Author: iamjackyjack

12A Brochure Project

by iamjackyjack, posted in Comm 130 - Rob Wagner's Blog, Design

DESCRIPTION
Design a brochure to advertise your company’s offerings.

13BRobWagner

13BRobWagner2

PROCESS (Programs, Tools, Skills, FOCUS principles)
1. I love basketball, and also enjoy financial counseling and real-estate investing, so these were

my to category contenders, but I eventually decided on Basketball.
2. The trick was that we have been having some rainy weather, and I needed some outdoor shots, so for the first time in this course I sought some images from online sources that offered them royalty free. I prefer to do my own pictures, but in this case it made more sense to expand my image resources.
3. This one is an interesting combo because it plays off an actual business, one of my favorite NBA players is Luke Ridnour who has now retired and runs a basketball camp. I first discovered him while playing for the former Seattle Supersonics, so my color scheme is a mixture of green and yellow (former Supersonics’ colors), as well as blue (camping) and red (common NBA color, or basketball), so it wasn’t easy getting all of these to come together, literally took hours just getting the colors to get along. One thing that helped was to separate each panel instead of having multiple colors on the same one, and then drawing repetition principles in the font styles across each panel.
4. Breakthrough: As I looked at several other brochures that seemed WAY more professional than mine, I finally discovered that one thing they did was incorporate a full image across the most or all of the front or back of the brochure, so I did that with a close up of a basketball, and it worked!
5. Before I printed, I found that some of the panels in the JPG form were slightly off balance from each other, so I went back into Adobe InDesign, and noted the actual size and positions of each panel to get them each to line up. I also employed a tiny white line in between each panel to guide the folding process and keep it clean and neat.

CRITIQUE PROCESS
Facebook Critique: Jacob Casal Always has good advice in design. He suggested that I loosen up the paragraphs a bit because they seemed crowded, so I made some adjustments to that.
Instructor Critique: Brother Stucki suggested that I enhance the constrast on the white font against the yellow background, as well as the same suggestion above to increase padding within the text boxes. He also recommended that I do more with the back-side wording, “Take…The…Shot”, so I’ve addressed each of those, and hope it comes out looking better.
Family Critique: Both my wife, and neice who viewed my work commented that the basketball (in the logo) on the front of the brochure did a good job of standing out by sticking up, so I went ahead and kept that.

MESSAGE
You can be more than you now are, if you give yourself a chance, and take the shot.

AUDIENCE
Youth and parents.

TOP THING LEARNED
Earlier in this course, it was suggested that a lot of art is borrowed from other art, and I have found that some of my best ideas on this piece were inspired by other brochure designs I discovered online during my research. While being careful not to copy their idea, I took the concept and applied it to my own piece in my own way.

COLOR SCHEME & COLOR NAMES
Split Complementary // Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, Black and White.

TITLE FONT NAME & CATEGORY
Arial Black // Sans Serif

COPY FONT NAME & CATEGORY
Verdana // Sans Serif??? (Yes, they’re both Sans serif, but the size and styling makes it work, I couldn’t find a Serif that communicated as I wanted it to with the primary audience: youth).

WORD COUNT
348

THUMBNAILS OF ANY ORIGINAL, UNEDITED IMAGE(S) USED IN THE PROJECT
Besides what is referenced below, the images are my own.

Man in Yellow shorts dunking, panel 2, upper left: https://pixabay.com/en/basketball-sport-game-jump-male-1470525/
Dunking

Black and White Shot of Basketball, fourth panel, bottom-left: https://pixabay.com/en/ball-basketball-sport-game-1270395/
BandW Ball on Concrete

DSC_0881DSC_0883Palm BallLogo for Basketball Camp

10A Webpage Mockup Project

by iamjackyjack, posted in Comm 130 - Rob Wagner's Blog, Design

RobWagnerWebPageMockup

DESCRIPTION
Design a website homepage using a grid.

