Purely Pizazz- Contest 3

So as far as entering into contests online, the 3rd one I entered in...


 Company Name
purely pizazz

What we do
i make dichroic glass jewelry

Color preference
black background.. turqoise, purple, raspberry

Ideas & concepts
funky, unique


SO here we go. Nothing too special by any means 

Frog Golf- Contest 2

So as far as entering into contests online, the second one was...

Requirements: Seeking a logo for 'foundgolfballs' that utilizes a frog with a golf ball in his mouth, or sitting on the golf ball--but open to ideas that encompass this theme.

Well I felt like these requirements were pretty straight and I thought that I could really have fun with this one. As far as creating this character (like the previous one) I decided to draw the picture and then scan it on my computer and then go from there. This one also turned out pretty well.

Captain Fair- Contest 1

So as far as entering into contests online, the first one I entered in caught my attention because of the requirements of it.

Requirements: We want to create a brand mascot. A cartoon character who will come to be associated with the brand. Our cartoon character is a superhero - a caped crusader - who fights for the rights of the downtrodden and oppressed. He stamps out unfairness wherever he sees it. For this purpose we'll call him Captain Fair. We need a cartoon character to depict Captain Fair. Like Superman he has a 'clark kentish' alter ego and steps into his Captain Fair persona whenever he finds wrongs to be righted. We envisage Captain Fair as being a caricature of a super hero. He isn't particularly statuesque; he certainly isn't like batman or superman. He's probably more like a stretched out version of Mr. Magoo. He is friendly and endearing; he may be a little bit bumbling but he always manages to get the job done. He should have broad appeal from kids to grandparents. He can't be too edgy and, whilst he is mysterious, he certainly isn't dark (in a gothic way). The simpler the illustration is the better.

So this is what I came up with. I think its not too bad. Feel like I could of put more time into it. But overall I really like how he came out

A what???

So apparently for our final exam we have to do an essay. Hearing just confused me in general because it's like "wait, havent we been doing illustrator all semester? where did an essay come from?"

Not only that, but the essay is supposed to be 700-1000 words. It also has to be 7-10 pages. Just outta the blue. The topic of the essay the inner workings of the computer. About what happens from the time the computer turns on to what inside of the computer has a certain function. So Random!

The essay also needed to be graphically laid out. We needed to include many different pictures
showing what piece of hardware is being used. Things like - Power Supply, Motherboard, CPU, BIOS, Ram, Video Car, HardDrive, Operating System, Monitor (LCD or CRT)

Not going to lie, I hated doing it but again...it was something that definitely needed to be done.

Freestyling again...

Yeah so I've had alittle free time. Barely with all the studying I've had to do for other classes. But I'm trying to fit this in my timing when I can. But lately in my free time I've been freestylin' again with illustrator. These ones aren't anything too special but two that I do really like. One of them is just another self-portrait and the other a logo that I've been helping out with for the Impact Movement: which a campus ministry much like campus crusade for Christ

Bitter/Sweet

So today is somewhat a sad day for me but at the same time a joyful day. Today is the day my youngest brother Jay is turning 17. :) It's amazing and I thank God for creating such the perfect youngest brother for me.

It's crazy that he's growing so fast. I mean he's almost taller than me.

But even though I'm happy that its my bro's birthday, I'm still upset I can't be there to celebrate it with him. Matter a fact, thinking of it consistently reminds me of my family and how I havent seen them since Christmas. That's a long time for anyone to be away from their family. It's crazy. I mean even though this class is a family of its own ( Kara being the Mom, Hannah that aunt  who is always straight forward with you, kyle biggs that cool brother, melanie that fiesty sister, mike flowers that uncle who always lets you get away with everything, and of course bekah...lol that one person of the family of the opposite sex you look at and think, "Wow..they're cute..wait what?..We're related!? Man I wish we weren't")
But anyway... I really am beginning to miss my family alot. Things aren't the same and it's almost like some of me can't truly come out to others because it's linked to my family.

So Hairy...

So this time we are all supposed to make a monster. But more than anything the monster is supposed to be hairy. This would be a tutorial that I was excited about I wasn't familiar with how to actually make this effect possible. Going through the tutorial itself I think was pretty straight forward. I also learned how to make a more realistic version of an eye and learned how to use other shapes to make the shape that you want.  It was interesting learning how to take a created brush and using it to your advantage so that your job is much easier.

