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!

[by-lynn-priestley]

Creating this visual rhetoric piece was my first time working with Photoshop, and I am honestly quite happy with what I feel I accomplished. A lot of the work that went into creating it was done behind the scenes. I started off in the first few days doing research on accessibility standards and finding tools to measure things like contrast. Building a color palette, even though it only consisted of 4 colors, proved to be a lot of work because of the challenge of making sure the colors contrasted enough from both the background and from each other (especially with the red and blue, which needed to be different enough in tone that they were distinguishable in grayscale). The below screenshot shows a bit of my work with color.

I was excited when I found the collection of body icons on the Noun Project, because I think it gave the project a sense of stylistic uniformity that allowed for the bodily variation of the icons to be highlighted. When making the pattern (and also working with the text), I found that creating the layer groups made it much easier to control the consistency of alignment and keep track of which copies of icons were next to each other. (screenshot below, before whiteout layer was added)

With regard to workshop feedback, the comment I got from all three peer reviews was on the not-equal sign making my message confusing. (screenshot below)

Additionally, there were notes on the spacing of the first part of my message. I was forcing the spacing a bit to try to make some of the letters line up as heads for the icons but looking at it in light of those comments made me aware of how awkward it was. I altered the wording of the slogan in a way that made the alignment more natural and removed the not-equal sign from the message. (screenshot of before/after below)

In response to the broad advice given to the class, I added a follow-up source. I made the text small, but kept it well above minimum font size from an accessibility standpoint. This definitely helped my argument have more directionality in terms of giving viewers a way to do something about their design practices if they feel compelled.

Breaking down the baseline criteria, I feel like I was able to meet each point on the list. For example, I used largely color, size, and negative space to establish design hierarchy and guide viewer attention. I made my dominant element, the “Design With” text, bright red, the largest element, and also surrounded it with the largest amount of negative space in the project. For the subdominant element, the remaining “Design For” piece of the message, I used color distinction. While the background and icon pattern were both shades of blue, I used black to distinguish it. The pattern/visual rhythm of the body icons in the background, along with the small tagline at the bottom, were then my subordinate portion of the hierarchy. I think, especially with the feedback from workshop, I was able to clearly articulate my message through the text, which I displayed in a clean sans-serif that reflects the minimalism of the body icons. For sources, I created a list in my CREDITS.md file of my repository, as well as including a small citation in the bottom right of my actual .psd file. In my project, I had 3-4 layers interacting with each other at various points, between the background, white-out, body pattern, and text layer groupings. For the white-out layer, one tool I used beyond the select, move, and text tools was the brush tool. Some of my icons imported with a strange outline, so I used a layer above the pattern group and a brush matched the background color to “white-out” those outlines in a non-destructive manner. Lastly, with commit messages, I made sure to include detailed messages so I could track when certain design choices were being tested (like when I was testing the readability of incorporating the cane into the W of “answer”).

I think I also met some of the goals from the aspirational criteria list. I kept my layers very organized with labeling (lining the names up with how they were named on The Noun Project to assist with tracking used assets) and layer groups (to keep my pattern in line). I also used folders and a navigation note in my README.md to make my repository navigable. While I did have more than 3 overlapping layers, a lot of the tools with layer blending didn’t apply to my project. I experimented briefly with varying layer opacity, but overall, anything that made the project more visually complex tended to make it less accessible, which I felt like went against the core argument of my project. In terms of accessibility, that was largely what drove my design choices. My color palette was picked to avoid problematic color combinations for people with colorblindness, my font was a sans-serif typeface, emphasized only with bold, to be more readable for those with dyslexia (I also picked a light background that wasn’t bright white for the same reason). As previously stated, I also made sure my colors contrasted in tone as well as shade to make the design accessible for monochromacy. I put a text description in the metadata of the file to offer a text alternative to the image. To check that my message and audience was clear, I asked a friend to look at the piece and respond with what she thought my intentions were and she said the following:

“I think the message is that for design to be inclusive, it should be designed with the intended users. Designing for people without their input erases their voice and is not truly accessible. I think the argument is directed at other designers to spread awareness. People in the field may be oblivious to the ways their designs are impacting other communities, and they should consider that before creating their designs.”

As a piece of nuance to the design that perhaps falls somewhere between the subdominant and subordinate elements (trying to make my work reveal itself gradually) are the bodies with heads replaced by the letters of the “Design For” text. I was trying to make a visual representation of how paternalistic design often overlooks the individuality of people that the designs are for and erases them. Additionally, there is a heart shape in the negative space around “Design With”, to emphasize the humanity the guides this approach to design.

Overall, I think this project taught me a lot about the complexity of making a final product simple.

[reaial]

I just want to say before I get into what I did I forgot to take constant screenshots. I was really in the zone and working every time that I made edits. I can however give a screenshot of the final and where the change was made from the suggestions that were given to me during per reviews.

This one a comment that stuck with me the most beause I was debating text so much for this image. So, when it came down to someone asking me to do it I figured I should do it. It took some time to really get what I wanted done for it, and make it so that it did not over power the images at hand, and I think that this did just that.

This is why I have some of the word blurred out, not just because I did not want it to overpower, but I wanted it to also encompass everything that "Freedom" is for the African American Community in America. I was also able to clean up my layers a little bit, and fix it so that there were not too many large images that were taking over the larger picture that I wanted to be created.

The comment below is what lead me to clean these up a little more then they were already cleaned up to be.

I think that with this project although I used a very small amount of images I was able to hit the baseline criteria. I used several images, and I worked with several tools. I was able to hit the juxtaposition that I was targeting toward with a very low base of things. I think that all in all the project taught me one a new skill, because now I can use photoshop on a baseline which I have always wanted, but that there is power in simplicity.

[paytonareed]

This project was my first exposure to working with GIMP, and I can certainly say that I will be working with it again just for fun. I knew from the very beginning that I wanted my argument to be about climate change, and I thought that the concept of the climate clock would fit well with a poster because it simplifies the issue in a way and makes it concise and impactful- perfect for a 8.5x11 template. I began working on my poster with the background. I used GIMP to create a custom color palette for the poster. I then watched a video on how to make a custom gradient using the palette. After the background, I moved on to the focal point of my poster. I watched another video on how to have images appear inside of text. I imported from Unsplash, scaled and cropped my three images. I merged the layers and inserted a text layer with "1". I added a layer mask to the climate images layer and used the bucket fill tool on the "1" text and hid the text layer. I also added a stroke to add a white border. In order to make the "1" the focal point of the poster, I scaled it the largest, and outlined it in white to add contrast to the resto of the blue text. The "1" is also the only color on the page besides blue, I chose the images to add different colors like pink and green, that also draws attention. The "1" is also the most dense on the poster with many images and no negative space. All these visual dominance domains draw the viewer's eyes to this first. This is a screenshot of the first preview with my first round of text. I sourced the smart watch image from the Noun Project and used the alpha select/bucket fill tool to color it blue. I did not like the layout of the text and the proximity of all the features. For the full draft, I finalized my word choice and text arrangement. I utilized proximity to split the top of the page representing the first half of the sentence, from the bottom of the page, representing the ladder half. I used the rotate tool to rotate "planet..." in parallel with the "1". I also changed the resource link at the bottom of the page to white text to make it stand out more from the background. I chose to make the "TIME" text larger to also add emphasis to the time sensitive matter of this issue. I used the font Tw Cen MT Condensed, Bold to keep the text simple and clear and organic to fit the theme of the poster and make sure the message of the poster is the most capturing thing. After listening to feedback, I decided to darken the shade of blue of my text and lighten the background gradient to make the text easier to read. I also added a drop shadow on the text to make it stand out even more. I also sourced a globe from Unsplash and used the magic scissor selector tool to crop it and add it as the period after "TIME". The comments confirmed that my message was clearly received and the visual hierarchy was established, per the comment "Description: There is the sentence "we only have 1 planet and we are running out of time" with a large "1" figure in the center and a smart watch for the "i" in time to emphasize time. The 1 is definitely caught my attention first with the white outline and especially the green in the plants". For the baseline criteria, I think I used visual arrangement to guide viewer's attention, I also had a clear message of support for climate preservation efforts, I chose a font that was simple, clean, and organic-like my argument. I have assets sourced in my repository under ASSETS.md. In GIMP, I used more than 3 layers, more than 1 tool. I also wrote several reflections explaining my visual arrangement choices and have several commit messages explaining what has evolved each updated version. As for aspirational criteria, I have layer labeling and grouping. In the smart watch and in the "1", I have more than 3 layers overlapping, and several layers overlap in other places on the visual argument. I used more than three tools including the rotate tool, bucket fill tool, gradient tool, color selector tool, crop, and scale tools. No one in the feedback mentioned my audience, but I hope it is clear that I am trying to convince average individuals that climate change is real and we need to act now. That is why I made my poster a 8.5x11 page size- so that it could be hung easily around campus for other college kids to see and think twice. My feedback did however confirm that my message was clear. I think with my added visual contrast of the text and the choice of clear font, makes my visual argument accessible to a variety of people. Also, with color blindness, I think the features of my poster are clear enough to still be understood. I explained my choice of design strategies earlier, mainly to highlight the idea that we only have one planet, so we must protect this one, and that we are running out of time, so we have to act now. According to Thompson, the scale, value, color, and density make the "1" a focal point. The value, scale, and shape of the "i" also make the "TIME" a secondary focal point. I think the three layers of dominance are the "1", then the rest of the text, then the gradient. According to Design Lab, humanist fonts are clean, modern, empathetic, and handwriting resembled. I chose a humanist font because my cause of climate protection is authentic and requires compassion from the viewer. I also wanted to have a target audience of the younger generation because they are the ones that have the ability to make these necessary changes. A modern text appeals to this audience, and a clean text shows the cause is important and serious. I also think that my design is bright and bold. Overall I think I achieved all of the baseline and some of the aspirational criteria.

