VisComII: Gilligan List

The five fonts I would choose would probably be times, bellrose, helvetica, arial, and garamond. I want a variety serif and sanserifs. They are simplistic and common for the most part and can be used for/ on anything, except bellrose, which is a font I found, but I have used on several projects of mine. I think its readable and still eye-catching.

VisComII: Stressed Out Magazine Spread

The background of the spread is a very light blue, I think I should darken the value of that slightly and fix the pull quote to make sure it's more readable, darken the blue of the quote or lighten the box behind it. Figure out what images I want to use and how much space they may take up for sure. The time estimate was right on from about 2-3 hours overall. So far I've used 3 fonts from my Gilligan list- times, garamond, and bellrose.

Second layout, I think is much better. It didn't take as much time to do this layout because the text was already layed out to fit the two pages. I made the headline bigger, changed the colors around, added images, and messed with the layout a bit.

Final production for my 2 page spread. It changed quite a bit each step. I am happy for the most part with this layout. I think it feels like it needs more to it or like something is missing, but not sure what. It didn't take much more time to get to the final layout from the second presentation, except for photoshopping the chain link.

Illustration: 20 X 30 Watercolor

I am happy with how my 20X30 watercolor painting turned out. The thing I think I need to work maybe a little more on would be the grasses on each side of the boardwalk. It was time consuming, but how couldn't have it been, approximately between 3-4 hours. It is like a smaller painting I did earlier, except this image was to the left of the previous image (can see below).

VisComII: Shut Up & Dance

Our next redesign assignment. We didn't get to go over this layout in class. Not sure too much what I would do to change or fix this layout. It seems very simplistic and as if it wouldn't have too long, but I messed around with the layout so the time it took was a bit longer than expected. I couldn't decide between a silhoutte or the actual image, but as I was thinking about a concept, I chose the silhoutte because it's as if she has shutten up and is dancing.

VisComII: Native American Heritage

We presented our next redesigned flyer for Native American Heritage Month. I need to add the rest of the logos, downsize the reslife logo, and whatever other advice Rusty has. The next step is improving this layout as well as starting another flyer.

My next layout still lacked a concept, I haven't been able to come up with any good saying to go along with the teepee. Someone had suggested a diagonal layout/grid, which I think would help it out a lot, along with saying. Another improvement needs to be the text, add color and space to separate each of the events. So concept, layout, and separation.

The third layout before final production. Not sure on what much I should change, it does lean a little more to the left as I noticed when it was up on the wall. I'll have to look more at it after I've finally had a break from staring at it for so long. This layout didn't take as long, estimated time was about right, between 30 minutes to an hour.

This is my final production for my Native American Heritage Month poster. I moved the logo down, downsized the top headline a bit, took down the line weight for the line, and moved the main headline over slightly to balance the layout. Final production didn't take long at all, I knew what I wanted to change, and then printed.

Illustration: Watercolor

This was our second assignment for experimenting with watercolors, landscapes. I think I like doing landscapes the best so far. Below was our next assignment was to paint something with architecture which was not as much fun, so I included some landscape in pretty much all of those too. The painting above looks pretty close to its original photo...no I didn't go to the ocean over night but I have been painting photos I've taken. I'm glad with how it turned out, the different 'textures' of the grass and shrubbery in the sand and the big palm-like tree to the left. I was actually able to create a slight sense of depth/perspective.


This was probaly my most sufficient architectural painting. It's very simple and didn't take much time to make it look decent. Again I did the landscape and I think, mainly because of the bridge, I was able to create a prospective. The other architectural paintings I don't think were as succesful, it's not that I needed to spend an overly amount of time on each of them, but to allow them to dry and so on, takes time that I didn't have. There aren't enough hours in a day to get everything done for every class.


This was our fourth assignment, watercolor then 'copy' another illustration with pen and ink. I chose these illustrations because I feel I did fairly decent with the pen and ink image. I could probably add more lines to it for more value and better perspective. Overall, this assignment was okay. I've done pen and ink before, but I've forgotten all the techniques, and I remember the one project I did in high school that was pen and ink. On an about 13X19 sheet of drawing paper, we did a western scene, mine was looking pretty good until I tried a different technique for grass, and well I ruined the piece just a little, so that was my fun first experience with pen and ink. I'm looking forward to the next assignment, washes with both watercolor and pen and ink.



Next was to do a pen/ink then watercolor wash and then watercolor wash with pen/ink over it. The results seen above. Coincidentally these two I chose were the last of each set I did. The peach is not the same above, this was the watercolor wash first then took pen/ink over it. Working with pen/ink is harder dealing with value, but I know that it takes practice. As for the marker in the top image, first applied was the pen/ink, then watercolor wash on top. I'm happy with how this turned out. I think it was easier/ better looking working with the ink first then wash, the pen/ink isn't so dominating of the image and allows for a good balance.

I think this is our last for little 10-20 small image paintings. This last assignment was to do the same object with 10 different styles/techniques. My object was a Sharpie pen. The top image is done with just pen and ink and the bottom was pen and ink with a gouche wash over.

VisComII: Redesigning Flyers

Our first, second, and third assignments, were to redesign flyers Rusty found around campus, with the use of only black being our only color and no bleed.

The two above were the third redesigns, the specs were on a 11X17 this time. I think I had the most fun with these, maybe because I got to mess around in photoshop more and even sketched my own graphic for the 'Latin Dance Fiesta'. 'Climb to New Heights' I've change from the critique in class, as you can now see the contrast better on-screen than what my printer allowed, and I alligned the title to a straight line, rather than diagonal to before.

As for the 'German Evening' it was a bit more difficult I think, just because there wasn't as much to work with or hard to come up with a full concept.

I already know things I want to change and if need be for a portfolio piece, I'll change the image to an illustration ('Ancient Greek').