WIP Journals | Group D by Sandee McClain

I just recently did some photojournalism at the National Aquarium of Baltimore. I'm going to post produce my images either tonight or sometime tomorrow. What I have definitely learned from that experience is that taking pictures of fish is the hardest type of photography there is. I got a serious workout lol!

theblackwolf20 — 2018-01-22 16:55:05 UTC

Week 2

serrano_jscott — 2018-01-27 16:03:27 UTC

So I'm currently working on my project brief. I don't really have a clue as to assess a budget. I've never been great at that sort of thing but will probably google it. If anyone has suggestions on how to approach, I'm all ears.

So my project will be a branding package for a local ice cream store in my area. I plan to design a storefront menu, letterhead, business cards, reinterpretation of the logo and promo materials for events and products. I'm trying to conceptualize some product posters for the sides of the stores at the moment. What we had last year was kind of loud so I'm going for a cleaner look for this coming season.

Week 2

theblackwolf20 — 2018-01-29 22:31:21 UTC

Sandee told me I can't put the focus of my Senior Project on my website. So I will try focus on certain areas of the website to build up. Blogging and branding are two of the main things I want to focus on the most. We will see as the weeks go on.

Week 2

asteele004 — 2018-01-30 23:59:15 UTC

My project brief was approved, so I will be rebranding the restaurant Okura with a branding package including a variety of things. The package will include things like a new logo, to a website landing page sample, new menu design, a sample product package design and more. I sketched my ideas for a logo and started playing around with the one that fit best in illustrator. I am also working on making my project brief a little more detailed off of what Sandee commented.

Week 2 Cont.

asteele004 — 2018-01-31 00:07:24 UTC

I have been playing around with the sushi boat concept and trying different color combos using Okura's color scheme. I have so far played around with a calligraphic like font and different positions for the boat shape.

Week 2 Progress

2018-01-31 18:52:45 UTC

So far I've accomplished a sturdy three-part plan (logo, homepage & menu layout) for a restaurant as my senior project and I will be doing one at a time over these six weeks. I have two weeks to do my webpage, 2 weeks to do the menu, and 2 weeks to do the logo. This week I've decided on a wireframe for my homepage but I should really start with the logo first. That will determine the colors and feel for the branding of the other parts of the project. The wireframe took about an hour and I should be finished the logo by the end of the week. I'm devoting 4 hours to that.
I have been researching other great restaurant's websites and logos to get better ideas of what I want to do. I may have bitten off more than I can chew with three projects combined into one, but I would like to have a branding prototype to use in my portfolio.

Continued...

award001 — 2018-01-31 18:59:22 UTC

I also need to work on logging into Padlet before I post my journal entries.

Week 3

serrano_jscott — 2018-02-02 16:16:03 UTC

Project Brief was approved so I will be moving forward with the branding of the ice cream store. I have a pic of the storefront which indicates how I will have to construct the menu.
The menu that is up in this photo is the menu from last year. It was an improvement from the previous year but there is still work to be done.
There are 2 service windows so the menu will have to repeat itself on either side of the store. I have to design each menu category on a 12x19 sheet and piece them together (4 sheets per panel).

5 Star Rubric

sandee_l_mcclai — 2018-02-05 17:32:37 UTC

Week 3

theblackwolf20 — 2018-02-06 01:39:27 UTC

I ran into some problems this week. My car broke down, then a breaker in the circuit breaker blew in my apartment which is keeping me from using my internet. I will not let this distract me from my work. I will keep you posted when everything is back to normal. For now here is a sample of my work from the National Aquarium of Baltimore.

Week 3 - Feb. 6

award001 — 2018-02-06 23:30:52 UTC

This week I found the website and restaurant that I would like to rebrand (decision I just made in week 2) and started brainstorming ideas for logos and researching other restaurant sites and drafting wireframe ideas for the website I'll create. I haven't gotten to starting anything for the menu yet. That will probably be last. The first thing I need to do is design the logo to represent the brand image I'm going for and then design the website and menu off of that. Here's a very basic draft of my first logo idea for the San Francisco restaurant, Good Eats Cafe (www.goodeats-cafe.com). <-- FYI, this is the "BEFORE" website which I'll be rebranding.

