Creative Commons (by Mick Stephenson)

Before photoshop and other means of digitally manipulating elements of an images, certain components would be physically grouped together. Paintings or hand drawing would be used as a way to seamlessly blends images together. This worked as a way of adding elements that may have seemed unrealistic, placing charaters or subjects in situations that was unusual. Color can also be used as a tool to blend images, combining black and white images eliminates working with complicating color combinations caused by surface textures and lighting. Distorting photos can also be a way of changing characteristics with out adding any extra elements. Advertisements, posters or any form of media often manipulate images with photoshop, compositions can include any interesting mixture of graphical elements.

Creative Commons

Overlapping images on top of images can brighten a dull photo, adding an element of abstraction. More examples. 

Faking it: manipulated photography before Photoshop, is an art exhibition hosted at the met museum in Manhattan, NY. The illustration showcased are a collection of images belonging to the 20th century. The imagery shown creates an illusions with cut outs and various photo angles. The gallery was well organized, creating a time line from the oldest to the most current. The allows viewers to follow and observe the various evolutionary steps that were made to recreate a realistic event. Earlier work incorporated photos placed on a drawn image and eventually combined two or more separate photos together. Doing this allowed for a more realistic illusion that is much more effective  than drawings. The addition of photo effects semlessly ties in separate images It’s entertaining watching various techniques being used to accomplish the same goal the same goal and it allows you to grasp a greater understanding for the art of manipulation.

My interest in the field wasn’t encouraged by a particular individual or event but by my ability to create abstract work. During my senior year of high school. I join various art clubs so that i could work with photoshop and illustrator. Creating illustrations with restrictions became my biggest difficulty, limiting my self to avoid mistakes and revisions. During my time there I worked within a groups, putting together self made drawings that would later be imported into photoshop or illustrator. Work was dictated by season and events which left me with a total of eight projects completed. I never recieved much experience with the software available, primarily because all my work was drawn. However, after high school I spent some personal time on linda.com reviewing as much as I can, without the software it was difficult to follow along.

Even though i didn’t fully understand the vocabulary the vast amount of tools got my attention, it was then I felt that  I wanted to be professionally involved with any field that correlated with these software. Majoring in graphic design at New York City College of Technology, has given me the ability to work comfortably with required tools. I also had the opportunity to visit some exibitions which reflected upon past techniques and work. After seeing work that was done during the 20th century, I gained an interest in past compositions which is reflected on the theme of my blog. I believe that work done during the early 20th century shares a great deal of personality, custom images with an unusual layouts appeals to rather than a rigid san serif composition.

I currently have an interest is applying my personality is every visual project or task, with on going projects I believe that unique ideas attract attention as well as opportunity.

When I came across Alex’s blog post, “Composition Evolution (Introduction)”. I agreed that certain components has been commonly used in many designs, and color is one of them.

As time moves on, the element of color upgrades to a higher, more widespread selections in the advertising field. This particular element was not put to use until the late 1950’s where everything was pretty much black and white only. How did the black and white world turn into an infinite amount of colors? Today, color is a very important element in our world. Take for example, the advertisement world revolves around the principles of attraction. Color is used as the key to attract consumers. Each color represents different meanings. Let’s start out with the basic RGB concept.

• Red is known for as a powerful color. It symbolizes energy, vigor, intensity and power. It is generally used for anything that is exciting or active. It is also a stimulus for arousal towards men and women. The color red is associated with both love and hate, and is the only color that can portray dynamic actions. A hot red chili will excite your taste buds as well encourage hyperactivity.
• Green is known for as a tranquil color. It symbolizes health and mostly nature. It happens to be the easiest color for the eye to see. Often of the times, green is used to represent the “right” choice. Recycling, helping the environment, and saving the planet, “Go Green!”.
• Blue is associated with purity as well as serenity. Deep shades of blue also signifies elegance and formality. It helps individuals concentrate, therefore it is often used to highlight the effectiveness of a product in terms of its ability to function smoothly. It is a refreshing cold color, hence the reason why most liquid products are adorned with blue.

Color can sway thinking, change actions, and cause reactions. It can irritate or soothe our eyes, raise our blood pressure or suppress our appetite.

As a powerful form of communication, color is irreplaceable.

This is Shu Lin and thanks for reading.

I often don’t plan ahead, but i’m able to gather inspiration from various sources. The topics I will evently  post do reflect my personal opinion which makes writing uninterrupted by a lack of ideas. However, most topics posted will be choosen from my personal interest and educational back ground. The theme of my blog will dictate most subjects but i will be flexiable with some post, as long as they share some relevance towards graphic design. I intend to include some focus on historical content in the form of images, such as posters and  advertisements. Certain images or compositions may become my main source of inspiration.

The idea for the post is credited to Credit Brogan