PowerPoint Slide Show

Newsletter

I decided to do this project of creating a newsletter with a partner. We decided to do this project in Quark. I completed the front of the newsletter, while she did the back. In our mock-up, we specifically planned where everything would be. For the most part, I complied with the original plan. In all, I only changed two things. The mock-up showed a picture centered in the middle of the text. I placed the picture in the bottom right corner. I also changed the background. I thought that adding a curtain at a low opacity would look better than just white space with black text on it, so we both added the curtain. I added each segment of text by creating a text box and then selecting the Content Tool. Once the text was in, I changed the fonts to be more readable and visually appealing. The main font was Bell MT. We chose this font because our text said that serif fonts are more readable in long paragraphs than sans serif fonts. For the headings, we wanted to use a spooky font to fit in with the theme. We chose Lucida Blackletter for this reason. I placed the pre-made banner across the top of the document by creating an image box and selecting File → Insert Picture. To have the image fit perfectly, I resized it in Adobe Photoshop by doing Image → Image Size, and making it to fit the width of the document. I made the left column of the newsletter black to create a separation of the text. I put the image of the curtain through Photoshop. In Photoshop, I cropped out the part that I wanted. I copied it to a new document, resized the image, and deleted the white background. When it was the right size and on a transparent background, I changed the opacity to 52%. In retrospect, I wish I had left it a little darker. It appeared much darker on the computer screen than when it was printed. I added this image to the newsletter in the same way as the previous images. With the picture of the graveyard, I manipulated this photo to be black and white through Photoshop. After the manipulation, I resized it and added it to the document.

To kern my titles, I used Styles → Kern. I did this for the title of the newsletter. I did not use leading in this newsletter, but in figuring out the settings I found that if I wanted to do this, I would click Styles → Leading, and adjust the percentages. As for widows and orphans, I had a hard time styling the document so that no words were left alone on the last line. The best possible situation allowed for two words, one on the second paragraph and one on the last, to be left alone. If I extended the document any longer it did not fit on the page, and if I extended the document sideways I was left with hyphenations and more widows and orphans than before. My text wrap takes place in the last paragraph around the graveyard photo. Originally, the graveyard photo was in the center. I had a hard time creating the text wrap. I found the wrap option on the text toolbox, but for some reason it would not work with two separate columns. I tried to combine it to one column with two text boxes, and this did still not work. After many trials, I decided to make the text a single text box and move the picture to the bottom right. The location of the picture was visually appealing, so I left it in its place. I read in the assigned book to never indent a paragraph when there are spaces between the paragraphs. Because I added spaces between the paragraphs, I chose not to indent my paragraphs. Overall, I was impressed by the overall aesthetic appeal of the newsletter.

Cheerleading Brochure

For this project, I decided to do a brochure for the Roger Williams Cheerleading Team. I did this because in the past, we have had a problem with advertising and I was hoping that this brochure could help. Because of my specific topic, I decided to do this project alone instead of working with a partner. First, I started on the outside of the brochure. I added the text to the document by creating a text box and then altering the type. For the title, I used the font Perpetua Tiling at size 36 because it was easy to read but also very modern and stylish. I chose Papyrus at Size 24 for the word Cheerleading because it matched the font on our sweatshirts. For the back cover, I chose to use the font Nueva at size 30 for the quote. I chose this font because it seemed to match well with the title and the overall theme. For the text and titles throughout the brochure, I wanted to choose something legible and readable. I originally chose to do Perpetua Tiling MD at size 24 for the titles. For the text, I had Nueva Std at size 14. I brought this into class and showed it to the professor who informed me of some better options for font. After some alterations, I decided to change the title font to Perpetua at Size 24, and the text underneath to Optima at size 12. These fonts drastically improved the look of my brochure. At the bottom of the inside panel, I have the quote “In any other sport… all you miss is the ball.” I decided to make this Lucida Calligraphy. I did this because I usually see quotes as italicized and this font came close to that effect. The words, “In any other sport…” are in size 24. The words, “All you miss is the ball” are in size 36. I had to make these two different sizes because I wanted the first part of the quote to fit on one panel. I did this because when the brochure is only half open, I wanted to viewer to be intrigued to open the rest and finish the quote.

