1000 Words

Typography was a lot more difficult than I expected it to be. I think I’m getting into the more difficult classes, as I near the end of my journey for this certificate. I’m going to take a couple more classes before I take the last class needed for the certificate, but that’s okay. I’m enjoying the journey.

My second project was to create a poster that featured a fontographer. It had to showcase one of his fonts. I chose a guy named Harold Lohner who is one of my favorite designers. He created a font called Pharmacy that I use quite often in my scrapbooking…. Here’s the poster. I got 24/25 on it, so I was pleased.

I had a project a few weeks ago, to create a CD cover. It was really not easy. You could not use pictures, only type. I had a vision and I worked it and worked it but I couldn’t get any further than what I submitted. Work was also really busy at the time, (whcn is it not) with a lot of “change” going on, and I don’t think I was quite up to my usual focus. I turned this in, and I got 21/25. My first B. I was really disappointed, but stuck it out and dug in and worked harder.

For our final project, we had to create a poster that used only type, and it had to showcase a Bay Area attraction for children. I knew right away that I wanted to do the exploratorium in San Francisco, as it is one of my very favorite places to visit. I played around with a bunch of different ideas, and phrases and came up with my final poster. Last time I was there, you could create an earthquake, so I focused on that. Here’s the poster. I don’t have a grade yet but the instructor seemed to like my design, so fingers crossed.The background of the poster is white, so it doesn’t show as well as it could, here…. I guess you get the general idea.

Next quarter, I plan to take Photoshop. I use it, but I have no training in it, so I think it’s time to learn how to use it right. I think it will be fun!

Not much else going on. I did start my Christmas Journal yesterday. Maybe tomorrow I can post yesterday and today’s entries. We’ll see how the day goes.

On a side note, I did not finish National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo) again this year. I only wrote 968 words. Having said that, Steven wrote something like 53,000 or more, so I’m really proud of him! Way to go!

-Have a great day!

1. School started last Monday for all three of us at Foothill College. Steven and Josh are taking a Flash Animation class (the one I took over the summer) and I’m taking a class in Typography. (That’s the study of Type. Interesting so far! really!)

2. Josh is at a new, smaller high school and doing fabulously! He’s loving it. We’re all so happy about it! (ALthough it’s made our commutes hell, it’s worth it!)

3. My pal Melody Ross has release new scrapbooking products. OH MY GOSH, are they gorgeous. YOu can see them here: http://gcdstudios.blogspot.com/

4. Saturday, it was 95 degrees here. Right now, it’s 68. Ok, then, enough said?

5. The cat knocked my iron down while being chased by the naughty little dogs. I bought a garment steamer instead of another iron. I’m in love!

6. Steven’s had a really bad cold all weekend. Yuck. Feel better, honey!

7. I changed my aligner again on Friday. It hurts, but I swear it’s getting a tiny bit easier…

8. I took Josh to a career fair for folks who want to become police officers on Saturday. He wants to be a homicide detective. They took him seriously, it was great!

9. The month of September was extremely good to us. josh and I worked out at the gym together 3 times every week in September. Go us.

10. I’m in a challenge with Mary Ann to read 50 books in 2009. I’ve read 41 so far. I might make it! Yay!

I guess that’s about it for now. Thanks for stopping by, I’ll try to post more. I’m finishing up my first project for Typography class, so maybe more on that soon.

-Have a great day!

Yay! I love the month of September. I love my birthday, the weather, just everything! I always think of September as the real start of the year, I guess because of my birthday, I’m not sure. (Did I mention my birthday? LOL Maybe I should see how many times I can use that word in this post, hmmm?) Speaking of which, why is it that some people see their birthday as a negative? I LOVE mine! It means I’ve been alive for another year, and it presents all kinds of opportunities to learn more and do more and be more. What’s not to love about that? I know that sometimes people focus on the number, but for me, it’s all about options and choices. Here’s to a fresh start!

Speaking of fresh starts, sometime in August, I guess I signed up for an online scrapbooking class with Shimelle.com. I have no recollection of doing so, but I guess I did. LOL Yet another fine moment of insanity, I guess. And just when I was relaxing into a mode of reading and doing other things. ha! The class is called “Learn Something New Every day” and it requires an album page a day. I was pondering this a bit earlier, and trying to figure out how I was going to do this, when it occurred to me (you know I can be slow sometimes), that I could do a digital album, perhaps. Hmmmm. After all, I DID take Adobe Illustrator, and I have all these new Graphic Design skills, right? I’ll make at least some of them digital, I think. I don’t know if I’ll share them here or not, I guess it depends on the day and what I learned and whether I want to share it with the world or not. Sorry. Sometimes, things are just for me. I do have this vague recollection about being curious about the class, and looking into it and thinking it was a good idea, but I wonder when I signed up. LOL! Whatever. It will be great. She says you can just do your journaling each day and catch up when you can, so perhaps I’ll do that on the days when I just can’t get to creating.

About that creating. We had a sad moment this past weekend, followed by intense relief. My iMac started acting strangely. Like it was possessed! It wouldn’t go to sleep. Then, it decided that it liked being asleep and would not wake up. Then when I did a hard reboot (which you NEVER have to do with a mac) it would give a gray screen. Well, Steven’s iphone lost a button, (apparently a known problem, so they replaced the phone immediately), so we had to go to the Apple store. While there, we mentioned my problem and they said “bring it in, now. right away.” So we went back home, packed it up, and brought it in. Turns out my hard drive failed. But you know what? It’s all good. (This is the intense relief part!) Steven, being the brilliant husband that he is (I’m serious!), bought me the 3 year warranty. I’m getting a new hard drive and all it cost us was the gas to bring the iMac to the Apple store! Go me. Not only that, they are putting a LARGER hard drive into it (it used to be 320 gb and now will be 500!), AND, when we get it home, we connect it to the network, and my Apple Time Capsule (thank you, brilliant husband!), and say “restore from Time Capsule” and my new hard drive will magically look exactly like my old hard drive, except this one will work. LOL I don’t think you could ever get me to go back to a PC. I’m definitely a Mac. There was a guy wearing an “I’m a Mac” tee shirt at the store, I told Steven I want one. Seriously.

