the equal sign. After making this change, I liked how the positive and negative space broke the image into a few segments, but I wasn't totally sold. Now it felt like too much negative space, and the segments felt disconnected. I mentioned in my preview that I was considering changing this aspect, and received some feedback during peer reviews. Leia agreed that there was a feeling of disconnect between the segments, and Christianna noticed the issue of too much negative space as well. I played around with a few ways to remedy this, like making the white space extend only as far as each individual line in front of it. I didn't like the way this looked, either, so I reduced the size of each white box so that the green background peeked out and extended beyond the edges of the white box, like a green trim going around the whole page. I was happy with the way this looked, as it still includes the elements of positive and negative space, and breaks the image into segments, while the green border keeps things connected and cohesive. Leia and Christianna both also suggested making the burger bigger, because it wasn't standing out much at its original size. I hadn't even considered this, so I'm glad they suggested it. I made the burger bigger, and also filled it in with color to make it stand out more. In creating my image, I used many tools within Gimp. As a beginner in the program, all of it was new to me, but once I got the hang of the basic move, select, and text tools, I was able to explore some of the others. One particular tool that I utilized a lot was the bucket fill tool in conjunction with free select. I used these two tools to modify the colors of a lot of the icons I was using, such as the burger, the pin point, the car, and the star. I used free select to select around the border of the area I wanted to change the color of, then used the bucket fill tool to fill it in. I used the align tool to align the text in my image so that it was all centered in the same place. I used the scale layer tool often to change the size of certain aspects of the image, such as the burger or the map. A tool that I utilized and found very useful was the merge down tool, to combine different layers into one. I did this for the map graphic by merging the white box, the states, the car, the tape, etc., into one layer so that I could move it around and adjust it more easily as one single element instead of moving all the different parts separately. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the way my final product has turned out. I admittedly was a bit discouraged in the beginning, as I really struggled to find a source of inspiration and I struggled to get a handle on using Gimp. I've learned a lot in terms of using different tools within Gimp to arrange basic images, and I was able to apply a lot of design principles that I was aware of, but never given an opportunity to utilize.

[briansostek]

Visual Reflection.docx

[LLP37]

Visual Argument Reflection.docx

Attached is my Visual Argument Reflection.

[heh44]

Going into this assignment, I did not have any strong feelings about where I wanted to take my project. Over the summer, I found myself watching travel vlogs on youtube from before the lockdown. I came to the conclusion that I wanted to somehow incorporate vacation themes into my project. I settled on making a mock travel poster to advertise pacific island destinations to Americans. It did not take long to come up with a simple blueprint for the assignment. It consisted of an ocean background and several vacation destinations layered on top in an array. I sourced the background from unsplash.com, which I found extremely easy to use. The bulk of my images came from search.creativecommons.org and this was also easy to navigate and find images. The process of choosing images was simple too. Beaches and travel destinations are often picturesque and easily fit into any space. I elected to use text in my submission. I felt that it would be difficult to represent my argument without words and explanations. Additionally, I could not seem to come up with a textless solution.

Gimp was largely a new experience for me. I had worked with photoshop in the past, but it had been many years prior to this class. I found myself referring to tutorials on youtube to teach some of the basic lessons. After feeling comfortable with some of the easy techniques, I felt that Gimp was an intuitive program. Picking a font was an interesting task. I knew that I would not go with a default font. I had trouble picking a font that synergized with my argument. I feel that the font that I chose did not subtract from the piece and I settled with it. My first draft was rough and looked like this.

The revision process went well and there was room for improvement on my project. One piece of feedback recommended a tutorial. The video helped me to enhance my text and taught me about alpha layers and selections. My new text certainly pops more than my pre-revision text. Also, the knowledge I gained from the tutorial allowed me to add the bubble effect around each destination. The feedback also recommended that I work to make the piece feel less artificial. My project had no symmetry and had many large, imposing rectangles. Others recommended that I clear up my applications of the design strategies. From this advice, I rearranged my vacation destinations to better incorporate rhythm. The piece now has the destinations in ellipse shaped windows. It is meant to represent a day-dreaming effect.

I believe that my submission meets all baseline criteria. Strong contrasts exist through the yellow borders. The diagonal arrangement of the bubbles incorporates the rhythm design strategy. I feel that my message and argument are clear. My font works well because it is easy to read but is not aggressive. Finally, I’ve credited my assets, used more than 3 layers, and used several semi- intermediate tools. I worked with alpha layers, ellipse tools, and the merge down tool. I think that my submission accomplishes what I wanted it to.

