graphic design tute work

steven.sanshwe

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steven ·sanshwe graphic ·design

steven ·sanshwe · graphic ·design ·

2008/9

2008/9

activity 01 / colour modes

Colour Mode: RGBfile size: 365KBOriginal image chosen for the multiple colours present in the umbrella, gradients in the skin tones and depth of field in the grass.

Colour Mode: CMYKfile size: 1271KBCMYK colour mode change resulted in a much larger file size.

Colour Mode: Indexed - Local - 256 Coloursfile size: 358KB (png)Small difference in file size but quality heavily reduced due to 256 colour pallette.

Colour Mode: Indexed - Web 216 Coloursfile size: 339KB (png)Experimenting with a different preset this time the ‘web’ preset was selected which defaulted to a 216 colour pallette.

Image retains its original quality, colours are bright vivid with lines displaying now aliasing.

The cmyk image did not display major changes to the image; it is possible there may be some slight colour/tone shifting however I could not detect it with my eyes.

In this colour mode colour banding within gradients (see sky), noise and other artefacts become obvious and the image loses alot of its quality. Although there are no significant benefits to file size it is possible that using less colours would achieve a better result.

As evidenced, although only a few colours were removed form the pallette the file size has decreased along with the overall image quality. Banding, noise and colour issues become more apparent. An indexed colour style may be more suited for simple images such as logos, and vector-like graphics with limited colour pallettes.

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2008/9

2008/9

activity 01 / colour modes index colour

Duotone:For the first duotone experiment I used black and magenta which achieved a balanced result between colour and contrast, however when I removed the black and added a cyan the contrast greatly decreased and instead of having a predominant colour the image turned green. Research tells me that the black layer is needed to retain the contrast and is evident in the first two examples.

Tritone:Experimenwting with tritone images was similar to the duotone; with results bearing a colour mix which would not have adequate contrast unless a black was selected to be part of the mix.

Quadtone:The quadtone image was made using a CMYK colour combination which resulted in a very darkened image lacking a colour tinge and instead resembled a brown / sepia town.

These techniques may be beneficial for stylizing images however as it takes away the ability to come back and edit and experiment with different colours it would be easier just to use adustment layers to get similar affects in photoshop.

duotone / KM

tritone / KMY

duotone / YC

quadtone / CMYK

tritone / MYY

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2008/9

2008/9

activity 01 / colour modes bwGrayscale BW / Diffusion Dither BW / 50% Threshold

BW / Halftone Round BW / Pattern Dither BW / Custom Pattern

This activity resulted in a number of variations. The grayscale image was the base conversion image used for the black and white conversions.

The black and white colour mode also offered a number of options for treating the image. The diffusion dither resulted on a very noisy image but allowed for some reproduction of shade and gradients in contrast to the 50% threashold option which converted the image into solid areas of black and white. The halftone and round dither options provided similar quality gradiations; however the pattern dither creater additional banding within the image. Custom patern dither used a pattern i had within my stock and i believe it replaces areas which require some sort of shading with the pattern therefore alot of the ‘gray’ areas of the image are overlayed with the pattern.

With the exception of the grayscale image the diffused black and white images have file sizes between 26KB and 68KB, despite this low file size the reproduction of the original is highly innacurate and may not be useable as standalone/finished art. It may have better uses as part of a process in stylising art or creating solid black and white ares for ink printing etc.

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2008/9

2008/9

activity 01 / colour live trace

• Original image • Live Trace• 10 colours• 100 threshold

• Live Trace• 10 colours• 100 threshold• 2px blur

• live trace• 10 colours• 100 threshold• 20px blur

RGB image imported from photoshop As it was a detailed image the live trace at 10 colours showed alot of aliasing problems and jaggered detail. If additional colours were chosen better gradiation could be seen however this was left out to focus more on the line reproduction and to illustrate how the trace function works. Major colour blocks in the umbrella are reresented accurately however the program had trouble distinguishing between the shades of red. As the trace was only limited to ten colours parts of the image with tone variation such as the skin, grass and sky would not be reproduced accuaretely; although more colours could be used with tighter paths and spaces set; the end result would still look like it had been automated in illustrator. Manually recreating the scene using blends and transparencies would achieve a much better result.

Adding a 2px blur did soften the shapes and helps to improve the image and removes aliasing problems. A blur maybe useful for spot jobs where a trace is required from there manual adjustments could be made to personalise the vector art.

while experimenting with the trace options I decided to see what maximum blur would look like although not useful as a final piece it may be a useful tool to see how general colour composition and colour selecting would go depending on the number of colours you preset.

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2008/9

2008/9

activity 01 / grayscale bw live trace

• live trace• grayscale - preset

• Live Trace• black and white preset• 1px blur

• Live Trace• hand drawn peset• 100 threshold• 1px blur

using the grayscale preset live trace fairly accurately maps major tonal areas into distinct sections throughout the image however the image still looks very obviously live traced in illustrator. May be useful for a quick reference or if a colour version was created for sampling.

black and white preset gave a punchy and contrasty result which may be useful for creating smooth black fills and creating useable vector textures for other projects.

the hand drawn preset uses only strokes/outlines to create the image rather than fills therefore giving it the ‘hand drawn’ effect. The preset uses varying widths up to 10px wide; as the original image was a photograph with a lot of cluttered foreground elements the trace may not have been as effective as it could’ve been. The effect maybe useful for creating abstract patterns or for tracing simplier objects

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2008/9

2008/9

activity 02 / clock face

Although i had a few more detailed designs for the clock face categories i ultimately selected the fantasy style and did a sci-fi take on it as i wanted to experiment with making a tacho styled clock face. Created in illustrator then ported over to photoshop for final adjustments with colour etc. The type of clock face isn’t really functional but it does look futuristic and if you can imagined projected onto a wall or as a holographic display i think it would fit in nicely amongst a futuristic aesthetic.

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2008/9

2008/9

activity 03 / composition and layout

being a huge spider-man fan i couldn’t resist doing a composition piece featuring the wall crawler. Ithe background was created using cloned and randomly splattered sections of the same image . Additionally around spider-man’s left hand and right leg are extra enlarged limbs and a few repeated transparent layers with blurring to give a motion blur effect. The bottomost layer is a highly blurred and enlarged version of the original.

the abstracted backgrounds help to emphasis the main image subtly all while using a similar colour pallette and patterns.

this before and after example displays the processing applied to one of my photographs, layered with the original ontop and the post processed version below.

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2008/9

2008/9

activity 04 / typography

for this exercise I exclusively used Helvetica Neue, wanting to experiment more with text placement rather than having to rely on the font itself to get the message across.

Claustrophobia is surrounded unwantingly and is trapped without escape.

Love is like two coming together to form one. It overlaps, joins and merges, it is also bold and complicated with each layer a different facet.

Agression is bold, woundup tightly knit but wanting to have more and jump out of its box to unleash something. This is how I interpreted in the graphic.

Melancholy does not want to exist, be seen or be noticed. It is in a position where it is hidden and kept to itself so it can muse over its thoughts.

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2008/9

2008/9

activity 04 / typography

taking cues from comic books, anime and superheroes in general i designed an ‘a’ using arial’s white space inside the a to form an eye and constructed and modified the entire structure and simplified it down to a basic circular shape with a tail.

Although this may be a little bit too far removed from the arial ‘a’ original form i believe that because it still uses one of its elements it’s okay still

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2008/9

2008/9

activity 06 / chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro shading effect created in photoshop using a blurred layer with a darken overlay effect and multiple adjustments made.

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2008/9

2008/9

activity 06 / line drawing

although i missed out on the photography tute i thought i’d still give the line drawing exercise using one of my own photographs taken at some party some where with my fish eye lens.

drawn in painter with a wacom tablet, a drawing like this might only take a couple of mins as it’s just being drawn on an overlay layer on top of the reference pic so it’s really just an easy and cheap way to get a cool hand-drawn look provided you can trace and use a tablet.

I used a ballpoint pen preset on the finest setting so i could really get that sketched out look; the fact that the reference picture had already added perspective gave the image additional depth. The tablet also let me do fiiner details and add line weight depending on the pressure of the pen and reproduce natural strokes which adds to the overall style of the image.

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2008/9

2008/9

activity 06 / super powers?

I may have cheated a little by using the same image as above but only modifying it slightly to include a face mask, katana and some badass eye-scar on my left eye. Don’t mind the blue flames they were actually part of the original image.

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2008/9

2008/9

activity 07 / concept designs

stand alone concept / these were rough ideas which basically outlined what it might look like and the multi slot system that we wanted to use so signs could be attached and removed.

light post concept / these drawings depict the basic mechanism that would attach to the light posts as temporary / semi-permanent fixtures once again using the multi-slot click to add and remove system.

graphic design tute work

Documents

colour mode colour banding

colour mix

colour tinge

colour issues

predominant colour

white colour mode

colour modescolour mode

indexed colour style