Marilyn Monroe - Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

Consume Collage

I experimented with using cutouts of letters from popular brands to form a 'ransom letter' styled aesthetic with the aim of conveying how, as a society, we are held to ransom by the culture of acquiring and consumption of goods.

I started out by arranging a selection of cutouts from popular brands to form 'consume'. Overall, I thought the work was bland, so I developed it further.

Because I thought the original background was somewhat boring, I added a pile of receipts to form a backdrop.

Developing this idea further, I thought the background was too distracting from the main message that I was trying to communicate; adding a gaussian blur to the receipts enabled me to solve this problem. 

I experimented with various blending modes with the cutouts, although this was difficult because I still had to sustain the identities of the brands used in the cutouts. 

I created two moodboards to represent my story using adobe indesign- 1 in the form of a clean moodboard in a grid structure and the other in a messy layout.

Kinfolk - Adobe InDesign Workshop Week

This was the result of today's Adobe InDesign workshop with Jeffrey Bowman.
Overall I was really happy with the outcome of the brief - the brief stated that the spread had to be engaging, display the images in an interesting way and to have beautifully set typography, leading me to believe I satisfied the brief.

2 aspects of the spread which I was really pleased with were the front cover, because I believe the text and image go really well together, and the 3rd page because of how I experimented with the framing of an image. 

Despite this, however, I initially forgot to caption the images, leading me to add them on later, which I found hard because I planned the layout without taking into account that the images had to be captioned. I think the way I implemented the captions could be improved. 

Physical Workshop Story

Process and Production - Story

A strange man stood in the doorway. I had never seen him before in my life. The last time something like this happened before, I never saw my brothers and sisters again. Somewhat reluctantly, my owner left me for a split second. I felt the anxiety rush through my body. I quick lunge and I was gone. I was overpowered, despite my best efforts, leaving a trail of noise in my wake.

Thrown into a car, I watched as my home faded from view. Would I ever see my family again?

Time passed slowly, as dusk crept in. The soft hum of the engine soothed me, giving me the slightest slice of comfort, sending me to sleep.

Seagulls. I hated the things. I used to love chasing them. The reminder of home saddened me. It was even worse that I couldn’t see the. Where was I? I was trapped in a cage, wrapped in a thick tartan blanket. Maybe I was going home? I felt the car slowly nudging forward in conjunction with the sound of horns, shouting and the mechanical furore of heavy machinery. The engine clicked off and a door slammed. I was alone. Scared. I heard talking outside. The car boot opened and the blanket was pulled from the cage, unveiling a thuggish bald man. Everything about him was intimidating. He was approaching me with a briefcase. Placing the briefcase on the ground, he unveiled his phone from his pocket and was pointing it at me, accompanied with faint clicking sounds. When he was done, the blanket was thrown over me again and I was hoisted into another vehicle.

We arrived at what I assumed was the man’s home. It wasn’t very pleasant, especially compared to my old home. It was grotty and bare. I didn’t really know how anyone could call this a home. I was left in a damp kitchen, as the man exited the room and went upstairs.

It was beginning to be morning and sunshine was beginning to pierce the rags that appeared to be curtains. I had been left alone all night and I was growing hungry. The man clambered downstairs, taking a brief look at me before making a phone call. Whilst he was on the phone, however, an array of flashing blue lights lit up the house from the outside. Visibly panicked, he rushed to the window, shut the curtains smashed his phone, and ran for the door. Before he reached the doors, 3 uniformed men barged through, knocking the man off his feet and onto the floor. Somewhat startled, I was approached by the 3 men, picked up and placed into the car with flashing blue lights. Surely this wasn’t happening again?

We drove for a while before stopping and that’s when it hit me. I was home at last. The door opened and she was waiting for me in the garden, crying. Overcome with joy, I dived straight into her arms. It was so good to be home. I didn’t really understand what had happened, but I didn’t really care. All I know is that being a rare lilac bulldog gets a lot of people interested in you.

In this exercise we had to create a trailer using images and sounds. In this instance, I used some photography from my hometown of Barnsley. As I studied media during my A-Levels, I felt somewhat comfortable using this editing software, despite using final cut in college. 

I began by importing the images onto the timeline and arranging them. Cropping was also involved at this stage. I didn't want the shots to be too long because it would be boring, but having them being too quick could be too hectic for a viewer. I also had to cut the audio to get rid of the parts of the track that I didn't like.

Keyframing was also involved during the process of creating the trailer. Again I was familiar with how keyframing works as a general rule, and in this instance I adjusted the opacity of the shots which, in combination with having another layer below the current shot on the timeline, allowed me to create cross dissolves. I also keyframed a gradual increase on the scale to create a slow, zooming effect, which I felt made the shots look less boring than having stationary shots. 

Overall, to say this was the first time I used after effects, I felt that the outcome was successful. Despite this, I felt my lack of experience with the software restricted me from being too creative with the trailer.

Comp 1 from Jack Barnes on Vimeo.

City in Flux Research - ISSUU

http://issuu.com/jackbarnes94/docs/research_indesign?e=14270642/10033171