Danisa Valdez

My quote was ‘It’s always darkest before the dawn’. The first image that came to my mind that I thought would visually enhance the quote was of a sunrise showing both the dark and light aspects of an actual ‘dawn’. The quote itself is very deep and can represent many things but I decided to keep the image as simple as I could in order for the viewer to receive the meaning, however they desire. I also used the font baskerville because it kept the letters simple like I wanted. The letter ‘w’ in specific, was the simplest in that typeface which ultimately led to my decision to use it.

From this project, I learned first hand about the impact that different types of contrasts have on the message; the message can be received differently solely based on the contrasts and how the image is used. I tried using different colors, different sizes, sizes and placements of the text and image. Each variation had a significant impact on the way my eyes received the message. My other variations didn’t put out the message the way I wanted the viewers to take in so, in the end, I chose my initial design because the simplicity that the text, size, color, and spacing created.

Steven Aguilar

While working on this project I worked with two different images before I got to the one I used. The two images, at first, I thought could work with the quote I used “What stands in the way becomes the way.” One of the image was of a forest and the other of a guy rock climbing but it was really hard to connect the quote with the image. I decided to look for another image and I came across one of a sculpture of Marcus Aurelius.

The sculpture is a distorted face of Marcus Aurelius, it is broken on the right top side and bottom left. I used the spaces left to place the quote. On the right top side of the image I place the longest part of the quote using Helvetica. The word “what” and “stands” I kind of distorted, the words “in the way” I wrote vertically by the border of the sculpture to use the whole space.

On the bottom left side I wrote “becomes the way” across the space left by the sculpture. I used a color red for the word “way” to put emphasis on the way that word close the quote. I also thought that the color red was a good contrast with the shadows of the sculpture. This assignment it was great to understand the spacing and explore ideas, good practice for creativity.

When I first started this project, I wasn’t really thinking that far out of the box. The designs that I came up with were too simple and done way too many times. It felt like the cliche pictures and quotes that I saw all over the internet. I also had trouble picking what color I should be using that goes along with the picture.

The first design I was going to use was nice and simple, and it looked nice on the page, but even I could tell that it really wasn’t something to look at twice. After Professor looked at it, he also said that now I should take some risks with my design. After that, I thought of some different ideas. I then cut the balloon in half and put the quote in it using the Baskerville typeface in a small size. I had tried the different typefaces and thought that Baskerville in bold looked the best with the quote. The color was a dark blue, and it also seemed to work very well with the entire composition. Then I made the spacing a little wider so it felt like the air was going through the text as it rose in the balloon. After I did this, it looked nice, but I didn’t think it was complete. I then added the quote on repeat in the background in white text, all caps and bigger than my quote in blue so there was some contrast and the words did not seem to collide. The quote faded as it went down, so it had the illusion of clouds or fog and the hot air balloon rose through the sky.

In conclusion, I learned that sometimes your first idea is not the best. I learned that I should take risks even if the end does not look okay. In my case, I actually came up with a design that I liked a lot. In the future, I will learn to think up different ideas and to play more with those ideas instead of just keeping it simple.

Cindy Chan

Someone once said art is plagiarism or revolution.

I opted to keep it simple this time and settled with an image with centered white text. This is inspired by many of the advertising posters we come across in daily life and on the internet. Obviously, it’s not revolutionary. It’s popular, it looks good, it works.

I chose Helvetica because, as the saying goes, “when in doubt, use Helvetica.” The quote was chosen to suit the image. I had the seven types of typographic contrast in the back of my mind, but for simplicity’s sake, I decided to keep the weight, size, form, color, etc, uniform.

Despite not exploring the types of contrast, I learned to keep an open mind in exploring options.