[Gley21]

When I first started this project, I was pretty uneasy. With the sound project where I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do and was relatively comfortable working with sound. This project was a complete 180 from that one. I was totally lost both when it came to ideas and when it came to visual editing. I finally went back to the parachute prompts for help and decided to put my own spin on the one that asked me to create a poster for a class. Instead of a class I decided to focus on a topic that is dear to me, philosophy. I then thought about what studying philosophy has done for me. Eventually I decided that philosophy has helped me "unlock my mind" so to speak. This idea became the focus of my project.

I began with this image as my template that I would work off of. I thought the idea of a key unlocking a brain in a cage would convey the thought I was going for. Then to ensure my point was heard I added a few words at the top and bottom to help describe the idea. As you will see, this initial layout underwent some serious changes.

After building off of my initial layout, this was the first draft I created. I added the background of books to give the piece a strong base. I think making the key into the word philosokey was a really nice way to implement the pun. I was really excited about feedback I was going to get on this draft because I knew I could improve the piece, but I wasn't sure how. After reading through the feedback I received it was clear what I had to fix. The background and text just were not working and both were going to have to be changed. I also noticed the concern with the jail bars over the brain and I absolutely agreed that they looked out of place.

The first thing I did was add a bevel effect to the text. It gave it some necessary dimension and made it stand out a little better against the background. I also changed the background to one that was a little brighter and offered more contrast so that again the text stood out and was easier to read. The second thing I did was take care of the eye-sore that was the jail bars. I decided that the bars weren't necessary and I took inspiration from the line I had written "Unlock a new way of thinking" to help fix the issue. I thought that the point of the poster showing that philosophy was the key to unlocking your mind would be better conveyed if the brain itself was the lock. It also gave me an opportunity to try something new in photoshop. I used a layer mask to remove the middle of the brain and added the keyhole. Then I found an image of a lock online and used the top bar from that image to finish the brain. After all of these changes I had a product that looked like this:

I was much happier with this, but still felt there was more I could do. One of the big things I wanted to adjust was the arrangement of the images in the piece. I ended up flipping the image from portrait to landscape to give me more space to work. I also thought it would be a good idea to add some depth to the image and to do this I used the perspective tool to change the perspective that the brain and key were presented in. I wanted to give the illusion that the key was being put into the brain lock with this change in perspective. I also decided to get rid of the "Free your mind" part because the image no longer was about the mind being trapped, it was more about unlocking the mind itself. After this rearrangement I ended up with a product that I think is far better than the original draft.

I believe that my project covered both the baseline criteria and some aspirational criteria. I used arrangement and size to draw attention to the images in the middle before the viewer is directed to the words. I also used color to tie the key and the word philosophy in the text together by making them both golden. My message was clear, and I fulfilled the baseline criteria when it came to using layers and tools. Some aspirational criteria I believe I fulfilled were: using new tools (layer masks, perspective, beveling the text), I used the brain image to create a lock, and I used perspective to add the effect of depth to the work.

[hua-tori]

You can see from the screenshots that my initial preview was miles away from being as complete and thorough as my final. First, you can see I made the decision to go with a more detailed and dark background to better suit the theme. Also, I used the natural divide of the waves, foam, and sand to create the juxtaposition of the two sides. Furthermore, I chose better fonts for the text, as well as applied effects to them in order to create the desired aesthetic. Also, the adding of the smoke and more “giving” items better fills the screen and creates the flow and message more clearly. Finally, the layers were moved and organized in the sidebar in order to create optimal workflow.

I have met all the baseline criteria since I used the arrangement of the objects being given from the hands to create a flow in the piece and movement. I also used shadows (long and drop) to create contrast against the individual assets and the background in order to create a more 3D piece via contrast. The message is clear since the text all indicate a desire to push for mental health as well as accessibility. The chosen font matches the style/tone of the piece, as the text is very clean and crisp, and straight-forward. The piece itself is clean and crisp, and the message is somber with a bit of hopefulness. My assets are all in order and are credited correctly with attributions. My piece has over 3 layers (by a lot, might I add). I have used many, many tools, including the lock, filters, lasso selection, and magic wand selection, as well as the circular selection, eraser, and duplicate tool. I also used the standard select, move, and text tool. Some aspirational goals I believe I have met is organizing the files in layer labeling and groups, using more than 3 distinct overlapping layers, using more than 3 tools beyond the standard ones and that was new to me, demonstrating through feedback that someone looking at your piece can accurately articulate your message/argument (see attached comment below), and using the reading (specifically font pairing) to explain my design choices.

I will take this chance to clarify some of my compositional choices. 1st, I chose to have the direction of giving be fluid and ambiguous, since, from the outside, it is extremely difficult to see when a relationship is draining for those in it. Both the hand in the smoke and with the light can be the ones giving from a place of emptiness. 2nd, I chose to have resentment be the focal point of the text since it is the most emotionally charged word of them all, and this will draw readers into comprehending the whole message. Even if the readers were to give a passing glance to the piece, “resentment” and the hotline number will stick with them, along with the clock. This should subconsciously click with those who need it. 3rd, I chose the background of the ocean not only for aesthetic reasons but because people who struggle with mental health issues or draining relationships can feel like they’re being pulled to sea and/or drowning. Thus, the imagery all works together. Same thing with the smoke being that the person may be suffocating, or they are toxic. The duality of interpretation.

In regards to critiques, I made an effort to clean up the bottom hand since the white outline still being there was very distracting. I only got one other comment, and that one suggested some changes that did not suit my tastes for the piece, although it was taken into consideration.

Care for Yourself to Care for Others

[aer84]

For this project, I knew I wanted to create an image that focused on taking a break from technology to enjoy real life. While I contemplated what I wanted to create, I watched one of my all-time favorite movies, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The scene where Ferris, Sloane, and Cameron went to the Art Institute of Chicago inspired my visual argument. I began to think about how I could add my message to this iconic movie. At first, I tried editing a picture with Ferris, Sloane, and Cameron looking down at their phones instead of the art.

I had tried two different methods by first trying to add phones to a scene from the movie with the mask tool. When this didn’t work out exactly as I hoped, I tried to create my own scene by adding the characters myself. However, it was also not turning out as I had wanted.