Week 4

theblackwolf20 — 2018-02-12 02:24:18 UTC

This is the original design of my company's logo. If anybody has any ideas of how to improve it let me know.

Week 4

serrano_jscott — 2018-02-13 20:19:26 UTC

So I've begun working on both the menu and some promotional posters for the ice cream store. Our menu from last year had a lot of pictures and a lot of text for each item so this year I want to minimize the amount of content so that the important information won't get lost. I thought the gradient looked interesting when the posters are actually put together but I'm not settled on it quite yet. I still want to mess with the color scheme and fonts. This is a mockup to gauge how the menu could look if I continue this pattern for each sign. Still needs work but decent improvement from last year.

Week 4 - Feb.13

award001 — 2018-02-14 01:15:19 UTC

• This week I accomplished finishing the three initial logo drafts I set out to complete. The first one posted below I didn't throw out, but I most likely will.
• I spent about 5 hours this week on the sandwich logo alone.
(see below!). It's my favorite so far.
• I still need to have picked and refined my favorite of the three logos by Saturday because I would like to get started on the prototype for my website and have that ready to show the class next Wednesday.
• I definitely need to utilize my Adobe Illustrator resources and past class material because I can tell I've become far too comfortable with Photoshop that I don't really use Illustrator often enough.
• The only problems I encountered this week were rusty AI skills. The solution was to go back to basics and spend some time this week refreshing myself!
• The immediate next thing for me to do is choose and then perfect a logo.
• I'm feeling excited about the project especially because I know my first week's ideas and drafts will be so transformed by the time we get to the last week.
• My suggestion is that brainstorming and "doodling" is super important for me, and it cultivates ideas even if some of them seem really dumb at first.

Week 4

2018-02-17 19:48:56 UTC

I have continued my designs and have come up with a business card, envelope and letterhead design. I am thinking of changing the logo to something that looks a little more related to sushi. My sushi boat logo looks a bit like a leaf or something and not a boat. I have some sketches done and am working on the new logo designs in illustrator. I am also making the logo simple enough so it can easily be replaced and minor changes can be made to the design of the business card, letterhead, and envelope.

More sample pictures

2018-02-17 19:56:04 UTC

Week 5

theblackwolf20 — 2018-02-20 03:25:23 UTC

I completely finished my photojournalism from The National Aquarium. That was my longest photojournalistic work so far. I took many pictures and did much research on water and fish. It was a great experience. Here is another picture from the Aquarium of the divers. Fish are our friends and we should definitely treat them as such.

Week 5 cont.

theblackwolf20 — 2018-02-20 05:59:42 UTC

After speaking with Sandee I realized that I am at a big disadvantage for the fact that I do not have Illustrator experience. So for now I have been learning what I can from Youtube clips and random articles and I will utilize Help Day to help with logo production. I'll upload some new ideas later this week.

Week 5

award001 — 2018-02-21 15:05:00 UTC

So, this journal is about a game-changer that me and Sandee discussed last week. I learned a humbling lesson that tracing unlicensed clip art in Illustrator and adding a little bit of text to it does not constitute my own work and will not pass for an original logo design. Therefore, I started over drafting logo designs completely from my imagination. I sketched out four ideas, picked the one I liked the best, and with some helpful tips from Sandee, drew it up in Illustrator. I'm still going to be perfecting it as I go forward with my webpage and menu design. For now, here is what I came up with.

Week 6

theblackwolf20 — 2018-02-27 00:02:16 UTC

I have been playing around with logo ideas. This past help Sandee helped improve my logo design which showed growth in my business. It's the same concept but with better fonts and designs. I plan on scrapping the green color theory and sticking to silver, black, and white. I also plan to use the logo to attach it to the whole "F. Stallworth Photography" wording but put the rest of the word in a different font. I will post those concepts next week.