Kerry Chan

My quote was “The keys to brand success are self-definition, transparency, authencity, and accountability.” First, I had several images to pick for keys and I had a person holding the key and the key with the word success on it. I didn’t pick the hand with key because I thought I can’t do anything with it and it was much harder. So, I picked the key with word success because I thought it was colorful and it’s chained to the keychain. Since the image is big, the key is also big, I thought power to the keys would be big. So I stayed with one image. It was quite interesting to do this project but I feel like image’s words were blocking out my thoughts to create this project well. It was a really concrete picture not really abstract to show the four types of keys to brand success. When I made my sketches, I had only 1 image on my illustrated quote analysis. The professor said, “the pictures were all the same.” So I didn’t know what to do and I was shocked for awhile of how I was going with project. Then I saw several other people cropping out and making other images with the project. So I got the idea to use duplicates of my image for each key of success. I made the keys small first because success always start off small then gradually the image got bigger. I used 1 image for each key of success and made each word yellow so represents 1 key. I didn’t use only 1 image for the quotation because there were four keys. Also, I used the Baskerville typeface because it has less letter spacing and it’s unique in style. After much grinding, I learned that I don’t need to be stuck with one image and the quotation but I can use several same images to help produce my overall picture. I also learned that it’s harder to use an image with words in it. So I think a more flexible image without words might have worked out better with my quote but I have no idea until I try. Like any problem, there’s always a solution to a problem. It’s just depends how you see it.

One of the problems that I ran into once I began to work on the design was that the image was way to busy with other images of bills that did not allow me to see the quote clearly—unless if I used a large bold typeface. At first I tried a Helvetica bold typeface, but I thought that this typeface was way to big and overshadowed the image. I then added a couple of color boxes with some transparency so that I could still see the whole image and also be able to distinguish it from the quote. For the word procrastination I used a Helvetica thin typeface with positive tracking In order to cover the 10×10 page. I also wanted to emphasize the word robs with contrast of color, size and structure, I did this by using a Baskerville typeface slightly larger than the following words of that followed the quote you from. For the last word of the quote procrastination I used a Helvetica bold with a little bit of negative tracking and a different color box color in order make this word stand out more than the rest. From this project I learned how to use color box to my advantage and of course Indesign.

Illustrated quote Analysis

choosing the quote was a fairly easy task as the quote itself holds great value on it’s own and to me personally. the image became difficult. at first i wanted to choose an image that was associated with the quote but that would have been too easy. a great obstacle was finding a creepy looking picture that would not become pixelated when printed. as i made the sketches i realized i did not like the full image but only the face of the creepy figure in the corner and so i experimented with that. my second favorite design was a simple black screen with the quote in white and the mask in the corner. to me it resembled a loading screen which is where the quote originates. also i figured it would be radical to create my own images and use them in the design on top of the one i picked from the internet. i particularly enjoyed doing this project as i see these images with quotes all over the internet and it was interesting to create one while thinking about the design aspect of it and not just pasting text in the corner.

Yuna Chong

When I first started drawing sketches for this project, I sticked to a plain typical design. I was able to create various variations of similar designs. I thought I was done with my sketches when Professor Klein said they all were the same. With some shock I wondered what I could possibly do with such a simple image and quote. However, looking at other examples, such as ads, magazines, and other students’ examples, I was able to open up to thinking of other kinds of designs. Then when I moved on to designing in InDesign, I was able to explore my ideas even more as I saw my ideas come to life; new ideas came to mind and I gave them a try. Strangely enough, those later ideas became my few favorites. At first I used Garamond and small text for a subtle and delicate design. Then, when I tried to explore other ideas, I played around with the size of the text and saw that Garamond did not suit what I was trying to do. That is when I found different forms of Helvetica Neue. The different contrasts, such as color, size, structure, and texture, helped me try different text arrangements.

The design approach that I had in mind when starting this project was to use a full bleed and emphasize on certain words with the quote on top of the image. However after many tries I noticed that the design wasn’t satisfying. I choose to zoom into the picture and center it with the quote curving to the man’s hands to really show how uplifting the quote is. The typeface I used was Bodoni Book Italic because it seemed soft and fitting to my quote. Designing this project taught me to look more into details of how a word positioned in a certain way can affect someones view of it. Now I pay closer attention to the negative spaces, typeface, and contrasting in words and images.

Place your analysis for the Illustrated Quote project in the Illustrated Quote Analysis category.