It’s just a rough draft, but this is my idea for a poster. I wanted to create something encouraging people to engage in foreign languages because if I could accomplish one thing with this blog, I would hope that perhaps I could help someone get into this huge part of my life. I remember years ago, how on the fence I was about taking up a second language, and so I know I wanted to give a supportive message about starting.
Design-wise, it’s a lot simpler than I had initially planned, but decided against because things began to feel too cluttered. Keeping the principles of art, I decided to give the text throughout a hierarchy through scale, leading people downwards using continuation throughout the project. Keeping this in mind, I put the most eye-popping text near the top and made it the largest. This text was mostly just to grab someone’s attention, followed by explaining the purpose of the poster and then providing information. Using the property of similarity, I used strokes around the central text to make it feel like they belonged together, and did a similar border around the final image, and made that stroke use the texture from the dictionary to make that also feel more natural in the picture.
For the imagery of the world landmasses, I had to find a way to remove an opaque white background from the original image. The magic wand tool wouldn’t work because of the small gaps, so eventually I used the Color Range select tool, and selected the pure white background, before applying a color layer to make it all one color. Afterward, I had originally planned on using a mask to overlay the second image over just the landmasses shapes. However, this also proved troublesome, so instead, I selected the landmasses, inverted the selection, and hit delete on the layer with the dictionary.
For collecting the raw resources, it was primarily by following the websites listed on the Com210 websites as good starting places for creative commons licenses. I had originally hoped to create some resources while using photos as a base. However, this was changed because I couldn’t find any useful resources which I had the legal permission to use.
Used Images:
http://www.freeimages.com/photo/my-class-1440533
http://www.freeimages.com/photo/world-map-1451584
Chase Tobiassen 
Hello, looking at your design I can immediately tell what the purpose is and I think that’s really important and you did a good job. It’s a stylized image and it works super well in serving its purpose. I can tell that you have a good understanding of Photoshop and you used the techniques that we saw in the tutorials really well. I can also tell, through your post, that you have a strong understanding of communication.
I think that you could maybe add more elements to the design just to make it a little more interesting (though I really like the images you used and how you integrated them with each other to create a cohesive piece). And purely a technical thing, maybe you could crop the bottom of the book image so that the pages don’t show through the photo of the class.
Overall, I think your design is really strong and, like you said, captures someone’s attention. Good job!
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I really enjoy the way you mashed the map and the dictionary page that was a great touch to your page! I think you can had more vibrant colors to your design, because it kind of just makes it bland and possible put the picture in the corner that you have a tad bit bigger, so it will be better to see, The post shows very good representation of what you are trying to portray in this assignment. Keep up the good work, you used very good design in and way to show your poster and different ways that you used! Good job!
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Running through the feedback I’ve gotten, I see that the main response is that while the elements technically work well, I need to try to add some vibrancy to the colors to make it more interesting. I can definitely see why that might be a problem, colors are not my strong suit and I tend to be overly cautious in selecting them. I should also make some touchups on the image in the bottom left, when I first made the project the paper around the corners was a bit of a happy coincidence from my color selection process, however I see now that there are some technical issues with it. Moving forward, I’ll most likely end up reworking the blue gradient and the text to be more vibrant, while touching up on the other elements to just improve quality. One improvement I’d like to make is in the quality of the dictionary page quality, which might prove difficult in finding a royalty free version.
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Hello, by looking at your poster I can tell you understand Photoshop well. The poster has been made very clear of what your purpose towards it is with language. I also like the text you chose with the curved letters and the smaller descriptive text toward the bottom; short and straight to the point. I think if I were to give some suggestions I would advise you to include some more vibrant colors, it would draw even more attention to the poster. The poster is already intriguing, but I think adding more color would make it more attractive and catch someone’s eye much more quicker. I would also recommend making the picture in the bottom left slightly larger because as of right now, the title is a little big and takes up a most of the poster. Overall, I think you did a very good job on the poster and displaced your Photoshop skills nicely. Good work!
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Hi Chase, your topic of choice is a great idea, and I like how you were able to make it seem so exciting through your design. The bold lettering really jumps out and catches your attention. Not to mention that the creativity of the textbook as the map. It seems like you really know what you are doing on photoshop. I think the one thing that might help make this stand out a little better is if the wording stood out more as the maps. It caught my eye, but it took some time to recognize it.
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