[bschatz17]

I was indecisive with an idea for my visual project in the beginning. I ditched my original proposal and landed on an argument about drinking water. I am an avid water enthusiast and my project aims to influence the same for others. There is a common saying that the recommended amount of water to drink in a day is eight cups. The "8x8" rule (cups x fluid oz) comes out to a grand total of 64 oz of water in a day. However, this rule cannot possibly apply to everybody on earth. People are different shapes and sizes, therefore their bodies will require different daily dosages of H2O. This advice from Mayo Clinic suggests a more generous "15.5 cups (3.7 liters) of fluids for men" and "about 11.5 cups (2.7 liters) of fluids a day for women." In my project I set the goal mark at a gallon because no matter your size/sex/gender, a gallon will be enough for you (and then some).

My first draft contained my background, human subject, nalgenes, and some text. I decided that to visualize what a gallon a day looks like, I will stack common drinking vessels on top of each other, totaling a gallon each. Nalgene is the first on the board because it is my favorite way to drink water. I chose the refreshing meadow/mountain background because doesn't it just make you want to chug some cold water? Me too.

My next update consisted of adding different type/size water bottles and some more wording.

Here was kyle's response:

(The listed health benefits he is talking about I took out because they were corny and forced. Unfortunately I do not have a screenshot of with this text)

He led me in the right direction regarding fonts. He was right that I needed to change up the sizing, location, and fonts themselves. In reference to the readings on fonts for Lesson 13, I learned to diversify and "embrace the other." I started messing around with the sizing and picking new fonts for the "visualizing a gallon a day" text. I chose three fonts that are different in shape and texture such that they are not conflicting with one another.

kevin's response:

Kevin's response was very satisfying because he understood the message very well. He even commented on the refreshing background. He also agreed with kyle's point about my needed work on font sizing.

After digesting both kyle and kevin's responses, on my next update I decided to start by changing the font sizing and location.

I made this draft after a long while of sitting down with the image and staring. I went to bed thinking this is was the final product, but I woke up with differing opinions. Even though my peers suggested enlarging the "how much water?" text, I reverted back towards the original plan. I do not want that text to be looming, nor distracting from the body and the water bottle towers. In my next draft, I did scale the "visualizing a gallon a day" to be more prominent in the corner and match the rainbow outline of the body. The quote from Mary Kay Andrews is the most discrete text, however I believe the message of the quote is crucial and the font matches the crunchy, granola tone.

Here is the final product:

In reference to the aspirational inspirations, I made an effort to satify practically all the criteria, from meaningful commit messages to using new tools on gIMP. I have very efficient, appropriately named layers for every grouping. The canvas is simple and the message is clear (like water)!

[shreyababu]

I think I hit all the baseline criteria as required. I believe the statue takes dominance in the argument, and there is also a somewhat linear flow due to the shape and height of the statue. The fire at the bottom also creates a bit of a rhythm. I can clearly articulate my message. In short, the message is that Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a champion of women’s rights and the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court would destroy everything RBG stood for and much of the progress she fought hard to make. I think the fonts match up with the tone of my piece; a good example is the font of “Here Lies Ladies’ Liberty”-- I chose the font in order to convey a very serious, grave tone. I also wanted the stand/plaque to resemble a gravestone or make the viewer get that feeling, so I made sure the font was one that maybe could be found on a headstone. I used a significant amount of layers, so I definitely surpassed the minimum of 3. Beyond select, move, and text, I also used the draw tool and eraser tool quite a lot, as well as the rotate tool. And I’m not sure if these are “tools,” but I also used the Curves application, Colorize, Color to Alpha, and a few others. Though I drew most of my argument, I did have 3 images which came from the internet, which I credited in my credits.md.

For the aspirational, all of the tools beyond the basic 3 were new to me! I also cut down a LOT on the layers that were visible at first glance by sorting many of them into folders. All of my layers are labeled as well. I made a lot of commits as I went along my process, naming them with specifics of what I had changed/ added. I tried to match the aesthetics of all the fonts, but had the fervent wish font stand out in a more cursive format, because I want it to stand out (especially because it’s so small). I think most of my argument will be able to be understood without my explanation, but I did purposefully make my piece a bit more interpretation than others’ might have because I think political messages and implications often have a lot within them that everybody has their own valuable contributions on. But, I do understand this comes with the drawback of it possibly being confusing (especially for those that do not keep up to date with politics).

Below I have included a comment from the peer feedback that was really helpful for me. This comment suggested putting RBG’s full name on the podium, adding a background for a more finished feel, making the fervent wish book a little more visible (I made it bigger and slightly adjusted the color), making sure to add earrings, and also making sure to still have RBG’s name somewhere in the title once I finalized it. It definitely offered more insight but these are just some of the suggestions I followed through with to improve my piece! All of them again were really helpful to me, especially because I asked questions about a few of these aspects in my old read.me and this perfectly answered many of them.

Here are some screenshots to indicate the changes I made based on these suggestions! The first was from my full draft attempt, and the second is the last screenshot I took to document the process (there were a few more changes added later though).

