Final Visual Argument 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 photograph of a notecard with 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!

[hannahlangmead]

For my visual argument, I chose to create a flyer/poster to encourage people to use less plastic. Specifically, I want to encourage using reusable bags at the store. I decided to go with a color palate of blue and green with black and white. These colors obviously represent earth, and also look really fresh and clean. At first, I wanted a white background to make it simple and minimalistic, but after many versions of my project (screenshot 1 and 2) I realized that adding a colored background was more effective and eye-grabbing.

I used a lot of different shades of the colors to add texture and also to mirror the earth’s multitude of colors. I found information online about how much plastic is wasted every year, and I wanted to incorporate a strong statistic in my image to persuade people even more. I increased the space between the letters to take up more space and I made the “8 million” larger to add emphasis. I decided to make “Choose to Reuse” white with a black shadow for contrast to really make it pop. The two lines of text are different fonts to add some flavor. I utilized hierarchy with the bottom text, making it bigger because that is my main message. The images of the plastic bags and the tote bag are there for aesthetic reasons and to support the message that reusable bags are better for the environment.

Going on to the arrangement of my image, I grabbed the pictures of the bags from online. I erased a logo on the tote bag and added some plants coming out of the top to have more imagery of the earth. I duplicated the plastic bag and merged them together to create the cluster of bags. I ended up filling them with white to make them stand out from the background as well. My background is a photograph of a forest and an ocean that I applied a filter to. I made the image watercolor and blurred the colors into the rest of the background to make it more dynamic. I also added my own shades of blue to blend them in and add more texture.

I met all of the baseline criteria because I used hierarchy, contrast, size, and color to create my argument. My message is clear and my font supports it. I used many layers and merged them when I wanted to move them as one. I utilized various GIMP tools like paint, erase, blur, merge, duplicate, shadow, and filters. I also met some of the aspirational criteria by using filters, overlapping images, creating my own versions of images, and communicating a very strong message.

After getting feedback from peers, the only thing I really thought would suit my project was adding some depth. I put drop shadows on my images and the bottom text to make it look like it was floating above the background. I think it was a nice final touch. Prof Miller thought my project might make more sense with an arrow instead of an equal sign. I agreed and fixed that as well.

Overall, I am really happy with my project. I am proud of myself for not settling with a simple idea and pushing it further. It took a while for me to get it just right, but by the end I felt very comfortable with the GIMP tools I was using.

[Tomasco16]

This project was super hard because I am not good at photoshop really. I did learn so much though the Gimp tutorials and had some fun doing it. I would say I definitely progressed in Gimp and look forward to showing off that I know the basics. I did accomplish the goals that I wanted to through the project and met the baseline criteria. I ma not as proud of this one as I am the soundscapes project but I’m not upset, I did the best I could and really that is all I can do. I feel I met all of the baseline criteria well. I used size and color in the words of my project to gain the attention of the viewers and in my words was a clear message to hopefully motivate others to work hard. I chose my font carefully. In my time playing with fonts I picked the one that I felt the floating logo worked the best with. Some of the others I chose the floating words were too thin to seem bubbly and floating. While others were too thick and you could barely make out the words being spelled out. For example my first attempt at the yellow words in the picture below are barely readable and do no fit with the other set of words. My picture had over three layers. The stars wee each heir own layer, each set of words was its own layer and had multiple complex layers in the creation of it, and the background was its own layer. Furthermore I used many Gimp tools that I did not even know existed before this. I used tools such as colorize on the stars, and Gaussian Blur on the floating logos. I rendered clouds and used the bump map to create the words as well as other tools to assist the clarity. In my notecards I was able to take feedback and make my yellow words clearer as well as clear the message up for my viewers. One of the aspirational goals I wanted to meet that I did not was putting the layers in folders. I tried to look for the option and drag the layers on top of each other but it just switched the order of them. Overall I wish my picture was more visually pleasing, I feel like a lot of the other peoples pictures I saw were much better than mine. I’m prideful so that hurt a little bit but that is ok because I did my best and got better at something I had absolutely no idea how to use. Others probably had more experience than I did and I cannot help that, I can only hope to get better in the future. In conclusion this was a great project to learn through and was an experience different from any other class I have been a part of. I will take this experience with me into the professional word through my future career.

[angelinepeng]

This project was something that I really wanted to use to draw out an important issue to me -- Asian American and Pacific Islander advocacy.

Asian Americans are labeled as a 'model minority', but this myth excludes and perpetuates a narrative that cannot be true for ALL Asian Americans. As a result of this stereotype, an unrealistic and enormous amount of pressure, burden, and expectations have been set for a group of diverse people, and mental health issues have been on the rise in recent years due to individuals feeling as if they don't fit into the limitations set forth by these standards.

My visual argument calls for us to #remodelminority -- to re-evaluate the broad and generic stereotype we are placing on such a large group of people. When this assignment was first given, I knew I wanted it to be a simple piece. In my opinion, the most simple things create the loudest statements.

I used an image of my friend that I took (for a completely different purpose, but I think her serious expression is perfect for this piece). I used the Gimp 'Cartoon' Filter so make it look more like a drawing and then on top of it used the Gimp Brush tool over it to make it look even more painted, with a slight watercolor effect. I centered the image and then made the background color yellow.

Yellow is a very symbolic color for the Asian American community. It is the color of our skin [East Asian] -- something that has been used to taunt and exclude us in the past. However, it is something that we can be proud of having survived and fought through years of discrimination in American history after helping build much of America [Trans-continental Railroad, Chinese Exclusion Act]. The color yellow represents hope. I used a light shade to lighten the mood and literally brighten the image.

Finally, I added a cracked image layer and blended the layer in using the Multiply effect. I wanted to create the illusion of the girl breaking out of her shell, breaking the myth and the pressures placed onto her by society.