PROCESS (Programs, Tools, Skills, FOCUS principles)
1. I chose to continue with a fictional character that I created one day when my then 3-year old daughter and I were on a car ride, and I needed something to occupy her mind to rescue her from car-boredom, so I made up a story about a tiny pumpkin named Jacky-Jack.
2. I have published a few of these stories here. Jacky-Jack started as a handful of amusing stories for me to share with my daughter, but then her friends and cousins got into it, and asked for more, so I started putting some of it down on paper. Eventually, I would like to create Jacky-Jack games and cartoons to go with the stories, and offer special downloads and merchandise to purchase, so that’s what this site is based on.
3. I knew that this being a kids’ site, it had to be simple by design, but that is so much easier said than done. Adobe Photoshop has proven to have such a steep learning curve that I spend hours only making a few adjustments, and I end up running out of time to get it looking quite like I really want it to, but it is getting closer now.
4. Going off the principle of “less is more”, I provided a graphic illustration at the top that tells exactly who Jacky-Jack is, and below that are five simple buttons to navigate to different services offered by the site. That’s it, simple, so when a visitor views the site, they will know exactly what it’s for, and what they can do there.
5. I spent hours creating the Jacky-Jack character, and although he’s still not quite looking like I want him to yet, he’s WAY closer than a week ago. It’s simply going to take more practice with PS to get it looking like I want it to. I also spent a little over an hour with the logos or icons that go over each link. While I generated the base for some of them from the custom shape builder, I also made some adjustments to make them more custom to what I want to communicate (kid-friendly, fun, and simple).

Sketch
Sketch

CRITIQUE PROCESS
Facebook Critique:
I received some great advice via Facebook from Ralph Borcherds, who shared some ideas for how to improve my knowledge of Photoshop. I also received some valuable advice from Sarah Pence Sharp, and Brooke Ericson who suggested that I change it to Fall colors to match the theme better, great idea! Done.

Instructor Critique:
critique from our instructor, brother Stucki, who despite my discontent with my initial project, said that I actually wasn’t that far off, just needed to finish it up a bit, by adding more pumpkin like details such as a stem, some lines/ridges, and adding icons to the circle links, so I did that.

MESSAGE
It’s okay to be the smallest one out there, you can have a great life no matter who you are.

AUDIENCE
Children and parents of young children.

TOP THING LEARNED
Youtube is your friend. There are many people on Youtube who know how to use Photoshop, and can help give you ideas on how to improve your work. I think that considering this is a college course, we’re not expected to be given every little detail from the course to succeed, indeed I now feel that a large part of our success is going to come from thinking outside the box, and seeing how we can improve on the basic knowledge we’ve been given to start each project.

COLOR SCHEME & COLOR NAMES
Split Complementary // Orange, Light Browns and yellows, and blues.

TITLE FONT NAME & CATEGORY
Cooper Black // Decorative/Serif

COPY FONT NAME & CATEGORY
Arial // Sans Serif

THUMBNAILS OF ANY ORIGINAL, UNEDITED IMAGE(S) USED IN THE PROJECT
Images are my own.

9A HTML and CSS Coding Project

by iamjackyjack, posted in Uncategorized

9arobwagnerscreenshot

DESCRIPTION
Code a custom webpage with HTML and CSS.

PROCESS (Programs, Tools, Skills, FOCUS principles)
1. First I created my logo in Illustrator. I enjoy marketing and made this my focus.
2. I resized my logo to be 450.
3. I downloaded the HTML file and input my own content and added appropriate tags.
4. Then I downloaded the CSS file and made adjustments according my style and coloring.
5. I changed the body font to Verdana, and the Heading fonts to Cheek.
6. I knew that a lighter background would be best so I selected white for the body, and light grey for the surrounding white space around the subject page.
7. I validated both my HTML and CSS. CSS was fine, but I continued to get an error on the HTML suggesting that the “head” tag already existed. I checked and re-checked, but at length could find no way to correct this and concluded that it may be an error within the validator since no other tag exists with that name.

CRITIQUE PROCESS
I received a lot of feedback regarding the logo design via Facebook friends, and another classmate who suggested that I get away from the Papyrus font and use a rectangle to lengthen the stem of the “P” so that it achieved the look I admired in the Papyrus version. I spent half the day working on this, and then checked with my wife to see which she preferred, and she said that she still likes the Papyrus version better, and I agreed. So I spent all of that time creating a new one, but now I know I like the original best. Here’s an example of the new version I decided not to use.

9a-logo

MESSAGE
Reach your target audience effectively with our marketing services.

AUDIENCE
Local, SMB (Small to Mid-sized businesses).

TOP THING LEARNED
You don’t have to add extra shapes to your text to alter it’s appearance uniquely, you can actually select each letter individually as a separate object as I learned from a Youtube video after spending some time trying to match up a rectangle’s dimensions with an “I”.