This project was difficult for me as it required me to learn quite a lot about how to use GIMP! Even though I've used photoshop in a classroom setting, the things we did on photoshop were a lot different than what I was doing for this project. Also, I had to draw most of this by hand, and that took a lot of time and effort to do, which was my other big challenge. (For context, my laptop is touch screen but I don't have a stylus or drawing tablet so I had to use my fingers for most of it!) But regardless, I was honestly really proud of the outcome. So, I enjoyed this unit at the end! :)

[csk32]

When I read through the prompt for the first time, I instantly knew that I wanted to do something for human trafficking. It needed to take the form of a call-to-action, and I wanted to bring awareness to the epidemic. My mom started a local organization that gives aid to victims of sex trafficking, as well as informs the general public about the ongoing issue. It is something that she talks to me and my four siblings about a lot because she wants us to be aware of the severity. It can be uncomfortable to bring up such topics, but this leads to a lot of people being uneducated. Talking about human trafficking by the numbers is always shocking; if I could, I would have included many different statistics, but I needed to keep it interesting for the viewer.

I posed my audience with the question of, “what do all of these have in common?”. By doing so, they are instantly engaged and invested. In the next line, I added images of headphones, a speaker, sunglasses, a camera, sneakers, and most importantly, a person. Then, the viewer learns that they are all sold for $90 and I decided to elaborate on the statistic by writing, “the average cost of a person in the global human trafficking market is $90. The industry earns profits of ~$150 billion.” Through the use of dominance and hierarchy, I feel like I managed to get my point across and the person reading it was more inclined to do it in the right order. I was able to use different sizes and fonts throughout the design, as well as a singular pop of color. I also played with the effects of positive and negative space, for it to all come together. As mentioned in the article we read at the beginning of the unit, all of the negative space does not need to be filled and it helps viewers to focus more on the information at hand. Overall, I enjoyed getting creative with this project and I’m really happy with how it came out.

Since I struggled at the beginning with how to use Gimp, my preview only had the question, “What do all of these have in common” and then a pair of glasses.

Then, I ended up changing the background altogether and I added a lot more details, images, and text. Here are screenshots of halfway and then the final product:

I was pretty much finished at the time of the feedback, but it ended up being helpful to see what my peers had to say about it. It made me look at it from a different perspective and it all became helpful in bringing together the final product. After reading what they suggested, I ended up adding different things that I wouldn’t have otherwise done.

As you can see, she recommended that I add color to highlight the point that I am making; it would make it stand out. She also added that I should try a different font for the top. I took both pieces of her advice and tweaked even more aspects of my project. Initially, I colored in the cartoon person with red, but I felt that it stood out too much and took away from the point. As a result, I ended up making the “$90” have red behind it, and it stood out perfectly. Additionally, I changed the font at the top to be more stretched out, therefore taking up more space and making it appear more professional. I also decided to unbold the text at the bottom because I was afraid that it held more dominance over “They are sold for $90”, and I didn’t want that to be the case.

I feel as though I have met all of the baseline criteria for this project. My visual argument has a clear message of putting an end to human trafficking. As previously mentioned, I used the strategies of dominance and hierarchy as well as negative and positive space, which led the fonts to match the tone of my piece as well. It also contains more than three layers, and all of the images are properly cited in the CREDITS.md file. Lastly, I used many different tools such as erase, scale, align, paintbrush, color, blend, and crop. As far as the aspirational inspirations, I met all of those too, although they were not required.

[hjo6]

For my visual argument, I sought to create an image that conveyed the urgency behind the idea of the Doomsday Clock. As the website defines it, "The Doomsday Clock is a design that warns the public about how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making. It is a metaphor, a reminder of the perils we must address if we are to survive on the planet" (Source). To briefly summarize, the Doomsday Clock represents how close we are to destroying our world. In January 2020, it was announced that we are officially 100 Seconds to Midnight.

To represent this idea visually, I decided to take an image of the Earth and modify each of the colors to make the Earth look dry, desolate, and uninhabitable. My first task was to find an image of Earth and another image that was close to the former image, but looked desolate or destroyed. After over an hour of searching for the desolate image of Earth, I decided that it would likely be easiest if I were to create my own image of a “dry” looking Earth. So, I took the image that I found of Earth from NASA’s website, imported that into GIMP, and selected “Image” from the toolbar. Under “Image,” I hovered over mode, and selected “Indexed…” Once “Indexed…” was selected, I made it so that the maximum number of colors was 100, then I converted the image. The image below shows the image after being indexed, and on the top right of the image you can see the indexed colors:

In order to achieve a “dry” look, I took an image of dry and cracked ground, indexed that images colors into about 25 colors, and then went through all 100 colors of the indexed Earth photo and modified each individual color. The image below shows the final product, along with the modified color index in the top right corner for the image of desolate Earth:

This process took up the bulk of the work in my project, and I was lucky to have gotten it done within the first week of the assignment! I spent probably 3 hours total getting the colors just right, so that one would still be able to make out the outlines of the continents. Once all of the colors seemed to “fit,” I used a Gaussian blur filter in order to smooth out the pixels and make the image less sharp.

