murderdeath-blog1

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This is a screenshot of my website. Find it here.

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Portfolio Goals

I wanted my portfolio to emphasize my visual productions. I wanted it to display my talents and content. And I wanted it to be user-friendly to show that I am approachable and easy to work with.

To achieve this, I included content from outside of this class, too. I added photo galleries of some of the images I have taken in the past to my portfolio tab and allow users to view them separately from or with my graphic designs. I included my instagram so that people are able to connect with me on a less professional and more social level. And I linked each page to the footer of the home page because I really didn’t know what else to put there. It allows easy access to each page as links are located at the top and bottom as well as occupies negative space.

This is my final resume.

This is my final logo, reorganized to fit my theme better.

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Here are the drafts of my resume and logo. The logo may have to be changed because my wordpress theme looks bad with a square logo. The theme is called Affinity and features a large header image, which would be nice for my photojournalism portfolio.

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These are my logo and resume sketches

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Magazine Cover and Spread

I created a fictional magazine with a target audience of grumpy old men. I picked headlines that poke fun at some of the things I know my grandparents like or believe. And the stories of this fake magazine are all hard for young people to relate to because they deal with subjects that only older people have experienced.

In designing the cover, I shifted the man further to the right to make the composition more interesting which meant I had to rearrange my text to fit around him. I was going to put his face in front of the title, but it would have blocked most of the title and ruined the joke. For the spread, I wrote an opinionated piece about the moon landing hoax theories first. Then, I chose images that were relevant to the story, including an additional photo of President Trump because I mentioned hi in the article. And in designing the pop out quote, I had to really mess with the opacity of the box behind the text to make the words legible and not distract from the image itself.

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Magazine Plan

The second image of an old man is for the cover, the third for the full page, and the first for a smaller image wrapped into the text.

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Snackable Graphic

I chose to focus on the concentration of wealth within the tobacco industry. I included an image of a burning cigarette and designed the background to look like the top of a pack of Marlboro Reds. If i had the skill in web design, I would make the image lift up when hovered over or clicked to reveal the full infographic.

I chose this information because I thought it was the easiest to absorb on a quick glance. I thought that the fact that two companies collect almost three quarters of the profits from the entire industry would be a good way to lead into the rest of the information. Also, it conveys the main point of my infographic and invites viewers to look at the full graphic and learn about the breakdown. Again, I had trouble using the full space efficiently, so I included the burning cigarette to add another interesting object and to occupy some negative space.

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Final Infographic

As a regular smoker, I often think about the tobacco industry and who profits from my purchases. So I researched the most popular cigarettes by packs sold in the U.S. I also found the parent company that owns each brand to further illustrate the flow of money within the industry.

After settling on this topic, the design of my infographic quickly fell into place. I knew I wanted it to look like the box of the most popular type of cigarettes. I could not get the exact fonts for free, so I had to improvise. Additionally, I had to change the weight of the Century Schoolbook text because it was not easily legible. And towards the end of the project, I was having issues using all of the space efficiently, so I decided to include another image of a burning cigarette.

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Infographic Second Draft, Layout

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Infographic Plan

My infographic will be shaped like a pack of Marlboro Reds, the most popular brand and blend of cigarette sold in the U.S. I will use the same color scheme and the closest fonts I can find to those used on the box, which are Century Schoolbook (various weights) and probably Arial or a similar sans serif font for the title at the top and the “warning” facts. I will use images of a pack from each of the top 5 most popular brands of cigarettes. I will also create a graph depicting something like the breakdown of the market or each brand’s sales numbers.

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GIF

The file is too large and tumblr won’t let me upload it, so check out my GIF here on my website. Again, there is less of a story and more of a concept behind the GIF. I wanted to inspire a feeling of serenity.To display this, I had to cut some images from my final GIF because the position of the camera shifted slightly, giving the illusion that the rocks move too. And to make the GIF a little more interesting through multiple loops, I added all of the images again in reverse order to the end. I wanted it to be hard to notice without observant eyes.

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GIF Images. I took these pictures of a stream in Madison, Connecticut in July, 2016. Beneath them is the outline for my GIF. The drawing is rudimentary, but it is supposed to show running water and I didn’t know how to draw that.

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GIF story

My GIF will try less to tell a story than to create a feeling. I took pictures of running water in a stream. The rocks obviously stay relatively still, but the water moves. I want to recreate the feeling of serenity and wonder I felt when I visited the reservoir and photographed the stream.

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Mood Board Design Decisions and Final Image

Designing this mood board was not easy for me. I have little passion for any specific things, so finding content took abstract thinking. Also, I kind of hated my sketch and decided to keep reworking the layout while keeping unusual shapes for the images.

I do enjoy and pursue art in the forms of photography, writing, and drawing so I included some relevant materials and figures in these scenes.

My personality, however, is a set of contrasting traits. I am energetic, yet simultaneously reserved. Therefore, I included both serene and active subjects.

As a vaguely lonely pessimist, I tried to keep each image of a landscape empty or desolate; I used images of single objects, animals, and people rather than groups of them to represent this as well.

My mind never rests, but I cannot choose the right words to say. To embody this, I chose a very busy background that would almost aggravate and distract the viewer from the rest of the content. To counteract this, I chose images that contrast the background and draw attention into themselves. With both of these factors and the numerous lines directing the viewer’s eyes excitedly around the board, one may begin to understand my thought process.

The idea for the finalized layout came through the desire to improve the background and then embed my images into it. I disliked the pattern in the inner circle and outer rim, so I blocked them with my images.

My intent is for the viewer’s eye to bounce around the circle in a decreasingly random order until he or she recognizes different patterns behind the order of the images. In a sense, it gives the viewer some insight as to how my thought process works.

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Who am I

I’m a guy with no direction, with a flaw in my inflection, and an arsenal of gestures that command your prompt correction. I cannot consider anything material of worth until I recognize the value of a life begins at birth. I find trivial today the things which yesterday I cherished. I anticipate the final years before my frame will perish.

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potential mood board pictures

and the sketched plan

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Nouns & Adjectives

Sloth, Candy, Art, Dog, Noodle

Weird, Awkward, Clumsy, Smelly, Loud