Bind in Cards

Quark
Quark was a nightmare for me. Granted it felt a bit like InDesign once I got used to it, but it still did not work well for me. It was like a rocky version of InDesign. The tools were placed in strange pointless places, and coloring was a pain. Although once I managed to get the text and other features on the page, it became a little easier to mange. I mentioned this in the concert poster blog, but its system makes moving the different parts of the image simpler and easier to manage than the others. However, I still have no intention to use this again. I would have rather learned how to use Flash over Quark.

InDesign
Out of the three programs, InDesign was the smoothest for me. Its functions worked well once I fully understood it and placing items was easier than I expected. Finding the font that most closely represented the original was extremely time consuming and frustrating. However, I managed to find a loop-hole that made browsing the fonts easier and quicker by highlighting the font box on the top and scrolling with the arrow keys. Also I was blown away with how easy it was to make that outside square in InDesign. This project has made me consider using a program over photoshop which is surprising to me.

PhotoShop

PhotoShop was the second program I used and was also my second favorite of the three. For starters, I've been using Photoshop for a few years now, and while I don't know it like the back of my hand, I can get around most problems. Making some of the figures (the box and X mostly) took a lot of work and patience that took way to long for my tastes. However, the main problem was selecting the right layer to work on. I'd try to select something, but it moved something else. I managed to find out that if I held down alt or shift (I can't remember on the top of my head) my mouse would automatically select the layer I clicked on. While Photoshop is not the most versitile program out their, I believe it is the easist to learn.

SoundSlide - Final

Newsletter

Creating the newspaper was challenging because of the communication problems I faced with my partner in this project. Hannah was away for one of the classes so I had to figure out what to do in the beginning. this wasn't Impossible because we made a mock up together.

Basically the plan was to each work on 2 out of the 4 pages. Since I managed to work on mine first Hannah just copied the theme I created. After that It was all downhill.

The technical problems that I faced in this project weren't as big compared to the last one. I was just having trouble fitting the text in the paper the right way. Getting the images in the right way took some tinkering. I had to figure out how to arrange the pictures along with stretching them. Overall I'm proud of it, and it was more enjoyable than I thought it would be.

Brochure

For my brochure project with Hannah Freedman, we decided to make our brochure project on the Adobe InDesign program. Both of us felt more comfortable with it and would prefer almost anything over Quark.

So the main difference between InDesign and Quark that I found was accessibility. the tools on Quark seemed almost as if they were hidden and overly complex when compared to InDesign. However, I found that placement of objects were easier to manage. I'm not sure why, but it felt less complex to put everything together when using Quark.

I learned a lot about InDesign while working on this project. While currently I'm still more inclined to use InDesign instead of Quark. I'm also interesting to put what I learned into Quark when I have to make the blow up cards.

Quark Concert Poster

Working with Quark was a very frustrating experience. It was like learning to walk again. For the longest time I had no clue that I had to make a box in order to paste a picture on it. I found myself going back and forth between quark and Photoshop to try and find clues on how to make things work. I also had a lot of difficulty with getting the background the right way. I could manipulate color but not in the right way. So I edited a picture in Photoshop and put it in Quark.

I'd have to say that I'm mostly proud of the fact that I manage to figure out the basics of Quark. I still plan to keep Photoshop as my primary program. However, Quark is a useful tool when its time to put the pieces together. I'm just glad I have something else to put on my resume.

If I could go back and change my poster around I would put more effort into making the background blend in with the other pictures. I couldn't work on it over the weekend because I was away and had to cram Thursday night to get it done. Another change that I would have made would be to add either more/better pictures or text into the poster. I've never been to a concert and I really didn't know what to put in it.

A Kiosk PowerPoint

The most challenging part of this project was figuring out how to solve the music problem. It took some time to get used to the new music programs out there and switching all of the music types. It caused a lot of frustration and confusion for me.

I'm mostly proud on how it all came together. I'm not very confident in my PowerPoint skills and less about putting music in it. At the end, I was surprised when I realized that I managed to work it out. The most enjoyable part was having the power to control the theme of my PowerPoint. I went with a plain nice looking, easy to read, black and white theme, similar to their second album. I'm not a big fan of making flashy things.

If I had the time to go back and change things, I would have changed the music around. I was a little flustered when I selected the 30 seconds out of the songs, and I noticed it wasn't the best choice. Mostly because it started and ended a little to suddenly. I wanted to throw some more pictures in there, but I could not find any good ones to fit the them I was going for.

Template

The first row, resolution was as simple as it can get. I've done resolution adjustments loads of times before. The only bump was getting used to saving the picture every time and figuring out how to shift the size from Photoshop to word. When I first changed the size, the window didn't so I got confused. I choose that picture because it seemed to be perfect for the 1st row.

The 2nd row, format was almost as easy as the 1st. Like the 1st row, I already knew how to change the format. The only problem I ran into was figuring out how to use the duotone. I forgot that I had to change it to black and white first. I choose that picture for its extreme variety in color.

The 3rd row, orientation was done in under five minutes. I have used the crop tool for a lot of personal art projects and figuring out the number inputs was a breeze. I choose this picture because the tree stood out to me.

The 4th and 5th row felt the same, except they both needed a little more thought in the cropping. The only problems was finding high resolution picture for them and trying to prevent the pictures on the left from being too blurry. To be honest I was just randomly browsing Google image until I found pictures that I could use.

The 6th row, purpose was the most fun. However, like the other rows I learned how to use filters a while ago. The trick was coming up with different filters that weren't too similar. I choose that picture because it gave me the most too work with.