Picture 3 Comments

1. What is the Visual Content of the Image?
The FACE at the top. THE ARM at the bottom. The Hand, lending support. The TWIGS growing form his arm and the indistinct blue BACKGROUND behind him.

2. Name 3 design elements...
The crooked LINEs of the twigs. The COLOR of the background and the SHAPE of the face and arm all add to the overall look of the piece. There is almost no depth to the piece as the background is hard to fathom. Is it near or far? Who can tell...

3. Name 3 design principals
I think this has an asymmetrical BALANCE to it, with the face at the top and the arms at the bottom bracketing the central area.

For me, the twigs growing out of the man's arm are the main EMPHASISof the piece. THe face is looking at them and thearm at the bottom stops your gaze like an imaginary horizon.

The UNITY of the color and mood of the various elements really work together here to give this piece a similar "feel" The somber face, the pale blue background and the unearthly "twigs"

4. What color sceme is used?
The colors here are somber. THey inspire thoughts of winter, night time and isolation, very effective.

5. What could be improved in the image
I have to agree with another poster. It would really add to the mood if the glass behind him were a rainy window and we could see more of where he is to get better context of what is happening. Is he in a hospital in the city? The future? or is he at home? Of course half the fun is perhaps not knowing those answers...

6. What wins on this page
I see the face at the top of the image, which is of course where one naturally reads a page. Then the arm and the strange "twigs growing form his arm. Finally the background - where is he? When is he?...

7. Do you like this image?
I like it because it is unnatural and i enjoy art that is unnatural. Although it is not something that I would choose to frame and hang in my dining room to stare at while I eat.

The Making of a Background

In the first cards (shown in earlier posts) I chose a background from a Nasa photos of a galaxy. That was pretty easy as I just looked for the right photo and color adjusted it. For the next background the designers asked me to create a sort of hypnotic swirl. I really couldn't find anything online, so I just made it from scratch. So I here is the process I went through..

No 1: I created a black pointed "spoke" that a replicated and started to arrange on a central point.
No.2: I got the spokes all arranged and started to adjust the color. They wanted something that was comic book like.
No3: I copied one set of spokes and layered it on top, then rotated it. I used colors that were reminiscent of a circus tent.
No 4: I then used the distort tool to "twist" the rays in a circle. I played around with the lighting effects, but found it was easier and quicker in this case to just use the airbrush tool with a really big brush. I then imported it into the card template and added the text and images for the card.

Creation of an icon

So I thought it might be interesting to break down how I come up with the icon designs.
I have to design 66 icons for use in this card game and have been looking at clip art, books and online image searches for ideas. Sometimes the idea for a card is obvious and I just sketch it up, ink it, scan it and start coloring it and adding effects.

Here are two examples where i "found" the idea. Its very obvious these inspired me to create the card image. The moon icon is very close to my finished design in many ways though there are differences in the face, shape, size of the star and the color "blue moon" So my question for the rest of you is, is my version a "steal' or is it 'inspired" by the jewely photo? I'd love to know what you think...

The other image is a little less obvious, but the photo of the 4 hands pointing in different directions obviously inspired me to create the confusion image. I wanted it to be a little more "creepy, so I added the eyes and the tentacles to create a sort of strange 'compass".

Its a real challenge coming up with 66 images, but I am making progress. I have about 10 done so far 9though not all have been approved by the games designers yet. Only 56 more to go...

So What IS Next?

Rachel gave me a great review of my first project and then asked "So what is next?" I figured I'd answer that here. Since I turned in the project, the game designers have finally approved the card layout and design, so this last week I have been actually creating new cards for the deck, using the Zeta Body card (Project 1) as my template. The designers want me to get a bunch of cards made, so that they can print out playtest version of the cards so they can try the game out under real world conditions.

WHAT I NEED TO LEARN...
In terms of tutorials, I'm going to have to find out how to do several things I've never done before;

1) Sticker Die-cut layer: since these are stickers I have create a layer that will tell the printer where to put the sticker cuts. The good news is all the cards will have the same die-cut. My big questions is should I create this layer in Photoshop or place it in InDesign?

2) A fifth color layer. Yes they want to add a florescent ink to the card for the logo and a few words. I think this may be something they will end up NOT doing in the long run, but they are planning for it and I'll have to figure out how to do it.

3) FOIL layering. I'm not completely sure how to even describe this, but some of the cards (the rare ones) will be printed on foil and I'll need to work out how to let that "bleed through" in various places. It was mentioned in class that maybe that could be done with lighting effects in some way - but I have no clue about how that would work - so I have my research to do there.

The Card shown in this post is a design that they rejected as they thought it looked too much like the Riddler's logo (from the Batman comics) Of course that was what I was going for. That's the way it goes sometimes, You have to design for the client and if you can't do that, you should probably be a fine artist rather then a commercial one...

PROJECT 1 - New Version of Card

As I mentioned in the previous post about the Card Project, the game designers and I are still moving forward on trying to pin down a final card design. Once that is done I can really start creating multiple cards for the set. I have some of the icon designs already done, and waiting to put on the final card template.

Meanwhile here's the latest version of the card. You can look at the earlier post to see the difference. The main change is that now the card text is placed flush left below the large icon image. I need to do more research to find out how printers want to have the diecut level should look like to let them know properly where the cuts go. I'm sure I can find a tutorial on that.

I heard recently that they want to add a 5th color as well, so I'll have to figure that trick out as well too.

Critique #1 Golden Arm Poster

I got this critique done weeks ago, but realized I had not actually posted it on my blog. So here is is now.
Critique 2 has been up on my blog for over a week at this, point. So here is finally critique #1.

Q 1) What is the Visual content of this image?
A) The image contains 2 blue, 2 black & 1 purple rectangles and an L shaped black shape with a symbolic arm extending from the bottom. The style is crude, almost tribal and the objects are arranged like bricks or a maze.

Q 2) Name 3 design elements that are prevalent in this image
A) olor: Black, white purple and blue each distinct.
Direction: In their own way, the corners of the rectangles "point" towards the center of the image.
Shape: the black arm and rectangles, and their rough angular edges create a mood and look for the piece.

Q 3) Name 3 design principles
A) Empahsis: the arm is the center and everything else in the piece builds around the arm.
Balance: the 2 bars at the top and the 2 bars at the bottom give the piece a sense of balance
Unity: The colors and tribal style give this piece a sense of unity. If feels like a building or a maze to me, with the hand trapped in the center.

Q 4) What types of color scheme is used?
The colors are stark, clearly defined and yet they share a similar color sceam: dark, sad and somewhat menacing. The color of rain or concrete at night.

Q 5) What could improve this image
I would eliminate the top and bottom bars and make the arm and the title MUCH larger than what are now. I would also make Frank Sinatra's name much larger across the top. It's an easy fix, that would still give the piece the same feeling as the orginal.

Q 6) What wins - what draws you in?
That white square in the center and the arm. My eye is pulled right into that center area.

Q 7) Do you like this image?
I think this is a very poor design for a movie poster. It does not emphasize that Frank Sinatra is the star or really give much hint as to what the movie is about. If someone were to try a do a movie poster in that style today, they would be fired. A fun exersize would be to redesign this poster using the same text, but totally different graphics.

PROJECT PROGRESS CARD PROTOTYPE

OVERVIEW: So over the last few weeks I have been discussing and working with the game designers on exactly what their card will look like. This is a particularly tricky prospect since the card has to do the following: A) it has to look "cool" B) it has to have all the game design aspects in place & C) it has to be as user friendly as possible to allow it to be easy to play. So I have developed a prototype of what a typical card might look like based on the developers input.

IMAGE: I created this multilayered image entirely in photoshop, though I suspect that the final version will have much of the smaller type placed in InDesign after importing the basic cmyk image (minus the type) I got the background of the galaxy from the Nasa Hubble site. The car is from a stock 3D image site I found. (though I changed the color and added the headlights.)

OPINION? At the moment, they seem pretty happy with this, but I have my doubts about the functionality of the small type running around the central image. It may be too hard to read, especially if one is trying to play a fast-paced game. This is really where the design and the function have to be balanced. I'd really like to get some feedback from the rest of the class group and see what suggestions or comments you 4 might have. (Rachel too for that matter)