The Art and Design of James M-C

Remembering Week 7 (I’m behind a week still… better than some?)

DDP Chapter 7

Digitizing your artwork.

If at all possible, find a high resolution scanner to do this work with. It will save you countless hours of trouble and frustrations. Cause low rez looks cruddy, and batteries and photo processing cost a bundle. I work with an HP ScanJet 4670, it has a unique design that allows me to scan any surface, be it a piece of paper, a work of art on a wall, or even the Sistine chapel should I be so inclined. This is because the scanner is a single sheet that can be moved pretty much anywhere as long as its connected to a power supply and a computer.

However some places a scanner, power supply, and computer (didn’t you invest in a laptop?) can’t go. For those places (grand canyon’s new glass bridge for one) you should have a handy dandy digital camera. Perfect for all sorts of odd jobs (like taking pictures of 3D objects) that your scanner simply wasn’t designed for. Add in a few memory cards (which are prohibitively inexpensive these days) and you have in your hands the best friend you will ever have. I use a Canon S2 IS camera, professional grade with 12x optical (you need this!) zoom so picture quality doesn’t degrade. You can do all the digital zooming and cleaning up your little heart desires in our old pal Photoshop.

So now your physical art is digitized, now what? Touch it up of course. Chances are no matter how good the lighting and quality you got on the conversion, there’s stuff that could be better. Photoshop to the rescue again, you can play around with levels, brightness, and thousands of other settings until you get it just right.

Building Design Portfolios 41-74

I am praying to all the gods and demons who’s names I can remember to please please please, let my portfolio be able to take on extra content. The planetary form I’ve chosen leaves some room in the moon phase animations for me to add extra portfolio samples or “moons” as I call them which will all rotate around the planet and be a bitch to click unless I figure out something clever… wait a tic… there was that wonderful little thing Garvey had us do in 315 that might just work… Well anyways the presentation of it will be awesome and very innovative. I got inspired by a recent trip to the Peabody Museum where they have a new exhibit on Alien Worlds, resulting in this little beauty of a planetoid right here, and the rest of my orbiting bodies. Heck, maybe It’ll even teach someone something.

I had a pretty good cover letter, it was created with help from a career advisor who knows me very well, and the resume was fine for internships and desk jobs, but PB says it lacks the pizzazz and the proper information that a graphic design employer is looking for. Mainly I need to spruce up my activities and give them a more professional feel. That and give the letter head a nifty upgrade. I’ll have to discuss this with her today.

Lastly, my promotional pieces are coming along nicely, I’ve got designs for shirts, baseball caps, playing cards, and stickers all lined up already. I hope that’s enough, and that I have enough for it all.