Feedback from my peers really warmed my heart. It was amazing how supportive they were for this cause. A couple of my peers didn't really understand what the Model Minority Myth was, so I included a sentence to hopefully give it a little bit more context. However, I think

1. it was important that my visual argument remains simple to match the vision that I had for it.
   2. having less information will prompt curiosity from viewers to research about this topic more on their own.

I believe that I have met all baseline criteria and most aspirational criteria. I used a filter -- surprisingly the cartoon filter, which I never thought I would really have the purpose to use in my life ever! I did my best to make the layers layer seamlessly on top of each other, organizing layers by folders, incorporating juxtaposition between the darker, cracked face against the bright yellow background.

[katmiller10]

I found this project to be more challenging than the soundscape narrative. I had no prior experience with any kind of imaging software like Gimp or Photoshop before creating my visual argument. In order to complete my project I spent a lot of time watching online tutorials, and I ended up learning most of the basic tools that Gimp offers. Overall, I’m proud of what I made, and I feel confident in my ability to use Gimp again in the future.

I started off my project by brainstorming some possible ideas. We started this unit right after the 2020 Oscars aired in early February. I really like watching movies, and my roommate is a film major so I thought it would be interesting to do something relating to the film industry. I decided to create a visual argument that would aim to show the underrepresentation of female movie makers at the Oscars this year.

I began compiling the names of talented women directors and their movies that were overlooked by the academy. I also found the image of a female version of the Oscars award that I knew I definitely wanted to use. Drawing from inspiration of the movie poster I found from Ocean’s 8, I decided to create a visual argument that followed a pattern and that was fairly symmetrical. I put the directors in rows of three and created the header text that urged people not to overlook the many female directors that make award-winning-deserving movies. From the beginning I knew that I wanted to be strategic in what colors I chose to use for my project. For the rough draft I decided to go with a red velvet carpet color background and gold lettering. I matched the font to the official font that was used on the Oscars website as well.

After the peer review, I got a lot of really kind feedback. Emma and Kevin both recommended that I add some depth to my project by making my awards translucent or adding a border. I took their advice and began adding the actual movie posters for each director, and I played around with opacity and masked layers. I placed the golden Oscar award overtop each of the translucent posters because I still really wanted to keep that aspect of my project. I also thought that the dark red background was too aggressive so I slightly changed my color palette to one that matched more of the professionalism of the Oscars that was purely neutrals of white and gold. I added a dark red header where I had my text and the Oscars logo so that my poster would have even more depth to it.

I think I met all of the baseline criteria and some of the aspirational inspirations. As I have stated before, this was my first-time using Gimp and I think I have demonstrated that I have learned many of the different tools that the site has to offer. I used the bucket fill, masks, and the fuzzy tool. I played around with the opacity levels of each poster, and overlapped multiple layers using the stack feature as well. I learned how to lock and link certain layers together so that I could move more than one thing at a time. I have over twenty different layers in my project and I made sure to rename each of them so I could stay organized when formatting. I also think that people are able to understand my intention given the feedback I received during the peer review. Overall, I thought that this was a challenging project, but I learned a lot, and I’m really happy with what I created!

[jerols4]

When I was planning on making this project, I wanted to make something that would get people involved in politics. I was tired of hearing from friends and family members that were in a good enough place that "politics just don't affect me" or "why should I care" or "my vote doesn't matter." I found it a bit ironic and paradoxical considering that their vote doesn't matter only because they aren't using it, and politics don't affect them since politics allowed them to get to a place in society where they can feel unaffected. So to convey this message in a poster form, I decided to make my project portray the juxtaposition between people who think like this live's and people whose lives are largely dependent on political decisions.

I thought the best way to do this is to capture the viewer's attention from the top, then work their way down. I started off with a picture of a person relaxing in a hammock to provide a sense of ease. This is followed with the quote "politics don't affect me..." I know that a viewer seeing this picture with this phrase, if they are coming from that perspective, they will know it and be placed literally in the shoes of that person. I then contrast that beautiful, relaxed, colorful photo with a grimy, gritty black and white photo of a homeless person sleeping in the streets. I felt that, in order to transfer the viewer from their perspective into this affected person's perspective, keeping the legs-down angle would make that transition seamless. I end the poster with a call to action, telling the viewer that, although they may not be affected by politics, their inaction is in and of itself actually an action that keeps people in unfortunate circumstances. To solve this problem, I plead for the viewer to get informed on politics and vote, so that the homeless person on the bottom may one day see it from the calm life of the person above.

I learned a lot about GIMP and design throughout this project. I started out with what I knew from previous high school classes: I spent a while cutting out the legs of the person on the hammock, then adding effects to the photo so that it looked more akin to a silhouette. My first draft lacked any kind of design choices to grab viewer attention and put the images into the right tone. Everything was boring and gray scale, and there was nothing that really portrayed that this was a serious matter and deserved to be looked into. I used the default text without any effects, and I think that took away from the message. Hailey's advice: Helped me out a lot to figure out where to go from there. I decided that I should emphasize more of a contrast between the two pictures, so I restored the hammock picture to full color with the beautiful background. I learned how to install and use new fonts, and spent a good long while trying to find fonts that would fit the tone. Then, I added a text effect to my call to action to make it super emphatic and important to read. Hannah also helped with this part: suggesting that I add quotes to the first line of text to represent the viewer's dialogue, and to add a specific action instead of simply saying "do something."

Some other things I did was mess around with different background possibilities. In the final preview: you can see that I previously had a gradient background that I spent some time making. I mentioned this in my progress report, but I felt that this background looked like an old school web page, and the background should look more modern. I instead opted for a red and blue line at the top and bottom of the poster to subtly show that the poster was in some way going to involve the US/politics. I also learned how to use grouping and folder grouping for layers, as well as how to use selection paths to cut out objects like the people's feet in order to apply filters to them.

To utilize the keywords we used in class, I would say the biggest factors in my image would be the scale, value/color, and flow. The image is meant to be minimalist in density, this way I can have largely scaled images and text. The largely-scaled images are used to grab the viewer's attention, and the call to action's text is also scaled up to emphasize the importance of it. The value/color are used to draw the contrast between the beautiful, serene top photo and the gritty bottom photo. Finally, the flow is important to guide the viewer to see the poster starting at the top and working their way down.