Now that I had my base image completed, I had to work on putting together something that resembled a clock. I went with my original idea, which was to have the clock hands pointing at ~11:58:20 PM (which is 100 seconds before midnight). Between the clock hands would be a glowing, vibrant, beautiful, blue, and green Earth, and outside of this zone would look uninhabitable. The work I’ve previously detailed was all for that uninhabitable zone. In order to get the clock hands just right, I found an image of a clock on the internet, then put that on top of the desolate Earth image. I then used the Measure Tool to calculate the angle made between the two clock hands. Then I deleted the clock layer, and added a layer that was the original image of Earth. I used the angle I found before and took a slice out of the Earth image using the Free Select Tool. After the piece was cropped, I fit it on top of the desolate Earth image. The image below shows my project up to this point:

The next step was to make the clock hands. To create the clock hands, I used the Rectangle Select Tool and selected a slim rectangle from the middle of the Earth up to the edge. I used the Bucket Fill tool to fill the rectangle with black, then I copied the rectangle, pasted it, and cut about half of its length off. I then used the Rotate tool to line it up with the line between the desolate Earth and vibrant Earth.

After adding the clock hands, I added the clock numbers. I added the clock back onto the image as a reference, then added the numbers to their approximate location on Earth. Once they were all placed, I added a black outline to them (the steps are actually surprisingly complicated, I shared a link to a tutorial on how to add a text outline to the shared class Google Doc if anyone is curious to check that out). Once the numbers and their outlines had been added, all that needed to be added was the text. Below is an image showing my progress up to this point:

The final stages of my project were spent playing around with fonts and different phrasings for the text on my image. Originally, my project had a heavy focus on climate change, so I wanted the text to represent that. My original "final" draft can be found below:

At this point, I was still unsure with how I wanted to phrase my message. I wanted to make the Doomsday Clock a relevant inspiration for my image, so I included the question about having only 100 seconds to do your part. I also thought it was a nice call to action, as the bottom text further urged the reader to act. I was going for a sort of hierarchy with the text (being bigger and longer closer to the top, shorter and to the point near the bottom), but decided based on feedback that there was a more effective way to convey my message. The feedback I received on my project can be found below:

The feedback was really helpful in that it helped me to see what part of my project I could change in order to convey my original idea in a more clear manner. From my feedback, I realized that it was not explicit why I decided to use “100 Seconds” rather than a more “pleasing” number like 30 or 60 seconds, or even 30 minutes. To me, this was a very important idea to represent as I was directly inspired by the announcement in early 2020 that we were 100 seconds to midnight. I also realized that I wasn’t giving any actual information about the cause I was trying to represent. How was I planning to get people to take action if there was no information for them to go off of? I also decided to condense the heading to make the image more minimalistic and to change its font to be more consistent with the bottom text.

I took the feedback, and first changed the font of the heading to Josefin Sans to match the bottom text. Then I started to play around with different phrasings for the text I already had. Eventually, I decided that I wanted to include a link to the website so that the reader could get informed on their own and learn about the Doomsday Clock at their own discretion. I added the link at the bottom of the image, with the text “To learn more about what you can do to help reverse the Clock, visit [link]”. I also decided to keep my “The time to act is now.” text, as all of the feedback seemed to think it was effective. I ended up changing the header text to “The Doomsday Clock is Ticking” so that the reader had an idea about why I was creating the picture, and why I made some of the design choices that I did. A final design choice I made was to make the text smaller the further down the image you go. So the header has the largest sized text, then “The time to act is now.”, and the text with the link is the smallest. Here's my repository in case anyone is curious to see the final design.

For baseline requirements, I believe I’ve already described the ways in which I’ve achieved these. I think that I use Rhythm and Movement and Dominance and Hierarchy; the text font size gets smaller the further down the image (creating a sense of rhythm and movement, and arguably dominance and hierarchy), and my main image (the Doomsday Clock as I call it) draws the viewer’s attention because of how much space it takes up in the image. My message is clear (we must all act now to do what we can to reverse the Doomsday Clock, or we may face extinction) and I feel that my font matches the tone of my image. The font gives a strong and serious tone, and mixed with the minimalistic text, definitely adds a feeling of importance or even urgency to the image. My image has a total of 19 layers if including all of the numbers/text as their own layer, or 5 layers if you count text as a single layer and don’t include the image background. Some of the tools I’ve used are the Rectangular Select, Free Select, Fuzzy Select, Color Picker, Measure, Move, Alignment, Crop, Rotate, Text, and Bucket Fill tools. As far as I know, I have also credited my assets correctly.