COLOR SCHEME & COLOR NAMES
Complementary // Red, White, Black, and Light Gray

TITLE FONT NAME & CATEGORY
Cheek // Modern

COPY FONT NAME & CATEGORY
Verdana // Sans Serif

THUMBNAILS OF ANY ORIGINAL, UNEDITED IMAGE(S) USED IN THE PROJECT
N/A

SOURCE OF EACH IMAGE (website name and hyperlink)
The graphics are my own.

8A Infographic Project

by iamjackyjack, posted in Uncategorized

8a-infographic-1DESCRIPTION
Create an infographic that organizes data in a visually pleasing way.

PROCESS (Programs, Tools, Skills, FOCUS principles)
1. I’ve been in banking for 8 years, and felt comfortable talking about the home ownership process.
2. I sketched my ideas and a potential picture for it.
3. I mapped out color schemes.

CRITIQUE PROCESS
Instructor suggested that it was one-sided, so I adjusted the content, so I adjusted that.

Didn’t receive any other feedback on FB, but I had some improved design ideas that I implemented.

MESSAGE
The pros and cons to renting and home ownership.

AUDIENCE
Anyone 20+ as mortgage companies don’t tend to lend to individuals who have less than 2 years of credit history, and one cannot begin building credit until they are 18.

TOP THING LEARNED
Illustrator is an extremely powerful tool, and because of the many features and functions it possesses, it naturally has a steep learning curve. I still can’t believe how much time I spent making what I feel is a very simple design, but I believe that with practice, like most things, it will become easier, and I will get better at it.

COLOR SCHEME & COLOR NAMES
Complimentary: Red, white, black, blue, and gray.

TITLE FONT NAME & CATEGORY
 Perpetua // Oldstyle

COPY FONT NAME & CATEGORY
Verdana // Sans Serif

THUMBNAILS OF ANY ORIGINAL, UNEDITED IMAGE(S) USED IN THE PROJECT

N/A

SOURCE OF EACH IMAGE (website name and hyperlink)
The graphics are my own.
Source of graph data: Personal research in Salt Lake County, UT area where average rent size and average home size with monthly costs of $1,250 and how each compares.

Business Identity

by iamjackyjack, posted in Uncategorized

Impact Marketing provides media design, and implementation for educating your target audience on products and services your business offers.

 

Letterhead

letterhead

 

Front and Back of Business Card (Top: Front, Bottom: Back).

business-card-front-and-back

Description
Create a logo for a company/service/organization and establish a visual identity across documents.

Process
1. After brainstorming the idea for a while, I decided on marketing, for two reasons: 1) I enjoy marketing, and 2) If I can offer something of value for SMB’s in the realm of marketing, then I may one day use this project as a springboard for a side business that I’d enjoy doing later.
2. After I had my idea ready, I knew that I wanted my marketing to above-all, have an impact, so that name stuck, and I went to work.
3. I researched the assignment, and went through the tutorials, but I wanted more how-to knowledge on the Adobe side, so I Youtubed a couple more videos on creating logos, and business cards, armed with this knowledge, I created three distinctly different styles for a logo, and after asking everyone in the home (my wife, niece, and 7-year old), I needed more feedback, so I sought it out by posting my project on facebook, and received feedback from several individuals. The overwhelming consensus was to go with the above-shown logo design. I arrived at this design by accident when I was working with the gradient tool, and noticed that the circle started to disappear on one side, I moved the circle over the “act” part of “Impact” and it all came together, ‘looked like it belonged there.
4. After gaining that design idea, I toyed around with several back-side options for the business card. In one idea, I thought it would be clever to reverse it, as if you’re looking at it through a mirror, but I eventually decided that this was just tacky, and relented for a different option.
5. I received feedback on changing the Myriad pro, and the Papyrus Typefaces, and while I agreed to change the Myriad Pro to Verdana because I felt it looked better, and flows well, I couldn’t find another Typeface with a pronounced stem for the “P” like I did in Papyrus, and that was an important part for me, so I have chosen to stay with it for now.