Week 6 - Feb. 27

award001 — 2018-02-28 01:17:43 UTC

This week I organized and drafted a wireframe/prototype for my one page website redesign. I'm happy with the organization and the overall fun and fresh vibe it's going to have. I also have been making changes to the logo as well. It's constantly evolving because while I like it, I'm not "wow-ed" by it like Sandee said. Padlet only lets me add one photo per post so I'll just share the webpage draft for you guys. Next week I'll actually have a completed version done in Illustrator.

week5

serrano_jscott — 2018-02-28 16:53:02 UTC

OK, so I posted this already but somehow it got deleted. This was some work I had done at the time of my original post. For the menu, I got rid of the gradient because it was too distracting. I also felt there was too many rigid lines so I softened it up with a brush stroke as the underline and a softer brush graphic behind the item pictures.
Also included in the PDF are some promotional posters I made for the Brownie Delight and Strawberry Poundcake sundaes.

Week 5

asteele004 — 2018-03-01 19:35:32 UTC

So I have decided to do a whole new branding color scheme to give the brand a cleaner look that relates more to the new logo I've come up with as well as having the brand relate more to what the restaurant is, a sushi restaurant. I was originally going to try to keep the pink that Okura has but after working on the project I really started to dislike the pink and felt it could use a much cleaner look that gets away from all the pink

Week 6

asteele004 — 2018-03-01 19:44:23 UTC

I am currently working on redoing my designs using the new plan i have come up with for the brand. This has set me back a little bit but I am just about caught up now. I am touching up the letterhead, envelope, and business cards. Then I am moving onto the outdoor signage sample. I did a sketched out plan of the new design idea and will have digital samples to post for my next journal!

week6

serrano_jscott — 2018-03-04 21:26:53 UTC

I have finished the menu as photoshop files which I plan to present during our mid-semester presentations. After going to the help day with Ms. McCain, I learned the value of being able to produce the menu posters in Illustrator. Due to my lack of experience in Illustrator, I ended up recreating some of the menu posters in InDesign which made the process quite a bit easier.
I have also been working on a restructuring of the log. I put the ideas I've been floating around in the PDF below. Despite my lack of proficiency in Illustrator I was able to use what skills I have to create the elements of the these logos.

Week 7

theblackwolf20 — 2018-03-06 17:25:08 UTC

This is a shot from University of Delaware's women's basketball game against Drexel University. It was a close game until the 4th quarter when Drexel crushed UD with a 20 point lead. And this is a week after UD's men's basketball team blew a 40 point lead to Drexel in the biggest comeback NCAA Division I history. But this another story that will added to my photojournalism portion to my senior project.

Week 7 Cont.

theblackwolf20 — 2018-03-09 19:11:18 UTC

Here are a few screenshots of the full logo that I am working on. I should have it figured out in the next few days.

Week 7 Cont. Part 2

theblackwolf20 — 2018-03-09 19:12:58 UTC

Week 7 Cont. Part 3

theblackwolf20 — 2018-03-09 19:14:08 UTC

Week 7

2018-03-12 09:49:21 UTC

So I am currently moving along with the new branding I've created form my improved idea. I love the new design so far and think it is sooo much better compared to my original idea. Here is a bit of what I've come up with from the new brand. The PDF includes the new variation of a logo, business card, letterhead and envelope.

Week 7

award001 — 2018-03-15 21:02:04 UTC

I made a lot of progress last week beefing up my Good Eats sandwich logo and starting on my draft of the website homepage. I keep looking for ways to improve the logo and make it look more and more professional but also maintain the fun/quirky aspect of the design. Thanks to a suggestion from Sandee, I added a freehand "bottom" to the bun of my logo and I think it definitely improved and defined the logo a lot better. I also played around with a black and a white version of the logo and think I really might like those better than the full color one. Here's what I have now for the logo and I will post an update on the progress of the webpage next week.

Week 7

2018-03-20 17:17:10 UTC

For week 7 I was asked to create a poster to advertise our upcoming BOGO event to celebrate the 1st day of spring.
Initially, I was working with large sized flowers and lost of bright colors but ulimately it was reading WAY too busy. I had to step away and regroup. I sat down and started to draw with a pencil and paper and came up with this idea. I wanted something cleaner and more simpler. I tried to focus the material on just the important information.
I chose the green and blue colors beacuse they are bright and oriented with spring and would look good with each other. I wanted to do an inverted effect for the buy one get one idea.
2 out of the 4 owners like the design and were excited about the new approach. One of the 4 was not a fan at first because they thought it was too simple. She eventually cam around though. The 4th, I did not get an opinion from.