Overall, I liked this assignment. Again, I didn't really seem to have a problem with actually getting through the directions and following what I was given. It was kind of cool to make my own monster. I figured everyone else was going to go with cute and cuddly. So, I went with hairy and evil. I think I'm going continue to mess with illustrator and see what I do with other ideas as far as characters are concerned.

More Tricks up my sleeve...

Now It's time to toy with illustrator some more until we have another project coming up. I figure since I know abit more about illustrator by day, I might as well freestyle alittle bit. I had time on my hands so I worked on two pictures of myself and trued to see what I could really do with them.
The first one (right) I just wanted to start off with something simple; so I started off with a picture of my self sitting on a bench. I wanted to start off like this just to get the juices in my creative mind flowing alittle bit. Now this got me going.
On the 2nd one (left), it was more eye catching. You see I've always been drawn by movie poster, t-shirt designs, and CD album covers it interests me in the fact that the design usually goes really well with the theme it is trying to portray and that I love. Again it was one of those things where I had free time and I wanted to see what I could do alittle.

Interesting

So the semester is drawing near and things have changed. My skills as far as knowledge in illustrator has changed. I'm more comfortable with the many things that are available for me to use. The atmosphere in the room is great. It's almost like we're all in an environment that allows us to let our personality out and to really help us be creative in projects that we work on. This has allowed me to learn a few tricks of my own. I'm really starting to like illustrator.

As far as this course is concerned in general, it's looking really good. Again, I'll never be able to force my self to like word and powerpoint tutorials but the course in itself I love. My relationship with my classmates has also turned abit. To some I've grown into a stronger relationship with and others are not as close to me as they once were first semester. It's going to hard to think about leaving this people to possibly do my own thing back home. I'm going to miss every single one of these guy. Especially Rebekah. Basically, everyday and every time that I go to any class think of her and always I'll miss her.

Bridging the Gap

Well the class was told that a program at the school, The Bridge Program, needed help creating a new but better logo. So the first thing that came to my mind was, "I need a bridge!". For whatever reason, I decided not to actually go out on the internet and grab a picture of one. I felt it would be better if I just made my one from scratch.

 In my head, I figured it'd save me frustration and time; Which it did. I only ended up using two tools to make my bridge: 1) Rectangle tool and the 2) Line tool. I just made two vertical but thick rectangles and one horizontal triangle that cut through the middle of the two other rectangles. Then, I used the line tool to make the cords strapped to the bridge. I used straight lines on the outside parts of the bridge but curved lines for the middle of the bridge. Well once that was taken care of, I needed to make it apparent about what the bridge represented exactly. So I needed to put the actual program name somewhere on the logo. Well what I ended up doing is separating the words "The Bridge Program". I separated them in a way that they were somewhat scattered away from each other. I tried to keep the font on the text pretty simple so that it was easy to spot and read.



After adding another texture effect to my bridge, my logo was complete. Not to bad of a logo. I think if I had put a little more time into it that I could of put a bit more into it but overall if it still turned out good.

Distressed Text Project

In this project, we we're told to create signage that warrants the distressed or weathered look on text. I thought that this was going to be kind of an interesting project to work on. Well, for what ever reason I decided to put my texture on a made up store called "cosmic comics" (I made it up). I changed the size of the text and the font to give it a more dramatic look to it. I needed to make the entire text into separate letters so that I could move and manipulate the letters the way that I wanted. 

Then, I added to very small triangles around the 'O' in the word "comics" so it made it look like a sun. I also put a ring around the "O" in "Cosmic" to give the look of Saturn. Then, I dragged the tail end of the "S" of "Comics" and wrapped around so make the letter look a bit goofy.Also, in order to make the texture itself I had to use brushes such as " Chalk Charcoal Pencil". The brushes really gave a new look to the picture was everything was merged together. The final product turned out pretty good in my opinion.

Yeah so....

Yeah so I wanted to start off by saying that I am extremely behind as far as these blogs are concerned. It's okay. Better late then never. Well I'm going to go by projects in order what I remember. The freshest one that comes to my mind is the logo/trademark remake project. The point of the assignment was to take a well known logo, out of a list given to us, and make our own logo. Also, we had to make two of them. So I decided I was gonna pick two things that would cause me to be creative.

The first logo that caught my eye was trademark for Baylor University. At first look, it looked very bland and boring. So I decided that it could be a bit more eye popping visually. The school's mascot was a bear and the colors were forest green and a gold-ish yellow. The first thing I figured I needed to do was give the logo a more fierce look to it. So I grabbed a bear that more intimating than the previous one. I also grabbed a bear paw print and added some green glow to it. It turned out really good and I truly think that making this one was my favorite out of the two logos.