In terms of the grading criteria, I met baseline by:

• Using the arrangement of the pictures to make the viewer read from the top-down, as well as contrasted the text and colors of the photos to emphasize the tone and focus of the poster
• Having a clear message in my call to action to get informed and vote.
• Including a few lines of text with custom fonts that I felt fit the tone of the poster
• Using an American flag style color palette
• Having 10 separate layers
• Using many other tools such as scale, align, paths, gradient, and crop

And I met aspirational by:

• Using gradients, Gaussian blur, hue-saturation, brightness-contrast, and long shadow effects
• Incorporating surprising juxtaposition between colorful, relaxed hammock photo and gritty, dark, unsaturated homeless photo
• Using folders to group layers
• Practicing GIMP tools as listed above that were new to me
• Using keywords toward a visual rhetoric to analyze my design
• Demonstrating viewers understood my intention through the images provided of the index cards

[emmawooten12]

My main goal of this piece is to recruit new members to join the student organization Pitt Tonight. Pitt Tonight is a late-night-style talk show that has episodes hosted once a month that include comedy, interviews with guests, and musical performances. My original idea was to do “A Day in the Life,” but it turned out much differently. I struggled greatly with using Gimp and could not execute my project exactly the way I wanted to. After countless attempts, working with the professor, and watching an absurd number of tutorials on YouTube, I barely got the hang of the editing software. As seen in the screenshot below, this is how the project started

I had the idea to insert pictures into the clouds, and that was going to be much more difficult than I had originally thought. This is what I ended up submitting for the draft:

I was not super proud of what I was putting forth, but until I could figure out what I could do about layering the pictures and the cloud outlines correctly, this was all I could come up with. I was surprised to see that my classmates liked what they saw, and they definitely had some helpful feedback. Here are the three notecards: Specifically, I would like to highlight the fact that one of the pieces of advice suggested a change in scale of the text. She said that the “Pitt Tonight” focus was not very prominent, which is important to highlight considering that is the main focus of the piece (as seen on the last notecard as well). That notecard also suggested layer groups for each layer group. Furthermore, the next notecard touched on the individual pictures, asking for them to be brighter since they are small and hard to see. I took all of these into consideration when doing my final edit. I knew I had to fix the images, but I did not think of the text changes or layer groups. I had extreme trouble with the layers, layer masks, and being able to select only part of the image to delete. This was my attempt to fix the piece, but also where I came to a stopping point at the end of class on Thursday.

Finally, once I was able to use the background erase tool, scale the images properly within the clouds, and change the layout, I could mess with the text a little as well. Here is the final outcome:

As for baseline criteria, I do think I hit all aspects pretty well.

• I used arrangement, size, and visual rhythm to focus viewers' attention.
• Have a clear message recruiting people to join the organization.
• The font is carefully chosen as well. Bebas Neue Bold is used by the student organization, so it only made sense to stay consistent with normal Pitt Tonight advertisements and flyers.
• The color palette is also purposeful. I used images that are full of color (especially the background), so I chose the text to be white so the piece would not be nearly as dense.
• I 100% used more than 3 layers.
• I used layer masks and the background erase tool a lot, as well as messing with the opacity for the background.

A few aspirational criteria were met as well.

• I used overlapping pictures and sizing to showcase depth (the pictures inside the clouds).
• I figured out how to use folders to group layers.
• I tried to use layer masks for advanced combining of layers.
• I attempted to create the illusion of seamlessness amongst the flyer.
• I used the words ‘scale’ and ‘density’ to analyze this project.
• In the notecards for feedback, you can see that viewers understand the intention of the piece, which is recruiting people to sign up for Pitt Tonight.

[JakeBaumbaugh]

So, this time around, I definitely enjoyed the visual project more than the soundscape. I've used Photoshop plenty of times in the past, while I had never used Audacity or any other sound mixing programs before (I think I tried FL Studios for 15 minutes once?), so I felt much more at home here. Furthermore, this topic interested me much more than last time, using my Marvel-movie-nerd-ness to choose my argument. Also, writing code was a big plus. Anywhere I get to use code where I didn't have to is a fun time for me.

So, I wrote my code, fixed my code, generated my collage of Avengers, and added some text. I felt that I hit the baseline criteria quite well by this point, with some bonus points in the aspirational goals.

It came time to workshop, and I was eager to hear what feedback I might get to improve upon it. One notecard came from Kat:

To summarize, she got the message but felt the collage was a bit bland and repetitive, so she suggested adding more characters and allowing them to be a bit bigger. Finding icons for the characters was difficult, but I did manage to add Nebula and Groot, which were great additions to break up a lot of the red that was appearing around the collage. Furthermore, I played with the maximum scaling and the code and found that letting them get a bit bigger definitely improved how it looked. The suggestions turned out to be a great help in pushing the image closer to a finished product.

Finally, my collage looked like this, prepared to be turned in:

I feel strongly that I did well at completing all of the necessary criteria, as well as checking off a few of the aspirational criteria, a couple of which I think I did really well. But first, the baseline criteria:

• With the arrangement and pure density of the collage, the attention is initially drawn to the award statue in the negative space and the text.
• The message of Marvel movies needing more recognition at the Academy Awards is clear, demonstrated to me by Kat's notecard. I will admit that another notecard I received was unclear of the intention, though I don't see this as an issue, personally. The crowd of moviegoers that pay enough attention to the cinema scene to be familiar with the Academy Awards and know what goes on with them is relatively niche, and the message of the argument does not necessarily apply to them. The collage is designed to convince those who are familiar with cinema and awards shows that Marvel deserves better recognition, specifically with Avengers: Endgame.
• Using one bold word, I chose to use a Sans Serif font as a plain text indicative of a title. It's not intended to be stylized in any fancy or weird way, just a simple straightforward message.
• I handpicked each color in the color palette, as all of the icons came transparent with only black outlines. I made sure to use only one shade of a color for all of the icons to create a sense of completeness in the image, as if it were intended to be put together (because in this case, it was).
• I uh.... definitely used more than 3 layers. About 4000, really. The layers used for the current screenshot are stored in savedata.txt, and I kept other copies of savedata on hand to easily refer back to older collages if necessary. They didn't take up much space in storage, so I didn't really find it to be an issue.
• Aside from using the brush tool to edit Iron Man's mask and give Strange his white hair strips, I used the Levels tool under the "Colors" tab to efficiently blend the text into the background. I selected the text area on the invisible text layer, then switched to the collage layer to change the color Output Levels to make the effect of the transparency of the text. I tried a bunch of other tools and filters to do this, but I liked the way the text looked best with this method, which was complemented by the shown notecard.