Despite the frustration I was feeling, I kept thinking about the movie and remembered a scene that always stood out to me. The scene was when Cameron made intense eye contact with Georges Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.” This was an important point in the movie since this is when he realizes that he doesn’t want to continue living his pained life (especially concerning the relationship with his father). However, I realized if Cameron was looking down at his phone, he would have had this moment of self-realization. Feeling confident in this concept, I began Photoshopping Cameron on a phone instead of starring at the child in the painting.

I wanted to push myself during this assignment and make sure that I was testing out my Photoshop skills. In terms of the baseline criteria, I believe that I met all of the requirements. The contrast of Cameron’s red jersey and the painting compared with the beige background would allow the viewers’ attention to be drawn to these two aspects. I used Julie Thompson’s Graphic Design 101 to inspire these choices.

With the addition of text on the image, I believe that the message came through clearly even if someone hasn’t seen the movie. The font I chose was also inspired by 80s fonts. I picked a font called Krungthep because it further emphasized the period of the movie and I wanted to incorporate that into my project. I also knew I wanted to use a font that looked "old-school" because when people talk about getting off your phone to enjoy life, there is usually a discussion of the “good old days” which felt like a natural fit with this font. Additionally, I had more than three layers in this project and was able to organize (and even color coat) the layers for the final project. I also used several tools in Photoshop, most notably the clone tool, brush tool, and blur tool.

Furthermore, throughout this project, I met several of the aspirational inspirations. I was able to keep my layers organized as well as improve on creating meaningful commit messages as compared to the last project. I also believe that through this project I have a better understanding of Photoshop. Although I know I can still improve, I feel like I learned a lot from this project. I was also able to create my own visual assets and altered Cameron to look down at a phone with these assets. I tried to also make my work more accessible with the change in font choice, which was one thing that I struggled with. However, thanks to Carolyn’s feedback, I was able to reconsider how layering the fonts could appear confusing based on the font choice. I originally was leaning more into the classical-looking font one may find in an art museum. However, after reading the comments from the workshop I decided to use the bolder font that was much clearer. Overall, I would also say that my visual argument is subtle, yet clear.

Although I had to use copyrighted images to create this visual argument, I would say that I made something completely different. Through Transformative Use under Fair Use, I was able to construct Cameron from different pictures and paintings with the brush tools. This was very difficult for me since I only have a trackpad and the pictures required certain poses that were not available from the movie. However, by pushing myself I was able to alter the images that made sense with the statement. I also removed several elements from the original pictures, so they were very different from what they once were. The biggest change is the introduction of technology from 2020 to 1986.

Overall, I was really proud of the work I created despite the difficulties I had during this project.

[rmanyeka]

This was my first time using Gimp so the learning curve was a bit steep for me but I'm glad I seem to have a grasp on the basics of this program. When we were first introduced with this prompt of creating a visual argument, I automatically knew the prompt I wanted to convey. I know everyone has seen at least one infographic about COVID-19 on social media, but there are still varying opinions on whether the data that researchers have compiled can be trusted. As a future scientist myself, I wanted to make another one of the many visuals seen to increase the importance of believing in science, and not tuning in to the fake news.

To start, I knew I wanted to incorporate a needle in my visual argument since there is a lot of misinformation about the vaccine circulating since the approval for mass vaccinations. This is what prompted me to make this the main idea of the entire project.

At first, I went with this design, and I must admit that I felt really uncreative in terms of this simplistic design. I barely meet the baseline criteria here, so I knew I had a lot more work to do in terms of meeting some of the aspirational goals.

The above was after rethinking the type of look I was going for. I used the needle to incorporate some aspirational goals by using the needle as the 'I' in science. I also put more emphasis that this was relating back to the pandemic by adding the mask behind the word "in". Overall, it may look simplistic, however, I do believe less is better in this situation since most people now can presume the obvious statement I am trying to make, and I do hope that is clear.

I want to take note of some of the baseline criteria I believe I have met, such as using at least 3 layers while establishing a dominance hierarchy. The words I am trying to convey are bold and large, while still encompassing the main picture of the needle. I tried to keep the font of my words professional looking since I want the message to be clear and not taken lightly. I knew choosing a crazy font would not do my message justice. Some aspirational criteria I think I met was using the 'I' in science as the needle since I gave the needle a secondary purpose of replacing a letter in my original message.

I do want to lay out a few tweaks I have made based on the feedback I received.

I did take this suggestion of staggering my words at the top of the poster instead of keeping them straight since I struggled to make my visual look neat. So, I increased all of the text sizes which took up more negative space and staggered the words to since making them in the middle was difficult due to the needle.

[young1m030]

As someone about to graduate with a sizable chunk of student loan debt, it felt really important for me to craft a visual argument in favor of its cancellation (it was only after looking at my loan statement that I came up with this idea lol). This was my first time using Photoshop, and I decided to use Photoshop over Gimp because I've been applying for a lot of jobs that ask for some Photoshop experience, so I'm really excited to add this to my portfolio!

In terms of baseline criteria, I made a really conscious effort to keep at the forefront of my mind the artistic elements we went over — positive and negative space, rhythm and movement, size/color harmony. I was really proud of the way the graduation caps created an interesting rhythm that served kind of perpendicular to the movement set up by the road I used for my background layer. By reading the feedback from our classmates, I get the feeling that I articulated my message clearly, and I did so in a Humanist font that I thought best reflected the modern yet empathetic tone I was attempting to convey, based on the Design Lab reading. I only have three primary layers of image (background, students/caps, and road barriers), and then a layer of text, but then I added a layer of gradient to make the top half darker, which I learned how to do from Linkedin Learning.

As for aspirational inspirations, I was really intentional about experimenting with tools in order to utilize more than three. The ones I ended up using include the gradient, shape/color fill, glow, and centering the text (I don't know if that counts, but that was new to me!). I also experimented with blend modes and layer masks in creating a cast shadow of my students, but I didn't end up liking how that looked.

My feedback for this project was so wonderful. I really appreciated the comments relating to the hierarchy in my draft, and how the size of the number in the middle brought everyone's attention to that first, which isn't what I wanted.

Here's Caela describing that process as a new audience:

Because of this specific piece of feedback, I decided to make that number smaller, in addition to updating the actual data I pulled from for this project. All three of my feedback group also mentioned that the text was off center, which I could have guessed at the time, but I had no idea how much it would alter my project and distract from the other work I had done. Luckily, the subject of centering text was efficiently addressed in the Linkedin Learning tutorial.

Another component of the feedback I found really helpful was from Ben, which consisted of adding a glow around the students and the caps to make them stand out a bit more. I didn't even realize at that point that they didn't stand out, but once he pointed it out to me, I couldn't have agreed more!

Overall, I'm very happy with how this project turned out, and I'm super grateful for the opportunity to be evaluated by such a strong group.

[patrickjmeyer]

I’m really proud of what I was able to achieve with the visual argument assignment! Although my final version still has some rough edges here and there, I’m pretty proud of it, considering that I have a history of being a less than stellar visual artist and have zero experience in GIMP or any program like it.

In terms of baseline goals, here’s how I feel I’ve met them:

• I feel that I’ve arranged my layers in a very much intentional way. The rhythm of the piece is not linear, but I think clearly points towards the center, while also directing the viewer around the border. I also think I use density to highlight the border and a lack of density to highlight the text in the center. I think the monotone color of the text against a differently colored background and being the most distinctly plain item in the piece is an example of value, color, and style. These are just a few examples of how I think I’ve incorporated hierarchy and movement within my piece.
• I think that my message, which is to encourage people to embrace all music, is clearly messaged and received, which is evidenced in my feedback.
• I went through a lot of fonts, and this is the one I felt most strongly about. I think the editing I’ve done to it adds to it.
• My assets list encompasses all of the required material.
• I use far beyond 3 layers.
• I used select, move, text, erase, scale, rotate, and fill.
• Currently using my reflection to explain my choices and goals (I think well!)
• My last couple of commit messages were informative, but I admit that my earlier ones could have been more detailed.