Critique Process
I posted the different logos on facebook to gain enough feedback for a conclusive response on which logo design to move forward with, and then I posted my business cards and letterhead (although later than due on that day), and was graciously rewarded with some sound feedback from Jacob Casal who suggested some spacing corrections to free up white space, and help the logo feel not so cramped, so I did that. He also suggested changing the font types, and I changed the one, but couldn’t find a good replacement for the other (Papyrus), any suggestions? It needs to be one that has a pronounced/extended stem on the “P”.

Facebook Critique by: Caleb Kirk, Cory Cannon, Julie Holbrook, Maria Stephenson, Robert Reed, Raymond Adams, Tim Roush, Jared Wagner, Jason Maner, Tracy McCleen Pulley, and James & Karlene Opfar.

Classmate Critique: Jacob Casal

Message
When you need your company, product, or service to get noticed, we can make an impact.

Audience
Local SMB owners

Top Thing Learned
Sometimes the best things happen by accident, don’t fault it for being an accident, it may be just the thing, so be ready to go with it.

Color Scheme & Color Names
Complementary / / Red, Black, and White

Title Font Name and Category
Papyrus / / Script

Copy Font Name and Category
Verdana / / Sans Serif

Thumbnails/Unedited Images
N/A

Source of Each Image
The graphics are my own.

Montage Project

by iamjackyjack, posted in Comm 130 - Rob Wagner's Blog, Design

montage-2

Description
Design a spiritual poster montage using the blend of images and type.

Process
As I considered my options, and the message that I wanted to share, I was going back and forth between the innocence of children, and the sanctity of marriage. I finally decided that I’ve already done a lot of photos with my children, so I’d go with the marriage option.

The first part was to choose a photo, I found this one from our October family pictures, and then found another one of the Salt Lake City Temple, and the Christus, so putting the three together, I came up with my message: “Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 11:11)

The Temple would be the background with the couple in the foreground, while in the upper-right corner would be the Savior. I wanted the text “In the Lord” to appear separate from the rest of the quote, and on the same side as the Savior.

I went to OfficeMax to print out a copy for the video. What video? Oh yeah, this one doesn’t call for a video……. oh. Well now I feel silly.

Critique Process
I received a PM from the instructor because my montage was last in line, and his video recording stopped before mine could be opened, so he offered the suggestion to change the font “In the Lord” and to make the Christus a little smaller. He also suggested blending the edges around the couple better. I also received feedback from Jacob Casal on Facebook that shared a lot of the same advice, as well as opening it up a bit, and blending more because the message felt blunt, and the images were a little crowded, so I added the red, made more gradual shadows, and softened edges to blend them better.

Message
Man and woman belong together as husband and wife, and that is best achieved when focusing on principles centered on Jesus Christ.

I believe that success in marriage is not measured in years, that is only one of the products of a successful marriage. I believe it is more like a fun competition of seeing who can make the other the happiest. We don’t stay together just to stay together, we stay together because we make each other happy, and we are devoted to each other. Of course compared to eternity, 11 years is just a drop in the bucket.

Audience
Married, and soon-to-be married couples who believe in Christ. Especially those who believe in eternal marriages.

Top Thing Learned
The black and white in the bottom left corner that affects the blending (bringing the subject image forward or sending it behind the other) is only available when the subject photo’s mask is created and selected on the bottom right. Took me a long time to finally figure this out, once I did, the rest went much easier.

Color Scheme and Color Names
Complementary | Red, white, and blue

Copy Font Name and Category
Quote and reference: Lucinda Bright (Italic)
Emphasis text: Berlin Sans FB

Thumbnails of any originals

Source of Each Image
Couple by Rachel Little; Temple and Christus by Chandra Wagner.

 

Photo Design Project

by iamjackyjack, posted in Uncategorized

By Robert Wagner (photo credit by my super-awesome niece, Rachel Little)

for-website

Video Description

Description
By using photography and design skills, create a project that encompasses a consistent color scheme from the image.

Process (Programs, Tools, Skills, Focus Principles) 
For this  project, I wanted something with more color than the white, and other shades of white that our snowy climate currently offers, so I checked through our recent family photos that our niece lovingly took for us (using the Nikon D5200 we purchased as an early Christmas present in November 2014), and I found the above photo. As I looked into my daughter’s eyes, it hit me that this photo speaks about visual communication with our children, so I went to work on that. After uploading the photo in Adobe PS, I adjusted the levels, variance, and selective color to arrive at what I felt was visually pleasing. The actual colors that I chose for the text and background color in the boxes, came from eye-dropping a sample from the background, another sample from the background, and one from Lydia’s eyes.