And for the aspirational goals:

• The Levels tool I used to make the text fade into the collage is an automated effect built into GIMP.
• Having never used GIMP, just about all of these tools were new to me. I took a Photoshop class in high school, though the tools used in GIMP for this project are definitely unrelated to anything we did there.
• I did modify the images from the Noun Project to make the collage, so while they aren't totally from scratch, I did edit them in GIMP to make them usable for this project.
• As per the notecard, viewers (with relevant interests, see above note on non-applicable viewers) did clearly understand the intention of the visual argument.
• While trivial by now, I did use git and Github with relevant commit messages tracking my progress along the way.
• While not specifically stated, I would say that I went above and beyond in writing code to very effectively use the negative space of the collage to represent yet another image that combined with the collage to convey the message. Without this negative space, the collage would be essentially meaningless, aside from the pretty colors.

All in all, I really enjoyed this project, and I'm very happy with the way my visual argument turned out. I may post it on Reddit. Then, I'll get neverending feedback, whether constructive or not.

[haileytrampel]

Looking back on my project, I have found myself surprised by how it turned out. I had many different ideas and conceptualizations of how I would accomplish what I envisioned, yet it turned out to be a bit of a mashup of all of those combined. I chose to represent in this project the stories my father has told me from his childhood—a rough one, to say the least. After I started, I decided I wanted to contrast this childhood against the life he lives now and the wisdom these changes have given him.

One of the first things I did once deciding to contrast the two was create the setting. This was one of the most vital pieces to the image I wanted to create. I started out spending about an hour trying to understand the gradient tool so that I could create a fading from darkness to sky-blue, using value to help create a flow from bottom of image to top. Once I did this, I simply added the Bronx-scape I envisioned (a New York City skyline and the Jerome Avenue street sign). I soon after created my own visual asset for the project: a pole for the street sign. It took a lot of layer cropping, color fill, gradient, and more. I decided I wanted the left side of the image to be busier, with more relatively negative space on the right side. This was done with the purpose of drawing attention to the young side before the old side, as the viewer is supposed to see growth from left to right. As I went, I committed to GitHub really frequently. I found it helpful being able to keep track of the changes I made and seeing if I liked them later on or not. It also helped me stay organized, in addition to keeping layers in folders and naming them meaningful names as I went (especially helpful since I ended the project with 21 layers!). I also selected the colors blue and black for the background elements to contrast the bright yellow and white I would be adding on the adulthood side. These dark colors would contrast the bright, happy colors to help provide the difference in feelings I wanted to portray. After the background was created, a lot of the work I had to do was taking the assets I found and editing them in the way I needed. I had to crop the photos of people down to just their silhouettes and then fill them with black. Then, I had to use drop shadow filters around both figures to give them a “glow”, in order to make them seem more in the foreground, using proximity to draw the viewer’s attention to the figures first. This was probably one of the steps that took longest. I was really proud of the fact I was able to take a photograph and turn it into the digital rendering I desired, the transformation as pictured below. After that, I added the silhouettes of his mother to the left and his mother, fathers and brother to the right. This required some use of the fill tool, opacity, and perspective, but the most challenging was the airbrush tool. I wanted to buff the lines at the bottoms of the silhouettes to create a softer transition (create some seamlessness!) by spray painting the color of the background over the bottom line. Then, I added images of clouds to the sky, making them more opaque so they did not steal attention away from the key elements (they were white, and the contrast of that against background already made them stand out enough!). Next was probably one of the most exciting parts of my project. I spent about an hour testing different ‘sunbeam’ effects through tutorials I found online until I found the perfect one (which actually ended up being the combination of a few). First, I created an alpha layer mask over my background. On the lower background layer (non-alpha), I used the Supernova effect with yellow tint to create sunbeams coming out of the clouds beneath the family. Then—to make this brightness only on the adult side—I selected and deleted that half of the alpha mask so that the bottom layer with the sunbeams was showing on only that side. Honestly, I was surprised at how accurate it turned out to how I pictured it and was just really happy that my effort payed off (before and after with sunbeams is shown below!). Finally, I added the text. I chose the quote “Grow through what you go through”, with emphases on grow, because it is a saying that I feel is so accurate to my father’s life. As a young teen, he lost his mother and his father soon fell into alcoholism. He and his older brother became stand-in parents for their three sisters and, growing up in the Bronx, were forced to grow up way too soon. In spite of how terrifying and sad his childhood could be, he found the brightness in his life. The challenges he went through made him grow into the inspiring and positive man he is today. This image is meant to inspire people to grow past the hard times in their lives and see the light in their life. When my mom and sister came to visit this past weekend I showed them my project and, unsurprisingly, my mother started to cry. She talked about how hard my dad works so that we do not have to have a life like his, and mentioned how inspiring it is to see how he has grown. As her and my family are my target audience, this was a really great feeling knowing it gave the impression I wanted. I knew that a challenge for this project would be people who did not know my father not understanding the deeper meaning of my image, but I reminded myself that a lot of artistic pieces are open to interpretation or have a description with them to help the viewer understand. When we got our peer criticism, much of it was on that and truly I did not see any need to change my entire project to make them understand—I would much rather provide a “backstory” of sorts, so I quickly added a bit of a storyline to my ReadMe! I did however take into account the confusion about the “people in the sky”, and decided to add halos to represent that they were loved ones who passed away. I actually really loved this change and I think it added to the piece as a whole, so I am really glad to have gotten that criticism!