I added images to the brochure by creating an image box and then File → Place to put in the images. I originally had a very hard time finding out how to do this. It took me about an hour to find that File → Place was the combination that I needed to add the image. After I found this, I had a problem where I made my image box too small for the image. When this happens, the image does not display. It took me a while to realize what I had done wrong. When it was all figured out, I began to manipulate my images. The first image that I did was the hawk on the cover. I placed the hawk in Photoshop and selected it by clicking Select → Color Range, checking the box “Invert” and clicking on the white portion. This selected the hawk, which I then dragged to a new document. In this new image, I deleted the white background and sized it to fit the brochure by Image → Image Size. After placing the hawk, I decided that I wanted it to have pom-poms. I found an image of a clip-art cheerleader online and added the image to Photoshop. In Photoshop, I selected the cheerleader in the same way that I selected the hawk. Once I dragged the cheerleader into a new document with a transparent background, I erased the body and arms of the cheerleader, leaving only one pom-pom. I used the eye-dropper tool to color the pom-pom navy blue, which was the same color as the hawk. After saving the pom-pom, I colored the pom-pom the same gold as the outside of the hawk. I saved that version as a new image. I added each pom-pom to the brochure and placed them beneath the hawk by using the move tool. I added the image of the cheerleader to the back of the brochure in the same way that I added the other images. The cheerleader clip-art was originally black, so I used the eye-dropper tool to have the same blue as the hawk. Next, I began to work on the inside of the brochure. I added five images to the inside of the brochure the same way that I added the previous images. Each image was manipulated in Photoshop for a correct size and resolution. The large image on the brochure appeared too dark, so I brightened that image in Photoshop as well. I also increased the Sharpness of that picture to make it appear like it had a stronger resolution.

The background was the hardest part of this project. For the outside, I wanted to do a gradient for each panel. For the cover, I wanted it to fade from blue to white to yellow. I eventually figured out how to do this gradient. I did this by making the color that I wanted a swatch. I then made the color that I had selected blue, with the secondary color white. With the blue on top, I dragged the blue swatch into the Gradient on the left side. I then did the same thing to the yellow, but on the other side. I followed the same process with the white, but I placed this in the middle. After this, I had a gradient fading from blue to white to yellow. I added the gradient to the brochure, but I still was not satisfied with how it looked. I decided to play with the settings, and I liked the effect of the gradient feather. I added that to the gradient, which made it fade to white on one side. I decided to copy and paste the entire rectangle with the gradient in it, to create to gradients next to each other. I made the gradient feathers fade to white in the middle where the hawk would be. I was very proud of the final effect. In the middle panel, I created a radial gradient from yellow to white in the middle by using the same techniques. In the last panel, I created a gradient from blue to white to yellow. On the inside panel, I decided to create a large gradient across the entire background from yellow to white to blue. I did this because I wanted the reader to focus on the pictures and I didn’t want it to look too busy.

Overall, I liked Quark much better than Indesign. Indesign was very hard to figure out. Quark allowed for easier manipulation of images and fonts. I also liked Quark because I could figure out how to add effects to font. I wanted to add a drop shadow to my title but I couldn’t find out how to do this on Indesign. If I had the choice of which one to use, I would choose Quark.