As for aspirational requirements, I would argue that I used the Rhythm and Movement and the Dominance and Hierarchy design strategies in complimentary ways: the text hierarchy accentuates the importance of the Doomsday Clock in the middle of the image. While the top text is heavy and does draw the reader’s eyes, their eyes stay more focused on the image of the Clock even after reading the text. From my feedback, you can see that, even before I had a finished product, my message was still clear. I’ve used GIMP before for quick photo editing, but before this project, I had never used the Fuzzy Select, Alignment, or Color Picker tools; I also had never changed the image mode to be “indexed” nor have I ever applied a Gaussian blur to an image in GIMP before. I tried to use as little text as possible in order to create a minimalist design and I think I accomplished this well. My text isn’t too wordy, unless you count the link, but if the link could be shortened, all of my text would likely fit on a single line each. I’ve also tried my hardest to organize my project on Github into 3 folders: the Final project folder, which contains the GIMP project and backup png, an assets folder that contains the assets I used and a file crediting my sources, and a previews folder which holds all the documents from earlier previews, including all of my project preview images, preview descriptions, and backup png photos of my project at those stages at each preview. Finally, I tried to use meaningful commit messages that detailed exactly what was changing in the new push and why.

[JTH74]

For my visual argument, I decided to tackle the current problems that face our nation being police brutality. My piece was made to bring attention to the Black Lives Matter movement. I have been passionate about the subject of ending police brutality way before the recent events even conspired so this project felt just right. During the summer, I was able to attend some BLM protests and took the picture that was used in my visual argument. These protests were a great way to show the United States our thoughts but at the same time, all anyone saw was just more police brutality. I hope with time this will be fixed.

My idea to be able to represent this issue visually was to take a scene of police brutality and give it a greater message. I added the mask broken in half to represent how the United States government wants people to stay complacent but underneath there's nothing but pain. This is further shown by the blood on the left side of his face. Another point I added to this project was the title, "American Warzone". This means that America is like a battleground within its own cities due to all of the terrible things happening. It all makes it seem like it's the people versus America. The next part I added is the police lights which take up a lot of the background in order to show the police's overbearing presence. Finally, I added the BLM symbol just to nail the point home and finish emphasizing.

All points are vividly present in the final project as shown above. I believe the organization perfectly suits its intention.

I originally started with just the brutality scene and black background. I then added the lights to which I used the smudge and blur tools to extend the lights and make them look more natural. Next, I added the BLM symbol and made sure the layering was correct. I made sure that the symbol was in front of the lights but behind the main focal point. I also made sure to keep the inside of the symbol holo to have the lights show through and create the wanted tone. Finally, I edited the text slightly to fill in some unpleasant parts and make it look cleaner. This was done with the pencil and eraser tool as well as the fill tool using the magnetic lasso to select the correct spots.

My comments all had similar themes which were, fix the text and everything else is pretty much good.

Each of these comments provided helpful insight to how I decided to finish up the project. They also said that I met the baseline and a lot of the extra marks as well.

In terms of baseline requirements, I believe I have filled all of them well. I displayed proficiency with the tools, I used the layers well and created a piece with great organization. I also believe I have filled a lot of the aspirational goals by using advanced tools and using a lot of advanced techniques.

[raisedDeadWizard]

Visual Argument Reflection:

My visual argument came out even better than I had originally imagined. It was a lot of work because I chose to go the route of making all media for the piece myself, but that was also part of the fun. My argument "Creativity Matters" is meant to talk about how important it is for everyone to have creative outlets/ways to express their creativity. I believe that when we are more creative, it promotes positive mental health and gives us a break from all the craziness of the world. This project was a huge difference for me because I'm not used to making huge changes after the draft phase, but for this one you will see drastic changes between the draft and final (this was mostly due to feedback).

As far as my assessment of the criteria:

Baseline:

• Guide viewers' attention using at least one design strategy among Dominance & Hierarchy (strong contrasts), Positive/Negative space, or Rhythm & Movement
  • I used Flow, an element of rhythm and movement to guide my viewers from left to right following the cloud to the computer
• Have a clear message or intervention that you can articulate
  • The message about me promoting creativity is clear in both my image and text
• If including words, choose a font that matches the style/tone of your piece
  • I included a font that seems as if it was drawn with a stoke brush, the same way I made the rest of the piece
• If not using words, clarify your message and this choice in the reflection
  • Using words
• Use at least 3 layers
  • Used 9 total layers
• Use at least 1 tool beyond select, move, and text
  • I used the live paint bucket for some color filling, as well as the drop shadow effect on text
• Credit all assets correctly, including attribution (creator names) where required
  • All assets were made by me so no credit to other authors is necessary

Aspirational:

• Use multiple design strategies in ways that compliment each other (whether to reinforce a single shared focus or to add nuance / surprise down the hierarchy)
  • I used flow to guide the viewer from left to right in my thought cloud, and Dominance and Hierarchy to highlight the different objects of varying size in contrast to the hunched figure and small but colorful rainbow pouring into the computer.
• Have a clear message/focus that others can articulate without your text (as shown in their feedback)

• Use more than 3 tools beyond select, move, and text that are new to you
  • I used drop shadow tool for text, transform for flipping the image between draft and final, recolor tool to recolor the clouds and objects, and the live paint bucket for filling
• If using multiple fonts, use fonts that pair well (refer to readings)
  • Not using multiple fonts
• Organize the canvas toward simple, minimalist design (slogan/headline, not paragraphs)
  • Slogan 'Creativity Breeds Positivity'.
• Organize your files through layer labeling, layer groups, repo structure
  • All layers are labelled, and objects are grouped together for easy re-arrangement
• Use meaningful commit messages that say what’s changing (and maybe even why)
  • Most commit messages meaningful in terms of what versions are being uploaded

Feedback I used:

How I used this feedback:

• I mainly used this to completely revamp my draft for the final, I took the idea to flip the cloud's direction and colors as well as removing the head flaps from the draft.

Work in progress:

Preview:

Draft:

Final:

Workspace Development:

Preview:

Draft:

Final:

[peekssezin]

During the time where we were considering our ideas for the visual argument assignment, I found myself getting more irritated with the current state of society. I believe that the argumentative and confrontational environments of the internet have led people to unconsciously bring these environments into the real world. Altogether, I wanted to make an argument that talks about the consequences that could come from not being mindful about using the internet, particularly with the idea of forming opinions.

Immediately, my idea was to detail a character running through a screen, detailing the character going onto the internet, and to detail the character changing, while also leaving the internet. The message with this was to symbolize how the internet could change your own way of thinking, and could potentially change how you act outside of the internet. At first, I planned to use a laptop, but I came to realize that a phone would be better, as most people have cell phones, which would make the piece more relatable. I also planned to have text that would mimic the portrait that internet "memes" use, to further add relatablity to the piece.

By the time the first draft was due, the bareboned structure of the piece was created:

The next plan was to add the character in. However, I felt that having just a single character would take away from the social aspect that the internet has that is a major component in having opinions skewed. I also removed the giant white text box, as I wanted to change the style of the text to a more relatable "meme" text style, white impact with a black outline. I had trouble considering this, as the background color I wanted was to be straight black. To go around this, I settled with changing the background to a dark gray, to allow for the text outline to be prominent.

My first major roadblock was the character stepping into the internet. I could not find any source image that detailed the exact pose that I wanted while also keeping the character style that was used for all other people. To work around this, I took a source image of a different type (step.png), removed all of the limbs and head, and morphed it into the shape I desired. I then drew the limbs back on using a large circular brush and line drawing to the shape I wanted. For the person stepping into the screen, only the body was from an outside source; everything else was drawn.

I did not add any backgrounds to keep the minimalistic style in priority.

After the workshop period, I found that many people had enjoyed the minimalistic and straight to the point approach that my visual argument assignment had. However, a common consensus was that there was a lot of dead space that could be filled.

The best way I could think of was to add backgrounds detailing a clearer divide between the internet and reality. Throught my searching however, I could not find a suitable way to create a minimalistic background. In the end, I decided to bite the bullet and stray from the minimalistic approach. I used photographs for backgrounds, and also used gradients to fade the backgrounds in and out.

I also felt that the entire canvas lacked any division, so I added dividing lines to further separate the fractions of the piece. In the end, I was left with a piece that I felt was even more concise, but managed to merge the styles of photorealism and minimalism.

Looking at the final draft of the visual argument piece, I believe it is safe to say that I had met the baseline requirements. When looking at the piece, I feel that it is strongest in the amounts of contrast in the piece, in both color and even style. Perhaps straying from the minimalistic style for the backgrounds allowed for the characters to stand out more? Likewise, I feel that many different tools were used to create this piece. The transform tool was used a lot for things like skewing the phones and creating the body layer, and the gradient tool was also used quite a bit for fading. I also feel that the message is straight to the point, and the text assists this.

I also believe that I have met aspirational goals too. The commit messages always explained what was changed, and multiple points of progress were logged in screenshots. Also, there is contrast in style between the foreground and background, and the message seems to be very clear. Lastly, there is a focus on the minimalistic style and argument, which allows for the reader to fill in the ideas presented in the piece.

Looking back at the assignment, I found myself gaining a deeper appreciation for photomanipulation through these apps such as GIMP and Photoshop. I have always wanted to get into using these apps, but I never really went through with this. This project gave me that push to finally get into GIMP, and I found myself enjoying the overall process. I even believe I could use this a lot more in the future, maybe not for my career path, but just for fun.