[lumiio]

I came into this unit a lot more excited than the last one considering I had a decent amount of experience with Photoshop from doing digital art in the past. Because of that experience, I also wanted to include some sort of drawing in my piece. The idea to do an Intsagram vs reality piece came from mostly the thought that I wanted to do something with image editing (I knew some basics but wasn't particularly practiced in it) but also wanted to include some original content of my own.

Originally, I had only planned to have one fruit - the banana. I figured it would be relatively easy to edit the banana - just airbrush the dark spots out. But as I was sketching it out in class, I felt like just one banana would be too bare and simple for a whole collage assignment. After thinking about it for a bit, I ended up decided on including a strawberry and an apple. I think for the most part I knew what sorta of motifs I wanted to portray with the strawberry and the banana, but I think I struggled a bit with the apple. Even up to the end, I wasn't entirely happy with the end result, but I also don't really have any other ideas in terms of what to do.

One of the most fun parts of the project to getting to use the clone stamp tool, which I used to touch up the yellow patches on the strawberry as well as the indented chin. This was something I had never done before and I felt like it turned out surprisingly well for having never done anything like it before. At first I was really scared because when you zoom in close enough it's very hard to tell what exactly you're seeing and so I thought the pattern was going to turn out looking weird, but after zooming back out it ended up working out really well. I think you can still see a little bit of inconsistency if you zoom in, but it looks fine for the most part.

When I was working on revisions after the draft, I did briefly consider making the apple a guy as one of my cards suggested, but one of the problems was how to pull it off. I was thinking initially to form abs on the apple, but multiple iterations later I still felt like the abs looked weird and not all that attractive so I ended up scrapping it.

I feel like my final product does meet all the baseline criteria. By placing the two images side by side and then varying the background behind the text, I use contract to grab the viewer's attention. The message is pretty clear - I'm making a statement about current instagram trends. For my fonts, I decided to go with the most standard boring font you can get with "reality" which in the end ended up being Times New Roman just because it's so common and seen everywhere, just like reality is all around us. I wanted the "fruits edition" text to be fun and blocky, as this image was to be for good fun. Since "vs" isn't the center point of the image, I went with a clean font with no flourishes as to not attract too much attention to it. I chose a relatively simple color palette to really bring out the contrast between the edited image vs the real one. I definitely had more then 3 layers, and used the stamp tool (as mentioned earlier).

In terms of aspirations, I used folders to group all my layers together by fruit. I also tried new tools. In Photoshop, I tried using the High Pass filter and then overlay trick to sharpen the image. I also got a good amount of use out of the liquefy tool. To keep my edges crisp in my drawings, I'd often lock the the transparency of the layer.

[Dilan1020]

Idea

When I began this project I wanted to do something similar that I did with my soundscape. Specifically, something about the use of cell phones and social media. It has always been something of my concern and I thought it would play much better in a visual project, rather than a soundscape especially since it will give me a specific argument for my visual project.

First Draft

I had started with a simple gradient background with a few free-to-use online assets. At this point I definitely did not have my full vision in mind yet. Thankfully, it was at this point we were doing peer review. It was clear that I wanted to do something along the lines of 'cell phones usage is unhealthy for many people', but it took ideas from my peers to conceptualize my final goal.

Two people suggested the use of text in order to make my message clearer and this was something that I would go on to implement. Along with that one peer mentioned the use of 3D space. I found this interesting and would go on to implement 'elevation' to many assets in my final project.

Elevation

I was really intrigued by the idea of 'elevation'. So I started adding some borders and padding to these assets to give a sticker effect to my assets. I got this idea from both my peers and my visual example post that I did a couple weeks ago on GitHub. If you look back, my final project clearly used some of the 'elevation' effects from that example. Above is a specific example of this property. In the final solution (seen above) this border elevation effect plays a significant role in the visual aspect of my project.

Assessment

I certainly believe that I met the baseline criteria. My project uses elevation and arrangement to draw attention to the 4 main components. The text uses a hand picked font that I found serious and informative. I purposefully chose the blue/white background gradient to allow the higher elements to pop out at the viewer. I achieved this using the gradient tool and setting the shape to 'spatial'. There are at least 10 layers in the project.

Regarding aspiration criteria, my project utilized the 'select' -> 'grow' and 'select' -> 'shrink' tools throughout the project. I also used layer groups to pin some of the aspects together. I also used multiple fonts to and implemented a bit.ly link as you suggested earlier in the class. I also used line stroke with custom dash settings to show the attention of the silhouette to the cell phone clip art. Finally, my project is organized and documented with descriptive commit messages.

[MDLudwig]

For my visual argument, I decided to do a commentary on how people get sucked into their phones, and how their lives are in a way controlled by it. I knew almost immediately that I wanted to personify a phone in some evil way. The first step I needed to take was finding an image of someone looking at their phone where they were positioned in such a way that I could make something come out of the phone. Originally, I wanted to have the phone controlling the person like a marionette. Eventually I decided to just attach "wires" to the person because finding a marionette controller that I could use for free was proving to be too difficult. Once I had my idea finalized, I got to work on the shadowy figure that comes out of the phone. Just like the marionette controller, finding a shadow figure image for free wasn't going well. I decided to make my own. By combining a silhouette of a hand and a couple of blacked out cartoon snakes, I was able to make my own scary, shadowy figure. To create a focal point in my image, I decided that I wanted to have the phone illuminating the man's face while the rest of the image would be dark with the shadow lurking in the background. That's all that I had before the first preview, and it looked like this.