Week 8

theblackwolf20 — 2018-03-20 18:03:31 UTC

This is the beginning concept of my new business card design. I will grow the design week by week and display them in my journals.

Week 8

asteele004 — 2018-03-20 20:07:07 UTC

I am currently working on the multi-page menu design for Okura. Due to a family situation I wasn't able to make it to the midway presentations. So I don't have any feedback from the class. I will be using feedback from outside sources for now. I am attaching my PowerPoint, in case anyone wants to take a peek.

Week 8 - Tues. 3/20

award001 — 2018-03-20 20:46:46 UTC

I'm excited to say that I have worked on a first version of my rebranded restaurant's webpage on Adobe Illustrator and the first version has actually turned out pretty good! The logos on the menu bar I sketched myself and then scanned and adjusted in Photoshop. I added royalty free photos for the "Specialties" section to represent menu items from the restaurant, and added social media icons and blurbs that the original site included (ex. Sandwich shop in San Francisco). I also created the typography under the header in Illustrator. The main thing I really am not crazy about right now is the header with the gradient background. I am continuing to play around with other options for the header background/layout.

WEEK 8

2018-03-26 02:47:05 UTC

I finally got started on a busiess card. I've been having a lot of computer issues lately so I had to take a screenshot of my work in order to submit. I'm working in InDesign and I've tried exporting as both a jpeg and a PDF but neither will show both images. Help?
In the picture, the left side will be the front of the card and the right side will be the back. I wanted something fun and bright. I think I like the design but I'm also wondering if it's too busy in the front. I welcome any suggestions if you think it would improve the design. Once I settle the business card, I'll move on to the letterhead. I'd like to finalize the card before moving on since I want the two to coincide.

Week 9 - Tues. 3/27

award001 — 2018-03-27 21:10:11 UTC

Honestly, I didn't get much done this week. I feel like I was cruising up until last week. Life and work has just been in the way but I've organized my schedule for spring break this next week to accomplish my menu design- a draft and a first version that I'll be able to present in Week 11. This is very important to me to be able to display in my online portfolio so I want to make sure I have all the time I need to make it the best I can, and I can't believe how fast it's coming to an end!

Week 10

theblackwolf20 — 2018-03-28 18:50:36 UTC

Hello everyone! Sorry about not uploading a Journal last week. It's been pretty busy for me. Here is my design concept for my business card. I'm going to decide between 3 final designs. All will uploaded in the next coming weeks.

Week 10 Cont.

theblackwolf20 — 2018-03-28 18:53:28 UTC

This is the backside of the card. I want to put my company slogan on the back but I might change the font. I feel that back needs something else because it looks too plain. If anybody has any suggestions please let me know.

Week 9

serrano_jscott — 2018-03-31 17:14:37 UTC

So this week, I don't believe I got much done for my project. I have some new classes that are pretty demanding and like I mentioned before, I'm still having computer issues. I've had a create another admin account on my imac and have been moving between the different accounts to get the work that I need finished. SO frustrating. But enough excuses. I had a really good momentum going and I don't want to lose too much of it. I plan to start my letterhead and tweak the business card some more. After those projects, I believe I only have a few promotional posters to make and then I will have all of my deliverables completed. From there, I will just need to go in and fine tune all of my work up to this point.

WEEK 10

serrano_jscott — 2018-03-31 17:18:15 UTC

So this week I worked on editing my business card, experimenting with the color blocks and trying to clean up my placed images like the logo and icons. I decided to try using a cellphone and an email icon on the back of the business card to add a more fun flair.
I kept the letter head really simple. I used the color block that created the background for the front of the business card and used them on the left side of the page. I also took down the opacity of the logo and placed it in the center. The phone and address information for each store is located at the bottom of the page. I believe that I only have a few promotional posters left to create. Then I can go through tighten up each of these projects.