Additionally, here are some aspirational goals I think I reached:

• I think my repo is well-structured and organized, with layers and files all clearly labeled and neatly put in their own place.
• Way more than 3 overlapping layers.
• I used 4 tools beyond select, move, and text, as stated above, all of which are new to me.
• I think my feedback (seen below) shows that my message is accurately and properly being interpreted.
• As stated above, I’ve used multiple design strategies that (I think!) compliment each other, AND…
• ...I referred to our initial graphic design readings in the first paragraph of this reflection, which I used to guide my choices in the piece.
• If I do say so myself, I think this piece is pretty bright and bold!

Here are some screenshots of feedback I received on my project at the draft stage:

Here are some screenshots of my work in progress, including my final product, in which you can see where I incorporated much of this feedback:

Preview stage

Draft stage

Final stage

I incorporated Rutendo’s feedback by making sure there was less awkward, negative space between the artists/objects in the piece. I also took Trent’s feedback and attempted to erase some of the noise from the JuiceWrld layer, but this resulted in a weird ghost-like effect. I kept this in because I actually thought it fit considering Juice’s fairly recent, pretty tragic death. In my final piece, I also settled on a background that I actually liked, rather than the placeholders in the first two iterations. I think that each iteration shows interesting progress/rethinking, and I'm pretty happy with how all of our discussions and workshops led to my final product!

[annaruz]

This project was a really tough challenge for me. From the early stages of idea generation, I knew the argument that I wanted to convey, but it took me until this past weekend to find the best way to get it across to viewers. At the beginning of the project, I thought that coming up with an idea would be the hardest part, especially for a more abstract argument of explaining the expansiveness of the field of public health, or the "prevalence of public health" as I later titled the piece. However, in reality, the more complicated aspect for me was deciding how to organize the argument. Looking back, I should have realized that the design would be the hardest part, especially since I have no artistic/design background or any experience editing images. Throughout the weeks of working on this visual argument, my main idea stayed the same, but the design changed to create a more clear representation of my argument. This project let me learned a lot about my own creative processing. I hit a lot of walls with this project and created so many different duplicated versions of the same document with various changes trying to see which direction I wanted to go in to improve the visual argument. Verbalizing my feelings of frustration with the designs that I had created to my mom over the weekend actually helped me reconcile those emotions and get to work to create something that I would be proud of. Reanalyzing my goals from the beginning of the project and the notes that we made about colors, contrast, and movement was helped me get back on track with the design aspect. I realized that it was necessary to add more text to explain the photographs explaining the somewhat abstract concepts like air quality being represented by a smokestack and a tree. I also learned many new things about GIMP which I had never used before, and I know that I still have lots to learn about the software. Getting peer feedback was also helpful for some of the more specific details of the design although I still felt unsatisfied with what I had overall at the time. For example, Tori's comment about cutting the tree graphic better was very useful, especially since she gave me the name of a tool to use with this process.

You can see the implementation of this comment from the image of the tree in the first draft on the left to the image of the tree in the final draft on the right. I used the fuzzy select or "magic wand tool" to erase the background color between the leaves which made it look much more well put together. I also formatted the argument to be a stronger statement rather than a subtle phrase per Greg's suggestion as shown in the photographs below.

I met the criteria of the project well by using arrangement of the masks and vaccines at the top, the textual argument below, and the larger argument at the bottom of the graphic. I also inverted the colors by making the background blue color the same color as the text of the main argument sentence. I filled the text box with a gray color to make the text visible, and I then made the text describing the photographs below the same gray color as the text box. This inversion of the colors created a visible contrast between the text background and the photograph background. I chose a sans-serif font that would not be distracting but also not boring. I also staggered the arrangement of the images on the bottom half of the graphic to show some movement while the repeated images on the top lie in a straight line. This draws the viewers' attention and helps illustrate the idea that there is much more to public health than masks and vaccines. All of my sources are credited properly in the assets.md file on my repository. Peer feedback proved that my argument was clear even in my first draft, and my addition of image descriptions below my examples of public health at work further clarify the intention of this message. I used meaningful commit messages to distinguish each draft. In addition to select, move, and text, I also used fill color, color dropper, flip, rotate, and pencil, and I used more than 3 layers. While there are many different layers and aspects to the argument, I organized the overall image to not overwhelm viewers but to convey the message clearly. In the future, I may adjust this graphic by adding perspective in the piece to make the argument statement stand out even more from the rest of the piece. I am very proud of the work that I did for this assignment, and I am glad that I have a final project that I am happy with!

[anatems1]

ForwardWithFuture

I had originally bounced around a couple of ideas for what I wanted my Visual Argument to represent. I decided to aim towards a sort of self-reflective visualization such that a viewer can look at my graphic and motivate themselves to keep their head up or something along those lines. This is where I thought of the phrase, "Your past doesn't decide your future". I feel like a lot of times I tend to think of something that has happened in the past and it can sometimes be hard to look past the past (no pun intended). I do not think that I am the only one that feels this way and/or the only one who needs to hear something like this to keep my head up. In reality, you are not really shaped by something that has happened to you in the past or what you have done to someone. It is important to realize tomorrow is a new day and you can not go back and change what you did yesterday, you can only change what you are going to do tomorrow. The initial idea to represent this phrase was to have two people on the screen separated by some kind of barrier. One of them is surrounded by the "past" and the other would be surrounded by the "future". If you follow along with the screenshots.md file on my repository, a breakdown of more screenshots taken during the entire studio process can be found. Below are both the original image for my project and the final image:

Original Image:

Final Image:

I am going to walk through a couple of the visual attributions I chose to assign to this specific project. To begin, I would like to assess and facilitate how I was able to meet the baseline criteria, then I am going to mention how I was able to meet some of the aspirational criteria.

---

Baseline Criteria

Use arrangement, size, color, visual rhythm, and/or contrast to focus and guide viewers' attention.

I have a variety of contrasting colors that help guide the viewer from the "past" side of the image to the "future" side of the image. On the past side, the negative space is has a black color and the future side has white negative space. This is supposed to aid the indication of the future is bright and with many colors and the past is dark and blurry (which also promotes the sense of visual rhythm or movement)

Have a clear message or intervention that you can articulate

The message is pretty clear, the character on the right is 0.01 mi from the future surrounded by a clear and colorful cityscape. The character on the left is 1000 mi away, a seemingly impossible distance compared to the 0.01 mi on the opposing side. Also, the background is dull and visually distorted, showing that the past may not be as pretty as the future. Other than this, I was able to include a quote on the background's cityscape, "Your past doesn't decide your future" as described previously.

If including words, choose a font that matches the style/tone of your piece

The website fontjoy.com was very nice tool that helped me view deep learning-generated fonts that match each other. After playing around with this for a while, I was able to choose the Anton font as the font on the buildings and Averia Sans Libre-Regular as the text on the signs. I really like the subtle differences between this combination.

Credit all assets correctly, including attribution (creator names) where required

Please view the assets.md file on my repository.

Use at least 3 layers

I use much more than three layers, which I will dive deeper into my aspirational criteria analysis.

Use at least 1 tool beyond select, move, and text

I also used much more than 1 tool beyond the basic tools, which I will also dive deeper into explaining.

---

Aspirational Criteria
In this part of the assignment, I think that I really proved what I was able to learn by using GIMP. I have used GIMP briefly before just to resize images, but I have never dug this deep into all of the different features that the program has to use. Firstly, when you open my .xcf file, you will notice that I organized the layers by the "Past" side and the "Future" side as layer groups. Within each of these layer groups, there are various layers comprised of the silhouettes, the text, the window washers, and the street signs. Above these layer groups are two additional layers comprised of the eyeglass frames and a duplicated and blurred layer of the background.

Originally I did not include the frames in the image, and it was only the city with the two opposing sides (past and future). Also the text was positioned on the future building differently. This can be seen below:

I received a couple of comments from rearranging my text to flipping the character on the future side to facing the right of the screen rather than facing the past side.