I wasn't super satisfied with this. It was a good start but it definitely didn't live up to the idea that I had in my head. My next step was making the illumination look better. To do this, I just drew a faint, light blue region around the mans head that I think looks pretty realistic. Much better than the triangle cut out that I had before. The next aspect that I moved on to was the puppet wires that I wanted to attach from the hand to the man. Just like nearly everything else that I tried to find, I couldn't find a free image for the wires, which lead me to try and draw my own. This also didn't go well, so I decided to use chains instead, which turned out really well. The chain image was originally straight so I needed to bend them to keep them from overlapping and also keep them out of the light. I attached them to the man, drawing in a little blood for the one attached to his arm. Around this point, I decided to shape the shadow a little differently, so I replaced one of my snake images with another from the same source. The most annoying part of this whole project was making a shadow effect that worked well. I eventually used a paintbrush tool that created the shadowy gradient that I was looking for. The last part was adding a message to have my argument be more explicit. This lead me up to the full draft review. This is what I had at that point.

Judging from the note cards, I think my argument came across well. The main points of revision in these note cards were about the text. Olivia suggested that I replace the words "Don't be blind" with something else. She also suggested using "Don't become trapped" in its place, which I thought was way better than I originally had. Here are the notecards.

I eventually shortened "become" to "be" and had this as my final draft.

I definitely think I meet all of the baseline criteria. To focus the viewers attention, I used contrasting colors to focus different parts of the image. I had way more than three layers. I used the blur tool to make the shadow figure look better. My message was clear based on the notecards. The font I chose worked well with the tone of the image. I also think that I met quite a few aspirational goals. The cage transform tool that I used to bend the chains was pretty complicated but turned out really nice. I used a folder to group together the many layers of the shadow figure. I overlapped the man and the shadow at different points to create a sense of depth. I created my own visual assets, this being the shadow figure that I made. I also think that everything that I made comes together in a seamless way. Overall, I enjoyed this unit. Maybe not as much as the audio unit, but I think that's only because GIMP can be frustrating at times.

[ktdemay]

Coming into this unit, I had basically no previous experience in any photo editing. It was definitely a learning experience trying to use all the tools to accomplish my final piece. My photo editing skills have improved a lot during this project and now I feel somewhat comfortable using GIMP. I say somewhat because I still get stuck in places every once in a while.

My idea for this project stems from my diehard love for Philadelphia sports. I was trying to think of other ideas but the idea of a Philly sports poster kept sticking in my mind so I decided to roll with it. I wanted to show people that Philadelphia is going to be the new sports capital of the world. Obviously over the past decade that title has been held by Boston, and I think now's a better time than ever for Philly to start its reign. The Phillies, Sixers, and Flyers all have a talented, young core group of players and the potential is through the roof. The Eagles have already won a Super Bowl in the past couple years and look poised to dominate the NFC East for years to come.

To convey this idea, I wanted to have a strong, to the point message and pick a player from each team that I feel best conveys the future. I wanted the viewers eyes to make their way from the message down to the players, who are the main focal point of the piece. I decided to go with the phrase "The Future is Here" but had the "HERE" all as separate layers for future additions. I also added the first of the four players and began to crop him out of the background.

From there I added the rest of the players and created the layout that I would use for the rest of the project.

The screenshot above was my rough draft that I received input on from the notecards.

The feedback I got on the peer review was very helpful in shaping the rest of my project. I cropped the rest of the players and made them all a consistent size so it looks more put together. I also organized everything into folders to make it easier for me and any others viewing my project. I also made the background of the letters in 'HERE' be the logos of the corresponding team of the player below each letter. I also added a border to each letter based on the team's main color to make it stand out from the background even more. I wanted 'FUTURE' to stand out from the rest of the top line of text so I reduced the opacity of the other letters.

I was pretty satisfied with what I had accomplished but I felt it still looked unfinished. To bring the piece together I added a gradient in each corner to add some pizazz and guide the eye towards the center components. I also added a drop shadow on 'FUTURE' and 'HERE' to make them stand out. These small changes really brought the piece together and made it feel like a finished product I was really happy about.

For baseline:

• I arranged the piece in a way that would have the viewer's eye move from the text at the top to the players at the bottom. The desaturated background served as a good tool to make the vibrant colors pop.
• Very clear message - Philly is here
• I chose my font based on a simplistic, clean font to not distract from the main focal points.
• I used more than 3 layers
• I used the fuzzy select and lasso a bunch to cut out the players

For aspirational:

• I used gradients to bring in the corners of the piece to force the viewer's attention inward.
• I used overlapping to create a sense of distance, specifically with the players being in front of the word 'HERE'
• I used folders to group pretty much every layer, including folders within folders
• The word 'HERE' was created with layer masks on the logos to add a cool element and make the word pop even more
• Like I said, GIMP was entirely new to me so every tool was new. Along with the previously mentioned, I used drop shadows on 'FUTURE' and 'HERE' and color editing to blend the players better.
• As mentioned in the previous drawing I edited the colors to make the players fit seamlessly into the picture
• I didn't create any of my own visual assets, but I did color over the bottom of the 76ers logo in the 'H' to make it fit better.
• Any viewer who has a knowledge of sports will understand my intention with the piece
• All my commit messages are useful and helpful in going back in time

[sydneymasterson]

VA_Reflection.docx

[Bmb154]

For a project that was supposed to be inspiring and thought provoking, I feel that I fell beyond short. A flurry of real life issues that lead to two days of absence (one of which was a feedback day), multiple technical setbacks, and a massive lack of inspiration brought forth what I would consider a total bust.

The ideas and core concept barely held on into the final piece, leaving it feel overwhelming. Originally I had worked with the "Pillars of Creation '' from NASA, as the depth of the image was great and provided the feel of a 3d space. Unfortunately, it also made the editing process a nightmare. Combined with the halo effect behind the nebula, the lens flare/star streaks… ugh, it became ridiculous. I even started from scratch multiple times, thinking I just needed that fresh start to get things right, which only lead to frustration and lost time

Soon I started to realize that with how I had to format the project in order to fit text, I would have to scale the hand I had made down to a point where all the work I was doing wasn't going to translate well, as it looks far less spectacular st 1/10th the size. It also was far too distracting on the backdrop I was giving it, standing out in a way that didn't sit right with me, so I scrapped it in its entirety.