Week 10

asteele004 — 2018-04-06 20:07:23 UTC

I've been working on the new menu design for Okura. There is a lot of content and that is currently the biggest obstacle for me. I dont want to make the Menu too many pages long, while also no cramming everything onto a few pages. So I'm playing around with the layout and size until i find a good balance.

Week 10

2018-04-10 13:30:58 UTC

This week I actually included my logo and website design from my senior project in my portfolio of work at a really big job interview! So as far as progress is concerned, I obviously like the designs well enough to present them to potential employers, but I'm still only at about 90% satisfied with my designs and I plan on getting to 100% satisfied. My menu has been drafted in Illustrator and I would like to develop it more by Week 11 and I will post a picture to show the class and hopefully get feedback.

Week 11

theblackwolf20 — 2018-04-17 17:02:37 UTC

I did the Hiking in White Clay Creek State Park near the Judge Morris Estate on Polly Drummond Hill Road in Newark. It's a monthly service where the community can get together and through paths in the park, exploring the scenery. I went last Saturday when the weather was great which made the walk very relaxing. There were many trees knocked down in the woods from the most recent noreaster we had. Most of the trees that were knocked down were very old; they looked to be over 100 years old. It was 4 mile walk up and down the forest near cliffs, hills, and creeks. I can only image how beauty the state park looks when everything is in full bloom.

WEEK12

serrano_jscott — 2018-04-19 23:07:19 UTC

Alright so we are reaching the end of the line here. Man, it's been a crazy journey so far. I have all of my deliverables submitted and am open to critiques. Below, I've posted the final 3 pieces of promotional materials. I've also included my proposal draft. I used the examples that were posted on blackboard as a guide and tried to make it my own in terms of design. did my best with the verbage on the proposal but I'm a bit unsure if I included the proper information or added some unnecessary things. Any criticism is welcome. I'd like to do the best I can. Thanks.

Week 12

2018-04-23 01:34:50 UTC

I have been finalizing my menu design and picking which layout to go with. It has been taking me a bit longer than I would have liked, life hit me hard in the last few weeks and I got a new job! I've also been working on my project proposal.

Week 12

award001 — 2018-04-23 20:05:39 UTC

Semi-final version of the menu part of my rebranding project is done. I am really looking forward to getting feedback from the class and from Sandee on the design and how it comes across.

Week 12

theblackwolf20 — 2018-04-24 16:44:41 UTC

I added some extra designs to my business card. I played around with ovals, lines, and starbursts to give my card more character. I'm still going to keep playing around with the designs for another week to see what I come up with. Here is what I have for now.

Week 12 cont.

theblackwolf20 — 2018-04-24 16:47:59 UTC

Here is the back side.

Final Week Update

award001 — 2018-04-27 13:04:02 UTC

I've perfected my project propsal and have been going through all of my submitted assignments, reviewing the comments and suggestions that Sandee added to them, and went back and adjusted all of my work to submit for the final project. I changed the color scheme for the menu to match the color scheme on the home page. I also corrected my project brief to reflect the actual hours I spent on each aspect of the project to replace the beginning projected hours. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the final product.

Week 13

2018-04-29 17:16:32 UTC

I have been adding more to the menu design and making edits to my project proposal. Here is a sample of the menu.

Final Week

serrano_jscott — 2018-04-30 04:13:39 UTC

Well folks.....we did it! I was finally able to package all my files and combine them into a PDF with the help of Sandee.
I had to go back and reformat my proposal. I had initially been using spaces and returns bars for the text which caused the alignment to be off. I went back and used tabs and the return space tool to reformat the text.
My project required me to use a number of different files including Photoshop Indesign, and Illustrator. I wasn't aware of packaging materials composed in InDesign and Illustrator but quickly became familiar and understand how and why it is so essential to this process.
I know we've all worked our butts off and it feels good to finally be finishing up. Cheers everyone and best of luck in all your future endeavors.

Week

theblackwolf20 — 2018-05-02 04:00:17 UTC

Week 13

theblackwolf20 — 2018-05-02 04:00:43 UTC

This is a shot of Deadpool from the Philadelphia Comic Con. It was a crazy time and I met so many great artist and actors! I recommend going to any big comic convention that comes around for networking and great artwork!