For my audio story, I want to show how closely art in general and life can be connected through their key principles and similarities.

For my finalized logo design, I stuck with my initial design but changed it due to the comments I received and how I saw I could personally improve upon its look and appeal. The first designs in my sketch and draft were a bit rough and jagged, seeing as I mostly used the straight-line Pen Tool for the entirety of their creation. Despite this tough beginning, I took my comments and self-criticism to heart and changed my thought process from what it was to a new angle. I understood as I built my logo from scratch that these changes were completely necessary for my logo to not look as draft-like as it did.

One of the keys problems my original logo had was its rushed and jagged look. Since I only used the generic Pen Tool, the entirety of the goat head in the logo was spikey and unappealing. For my new, finalized logo, I had to make better use of my tools and what Illustrator had to offer. I began with the simple solution of using multiple layers, and the Curved Pen Tool. Through the Curved Pen Tool, I was now capable of rounding out my goat head. The use of multiple layers also helped with the creation of these curves because occasionally the curves would attempt to connect in inefficient ways.

I also wanted to try to add more color to the logo than my initial attempt had. The first iteration of my logo only had the white of the background, and the black I added to the horn, eye, etc.. To solve this simple issue, I used more varied gradients, almost a different mix of colors for each gradient used. In the end, I decided to use an easy-on-the-eyes brown and gray for the horn and beard, but wanted to use a bright golden yellow for the closed eye of the goat, to use more than just the dark colors.

For this logo project, I decided to use an image I draw very often, a goat head. I attempted to recreate this drawing using the tools in Illustrator, primarily the Pen Tool. I simply attempted to trace the head I normally draw in such a way it could be used as a prospective logo, for a company whose potential business is still unknown to me. After I was done sketching the goat head, I felt the need to add something in order to better represent a potential company. In response to these thoughts, I used the Curvature Pen Tool to make a lightbulb placed next to the goat. Hopefully, this addition gave the logo an impression of intelligence and idea-making, which is what I wanted. Finally, I gave the logo very simple coloring through the use of the Gradient Tool with the black side all the way turned up, so in turn, all the selected areas would be colored black to make for a simplistic coloring on my logo.

As for my company name though, I chose ‘Brindley Ideas’ because of its simplicity and personal meaning to myself. The name Brindley connected to the goat head and personal meaning through my owning of a metal goat which I named Brindley. In a way, the goat head in the logo could possibly represent my metal goat or may just be another goat I have owned named Brindley out of pure coincidence. The light bulb portion of the logo clearly connects to the ‘ideas’ segment of the company name because of the standard association in modern society of light bulbs and ideas or thoughts. When combined, the logo’s parts equal what I intended the name to stand for. To me, Brindley Ideas’ logo represents a small portion of my artistic career since the goat head, the primary piece, is what I draw whenever I do not feel much energy to draw something else, or I use it in place of my name occasionally. Either way, the goat head has value in my eyes, and I hope using it as a logo conveyed some of that meaning.

Here I went through potential logos for a few imaginary companies. The one I like best is the outlined goat with the light bulb because I believe it has potential for cool imagery.

This is my finished final design project. Comparing this version of the poster to my previous version, obvious differences in color, effects, and layering become apparent and show how my abilities in Photoshop have advanced since I created the draft of my design. The first iteration of my project lacked a solid use of Photoshop’s tools and color. Through this newer take on my poster, I hope to have mended these failures and added a certain flair and distinctiveness.

               Again, my first image chosen is the tablet I use for digital painting and drawing. My secondary take on this image was to change the colors to make it stand out greater, and for the words on the tablet to hold a greater impact than they had before. In order to achieve these goals, I used the Hue/Saturation bars to turn the tablet from a dull gray, to a lively blue. After this, I shifted the wording to an orange from the white it was because it would fit the effects I added and works with the blue of the tablet. I also made sure to change the form of the wording as well, giving it a hard-to-see pinch-curved look.

               The second image, my file browser, was not changed in too many ways. The only difference seen, is a difference in color, most likely due to the hue/saturation layer above it.

               The last image, a picture of my desk and its contents was changed to a purple shade simply to still be visible yet be darker than the other two images and the effects on top. I used the Color tool to do this.

               In addition to the color and layer changes I made to the images, I also drew my own effects in the form of lines with warm colors and small sparkles shooting out of them. I made these in hopes of making the poster more dynamic or interesting to look at, rather than just a tablet with odd colors.

            For my poster I chose the three images as follows: an image of my drawing tablet, an image of my file browser on my laptop, and a picture of my desk and its general contents. Together I hoped to bring a small sense of where my artistic journey is now as a brief pause on its story. Through these pictures–which I all took myself—I believed I could fully or at least partially interpret what my journey could mean and possibly even offer a glimpse into the life of a less-than-part-time artist.

            The first picture, my tablet resembles my current media I use for art. Moving on from when I used charcoals and colored pencils as a child, I now use my tablet to show my ideas and thoughts come to life as illustrations. Using my pen, tablet, and programs, I have the potential to feed my own imagination through all the various tools at my disposal. With paint buckets, pens, pencils, and brushes by my side, digital art feels very secure and wide as a genre.

            The second picture is that of my laptop’s data browser. I feel this holds a place in my artistic journey because of its core value to the system, and the history of my art career. Without the browser, all my digital art, photographs, and references would be lost. Unlike physical medias, digital art takes place digitally, and thus must be stored carefully and saved often. The browser helps with all this and more through its systems and accessibility.

            The third and final picture which serves as the background, is my desk. As simple a picture as it is, I hope it shows my lifestyle and interests. Both are key to what drives me and many others as artists. Without our backgrounds, we have nothing to make art of. And now, as I piece it together, having my desk as the background makes even more sense due to its such important status.

Finally, the techniques I use mainly focused on the lassoing and layer copying we learned from the Photoshop Tutorials. I struggled a bit trying to remember and finding the Transform button, but in the end, I believe my poster came out okay for a beginner to Photoshop, and translated at least a few of my beliefs through the images I chose.

I think I will try to cut out the center of the tablet, insert the computer screen inside the cutout, and have the background behind the tablet be the third image.

Completed tutorials I have struggled with.