Afterwards I started thinking of other famous pieces to base the components on, and thought of a cool way to possibly include the "Pale Blue Dot '' discussed by Carl Sagan, and went to work.

The result was quick and seems lackluster, but now I felt I had progressed. A quick snip of a new galaxy backdrop, adding some white to offset the darkness of the canvas, and some cutout text quickly gave me that final push into "maybe it doesn't look so bad"

In the end, I only managed minor tweaks after that, trying to make the text line containing the word "nothing" recess a bit into the paper, and making the text lines above "pop". I still am not a fan of text on graphical works, even as I experimented with using the stars to write letters (which did not make it to the final rendition)

So I feel disheartened. This wasn't a project I thought I would find so hard to work on, but it just never seemed to really motivate me.

Sure I used layers and contrast, patterns and empty space, but the project just feels soulless. Maybe I just care less about meeting the requirements, and more about having a piece I would be happy to put on my wall, maybe I just have been milking a few negative experiences with a complex project and letting it ruin the whole thing for me.

I did, however, like that the pale blue dot wound up as the dot in the I, representing both the "everything" and "nothing" , as it seems so small and alone compared to the stars, but it's everything to all of us, even if it may not seem like it from that distance. So at least that came through for me.

UPDATED R- I REALIZED I ACCIDENTALLY POSTED THE FILES TO HERE A BIT TOO LATE https://github.com/Bmb154/soundscape2020spring/tree/master/Photoshop%20Project%20SPRING%202020

[anngx]

I learned a lot from working on this project; I used new tools and implemented a variety of new techniques in order to get across my intended message. At the beginning of the project, I had only a vague idea of the kind of visual rhetoric piece that I wanted to create. After some preliminary thought, I knew that I wanted to create a poster that sent an environmental message. I went on pinterest and typed in something along the lines of “environmental poster design”. From those search results, I found myself drawn to visual pieces that advocated for the conservation of oceans; I enjoyed the cool, calming colors of the water. Although at first I wanted to create a more illustrative poster with hand-drawn fish and vegetation, I eventually figured that this project would be a good time to try and better my photoshop skills. I searched around for free and ethically-sourced, and I eventually found some photographs on Unsplash and Pixabay.

I thought a little bit about the particular message that I wanted to include in my visual rhetoric, and I eventually landed on including a message about ocean plastic pollution. I chose a picture of a plastic bag because I liked its transparency and figured that working with something transparent would force me to learn new photo-editing skills. In addition, I wanted to create a design that played off of the original design of a well-known plastic grocery bag, whose design repeats the words “THANK YOU”.

I believe that I effectively used arrangement, size, color, visual rhythm, and contrast to focus viewers' attention. The plastic bag that I incorporated into my design is placed in the center of the ocean background, toward the bottom of the page in order to add some visual weight and offset the light values toward the top. Altogether, the words that included are arranged in a harmonious, balanced manner. Varying textual colors guides viewers’ eyes through the design. I edited the font and color of the textual information so that certain information stands out and/or is grouped together; a triadic color scheme is implemented to add contrast to certain pieces of text. The opacity is also adjusted so that the entire poster, as a visual piece, is more chromatically harmonized. In the process of arranging my text, I realized that I could follow the composition of the Golden Triangle in order to further activate my visual elements, guide the readers’ eyes, and make my poster even more dynamic. I have more than one word in my visual rhetoric piece, and those words have been carefully chosen.

I forgot to take pictures of the evaluation flashcards that I received, but they pretty much all said that the piece looked fully resolved. I remember one particular flashcard suggested including images of fish, but I decided against that because it would distract from the poster’s message. When I talked to the teacher about this, he agreed that the piece looked fully resolved other than the wording, so I fixed the wording a little bit in order to make the message more clear, and then the piece was finished. I decided to use Illustrator and Photoshop for most of this project after trying out GIMP by cropping some images because I figured it would be better to further my skills in software that I know I like and want to continue using, rather than force myself to use unfamiliar software just to create something of which I know I will not be fully satisfied. I learned a lot of new skills in Photoshop creating the text on the bag and arranging the bag on the background. Working with the transparent plastic bag was a fun challenge.

I believe I reached the aspirational criteria for this project, as well, because there is the illusion of seamlessness in my visual rhetoric; things do not seem out of place or added unnecessarily. I also created my own visual asset by putting together the image in the background in photoshop; I started out with an image of a plastic bag, edited text onto it, and then edited it onto the ocean background. Lastly, I used Git successfully this time; I committed and pushed everything properly and on time which is an improvement from last time, during which I did not know how to push my changes.

Image of plastic bag, unedited:

Image of plastic bag, with text edited:

Image of plastic with, with text and background edited and chromatically readjusted:

Image of plastic bag, edited with text (one version before the final):

[onewport23]

For my visual argument, I wanted to use my marketing/communications background and passion for sustainability to make a flyer/PSA about recycling. I chose to utilize a retro reference, tone, and aesthetic to make the subject matter (proper recycling practices) more engaging, and possibly more informative for an older audience. “It takes two to make a thing go right” is the chorus of the hit 80’s song, “It Takes Two” by Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock. Building off of the message, I displayed in my graphic that in order to recycle a dirty cup, it must be two things: 1. clean, and 2. dry.

