Right Brain vs. Left Brain!

I was on StumbleUpon recently and came across this picture. The content is very interesting but I also really liked the way the picture was made. The layout is excellent, and the colours and fonts help get the message across as well. 

While I was reading this I was trying to think of what brain type I am. I find that I relate to both of them a lot. At the end of the day, I am much better at science and math than art, but I guess that's why I'm in this program - to develop my skills as a right-brain. 

Anyway, I just really liked this picture and thought I should share. 

Happy Summer!! 

LEGO Game of Thrones Intro!

It's pretty amazing what some people can create. This is a remake of the Game of Thrones intro - but is done with LEGO!

I thought this was so cool because the makers were able to get the kingdoms to build up just like in the original theme. They used a lot of aspects from the original theme and incorporated them into this one. What a great and creative idea!
When I was reading the Youtube comments I noticed that a lot of people were complaining about the music, however I thought the music was better customized, I don't think it would have the same affect if it wasn't. 

Season One Original:

Season Two Original: 

Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. I just thought it was very creative and well done. 

Website Portfolio!

Click here for my portfolio!

Website Reflection:

The purpose of my website is to showcase my work in a neat and professional style while still showing bits of my personality. By doing this I can link my work to anyone who wants to see it and I will always have a place to display any new work that I happen to create.

I used  http://www.wix.com/  as a template for my portfolio but edited my pictures with Adobe Photoshop CS4.

• Printmaking: This piece is not my best from art class, however I wanted to include it because I can look back on it when I please and see how the similarities and differences between this work and my future work. 
• Chinese Peacock: The Chinese Brush painting unit was very fun, and I think that this was my favourite piece from that unit. 
• Orchid: I included the Orchid because I thought my brush strokes looked very delicate and professional. 
• Skull Drawing: This was my favourite piece from the entire art unit, I loved my shading in it and the way I was able to use the elements and principles of design. 
• Peculiar: My first typography experiment turned out very well. The font choice and layout of the word helped the meaning shine through. It was definitely my favourite piece from the semester. 
• Peacock Feather: I enjoy this piece because of the contrast of colours between the background and feather. 
• Shirt: I thought that the Shazaam shirt looked very clean, and although the direct message of my chosen article didn't show, I still thought the message I ended up trying to portray was shown.
• Self Portrait: I think the self portrait is one of the most important projects in the tech portion of CyberARTS. There were many changes I would have made, but I still wanted to show it on my portfolio. 

I really enjoyed the overall simplicity of the layout that I chose and re arranged. I think the menu bar at the top with the fence in the background look very clean. I might've changed the background to have more white  space on my web portfolio. I'd also try harder in figuring out how to add sub pages which you can customize (more on that a little further down). 

Now that it is done, I really like my portfolio. I never thought that my work has ever stuck to one specific style, and I think this is really shown on my website. I wanted to put my self-portrait on my homepage for this reason. By putting my short description and self-portrait on the home page I was hoping it would give the viewer a heads up into what they may see. I've never stuck with one style and I've never really wanted to. (Or maybe I have and can't tell - you tell me!)

I had a lot of trouble when putting up this website. When I first began to make it, I tried to make customaizable sub pages, however when I'd make them, the sub pages would have the same albums on them. (For example: If I had portfolio in the menu bar, and art/tech in the drop down, every time I would try to change the template and/or photos on the sub pages they would end up being the same for each). I eventually decided that everything looked okay in the menu bar). I also was not able to upload my animations. I originally tried to add the pause/play button, but because I had not started my animations in ActionScript 3.0, it had not worked. After that, when uploading the Kinetic Typography to the website, the file was not scaled and I was not able to scale it. I know that the tech portion of CyberARTS will always have challenges that we need to overcome, and even though it's frustrating I don't really mind compromising a few aspects of my original designs. 

More Helvetica

Oooops. Another Helvetica post. Sorry. (Not sorry). 

But seriously. LOOK AT ALL THE HELVETICA. 

Yup. Helvetica Cookie Cutters. Helvetica Cookie Cutters.

And now Helvetica Cake...

First, it's an amazing font, and now, you can eat it too! 

This I just thought was very funny:P 

Anyway, I thought I should share this because I realized how well known and popular this font is. Not only was it extremely influential, but it has been used countless times in every situation. 

Cheers for Helvetica! 

Helvetica Spottings at UofT

Back in May, me and one of my friends went to the University of Toronto for a 3-day business camp. Completely bored and curious during the breaks, I gave myself a little tour around the building we were in to pass the time. And behold, I found Helvetica. 

I found this very funny because the weekend before that weekend, I was at McMaster and their sign was in a modified version of Helvetica as well. 

I thought that the use of Helvetica in the building looked very clean and slick. It looked professional, fancy, and, well, it just looked good. 

I quickly took these with my phone, just so that I could blog about it. Thanks! 

Eye Drawing

While searching for tutorials to help improve my drawing, I came across this! I found this video appealing not only for the end product, but the way it's mesmerizing to watch and how the artist uses different tools to create the eye. I find myself watching this video repeatedly, I can't stop! 

The little notes he/she adds in are very helpful, at the beginning he says, "The quality of the lines is not important, but the accuracy of the shapes is crucial." This is something that I find screws me up a LOT when I'm drawing. Having disproportional shapes from the beginning sketches really affects your final product. 

I'm glad he/she shows us what kind of material he is using. I've always wanted to do some form of watercolour with pencil crayon, now I have a perfect reason to try. 

I'm also in love with this video because you can see the transformation from lights to darks as the image becomes closer to the final product. 

I will definitely try this in the near future. I think that trying new styles of art help you grow and develop as an artist. 

Have a  wonderful day! 

KInetic Typography Reflection

Title: Safe & Sound

Media: Adobe Flash CS4 & Adobe Illustrator CS4

Design Choices: I wanted to keep my Kinetic Typography simple, I used 3 fonts but mainly stuck with Calisto. I wanted my typography to look fragile and a little eerie as well. This also explains the choice of the old paper in the background.

Challenges & Solutions: The hardest part of my typography was definitely the chorus when I had the words Safe and Sound spell out in a script font. I had to take these words into Illustrator and slowly remove bits at the end until the whole word disappeared, and then convert each layer to a frame in Flash. Even though this became a lot of work, I was very happy with the end product.

Likes & Dislikes: To be honest, I don’t like my final product. Whenever I make something, I know that it’s not meeting my expectations. That being said, I don’t hate the whole thing. There are certain parts of the video that I thought stood out a lot. I could see my video progressing in quality as the video went on; therefore I thought the animations I did at the end were very effective and looked good. I put a lot of work into the chorus too, which I loved.

I’m not sure exactly what I would change.

Overall, I would look at the whole typography and re-do anything that doesn’t go with my concept. I found that the beginning and middle of the typography looked like I was just bringing words in for fun (which isn’t entirely false). I don’t want my work to look like that, I want to produce quality work and I know the only way to do that is to constantly practice. I don’t think I would make any revisions on this typography simply because it was my first one and I want to see how much I can improve in the future.

Generally, this project was a lot of fun, in fact the whole typography unit in general was probably one of the most interesting and valuable units I’ve learned in my whole career so far as a student.