Done in Photoshop—Cinderella has lost her shoe.
A portrait of my cousin, he’s about 5 I think. Done with charcoal on drawing paper, about 12” x 18”
For this project, I chose to explore the psychogeography of a circus. I decided to delve deeper into a location that I do not like. I wanted to show something other than what makes me happy, or what I enjoy in order to challenge myself. I have a phobia of clowns, which is why I’m scared to go to the circus. Whenever I hear that carnival music, or see pictures of circuses, I immediately convert them to terror. The normal versiProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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s of the tent, ringleader, and clown are what everyone else sees; although, since I drew them, I couldn’t help but to make them somewhat off. However, the versions of the tent, ringleader, and clown during the storm are what my mind conjures when I think of the circus. To me, this exemplifies the term “psychogeography;” it explores my emotions that are connected to a specific space. While I would prefer to develop my animation skills further in Flash to make this project complete, I am satisfied with the end product. The figures have minimal mo
vement, but I feel that this makes them spookier and more mysterious. It helps the viewer to feel the same unease that I do when visiting the ci
These are my storyboards for my animation project that’s due at the end of the quarter. The project is to explore your own psychogeography, or the experience of a space. I decided to explore the experience of a circus from my point of view. I have a phobia of the circus and of clowns, so to me, the circus is terrifying. I am hoping to convey this in the animation.
This is a logo that I’m designing for a friend’s business. Right now, we’re trying to decide what kind of font they want for the logo, so that part is subject to change.
I redid my self portrait with the help of this tutorial: http://www.psdtop.com/blog/photo-effects/typographic-portrait-like-grammys-posters/. I am really happy with how it turned out—I like it a lot better than my first attempt. The words I used in my portrait are faith, trust, believe, dream, and pixie dust. I used different fonts for each word, so that each one would be distinctive from one another. I also created a wall of text in the background, made up of quotes from Walt Disney. I put these in a light gray color so that they wouldn’t clash with the colors of the portrait, and so they didn’t take away focus from the portrait.
The theme for my self portrait is clearly centered around Disney. I recently completed a 6 month internship as a cast member at Walt Disney World, and it is my goal to gain a career with the company. Because of this, I identify myself as an avid supporter in not only the Disney company, but also what it stands for. The quotes from Walt Disney all reflect perseverance, setting goals, and pursuing your dreams, things that the company promotes even today. As said in Peter Pan, all it takes is “faith, trust, and a little bit of pixie dust” for your dreams to come true. Although it is idealist and incredibly optimistic, this quote gives me inspiration to pursue my goals and therefore helps to define who I am.
Semiotics Reading Reaction
The reading, entitled “Semiotics for Beginners” and written by Daniel Chandler, entailed a general overview of what semiotics are, their history, and how they surround us in everyday life. Chandler is particularily interested in semiotics regarding gender and advertising.
To me, the reading was interesting despite its heavy use of technical jargon. I have always considered signs to be merely visual objects—I thought it was interesting to look at everything we do, say, and create as signs or symbols. Chandler emphasized the importance of socio-cultural knowledge within the usage of semiotics. This made me aware of how different our signs are from those signs found in other cultures. For example, I know that the American symbol for a peace sign with the hand is also an offensive gesture in England. I never realized that this cultural difference applied to other signs or symbols as well. The fact that we have a word for sheep and a separate word for the meat of a sheep seems minor, yet in France, as the article describes, only one word is used for both of these concepts. What other signs follow this pattern, and why are there differences?
I found this reading to be extremely applicable to graphic/visual design. We insert different symbols to invoke different reactions in our audiences. Semiotics is an important aspect of our designs, since in order to sell ideas or work, obtaining the “right” reaction is everything. Personally, I’d like to learn more about the cultural differences in semiotics in order to broaden the audience for my work.
Two questions I had after reading:
Linguistically, how can semiotics help to bridge the gaps in translation?
What symbols/signs are universally recognized (if any) and how can these be used for visual mediums?
For my mashup, I decided to put a wedding in a cemetery. I thought that this sort of event was highly unlikely to happen, as a wedding is supposed to be happy and a cemetery is seen as dreary and morbid. I had to adjust the brightness and the contrast on the couple quite a bit, as the original picture was bright and cheery. I also adjusted the coloring on the couple, as I was trying to match the green lighting in the cemetery. I added some dappling on the couple as well with the dodge tool in order to mimic the sunlight-through-leaves effect.
The pictures used can be found here:
