Moises Morales

As much as I love the art of creating, I’m new to these programs and I’m not an illustrator. Therefore, having to sketch my ideas before hand worried me. Luckily, the thumbnails can be doodles, which is exactly what mine were. But, those doodles allowed me to explore with out wasting time trying to figure out how to use the programs.

For the one-color model, I designed two postcards.

For the first one I chose to use a bluish color, because, when I think Bahamas I think water, and that’s exactly what I wanted the postcard to represent. I also decided to place the individuals (in the image) within the text to symbolize them having a good time in the water. I used four sets of the word “BAHAMAS” to represent ripples in the water; this is why their faces cannot be seen fully. Unfortunately I don’t remember the name of the font I used for this postcard. I’ll discuss this during the “What I Learned” section.

With the second design I took a simpler approach. I decided not to crop the image and let the scenery be seen. But, because I had to choose one color, I chose the color purple, which represents imagination and dreams, while spiritually calming the emotions. Another thing I associate with the Bahamas, which is why I went there on vacation. For this postcard I used the “NeulandLTStd” font, because it felt right. I don’t know how else to say it. I knew I wanted to break up the word “Bahamas,” but wasn’t sure if it would look right. But, when I came across this font I immediately felt like I was looking at a brochure planning my next vacation to the Bahamas!

I also designed two postcards for the two-color model.

For the first one, I decided to expand on the second design of the one-color postcard (no crop/full image). But now having two colors at my disposal, I created a mixed color. The resulting color reminded me of the color of earth (another color I associate with a tropical place like the Bahamas). I also wanted to create a mixture of the image, so I can duplicated it, tinted the duplicates and used them frame the original image so that it could stand out. Because I felt that “NeulandLTStd” was the perfect font for my Bahamas postcard, I decided to reuse it. I just resized it and placed it where I felt it didn’t cause too much of a distraction.

For my second design I got more creative. This one I wanted to make look more like a poster or a foldable post card. Therefore, I played with tints of my two colors and added shapes, giving the postcard a more dynamic and attractive appeal. Again, I used the “NeulandLTStd” font. But, I used it broken up, as I had done originally, this time with the shapes and tints.

I only designed one postcard for the four-color model.

Why? Because I chose to make this postcard look more like a print you’d get at a photo booth. This is why I duplicated the image multiple times in various sizes, with different crops. This was to give the illusion of different photos taken in a photo booth. Since I didn’t want to get penalized for only using one font, I used “Moonglow-Regular” for this one. Though I don’t like it as much as “NeulandLTStd,” it works in the context of the design and it still has a playful energy to it — though subtle.

“What I Learned”

Aside from the benefit of sketching, I learned to duplicate the original “text” layer if I’m going to convert the text into an object. This way I’ll still have access to the original text file should I need to make any changes, or misspelled something, etc.