I completely agree with this comment, which is why I flipped the image to face the opposite direction. It could be confusing as to why the character is facing the past if they are trying to move forward. Originally I thought of doing it this way because the character could be looking at the past and reflecting on it rather than dwelling on it, but I was not entirely sure how I could achieve this. I decided to include the quote on the buildings to stray away from a quote just plainly panning across the top of the screen. Instead, the words are painted on the windows of the past and on the bricks of the future. By doing this, the window washers can easily clean off the words that were painted on the windows, metaphorically. However, they will definitely have a more difficult time, if even possible, from removing the words off of the bricks on the future side. By doing this, I was also able to take advantage of using the principle of enclosure (discussed in class) to separate this text into rows that were automatically available due to the design of the background city image. There is an obvious form of the hierarchy shown in my graphic. The addition of the eyeglasses also helped reinforce both the dominance of the image and the overall articulation of my message/argument. I am really happy that I chose to add in these eyeglasses. Not only does it show you what the foreground is, but it guides the viewer's eyes to dismiss whatever else is in the background and focus only on the characters, the signs, and what is happening on the building in the background. The viewer is almost actually physically "looking" into the future and the past with the glasses as well.

I was not entirely happy about the orange line around the eyeglasses, the gap between the frame and the background in the top corners, and the color of the lenses on the glasses (which there is none). After some fine-tuning, I was able to get rid of that orange border on the frame and erased the actual arms on the sides of the lenses. I fixed the gap between the glasses in the corners by selecting them and painting them with the color picker tool for the closest colors. Additionally in the final version of the image, I applied an "ice" pattern fill to the lenses at a low opacity to look more like you are actually looking into lenses rather than just the images in front of them. From here I will walk through some of the other tools I used, and why/how I used them. The two layers that comprise the background of the past had to be duplicated and merged to form the blurred background that is outside of the lenses. This blur was a product of the Gaussian Blur filter, tweaked to a specific value. I aimed to have a sort of motion-blurred effect on the past side, to also promote the movement from the past onward and make the past somewhat blurry compared to the clear future. This was accomplished by using the linear motion blur filter. To add a border to the silhouettes of the contrasting color, after using the fuzzy select tool on the layer, there was an option to select a specific border of x pixels. Once the border was selected, the bucket tool could be used to paint the entire selection a certain color. The colors on both the past and future sides of the image were also tweaked from various combinations of saturation and contrast tools under the color tool. The individual arrows on each of the signs were hand-drawn with the paint tool and bucket tool. With the paint tool, I was able to paint straight lines and mirror them to produce the outline of the arrow. The bucket tool was then used to fill the arrows with the white color as seen on a typical street sign. I really enjoyed this project, and I believe that I spent a lot of time trying to strengthen my message and make use of the various graphic design principles we discussed in class. I hope you, the viewer, will be able to achieve the same level of satisfaction from looking at my graphic as I do. Thank you for looking!

[TBrusilovsky]

Unlike for the previous project, I did have some amount of experience using photoshop in the past. However, this was mostly for simple things, small tweaks to photos or pictures and the like. The closest I'd ever come to something like this was probably when I made a few birthday cards using the program in middle school. Overall I am quite happy how my project turned out. There were a few small things that I'm not completely happy with but generally I think my visual argument looks pretty good.

There are three main parts to my visual piece. At the center is a picture of the earth, layered with the faint image of an oil pump. Around the earth is a giant set of jaws, already biting down with several of the teeth overlaid over the earth to show it biting down. If you look closer, the jaws of the monster contain fields of trash and waste. Finally, there is bright text in the same shade of yellowish green as the monster's skin, with a message that highlights the argument of my point.

For baseline criteria, I believe I fulfilled all the requirements. I used contrasting colors to guide and focus the viewer's attention on the crucial parts of the argument and made secondary portions less bright so the eye would go to them later. My argument shows a clear message that is articulated in both the image and the text. I specifically chose my font because I thought that it had the same sort of curvature as the teeth of the monster and fit well with the style of the rest of the piece. I credited all my assets, beyond even what the various licenses required. I used considerably more than 3 layers. I used several tools beyond select, move, and text such as the various masking tools, erasers, and layer combination and overlap settings. I used meaningful commit messages to show what is changing (since I had to switch repositories, I saved some of the past commit messages and put them in a text file within my repository to better demonstrate this). Finally, I will use this reflection to better clarify my compositional choices and goals.

Beyond the baseline, I also fulfilled many of the aspirational goals. I organized my files in my repository and named my layers to keep track of what they all were. I used 3 or more overlapping layers in my project. I used more than 3 tools beyond select, move, and text. For instance, I used the different erasers, I used layer masks to non-destructively hide parts of layers, I changed the opacity of layers, I combined layers with clipping masks, I used the eye dropper to match my text color to a particular shade already present in my project, and many others. In the comments on my piece, all three of the viewers understood the argument of my piece, and I have only further clarified it since then. The text on my project has a highly contrasting color with the background to make it more readable. My work has both bright and bold sections that draw the eye, and subtle detail the is gradually revealed to better explain the full argument of my piece, such as the trash layered under the monster's mouth to show how it is this waste and pollution that is consuming the world.

One piece of feedback that I was influenced by is this one:

When I submitted my first look at my project it looked something like this:

I had the trash layered in the background, with a brighter monster and no text. However, the point that I needed to indicate that I needed to make it 'clearer that that the monster devouring the earth is a result of the pollution and oil usage' and specifically the idea of a 'trash monster' really resonated with me. I liked the idea of the faint layer of trash in the background, but this comment made me realize that it wasn't the background that needed to be trashy, but the monster itself. I initially tried to layer the same cups behind the monster, but it was too dim and hard to see, and if I made the monster less opaque, it became hard to see as well. To fix this, I got a different image of trash, something with a different color palate than a bunch of white cups, and used a clipping mask to cover a copy of my mouth layer with this image. Then I reduced the opacity of the original jaws to produce an effect that made the jaws appear more spectral and ensure that you could see the trash through the jaws. It took some fiddling to make sure that everything was properly visible and the colors and details of the monster still came through, but I was quite happy with the end result. It really did become a 'trash monster'.

Beyond that, I was also somewhat inspired by this comment:

She noted that, though my general message was clear, the specifics were vague and there was something missing. This inspired me to add the text that appears in the final version of my project. I didn't want to write something overly direct and specific, but I decided on a pun that both draws attention to what the problem is, and is a play on what is happening in the visual portion of my project as well.

[gregsexauer]

This is the first time I've created a GIMP project of this level of complexity. I've used GIMP before, to create simple place-holder assets for Unity projects I've worked on, but with those I really only used the pencil tool for basic, 16x16 pixel-art. So, in terms of getting me to explore more of the functionality of GIMP, I would say that this project was a success.

Here are the baseline criteria I believe I have met: Use arrangement, size, color, visual rhythm, and/or contrast to focus and guide the viewers' attention. I used these practices to focus the viewers' attention on the television screen, which is the focal point of my project. Have a clear message or intervention that you can articulate. Capital, and performance politics, has shifted the political spectrum in the United States to the Right, leaving a vacancy of proper Leftist political representation. If including words, choose a font that matches the style/tone of your piece. My use of words is quite minimal, nonetheless, I think the sans-serif bold font strikes a good balance between readability and fittingness to be printed on a price tag. Credit all assets correctly, including attribution where required. All of my assets were from Unsplash, which does not require attribution, however I still linked to the original images in my assets.md file. Use at least 3 layers. I used 8 layers. Use at least 1 tool beyond select, move, and text. I used quite a few more. Use the reflection to clarify your compositional choices and goals. Use meaningful commit messages that say what's changing (and maybe even why). I did this when I could, but had some difficulties sending all of my commits Aspirational Goals: Organize your files through layer labeling, layer groups, repo structure Use more than 3 distinct overlapping layers Use more than 3 tools beyond select, move, and text that are new to you. I also used scale, layer masks, gradient, and smudge (smudge might be my new favorite tool). Use multiple design strategies in a way that compliment each other. Be subtle and crafty to make your work reveal itself only gradually.

Here is feedback I used to make my project stronger: I totally agree with this sentiment, as my project was rather lacking in terms of explicit political grounding. Here is what my project originally looked like: Then before the feedback: Then the final project, after the feedback:

[kle39]

Before beginning the visual argument unit and this project in particular, I had no prior knowledge of GIMP. I have a basic understanding of Photoshop which we had the opportunity to use as well. For this project though, I wanted to use GIMP. I wanted to be able to push myself to learn this software and try something that was completely new to me and looking back, I am glad I did this!