The second logo I decided to do was Clemson. I'm not really sure why I stuck with the colleges but anyway. I also felt the Clemson trademark was too straight forward. Just the words Clemson and a paw next to it. I'd like to say, "Boring!". At the same time, I knew my changing of the trademark would be somewhat limited. So I decided to get a tiger looking as if it is walking down toward the Clemson words. Also, there are orange and purple paws trailing the way. After throwing some more texture effects in there, it turned out really well. Once again, I liked my Baylor logo more but I can't complain with what I did with this one either. I like them both.

I actually liked this project because it let me be creative which I love doing. I could definitely do some more.

2 Different Worlds

So for a few days we've been given a project to make an illustration using basic shapes.

SO for my project, I had a bit of motivation. You see this year I was once told by a very close and dear friend of mine that one of the issues that me and her had was the fact me and her were from two totally different worlds. So my goal was to let her know I heard what she said but that I had my own logic in it. So I incorporated me and her in it. I made two characters/animals in the picture. One that showed my personality and physical features like the kind of hair I had: and One character that reflected her personality and physical features like her color eyes. I also left some caption in my art so that she knew that my project was directed at her. Pretty Slick I know! lol :) 

Tutorial

The Tutorial Project:

The project was ...well a tutorial. I started off by downloading the file from Blackboard and I followed the directions that were addressed Illustrator. This illustrator tutorial basically went over the basic of color swatches and creating shapes and masks. It was pretty much straightforward and simple but it did take some time to finish.

Mac'n Up the Lab

Yeah so me and some of the guys are just kind of..i don't being random and chill in the Mac Lab today. Listening to music and relaxing. The usual topics were brought up: usually the top topics of the class.

-Life
-Video Games
-Cafe Food
- School Work
-...and of course the always so repeated conversation of seemingly everyone in our classroom and that's about Me & Bekah's relationship. (and i guess whatever updates apparently come with that)

In this specific Mac encounter, most of the conversation was on the last 3. Especially the last two. What's interesting is hearing everyone's different opinions on me and how I think. It was also interesting the advice some of the guys were giving because they weren't all the same and that went with any conversation we had. It just kind of interests me that people always want to get involved in your life when it comes to relationships. Its crazy.
Well good thing I put my trust in God and not man. I've learned that putting my trust in others always leads to trouble and struggle in my faith.

Just another Great day with the guys! Man Law!!!

Its Official

Well I've finished up with my history of computers presentation powerpoint(which my topic was about the history of Microsoft). And now its gotten to that time where it's time to present. But today it's been said that the order of everyone's presentation has been posted. And I love the results :) I don't have to go til thursday!

Thursday Presentations (March 18 at 11am)

11 -  Cathy ----------------- Influence on Video games

12 -  Brian ----------------- CRT Monitor

13 - Raisean -------------- OS’s

14 - Hannah -------------- Influence on animation

15 -Michaela ------------ Apple Computers in the 1980’s

16 - Mile Manning ------ Microsoft

17 - Byron ---------------- RAM

18 - Beka ----------------- Hard Drives

19  - Alex ------------------ Apple influence for last decade

20 - Nikki ---------------- Image sensor

Yes! I get to see how I need to improve my presentation. But just one question... 

Why is my name spelled wrong??!!!

SCCA

Well for this project, I was designing a new logo for the SCCA; better known as the South Carolina Correctional Association. This logo was supposed to give a positive aspect. So that meant putting prison bars in my logo was definitely out of the question. At the same time, I did want to have some kind of enforcement look in my logo. So my initial idea was to make a shield. Almost like ones that people of law enforcement wear but a bit different. At the same time, I also wanted to put something in my logo that linked the logo with the state of South Carolina. So what came to mind was the Palm tree and half moon which you basically on every license in South Carolina. I also wanted to give that bold but without a doubt professional type feel. So with that in mind I decided to use colors like navy blue, silver, black, and white.

*Sparkle Sparkle*

Well I'd like to introduce you guys to Mr. Sparkle. He is a character I came up with and have worked on for a couple weeks for Mr. Sparkles Glass Restoration Company. I wanted to give him more of a friendly feel but at the same time giving that simple and clean feel to it. So to accomplish this I try to give a bit of a mario look but no quite. Now in case many are confused, that is supposed to be a sparkle in his hand. Hard to tell I know. I don't think I was able to spend as much time as I wanted on him because of another project but I still like how he came out.  Which I will explain in my next blog.