Concert Poster

I decided to do my concert poster on Kenny Chesney. I have seen Kenny in concert multiple times, and I have a good idea of what theme his music presents. Because Kenny’s music is mostly about relaxation, summertime and beaches, I decided to make the background of the image a beach. I found the image of the beach online. I added to image to Photoshop and cropped the image to be the correct size for the poster. I saved the image in the correct size so that it would fit perfectly to the Quark document. I made this image the background layer in my Quark document by selecting the Rectangle Picture Box Tool and selecting the entire poster. I added the picture as the background by selecting File → Import Picture. I selected the newly formatted beach from the desktop. The second layer that I used for this poster was an image of Kenny. By using the same tool, I selected the left bottom corner of the poster. I imported Kenny’s image, and moved the image around until it fit aesthetically with the rest of the background.

I had trouble with the fonts in Quark. I did not like how you couldn’t see examples of the fonts when looking through the lists. To find the sample’s, I opened a text box in Photoshop and found the fonts that I would intend on using there. I immediately found a font that I wanted to use for the words “Kenny Chesney.” The font is Charlemagne Std. Bold at size 77. I chose this font because it reminded me of the font that was used on one of his albums that I own. It also appeared large enough to attract the audience’s attention. After looking through many colors, I found an off-white color that matched Kenny’s shirt. I used this for the font. I decided to put a grey shadow on the font to match Kenny’s shirt and tie in the font with the image. I decided that this poster would feature his album, Lucky Old Sun, because it fit with the theme. I made the words “Lucky Old Sun Beachside Tour” in the font Zapfino at size 36. I did this because the font relays to me a very relaxed emotion, which is the exact feeling presented by Kenny’s album. I matched the color and shadow of this font to the font in “Kenny Chesney.” Originally, I had the remainder of the writing in a Serif font. During critique, I was told that the Serif font did not fit the theme of the poster. I changed the remaining font to Zapfino at a smaller size to match the tour title, but not take away from it. I found a dark brown color that matched the palm tree and bolded the writing to make it stand out from the sand and ocean. I also added a shadow to the font to match it with the tour title and artist name.

Of all the things I did on this project, I am most proud of my images. As I mentioned before, I cropped the beach scene in Photoshop to the exact size to use as the background. My image of Kenny Chesney was not as simple. I wanted to have Kenny Chesney appear as if he was just standing on the beach, and this required cutting him out of another image. Originally, I used the magnetic lasso tool to cut out Kenny. Unfortunately, the magnetic lasso did not work around the fine areas, for example, Kenny’s toes. I decided to search for another image. I found an image of Kenny standing up, so I decided to use this image instead. Once again, I added this to Photoshop. Instead of using the magnetic lasso, I decided to use the Quick Selection tool. This tool allowed me to get a rough outline of his body. After I had the approximate outline, I selected and dragged Kenny into a new project. The image that I cut Kenny out of had a grey background, so I decided to make the background of this new project black so that I could clearly see where unwanted parts of the old image remained. Staying selected on the layer that was the image of Kenny, I used the Eraser tool to erase the extraneous background that surrounded Kenny that I did not want. I did this with Brush Size 3 and Hardness at 50% so the image would not appear to roughly cut. After I erased the parts that I did not desire, I changed the background color to white once again to ensure there were no parts that I missed. In this new project, I realized that the background color should be transparent so that when I add the image, a white box wouldn’t appear around his body. I did this by double-clicking on the background layer and making it transparent. After I made the final touches, I added the image to Quark.

I did not like Quark as much as I liked Photoshop. As I have already mentioned, I did not like that I could not see Sample’s of the fonts. Another thing that I did not like was that it was very hard for me to find colors. I think this might have been because I am not familiar with this system. In the past I have found colors in programs by using a color wheel. If you select a color, it shows you a range of the color from black to white. This was not the case in Quark. In Quark, I found my colors by selecting a specific type of color (ex, RGB, CMYK, Pantone, etc.) and scrolling through many different colors. It took me a very long time to find one that matched. I also did not like that I could not edit my images in Quark and had to do them in Photoshop instead. One thing that I liked about Quark was the flexibility to move things around and adjust the layers. Also, I liked how the styles box was at the bottom of the screen. I like the setup of Quark better than Photoshop.