My general idea of “Treat Yourself” stayed consistent throughout this entire process, however, some of the aspects changed a bit, specifically the text placement and background. I originally planned to have “Treat Yourself” typed down the side of dripping ice cream. One of my drawings from one of our planning stages in class also illustrates this.

I also originally planned to only include the ice cream cone with a plain pink background.

Upon entering GIMP and officially embarking on my project, I first obtained several assets to choose from. I knew I wanted to do ice cream from the start and specifically searched for photos of ice cream. Once I found the image I would be using, I began placing the letters of the phrase to work through my idea to create a preview.

After my preview, I began working towards a rough draft. In this stage, I used the scissors select tool in order to further select and edit the ice cream cone. I enjoyed using the scissors select tool because of how intricate and detailed the tool is. Following this, I changed the original background color to a shade of pink. In this stage, I found myself taking my time in being as detailed as possible with the scissors select as well as finding a shade of pink that would represent the happy, upbeat thoughts corresponding with treats. In this stage, I was not too focused on the font choice or placement, rather further editing the ice cream.

After peer review day and further consideration of my project in the rough draft stage, I had conflicting thoughts and found myself second-guessing my work thus far. As a result of this, I decided to start over. By “starting over”, I wanted to keep my “Treat Yourself” concept along with the ice cream and pink background, however, I wanted to expand the project and add additional components to push the dynamics of the visual argument.

This stage was significant for me. When I look back to this stage, I am pleased with my choice to start my project over. I found myself developing new ideas, and with the help of the feedback I received from my peers, I was able to flesh out these new ideas while integrating some of my original concepts.

I received helpful feedback from a few of my peers that aided in strengthening both my idea and my project itself. Jackie’s suggestion (as well as the reference to Payton’s) definitely helped me not only in reconsidering my ideas, but also provided a great way to expand the project.

I responded to these suggestions by changing the font and color for both “Treat” and “Yourself”. Once I changed the font and colors, I moved the word “Treat” closer to the ice cream with “Yourself” in order to have the argument flow. I also changed the font for “Yourself” to be less blocky and aggressive. I also responded to the suggestion about the background by creating a cupcake repetition (as referred to in reading) to serve as the final background and to emphasize the happy, upbeat feelings this piece is intended to create.

As far as the criteria, I feel my visual argument meets both baseline and aspirational criteria in a few ways. To start with baseline, I used arrangement with the placement of text and different images, size, color, and visual rhythm to focus and guide the viewer's attention. I accomplished this through the different text, fonts, images, and shapes. I also articulated my message clearly through the font choice, placement, and color. By including words, I definitely found myself searching for quite some time to find a font that I feel would best represent my message. “Treat” is in the font “Milkshake”, and I chose this font because of the curved, bouncy feel, rather than something with rough edges. The word “Treat” itself can invoke pleasant thoughts, and that is why I felt the looser, less formal font suited best. For the word “Yourself”, I chose Tempus Sans ITC. The reason for this is that this font on top of the ice cream immediately made me think of chocolate syrup being drizzled on the ice cream. I also lightened the shade of black a bit to lean more towards gray to create a less harsh color. Next, I used six layers and also used at least one tool besides select, move, and text. The tools I used in addition to these three were smudge and scissors select. I also engaged in offsetting when working with layers. As far as design hierarchy, I engaged in the use of different shapes and sizes, particularly with the ice cream being the largest and the cupcakes being smaller to guide the viewer’s focus and attention. I also engaged in rhythm as I created the background of cupcakes. Next, I appropriately credited all assets in my CREDITS.md file. I also provided meaningful commit messages that described what has changed. I did not push commits as much as I should have, however, when I did, I was sure to create meaningful commit messages.
I also achieved a few components of the aspirational criteria with my visual argument. First, I organized my files through labeling which definitely helps to stay consistent and organized throughout the project when working with several different files. Next, I demonstrated through feedback that someone looking at my piece can accurately articulate my message. Payton provided this as part of her helpful feedback!

Also, within the aspirational criteria, I used both rhythm and design hierarchy in size and shape which complemented each other. I also made my work bright and bold which makes my work pop and draws the eye.

Overall, I enjoyed this unit and creating a visual argument that I am passionate about. I am also pleased with trying software that was completely new to me! I am looking forward to the future units and projects in this class!

Original /starting point

Final

[cmgo412]

Compared to the soundscape narrative, I had more difficulty completing this project due to a creative block and lack of experience, but ended up relatively happy with what I was able to come up with. This was my first attempt at using Photoshop with photo manipulation, as I’ve only previously used its basic functions for photo editing (e.g. stitching a panorama together or using the content-aware filter to remove unwanted objects). I knew the general idea and overarching themes of what I wanted my argument to convey. However, I had trouble designing it in a way that was effective, visually interesting, and covered all the baseline/aspirational criteria. I definitely share the sentiment expressed by some of my classmates that it's easier to brainstorm ideas than it is to execute them effectively. Maintaining my mental health has become increasingly important to me this semester and especially as COVID-19 continues into its second year. It’s been challenging to meet the same expectations and fulfill the same responsibilities as pre-pandemic life without feeling overwhelmed, isolated, and burnt out. I know that others share the same struggle as me in that regard, so I wanted to design a graphic that encouraged them to reach out to their support network and to seek help for any anxieties they might be feeling. Despite this, my approach to the project's design proved frustrating as I was initially indecisive and had numerous ideas for how I wanted to portray my visual argument. In fact, I ended up composing an entirely new iteration of my preview than the one I submitted, which I ultimately decided to scrap due to it being too unclear.

Sjo, Peter. 8 Nov. 2018. Unsplash, https://unsplash.com/@petersjo. License.

Instead, I went with a man sinking in the ocean because I realized how often depression was spoken in terms of or associated with drowning and other water metaphors (coming in waves, washing over someone, etc.). I also ended up naming my project “Head Above Water” after the phrase “struggling to keep my head above water” which I felt was fitting. To create my design, I merged the images of a top-down shot of a man with his body submerged in water and an aerial shot of the beach together utilizing a layer mask and a soft brush to remove the rough edges of the photo so that both pictures blended into each other well.

My preview submission

To help sell the scale more between the man and the background, I then decided to blend in a photo of a boat floating on the water and do some color correction on the two. I achieved this through a curves adjustment layer mask where I increased the exposure of the mid-tones (the man was too dark against the already dark ocean), a layer mask where I applied a slight S-curve to the tones to raise the highlights and deepen the shadows, and then a selective color mask where I increased the amount of cyan to create a more blue tint that matched the ocean while maintaining the man’s skin tones. After color correcting, I utilized text to help convey my argument and played around with the size of it.

My draft submission

Most of the feedback I received (shown below) dealt with the scale and proximity of my text which detracted from the design.

To address Garrett and Maggie’s feedback, I simply created a new textbox with the mental health resources listed so that I could adjust the text to the bottom right of the graphic and recenter the larger bottom text. I also increased the size of “thoughts” such that all the words in “drowning in your thoughts” were the same font size.

To address Thomas’s feedback, I increased the opacity of the drop shadow to create more contrast between the white text and darker background, making it easier to read.

After completing my final submission, I believe I’ve met all the baseline criteria and quite a few aspirational ones as well. While designing my visual argument, I tried to keep the graphic design elements that we discussed in class in mind and incorporated them into my piece. This is mostly demonstrated through scale when I increased the size of the man in the middle of the graphic relative to the boat and other objects/people in the background to draw the viewer’s attention and evoke a sense of isolation, illustrating how depression or mental burnout can be overwhelming. I also tried to utilize color contrast between the white text and the darker background to guide the viewer to focus on the main points of my argument. Moreover, I played around with hierarchy by increasing the font size along the top edge of the poster so that it appeared the largest, decreasing the text along the bottom edge of the poster so that it appeared smaller, and decreasing the links to mental health resources so that it was the smallest text to indicate significance (like the title, subtitle, and author example in the reading). I also chose a geometric sans-serif typeface for the font that was clean, modern, and minimalistic which matches the style of my design. Additionally, I made sure to use meaningful commit messages on Github, credit all my assets, incorporate more than three layers, and utilize tools beyond select, move, and text.