[KyleMaxwell1224]

For my visual argument, I wanted to create a piece that focused on the post-Civil-War statues that were erected of famous Confederate soldiers. The point that I wanted to make was that the men that we deify with these statues are not worth honoring. Remembering our history as a country is one thing, but it is a whole separate issue to create a statue, honoring men that were openly racist, traitors, and slave-owners. Our current president (President Trump) has made comments about the removal of these statues, saying it is disrespectful to our history. However, the President fails to acknowledge how these statues affect the current generation of African Americans that still have to deal with racial issues.

The first part of my project was actually the most time-consuming: research. I picked Confederate statues as my argument piece because it is a problem that I'm passionate about, but I also wanted to create a piece that was highly backed by facts. I sifted through some of the more popular Confederate statues that are still in existence today. I researched about 10 different statues (and the man behind the statue). After doing this research, I chose two guys (Jefferson Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest) that are well-known men from history. After choosing these guys, I gathered historical facts about them and wrote them as text on a blank Gimp canvas. Next, I placed images of the statues that I found online and placed them into the canvas. I divided the canvas up into three parts by creating a border with straight-lines (I found out how to do that here). I chose a red, white, and blue background since those colors are easily identified as American by American citizens.

I tried to guide the viewers' eyes by dividing the canvas into two larger squares and having a smaller rectangle at the bottom. The viewer will first look at the images of the statues, then the text. I wanted the viewer to first look at the statue of one, then the text. Then I wanted the viewer to look at the next statue and text. Finally, I knew I wanted text at the bottom of my piece that tied my piece's message together in one line.

After that, I slightly moved the images around to make a border around the image. I only received one piece of feedback for this project, but it helped me with two things.

Firstly, I wasn't very sold on the background. I wasn't very sure if red, white and blue were actually a good choice. However, Kevin's feedback showed me that the background colors were a good choice and that my message was sent out how I intended. Next, Kevin mentioned that the fonts could be matching better, and I agreed with that. To find fonts that matched better, I initially picked out a font that really stood out, which was the font I used for the bottom text. I liked how the text really popped with that font, so I kept it. Then, I played around with other fonts to try and find a font that made the text underneath the statues look good.

The image above is my current final draft of the project, and I think I met the baseline criteria. I think that I guide the viewers' eyes, as I mentioned earlier, with Dominance and Movement. The message comes across clearly; the text does a good job at explaining my viewpoint and my message (shown by "Is this a culture worth preserving?"). I drew the border in myself using the draw tool and a Gimp tutorial on drawing straight-lines. I use more than 3 layers, and all credit is given.

For aspirational criteria, I believe that I reach a lot of the criteria. I believe that I consistently use GitHub in a meaningful way (i.e, meaningful commit messages, consistent pushing to master, etc). I think my fonts pair well. Even though I use a lot of text, I don't think it is an overwhelming amount of text that makes it impossible to read. I think the font is the bare-minimum amount of text needed to get the full message across. Finally, I think my files are laid out and named in a way that made it easy to follow and find the files I was looking for.

[trinitymccool]

Going into this project, I didn't exactly know what I wanted to do for my visual argument. I wasn't sure if I wanted to make a political statement, as the current political climate is something I'm very passionate over especially right now, or if I wanted to make something more subjective, or even artistic. It took me a couple of days to think of what I wanted to make, but during a conversation with my roommate, inspiration struck. The concept of Memento Mori is a common topic we often converse about, which is what I ended up doing my visual argument on (due to talking with my roommate).

I started out by thinking what Memento Mori represents; although the direct translation from Latin means "remember you must die", the true meaning isn't nearly as morbid. The true meaning is to live your life to the fullest and to not waste a day. The common symbol for Memento Mori is a skull (despite the more lighthearted meaning), so I knew I needed to implement a skull into the visual argument. I also wanted to add Latin phrases and the translations of those phrases to make the meaning a little bit more explicit. I still felt the piece was empty, both physically and meaningfully. So I added the phrase "Live Exceptionally" to the piece to make the meaning more clear, because if someone doesn't know about Memento Mori, the skull and the phrases look extremely morbid. I started out with this:

After this initial draft I still felt like it was extremely bland and missing contrast, and honestly just super boring to l look at. I wanted to add elements to the piece that not only contrasted with the black and white colors, but contrasted with the concept of the skull as well. The first thing that came to my mind was to add flowers; they're colorful and full of life, the opposite of a skull. After adding the flowers, this is what the second draft looked like.

At this point in the project, I met all of the baseline criteria. I utilized Dominance and Hierarchy/contrasting elements, I had a message, fonts that seemingly match the style, had more than 3 layers, credited my assets, and used a multitude of tools. For the peer review, all of the reviews said basically the same thing, but this comment summed it up pretty concisely.

