My Graphic Design by Darcy Brown

I am a student of Inderkum High School, class of 2017. I'm in Mrs. Brown's Graphic Design class. These are the works that I've done over the course of the year, starting with the "Advice From Your 80-Year-Old Self" Poster and ending with our last project, the playing card self portrait. In this portfolio you will see examples of what I learned about digital illustration, typography, drawing, and more.

Advice from your 80-Year-Old Self

Think About Yourself Less

This assignment was about playing with text and gradients. The challenge was to make a poster with a quote or advice that your 80-year-old self might give to your current self. I decided that the advice I would give myself is to think about myself less because I think teenagers can be really self-centered and really, the best way to make the world a better place is to spend more time thinking about other people's feelings and needs. I'm happy with the outcome and I really liked searching for new fonts on dafont.com.

Wonderdrug

Aqualexin

This assignment was about creating an ad which is a parody of a prescription ad. I really liked this project because we got to show our sense of humor and I had fun coming up with this idea for a cure for water allergies. We learned how to use the pen tool to create a silhouette and I'm very satisfied with how the silhouettes turned out. Ever since this project, I have used the pen tool over and over. It was a steep learning curve, but now that I know how to use it it is extremely versatile and useful. I feel like this piece is noteworthy because it's the first piece I made this year which really looks like a real project a graphic designer might have made.

Art Design Notebook

Principles & Elements of Design

This notebook is like a dictionary of all the Elements & Principles of Design. This was the first time we ever worked with Adobe InDesign, which might be why it is the piece I struggled with the most. We did a ton of research to find artworks which are examples of the different Elements and Principles which took a really long time for me. I noticed in my research looking through books and websites that I could find the Elements everywhere but the Principles were much more of a challenge. I also struggled with InDesign trying to figure out how to use text and how to resize images. Now that we've had some practice with InDesign creating this notebook and the moodboards, I feel like I understand it much better and have more confidence with it. Seeing the printed notebook made it all worthwhile because it turned out really good and I'm happy with it.

Expressive Typography

Pollution

In this project, we were asked to choose a social or environmental issue which is important to us and create an artwork about it which uses mostly text to fill it in. I chose to represent air pollution caused by factory waste and I wanted the background to look like everything was submerged in a black sea of filthy oil. I am happy with how it turned out and I'm glad I kept it only black and white because I think it is eye-catching and effective.

TWO POINT PERSPECTIVE

2 Point Perspective Object

For this project, we learned how to use 2 point perspective in Illustrator. I thought it was pretty hard at first, but I'm happy with the way it turned out. My idea for this was to make it look like a table or a box that had been cut up into slices. My inspiration was that scene from this sculpture I saw once in a museum with metal boxes all floating on top of one another against a wall. I'm quite happy with how it turned out and I think if I could make any changes I would add a bit more detail in the negative space.

HIERARCHY OF INFORMATION POSTER

Hierarchy of Information Poster

This is a poster which we did in the style of International Typographic Style. The challenge was to create a poster which didn't look like the genre of music so that it could be eye-catching but could be for almost any music group and you couldn't tell. I'm happy with how this turned out and the shapes in the background are very effective.

Pattern Swatches

Pattern Swatches

These are the pattern swatches we created. We learned how to make swatches in Illustrator which was really fun! I would definitely do this again in the future. I'd like to find out a way to print my patterns onto clothing or a tote bag.

Patterns of Waste

Smoky City

This project was exploring the idea of plastic and waste. I decided to create a piece about air pollution created by burning too many fossil fuels. I wanted to show the runner having a hard time breathing. During her run, she has to stop and catch her breath because the air is so smoggy. There are tiny grey clouds in her lungs. If I could do this over, I would add some color instead of making it black and white to emphasize the grey clouds and make them look more polluted instead of just looking like an overcast day.

CONTOUR COLORING BOOK

Complimentary Color Harmony Shoe

For this project, we learned to draw by looking at an object. I don't have much experience with drawing, which is why I think this is my least successful piece. I also only created one color harmony instead of three, so that's another reason this isn't very successful. I liked learning how to use LiveTrace to color the picture digitally and, in fact, I used LiveTrace for my final project as you'll see below. I'm happy with how the coloring turned out. I like the tints and shades of purple i used in my complimentary color harmony, but I think I could have done more with more studio time.

Two You's

Queen of Clubs

For this project, we were supposed to use juxtaposition. I chose to juxtapose the tough side of myself with the self-conscious side of myself. The cactus represents that I can survive difficult elements but that I can be prickly. The vines represent that when I start to question myself, I will just conform to the shape of whatever other people are doing, just like how vines conform to the shape of the surface they're growing on. I also chose to make the cactus side larger because it has more of a presence where the bottom tends to want to shrink and not be seen. This piece is my most successful because it has great composition, it's very personal to me, and I spent a long time on it to make it look absolutely perfect. I'm very proud of it and I will definitely print and frame it to put on my wall at home.

In conclusion, I am happy with my overall progress this year. My favorite project was the Two You's project because I liked choosing my own medium and I feel like I had the skills to accomplish my idea which I hadn't felt the rest of the year. I started off this year not very comfortable with computers but I feel like I've gained a lot of skills in Illustrator especially and I will keep my Pocket Guide in case I forget anything in the future and need to look it up. I still want to learn more about Photoshop, so maybe I'll take Photography next year in college. I know that it will be hard to go back to Word after this to create posters because in Illustrator we have so much flexibility, so I think I might want to subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud so that I have the programs on my computer. This class has given me an appreciation of Graphic Design and after all of our Ad Analysis homework, I think I will start to look at graphic design and art differently from now on.
Created By
Darcy Brown
Appreciate

Report Abuse

If you feel that this video content violates the Adobe Terms of Use, you may report this content by filling out this quick form.

To report a Copyright Violation, please follow Section 17 in the Terms of Use.