In terms of the baseline criteria, I met all of the requirements strategically to support my intended message. With a total of 17 layers, I combined text and images to deliver the “It Takes Two” message. I reflected on the elements of design, and used size, color, and contrast to emphasize certain components. For example, I made “TWO” in all caps and larger than the rest of the first headline for emphasis, and highlighted both “TWO” and “RIGHT” in a darker red than the rest of the text in order to stress the necessary two step process. Furthermore, I chose to outline the cups in blue, the text bubble in yellow, and the rest of the text in red in order to separate each section and make it more easily digestible for the viewer. I was inspired to do this by a note that I was given during the feedback session, in which my peer suggested that “1. clean” and “2. dry” read continuously with the top line of text, and made it confusing to understand (see attached note). The color pallette and and font that I chose were intended to align with the overarching 80’s theme. I also decided to use blue, red, and yellow as a way to catch the attention of a viewer who might not normally be interested in recycling/sustainability information. Using these colors rather than green, which is often associated with these causes, was a way to differentiate the message, and make it fresh. Lastly, aside from the move, select, and text tools, I made heavy use of the paint tool to create the torn paper illusion with the graphics, and the airbrush effect behind the text and images (see attached screenshot).

This project was the first time I have used GIMP, for this reason, all of the tools that I used were new for me. In order to reach aspiration criteria, I explored the program and experimented with the different tools and filters to develop my final graphic. To start, because I had 17 layers, I used folders to group them by section in order to organize the GIMP work space. I used many facets of the paint tool, including brush size, opacity, and type (acrylic, hardness, and block) in order to create depth behind the images and text. Additionally, surprising juxtaposition was incorporated in the message by combining 80’s rap with standard recycling information! Aside from the typeface and Rob Base DJ E-Z Rock image, I created my own visual assets (the two cup graphics) in Adobe Illustrator. Furthermore, when asked how they interpreted my design, my friend told me that it was an informational graphic to explain that plastic cups must be clean and dry before they are recycled, which aligned with my intention. Lastly, in comparison to my soundscape project, I attempted to create meaningful commit messages at each stage of the project to make the version control more effective.

[mjb-123]

I really enjoyed this project, I liked getting to be creative and coming up with an idea and seeing it turn from a simple sketch into something real. I felt like I did a good job hitting most if not all of the baseline criteria. I had at least 3 different layers and each one I incorporated was specifically sized, shaped and colored the way I wanted them to be. I did everything purposeful and thought that it made it unique and fun to look at. I think the contrast between the black and white background layer and the colored objects like the sun, apple and arm make each item stand out.

I think the image is unique and has the potential to grab people’s attention. My word of choice “Perspective” stands out over anything else. At least when I look at it, it is the first place my eyes go. It is big, bold and curved in a really funky way. It fits nicely in between all of the buildings and is fun to look at. I wanted people’s eyes to go there first so that they understood the overall message I was going for before they let themselves wander to the rest of the image.

The message I wanted to go with my word is underneath. I think it is clear, concise and helps viewers understand what I’m trying to get across. It is not as big or as bold as the individual word itself, but delivers my message to viewers. After looking at this image I want people to step back and try seeing something in a way they never have before.

I have successfully used 3+ layers, used more than the move, select and text tools (used the brush, eraser, and curve bend filter tool for the text). I had a lot of fun trying out different filters. Not all of them made it to my final image, but I did take some time to try out some lense flares and other cool effects. .

I feel that my image does a good job showing depth, the buildings are the biggest factor to that. The buildings and the curve of my word (using my new vocabulary) create a vanishing point-type feel and things at the top of the image of smaller than those at the bottom. I tried my best to make everything “too scale” and as realistic as I could. The images I used were found on Unsplash and were taken by Tarun Ram (buildings) and Jude Beck (arm). Here is a screenshot of my final image below.

I had a really fun time with this project and I feel slightly more comfortable with Github and think that in the short amount of time we used Gimp that I learned a lot. It is a really cool tool for projects like this and I'm excited that I got to learn about it in this class. I probably never would've come across it on my own. Getting outside of my comfort zone and pushing myself always sounds easy, but actually getting there is harder then it seems. I'm glad this project (like most of the ones in this class) will help me do that.

[kss73]

For my rhetorical visual argument, I decided to create a flyer that motivates others to learn a new language. I have always felt that people that grew up bilingual seemed to be a little more open to other’s cultures and brought people closer. I feel that if everyone attempts to try to learn a new language it would open so many doors for them with traveling, careers and overall make one more open minded. When I started this project, I wasn’t too sure what to do and went back and forth with two different proposals. I wanted to try a different idea which was replacing my mom’s pictures of when she was 20 into my daily life to show a clash of generations, however it took me a long time to understand gimp and become proficient at it. I found the multilingualism idea to be a better fit for my skills. I started off and found a picture of five diverse people of color and age and colored their face and crop them out to just emphasize diversity. I then put together a background of different worldwide landmarks and an airplane to highlight traveling and how small the world really is. After this I made the background lighter to keep the focus on the people and I added clouds all around with “hello” in different languages in each of them. I did this to show that all of them could be speaking a different language and we don’t know their background or anything about them as you can’t see their faces.

During the workshop time I had two working progresses up and sticky notes underneath both of them to show what my ideas are. From the feedback I received everyone said to go with the multilingualism one as it has more room to play with the tools. I wish I had a better working progress by the time it was workshop say so I could have received more feedback on where I am now. I spent a lot of time with cropping out the individual people and then pasting them into a new layer as I didn’t understand how to lose the floating effect. There were a lot of things I struggled with because of minor things I did and although I watched tutorials I still couldn’t do it myself. I have used illustrator before and I felt more comfortable with that as I knew what all the tools and different things to do were but with gimp I had to hover over each thing to understand what it does. I also lost my process multiple times leading me to start all over but overall I feel that if I were to do another project on gimp I do feel more comfortable now.

I feel that I definitely met the baseline criteria as I used arrangement, size, and color to focus viewers’ attention. I also displayed a clear message through the first line saying “Multilingualism brings people closer”. I included words and I played around with fonts to find the one I wanted to use. I have about 10-11 layers and used multiple GIMP tools such as paint, crop, scale, airbrush. For the aspirational goals I used the filter effect on the background and I also attempted to create a 3D affect by putting the people closer up to the front. I feel that viewers will also understand my intentions and the message that I am trying to make with this collage.