I followed everyone's advice and made the flowers a tad smaller, and made sure they didn't intrude on the skull too much. Other reviewers mentioned that I could probably change around some fonts or font colors, but I liked the way it turned out, so I left them as is. I chose the cursive font for Memento Mori and Unum Vita because they look elegant and sort of juxtapose what they translate to. I chose the bold font (and the gray color) of 'live exceptionally' because that is truly the message of the piece, to live exceptionally and to live it to the fullest, and I didn't make it white like the other text because I didn't want it to blend in too much.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with this project, and I loved seeing what everyone created!

[trinitymccool]

i

I accidentally added the wrong screenshot for the last draft, I apologize. Here is the correct one.

[kevdliedel]

I think that I managed to create a solid visual argument using GIMP. After thinking for a while about the possible arguments I could make, I decided to work on a hypothetical one that doesn't have to be made yet. I thought it would be interesting to make an argument for having people move to Europa as a result of running out of oxygen on Earth. I started out with just a picture of both Earth and Europa, a catch-phrase and a blurb about the situation. I used the ellipse crop to crop both of them out of their originally square photos. I set this over a picture of space from unsplash. In the second (rough preview), I got more of an idea of how I wanted to structure the rest of my argument. I drew some ugly arrows as placeholders and pasted the zoomed in photos that I wanted to use to represent the conditions on Earth and Europa. As for my final edition, I messed around with a clipart arrow that I found, used the shapes tool to crop it out and repainted it white. I also had to do a really complex crop on the spaceship that I used. As I was finishing up, I changed the main sentence color to match the surface of Europa in an attempt to make it look more cohesive. I tried to keep it relatively simple so as to not make looking at the image too overwhelming. With this in mind, I decided that the original background I was using had a little bit too much going on with the streaky stars, so I put a new space background in that was less hectic.

For some reason, I couldn't find any feedback and I got no emails from github saying that anyone commented on my project, whereas I did get emails from the soundscape. I did some digging while working on this reflection before class and found Kyle's feedback. Unfortunately, I didn't see this until after handing it in, and there may also be feedback elsewhere that I wasn't able to find. I think that I happened to make some of the changes that he recommended by cleaning up the arrows and increasing the contrast between the background and the text. However, in retrospect, I would agree with him and cut out some of the text so it's less annoying to read.

I think that I definitely met all of the baseline criteria. I guided my viewers attention with Rhythm, had a clear message, I liked my font in relation to the topic, I used many layers, used tools beyond those mentioned and credited my assets. I also think I achieved aspirational goals. I used more than the 3 tools in crops, color fills and scaling. I tried to make the design simple, but I did indeed end up using a decent amount of text. I labeled my layers to make it clear what was doing what, and used meaningful commit messages.

[jkomalley]

Visual Argument Reflection

Initially I started working on this project in GIMP as is suggested, however I quickly realized that I would be much better suited to use Photoshop since I have more experience with the Adobe suit, and I already have it since I dabble with some photography as a side hobby. Granted it has been about 4 years since I've done any sort of layout design, I was excited to dip my feet back into it.

I believe I have hit all the baseline criteria. I guide viewers using dominance and hierarchy, starting with the bold "No One Breaks the Ranks" text. I wanted to emphasize the key words of that phrase as a way to make it more visually interesting compared to the whole quote looking the same like it did in my rough draft. The message of the poster is advertising the Pitt Band as a organization that emphasizes precision and order, not allowing anyone to break our focus or the ranks of marching bandies. Also, it shows the viewer where to go to doing the band if they're interested.

For the aspirational requirements, I definitely went for a semi minimalist design. There’s only barely enough text to get the message across and nothing extra. I also removed the color of the images, leaving only three main colors on the image. I used meaningful names for the many layers of my image, as well as meaningful commit messages on most of my commits. As far as tools I haven’t used before, I’ve never messed around with making images duotone in photoshop. Its an effect I see in a lot of advertisements, especially through Pitt. Since this was for Pitt in a way, I wanted to try and recreate Pitt’s branding as much as I could. I went as far as to go to the Pitt style guide that’s on their website to get the names of the exact colors and fonts they normally use in Pitt branded material.

One thing I saw in most of my feedbacks was that most people don’t understand what no one breaks the ranks means. Which makes sense if you are completely unaware of marching band terms. While that is not necessarily the type of person this would be advertising to, since the people who would join the Pitt Band already need to have an intermediate level of marching experience, it would be useful to have an explanation. The phrase “No one breaks the ranks” is used while the band is in their parade formation. The people marching on the ends, closest to the pedestrians watching from the sides, are in charge of keeping the pedestrians from walking through the ranks of the band while we’re in formation. When someone attempts to walk through the band (usually drunkenly) the members on the end yell “no one breaks the ranks” and sticks their arm up to keep them from entering.

Final Image

Final Image Workspace

Rough Draft

Rough Draft Workspace

Learning how to make images duotone

Learning how to cut out the background of a complex object