Color Scheme
I used a monochromatic color scheme, focusing on the greens in the background, with a few bluish-green variants in some of the text and background boxes. Because I pulled these colors off of the photo, I gave them custom names such as “leaf background” and “eye color”.

Critique
I received some great advice from Marci Grimaud on our Facebook draft in which she made me aware that my text was super-close to the edge of the photo (that’s a no no). I was glad she said something, so I addressed that before going to print, and then I realized I had to cut the edges off still to make it a full bleed so… oh well. Lesson learned, that’s WHY we have to leave .5 inches between the text and the edge. Fortunately it still came out okay, but I will watch for this better next time. Additionally, the instructor clued me in on the mixed message that my original font sent with a mature message.

Audience
This piece is really intended for young parents, or parents with young children. There is a lot that children will tell you, if you know how to listen with your eyes.

Message
Look into your child’s eyes when they’re sharing something with you, feel their experience, and get the whole message, or in other words, put down the #$%@ phone! (that says “darn” in case you were wondering)

Fonts Used
MS Reference Sans Serif / Sans Serif and Segoe Print / Script

Thumbnail of original
lydia-smile-2

Image Source
Taken by my niece for our October family photos at Wheeler Farm in Murray, UT using our Nikon D5200. These cameras are wonderful prosumer cameras.

Thank you for stopping by!

4C: Photography Activity

by iamjackyjack, posted in Comm 130 - Rob Wagner's Blog
robwagner-01-outsidelight
Light 1: Outside
robwagner-02-insidelight
Light 2: Inside
robwagner-03-foreground
Focus 1: Foreground
robwagner-04-background
Focus 2: Background
robwagner-05-thirds
Composition 1: Thirds
robwagner-06-lead
Composition 2: Lead Room

This project was a lot of fun for me! I felt overwhelmed when I first started because I confused this part of the project for the whole end result due next week, but I eventually made sense of it. As I began to learn the different techniques, and gained some basic knowledge of using Adobe Photoshop, the fun just exploded!

I love basketball, and I work at a Credit Union, so I put those two together, and began taking photos, I took about 20 photos to narrow it down to the ones that I felt best about. The only part that I really felt a little lost on was doing the thirds, and the lead room. It felt different in the camera, so next time I will practice giving some more lead room, and aligning the thirds better. That stack of cash there is actually a stack of ones with a 100 dollar bill on top, I thought that would be more interesting.

So guess which sport is my favorite! Guess, guess, guess, guess, guess!!! 🙂

Thanks for stopping by, this truly was a ton of fun, and I loved it!

 

 

Week 3 and 4

by iamjackyjack, posted in Uncategorized

home-screen-shot

Link to Prezi

Audience

Students and young families

Message

If you don’t control your money, someone else will

Overview of project

I love art, and I love learning how to improve my typography and graphic design skills, but just because you love art, doesn’t mean it will be easy. This week has really tested me with software application, finding and creating the right photos to use in my Prezi, and how to get it to do what I want it to.

I’ve worked in banking for a long time, and it’s still amazing that over 80% of the people I meet with do not have a budget (and really need one), I can’t imagine just winging it, and hoping everything works out, so building a budget became my topic, and I hope it helps some people.

Photos

The photos are all my own. I found way to implement some of the family photos that we took in October, but for some of the photos, I had to create my own especially for this project, which took some time, but I’m pretty happy with how it came out.

Background

After messing around with the background, and some images on it, it just created too much variation, and was not a good backdrop for the foreground text, so I decided instead to just fill the background with a light blue color (since blue fades into the background, and pushes the other elements forward).

Sketch

Here’s a sketch of how I laid out my idea, I later decided to just go with a more uniform system, so I organized it a little bit different, I wanted it to flow from main points to sub points. I changed the conclusion a little as well, providing for my family adequately is perhaps the strongest goal I can think of for keeping a budget, and it’s always there.

sketch

Critique

Somehow, I missed the due date for the critique on Facebook, I still posted it for practice, but that was really frustrating. I was relying on the due dates on the right of i-Learn, but then realized after seeing everyone else’s post that I missed something, and sure enough, I should have checked my email. Lesson learned, check email more often.

Since I missed the due date on that one, I watched the videos posted to gain some insight on what to do as I work toward my final Prezi project to turn in.