Again with the Randomness

Ok so this is one of those weeks where I'm complaining. You see all we've been doing lately are these pointless tutorials. Mainly on excel, word, and powerpoint: programs i feel like I don't need any help with understanding. I learned 1 or 2 new things as far as excel is concerned but as far as word and powerpoint is concerned, I feel like I'm wasting my time. As of today our assignment was to go take a bunch of tests and go through a bunch of "walk-throughs" to learn more about how to work the program. Overall, its good in the long term as far as a refresher but as far as now, I feel like I wanna go back to illustrator again. :)
On a good note, me and bekah are doing well. You hates it when she's arguing with the guys in the class about something and I come in and stick up for them even if I know she's right :D lol
It just never gets old. What she doesn't know is that she is probably gonna get the biggest bear hug of her life in a second... (*evil laugh)

Soo..why am I here?

So... I'm not gonna lie. I don't want to be here right now. It's not even the fact that I don't want to be in the class I guess. Mainly the fact that Ive had a rough few days and having to work on this random "less is more" project doesn't make things any better. Even with all of this, the work still needs to get done. So anyway, We all picked a picture of something ( I picked one of the premier hotels in Georgia).
Then, we created an outline of this project using the pen tool. Then we toyed with and resized it two more times, each time moving in closer to the picture. So at this point we had three different pics: the first was the actual picture, the second a closer and more detailed shot of the picture. Thirdly we zoomed in even closer, and made this last step the most detailed. Now as easy as it sounds, the project itself was quite challenging. The challenging part was: 1- trying to stay focused when my mind was on other things and 2- to continue to get in more and more detail with the picture. This day really needs to end soon. I without a doubt enjoy this class, but there's always going to be that one day where you you're not having the greatest day.

Getway

For the past few days, we've been working on a travel brochure and be as creative as possible. The goal was to pick a foreign country and make a brochure advertising a trip for vacation to that country. I decided to pick the virgin the islands. I figured the colors of baby blue, a soft green, and beach sand brown would be a good theme for a brochure. I really don't know why i chose that country other than that idea. Also, we needed to put interesting facts and attractions about the country that would draw people to want to go there. What's interesting is I got to learn about the country then I might of thought.

But in other news, Bekah was bugging the crap outta me today. lol. Not like someones just always messing with you  bugging you. I'm talking about that little brother or sister that just won't leave you alone. Or better yet that wife that keeps reminding you of something that you clearly understand but for whatever reason she feels she needs to repeat 24/7. But never the less, she was actually trying to cheer me up and  still I love her. <3

Just Reppin'

Color Replication is the goal! For this project, the goal was to replicate an act model of a chosen picture. The trick was to use the pen tool in illustrator which at the time I wasn't too comfortable at all using. We were also supposed to integrate gradient color mixes as well. Which I also wasn't very comfortable yet. Never the less, it still had to be done so I eventually stopped complaining. So the first thing I needed to figure out was what I was going to use as a picture. What was recommended was to do a vehicle but knowing me I like being different. I ended up doing my replica on a Xbox 360 controller with a Gears of War theme graphically painted on it. So now, I've got my picture and I've got my Illustrator tools. It was time to go to work.

Well at the end of my project it seemed to come out really well. It came out so much better than I pictured it would look and  came out better than the original picture itself. I was actually really proud of myself with this one because I felt like this was my first major project for graphic design.

*Salute*

Yeah so... I'm Mike Manning. Everyone calls me Sarge. I'm a freshmen at Charleston Southern University. I'm just sitting here in my awesome graphic design class blogging and listening to some Jay Sean (Dude's legit!). I know this is going to be an interesting semester; especially considering the great group of people I've learned to love in my class. (I mean to be honest I do have a couple favorites: actually like 3 main ones lol). And then of course I'm going to have a certain someone in my ear consistently reminding me that I'm always wrong and she's always right (*cough Cough* - Bekah!) :) But I love her for it. Man how would I get through this class without her. But anyway..

This isn't the first time I've blogged so this isn't too new to me. It's pretty cool. Once you get a real feel for how blogging works, you really start enjoying it. Depending on the topic, conversations while blogging can get really intense and heated. Well, I'm excited for this coming semester of Design. New Apple Computers, Great group of classmates, and a lot of Love. Things are going to be great.
I think my problem is going to be actually remembering to do my blogs. I mean I know when this course really gets going its going to be easy to just to forget to blog.