The Creation Of The Logo Of Me

First off, I have to warn you, these drawings are not pretty. I've never been a talented drawer so be prepared for what you are about to see. It may haunt you forever, haha.

First, let's look at the sketches.

I wanted to incorporate the things that matter to me most into the logo. I love video games (sketch 1), Computers (2), Writing (3), and Music (4). I just threw ideas together, and made four quick sketches to try and get any real sort of idea.

Then it really hit me. Why not incorporate it all. After thinking of how I wanted it to look, this came as the final logo.

Again, I'm not the best drawer in the world. Every logo design I've ever done, I made via photoshop/illustrator. With that being said, I do feel that the above final design visually grabs who I am as a person.

The most important discovery I made from doing the logo designs, which ended up taking longer than originally expected, was that I'm still awful at drawing.  In all seriousness though, I feel that I know what describes me, and my logo designs really stood out when it came to telling who I am via an image.

Creating The Value Scale

Creating the value scale was a bit of a task with a pencil. I had never really done something like this before so it became a bit of a challenge for me to get the shades how I wanted.

However, I did my best with it and got, what I feel, was the best shading possible.

Unfortunately, I was hit with a nasty ear infection and body cold that kept me bedridden for the week so I didn't have the strength to go out and get acrylic paint for the second part of the assignment. I fully understand that a grade reduction is necessary  but I wanted to at least get the strength to get up and do part of it so I can get partial credit.

I have to be honest, I watched the videos and I didn't really find much about them interesting. The only thing I found remotely interesting was the idea of all the different colors you can make by just mixing them together.

There is one other thing actually. When I was a kid, I remember having an art teacher who always tried to tell us students that black was "the absence of color". Well, from the looks of everything, including the video, I see that that is a load of crock.

Black isn't the absence of color, it's the over-presence of color.

The Elements And Principles Of Design

When creating this slideshow, my knowledge - or lack there of - of the elements and principles of design really came through.

It was pretty tough to come up with ideas for some of the different principles, but I went back into my photo album on my camera and was able to find a few that I feel really showed the elements.

Unfortunately, when I went to create the slideshow on photobucket's website, I came across this little issue:

Photobucket's slideshow capabilities were disabled when the revamped their website late in 2012

However, they have this new feature called "Stories" that takes selected photos and creates a storyboard, of sorts, with them. So that's what I have embedded below: The creation of the story is a bit weird. The opening photo that has the caption of "Michael Straw's Story" is actually my photo for rhythm, but I couldn't change the label.

When it came to actually creating the story (slideshow), I wanted to incorporate my interests along with my ideas of what makes a cool picture.

I take A LOT of photos, my 32gb memory card in my camera only has 1.24 GB remaining. Needless to say, I like my photos. Haha.

I like taking pictures that many people find weird, like my Line photo. Who goes under a dock? I also wanted to take pictures from different angles that not many think of like in my Pattern, Shape, and Form photos.

I have a love of sports, I am a sports writer after all, so I wanted to incorporate sports into my photos which is evident in my Form and Emphasis photos. 

Color Theory And Its Emotional Effects On One's Self

1.  Color and emotion have been linked together for centuries. When one sees a certain color, it often triggers an emotional response either good or bad, depending on the person viewing the color.

There is no set guide for how one reacts to different colors when it comes to emotion. The closest thing we have to a guide is the context that one puts colors in. Some colors trigger good thoughts and emotions in someone while evoking sad thoughts in someone else. It’s all about context.  

In plenty of cases, colors effect our thoughts about certain items. Like the MyARTStudio link shows, it’s weird to look at a bowl of blue food, or a blue Valentine’s Day card. We have, engraved in our minds, ideas of what things should be what colors. It’s all based on our cultural upbringing.

2.  When it comes to the theoretical aspects of color, I have to say that the aspect that intrigues me the most is the fact that there are only three primary colors – red, yellow, and blue. It’s crazy to think that out of the hundreds up hundreds of known colors, only three of them cannot be made by mixing other colors together. It’s something you learn in grammar school, but you don’t truly comprehend that idea until you really learn about it.

3.  After watching the video on Color, I feel that the thing that made the biggest impact on me as far as color and its effects on emotions is how vivid colors can create such joy among a person. For example, June Redfern, while walking through Venice in the early portion of the video sees how the colors come together by the boat and bridge, and decides to do a quick painting right there. The colors of it all caught her eye and sparked a creative motivation in her to get something done. Just knowing that color can motivate someone to do a painting really made me think about what color does for me in my life.

4.  In the “Feelings” video, the thing that made the biggest impact on me was just how different a person’s emotions can be from someone else’s simply based on the one color, or a group of colors, and how (a) specific color(s) is(are) represented.

The fact that some people can view colors as joyous and special while others can view the same colors as dark and depressing is something that just fascinates me. Just learning about how different cultures and individuals view color is just incredible.