In terms of aspirational criteria, I did the following for the project:

• Utilized more than three layers
• Experimented with different layer masks like curve adjustment and selective color
• Organized my Github repository in a manner that’s easy to navigate (as well as grouping layers in my Photoshop file)
• Demonstrated through feedback above that my piece accurately articulates its intended message
• Referred to the assigned readings to explain my design choices
• Used both bright and bold as well as subtle and crafty elements to draw the viewer’s eye to the most important parts of the work (like the man and the text) while keeping others gradual (like the boat floating on the water)

My final visual argument after taking into account all the feedback is below:

[jackie216]

The title of my visual argument is “Without the Bees” and it is meant to highlight the foods that rely heavily or entirely on pollination by bees for cultivation to communicate the argument for the awareness and preservation of bees. This is the first time I've used GIMP. I had a background color, drew the honeycomb pattern myself, sourced the bees and the black line art, colored them in in GIMP, and used a text font that I also sourced online.

One of the problems I ran into immediately when I started and didn't resolved for a while was that when I went to use the bucket fill tool to color in the line art, the color would overlap the line art, making the black outlines inconsistently thinner everywhere. Even if I kept the settings of the bucket fill tool the same, lines would be covered up by varying amounts within a single food outline. It looked something like this

Eventually, I realized that if I adjusted the sensitivity of the bucket fill tool to the extreme, the color fill wouldn’t bleed over the line art. However, each click of the tool would only fill in a tiny portion of the artwork and it took significant time for each click to render and so it was very clear to me that this was not going to be a viable and sustainable method. Ultimately, I came to utilize the layering abilities of GIMP to color in every food item (red arrow above) Within the general “Food” layer group, there was a subgroup for each food item which was made up of the line art and a color-in layer: each food had two individual layers with the line art on top. I was able to use the paint tool to easily and quickly color in the line art on the “color-in” layer that sat right behind each food item. Each food had to have its own subgroup so that I could move each food item’s line art and respective “color-in” layer together yet individually from all the other foods. This was a major development in my organizing and it also solved the problem of inconsistent line thickness within a single food item since all the coloring was completely behind the line art.

The next problem was that the line thickness from food item to food item was not inconsistent. I ended up using going Filter → Blur → Median Blur and experimenting with the percentile and alpha percentile to thin or thicken the liners so that there was consistency across the board.

My peers seemed to understand my reasoning for showing all the food and the text was clear

At the time of their reviews, some foods were colored and some weren’t but they said that the color made the foods stand out so I went ahead with my original plan and colored them all in. Someone also suggested that I put in an image of a bee just so that even without reading the text, the topic of the poster is even clearer which, though I thought the honeycomb pattern was pretty obvious, I did not disagree with.

So, in the final version shown below, I put in a few bees next to the line that mentioned bees in text: I chose this specific bee design because it had the same illustrative cartoony style as the existing line art and therefore wouldn’t feel out of place. The thickness of the line art has been made constant across the whole poster - you can see that the thickness of the blue almond milk carton is now much thicker than it was originally. The text also went through several slight alterations in both wording and placement but stayed the same in essence. The honeycomb pattern also went through some evolution because I felt that the readability of the large single-row hexagons became rather diminished when the opaque foods obscured the pattern; the smaller hexagons make sure that the viewer can easily know for sure that they are hexagons.

The overall thinking behind my design for the poster as a whole was this. Positive and Negative Space The background is rather dark and empty, so that the honeycomb pattern and yellow-colored words stand out. I don’t have a ton of negative space but I tried to imitate the effect by keeping the text pretty simple and plain-looking so that it sits on the background while the honeycomb and food portion of the poster looks busier and more forward. Dominance and Hierarchy Scale/size: I wanted the food to the focus and highlight of the poster so they take up most of the space. Color: I chose the background color and dark brown text color so that the words “bees” and “these” (which refers to the food below it) and the honeycomb (which prompts you to look at the food) stand out by contrast. The foods are also colored vibrantly to contrast with the overwhelming yellow/brown of the rest of the poster and appear more forward in the poster. Density: Because there are several components in my poster, I kept the background a solid color so that it wouldn’t get too busy/illegible with multiple layers of design. There is only ever text over the plain background, or food over a simple hexagon pattern. Rhythm and Movement Rhythm: I wanted to create visual unity by keeping a constant cartoonish style throughout the poster. There is nothing that is photo-realistic and everything is solid color; it is an aesthetic choice I made from the beginning. This choice impacted the line art I chose, the bee illustration I chose, and the font I decided to use. The specific font was chosen because it was boxy in a way that was visually similar to the honeycomb pattern. Movement: I tried to create movement with the horizontal rows of repeating hexagons in the honeycomb pattern. I hope that the repeating shapes draw your eyes from one end of a honeycomb to the left, guiding your attention through the series of foods depicted on each row. I also kept the text in a conventional left-to-right configuration to encourage that same eye movement when looking at the poster. The same goes for the placement of the bees; I repeated them on both sides of the text and have them oriented so that it looks like they’re going left-to-right to again encourage that movement across the poster.

That being said, I think I meet all the baseline criteria I use arrangement, size, color, visual rhythm, and/or contrast to focus and guide viewers' attention to the series of foods. The clear message that we would not have a lot of foods without bees is explicitly spelled out in text at the top of my poster. The images I used in the poster are also very recognizable and help communicate exactly what foods are at risk if bees weren’t around. The font that I chose was a sans serif font called “Eurocine” that has a geometric and boxy design to it that was similar to the geometric hexagonal shapes I used for the honeycomb pattern in my poster. I thought the font and the honeycomb designs mimicked each other and made for a cohesive pairing. I certainly have at least 3 layers I believe I credited everyone appropriately I used the fuzzy select tool to delete the original white background of the bee image, one tool beyond the select, move, and text tool.

I also believe I meet several of the aspirational criteria. I definitely have more than 3 distinct overlapping layers, the most complex example being the line art layer on top of the associated “color-in” layer on top of the honeycomb pattern layer on top of the background layer. I also utilized the layer labeling and layer grouping function to organize my stuff in GIMP. The honeycomb pattern used to be many layers that I combined into a group so that the fixed configuration of the three rows could be moved together. All the food was also grouped together so I could move all twelve foods without messing up their configuration, and each food item was also its own sub group that included the line art and its “color-in” layer which made it simple to change the color and line thickness of each individual food anytime throughout the development process. Besides select, move, and text, I used the eraser, fuzzy select, alignment, color picker, scaling, and bucket fill tools. I also utilized the median blur effect accessible through Filters → Blur → Median Blur in order to make the black lines of the food line art thicker or thinner so that the thickness of the lines could be uniform by the final version for cohesiveness. I also created my own asset with the honeycomb pattern. I used the pencil tool in GIMP to make a hexagon, holding down shift to make the lines straight. I then copy-and-pasted a whole string of the hexagons to create the three repeating honeycomb patterns that go across the poster. And finally, explained in more detail above, I did try to consider multiple design strategies in order to have the viewer’s eyes scan back and forth and be drawn to the series of foods I chose to highlight.

[TrentFoster]

First off, I would like to start off by saying I have worked with Photoshop before, but not since high school. I decided to give Gimp a try and I am quite impressed! As for my project, I believe I met the baseline criteria as well as some aspirational goals. However, I do for sure want to come back to this before my portfolio because I was unable to put in as much time as I would have liked to have due to midterms in the past couple weeks. I like what I am working with, but I do not love it yet, hopefully by the end of the semester I can say I love it!

Jumping straight into it, the first thing I did for my project was setting up the background and center piece of my project. I decided to go with a large lock to portray a security vibe as well as digital numbers to signal that I am talking about digital security. This was my first step to reaching the baseline criteria of "have a clear message that you can articulate."

Very shortly after getting the background setu up, I added my own personal phone with my discover app as a computational device/software type that individuals need to keep secure. This is an aspirational goal since I made this asset myself, and I do believe it fits into my theme quite well.

Days later, I added the remainder of my assets to show different services that are worthy of protection from malicious individuals (I also received comments about adding more assets to my piece). I also added an image of a hacker to bring out a more dark side to my piece and show the dangers of these individuals. Lastly, to really bring everything all together, I added the text to drive home the main focus that I wanted for the piece. At this point, I believe I have met the baseline criteria because I have a clear message, multiple layers, an appropriate font, I used different tools such as changing the opacity of the lock, as well as adding a background layer to the mail icon, as well as used meaningful commits. But, I was not done.

I had multiple messages about my text, and quite frankly I agreed. The text just did not pop enough, it was not one of the first things you noticed when looking at the piece, because it was so small….

The comments that I received is what led me to this, my final draft (with a BIG for now). I made the text pop more than before, by spacing out the words as well as changing the color and size. I also cleaned up the white background of both the phone as well as the mail icon for a cleaner look. Now I believe I have a pretty defined asset hierarchy, I hope that individual's will see either the lock or the words first, followed by the various digital platforms surrounding it and lastly leading to the hacker to show the seriousness of the image.

In conclusion, I was able to reach the baseline criteria as well as some aspirational goals. All that being said, some things that I want to change in the future include adding more self-made assets rather than the icons that I found, make the hacker pop out more by maybe making it a part of the lock? And finding a font that looks more digitized in nature As well as various other things that I have not quite thought of yet.

[boredhero]

Final Reflection

My project's goal is to convince someone that they should buy my package classes to help level up their cooking skills. Because of this, I chose to make a sort of poster that could be printed out and hung up. I was originally looking at also making some social-media sized digital assets but I ran out of time and also wasn't sure if that would fit the parameters of this assignment. I use text heavily because I'm advertizing a service for sale and it's kind of hard to sell a service without words. Originally, I wasn't sure how exactly I wanted to go about this. I started with a small paper (8.5x11) sized canvas, and ended up expanding to triple that to make more of a pamphlet/poster. I did this because I wanted to fit a lot of text and still have room for images. I also considered using external assets, but I ended up wanting to just use pictures that I took myself. I think pictures of stuff I've actually made are always going to be more representative of my services than stock images. I played with fonts for a while but ultimately settled on Source Code Variable Light and Ultra Light fonts. I considered going with something more flowy and cursive for a while but I felt it was a bit too much and kind of hard to read. I think a more fancy font might have also felt a bit intimidating as I'm trying to appeal to people with little to no pre-existing skills here. I also just love Source Code fonts in general. I think they look clean, especially the light and ultra-light versions. I decided have headers and numbers be large, and points of emphasis such as the amount of hours for a given service and the cost be in bold for easy visibility. Some recommendations from other people that I implemented were to change the font since I started out using the default Sans Serif fonts, make it white on the dark parts of the gradient layer for better visability, and cut the backgrounds out of my food pictures to make it less noisy. I ended up spending a lot of time on the images. One thing I'm still not entirely happy about is that some of them were plates and I didn't get the whole plate in the picture. I had played around with trying to use tricks to "add" plate on the sides, but I couldn't get anything satisfactory. I did end up editing a fork out of the pasta plate though, and I think I did a pretty good job of making it inperceptable. I believe I meet the requirements for this project by using size (varying text sizes), color (two text colors), visual rhythm (gradient flow from dark to light). The message is clear that I am selling cooking lessons, and the font is stylish and not intimidating. I never ended up using external assets (I hope this is okay), but there is a note in ASSETS that all of the internally created assets are available under a CC license. I used a gradient layer on top of a background, as well as image and text layers. I used various transformation, crop, erasing, and gradient tools. My commits (at least for the last snapshot), were small and meaningful with descriptive messages.

Snapshot 1: Initial 8.5x11 image with basic fonts and unedited images

Snapshot 2: Expanded to large canvas, missing a lot of images and text, still using basic font.

Snapshot 3/Final Image: Added cropped pictures, rest of text, changed font, added emphasis. This was a large session and I basically completed my project during these pushes. Also switched to jpeg for smaller file.

Link

Repo

[gdelallo]

The title I chose for my argument is Unnatural Nature, meant to highlight the pollution that infiltrates all aspects of our life, including the natural elements.

Because of the Big Sur update creating issues for the GIMP platform usage, I used Photoshop. I took a semester photography class in high school where we used Photoshop extensively, but since that point I have only used it for minor, non-creative editing. One of the biggest problems I ran into were my files being corrupted (I’m honestly not exactly sure what this means, I just know that is what Adobe classified my issue as). As a result, I had to make my peer-suggested edits on a screenshot of my original image which was extremely frustrating and caused me so much unnecessary stress. I also experienced user-errors where the solutions were much simpler than I was making them, causing additional frustration. I was eventually able to resolve my issues, it just made the process less enjoyable. Despite these issues, I am proud of the piece I created and am happy with my abilities I showcased in the argument.

When it comes to the peer-suggested edits, I really took those into consideration. My original post was vibrant and saturated, and this was something my peers suggested I should tone down because it conflicts with the overall message and voice I was trying to convey in my piece.

First Draft:

Final Product butterfly.final.psd.pdf

For the elements that the readings outlined, here is how I saw their positionality within my argument:

Positive and Negative Space This was probably my most challenging aspect to work with. In my visual, I have the butterfly as the center focus since it was the original epicenter of my photo. As I began to further conceptualize and add layers, I had to find a balance between the fixed elements I wanted to keep and the outside elements I was bringing in. I wanted to have enough unnatural, garbage pieces to convey that this is a pressing issue, but I also didn’t want to distract from my main elements. My initial draft included only three layers, a coffee cup, a plastic bag, and micro plastics in the butterfly’s wings. I knew I wanted to add more to draw attention to all of the garbage, but was pressed for time.

After I finished the draft, I did add two more elements: garbage pile and water bottle (not pictured in screenshot below). I feel like these two additions did help draw more attention to the trash without taking attentions away from the butterfly and the words on my final draft.

Color Because I was working on top of a photo I had taken, any color edits I made would apply to that whole layer. For this reason, I found that sticking with the more simple categories within the image adjustments was the best way to go.

After the peer review session, I did tone down the overall saturation and vibrancy of the piece in lieu of creating a better tone, as suggested by my peers.

Density I like to keep things a little more simplistic in terms of density, and I hope I accomplished my goal. I don’t think my piece is too busy, just because that was a concept I am very aware of. Rhythm Ultimately, I wanted the rhythm to flow well, while also being slightly disrupted when the viewer comes to the garbage elements. The natural elements should flow and jive together in an effortless way, while the unnatural ones should stand out (but not too much) and make the audience further analyze those aspects. Movement I tried to create movement with the positions of my layered images. Since my base photo layer had natural dimensions and movement, I had to work within those bounds to make the piece feel fluid and not stagnant. The positions, scales, and clarity of each element does vary based of their position. I wanted to make the piece look as realistic as I could while also achieving some disruption, forcing the audience to look at those added layers.

With all of those things being taken into consideration, I think I meet all the baseline criteria. I used arrangement, size, color, clarity, rhythm, and brightness to help highlight certain aspects and help guide the viewer’s analysis of the piece. The message that I proposed was positioned and created with intention, focusing on color, size, position, font and all of the other considerations needed to create an effective argumentative piece. Without the words on my argument, it wouldn’t be an argument, and so it was very important that I really focus on making that aspect as “perfect” as I could. The images I used in the visual are also very recognizable and help effectively communicate the issue, and I took a good deal of time making sure I had the correct licenses and credits documented in GitHub too.

I also believe I meet several of the aspirational criteria. I have more than 3 distinct overlapping layers (I had 7 in total). I also utilized multiple different tools, including but not limited to the rectangle tool, dodge tool, blur tool, and color select tool. I also had to reposition and resize my layered images, half of which needed precision erasing to create a clean, professional look. Overall, I did incorporate a lot of elements, both in the application and editing process, and so I think I accomplished a lot. I am proud of the work I created, and I hope that others find its message compelling!