I guess that’s about it. That’s more than I’ve blogged in a month, huh? Speaking of months, it’s September, and my birthday is Friday. Oh, sorry.

Make it a great day!

I’m pleased to announce that I got my grade in Web Design and received an A. Yea! I’ve got a 4.0 on this great path I’ve chosen for a Graphic Design Certificate. It’s kind of funny. I still don’t feel like I’m a real graphic designer, but after a year, there are things I look at where I think “hmmm, I would have done this differently to bring the eye over there….” so I guess I’m learning more and more. I’ve also noticed that I approach my scrapbooking a bit differently as well, and am even more aware of page layout than I was previously.

So, the last project in the web design class was a flash site. I’ll have to see if I can get Steven to help me get it up here on my blog, but for now, here’s a screen capture to tease you with. I decided that I wanted a fun site instead of a serious one. I chose the Pharmacy font, because I could, and I decided on an all blue site. (I didn’t go pink because that was just TOO fun. LOL) If it was “active” you would be able to click on the buttons and hear a sound, as well as go to another page! It was pretty cool!

I also did a web banner ad in Flash. Although you saw the ad in another post, it did not include sound like it does now. It was also cool.

In Adobe Illustrator class, we had a real Final! Worth 165 points, you were supposed to create an image using at least 6 layers, plus scads of other techniques, shapes, and tools. It was really challenging! I think I spent more than 60 hours working on and reworking my design before I came up with this. Although it isn’t perfect, I knew what I wanted, and this is really very close to my plan, so I’m happy!

It is supposed to be a glimpse at the wall of the Grandma’s room. See all the old fashioned stuff? The drawing has 13 base layers and too many sub layers to count. I really worked hard on it. I drew all those little flowers on the wall paper, and I hand drew the roses in the vase, etc. Nothing is “out of the box” I drew all of it! I really love the curtains and how they almost look like texture. I really did have a lot more fun in this class than I ever expected to. I knew I needed to learn more about AI so I took it, but I never expected to learn quite so much. I know there is a lot more I could learn, but I’m pleased for now.

For the summer, I had planned to not take anything, but my friend Orna, who has been in at least one class with me every quarter since I started this journey, convinced me to take Flash, so that’s what we’re taking. I think it’s going to be a wild ride, but I’m sure we’ll learn a great deal and that it will be fun! I don’t know what I want to take for Fall, but I guess I’m supposed to decide that fairly soon too! I bet Orna has some evil class picked out already. LOL!

In other news, I’m waiting to receive a product that I’m supposed to review. Once I have it, I’ll be introducing my new product review site! Hang in there and wait for it, because there will be a GIVEAWAY!!!! as part of the review! See you soon!

-Here’s hoping all is well with you and yours and that you are enjoying a peacful and fun summer!

I am so enjoying Adobe Illustrator class. Truly. I have learned way more about the tools than I thought I would, and I’m continually surprised at my successes. Last week, we had an exercise on blending. When I sat down to do it, I thought, “um, yea, sure, as if I could do that.” But, I did the lesson and by the end, I kind of could do it. Then, when I sat down to do the “extra” projects that are required, I had no problems at all. I flew along. Here’s my results:

The instructor has already been by and looked at it. She left the following comment, which I swear I will treasure forever! LOL

“September,
Your work is wonderful! the cherries are nicely rendered, and the blends are very colorful and dynamic as visual objects.
Your triangle to star blends are clever – they have a beginning and an end, like a pencil. Nice. ”

Go me!

In web design class we are working with Flash animation. Holy cow. While it isn’t the most difficult thing to do, it is intensive in the time it takes to make things happen, which I find a bit annoying. (I know, surprising, right?) I’ve created a couple of flash animations. This is the banner ad. It came out pretty cool.

gidheaderad

Once you view the animation, you need to click your browser’s back button to leave a comment, or else you’ll be gone and on your own!

I can’t share the other animation, as it is still in progress, more another day.

The other day, I was surfing the web looking for some lessons on gradients and stumbled on the most amazing tutorial for drawing a diamond. I did it, with not too much trouble. Here is my result. I think it’s gorgeous!!-take care and have a good week.

There is so much going on in all parts of my life right now that I can barely breathe. Having said that, I know that I need to keep my blog going and keep sharing all my exciting projects from class!

I just finished a blog banner ad. You can see it, for a limited time, here. I’ll have to find a home for it after the end of the semester. This was really fun! It was for the web design class, and it took 2 classes to accomplish, but oh my gosh, I think it’s pretty sweet! This is a screen capture of it, but the link actually MOVES!

So in Illustrator class, we’ve been doing some cool stuff too. Our latest lesson was on layers. I’ve been using Photoshop and other Adobe products for a while, so layers aren’t really new for me, but this was fun to do, because I used several different tools in Illustrator and had to add a “mask” to part of what I created as well. Got a nice compliment from the instructor, so that’s good.

Not much else to share. The garden is crazy big. I don’t know what I was thinking. It is literally bulging at the seams. LOL I planted 6 tomatoes, 4 squashes, a cucumber, and 4 pepper plants in an 8 foot by 4 foot area. It is going to be fun! I have my first tomato growing, and several squash. I am not so sure what the pepper plants are up to, I can’t see them! Oh and there’s a cantaloupe vine in there somewhere too!

Anyhow, that’s all for now. Have a great day.