Samantha Watson's Portfolio

Interactive Design - Wordpress Site

2011-08-03T14:34:00.000-07:00

To get hands on experience in using Wordpress, and creating a website as part of a team, we were split up into teams with the objective of finding a non-profit organization that operates in Austin that would benefit from the creation of a new website.

The group I was in decided on AIDS Services of Austin, whose actual site can be found here. We found that the site did not have an efficient navigation system, and that web pages often came off as too busy.

I became the main coder, and essentially tore apart a standard Wordpress layout to create one to meet our needs. I also researched widgets and plugins, and adjusted them to fit our needs. Our proposed Wordpress site for AIDS Services of Austin can be found here.

Interactive Design - Mobile Vendor App

2011-08-03T14:17:00.000-07:00

To gain experience with the concepts of wireframing and prototyping, and to become familiar with app design for smart phones and tablets, we were sent out onto the streets of Austin to find a mobile vendor that could benefit from using such an app, and come up with the app.

The vendor I settled on was Fry Baby (recon can be found here). I felt that they would greatly benefit from a management app, and that designing it for iPad would be most practical.

Site Map

Open publication - Free publishing - More app

I also felt that in addition to taking orders and keeping track of inventory, the app should also be the gateway to various social media networks in order to boost business.

Wireframe

Open publication - Free publishing - More ipad

Prototype

Open publication - Free publishing - More app

Junior Studio - Proposal

2011-08-03T14:08:00.000-07:00

We were given the hypothetical situation that St. Edward's University was about to hike parking prices to decrease the traffic congestion currently experienced on campus. Our job was to come up with an alternate solution, and use our design skills to create a proposal that could exist in a real-life situation.

With classmates Becky Escher and Barrett Kincheloe, we created a proposal that emphasized public transportation and biking through methods such as installing a bus pass kiosk in Ragsdale Center, and installing/moving bike racks to high traffic locations.

Open publication - Free publishing - More parking

Junior Studio - Guide to Signs of South Congress

2011-08-03T13:43:00.000-07:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More austin

I created a guide to the signs of South Congress by going out and taking a lot of photos, processing them in Adobe Photoshop, and creating the map in Adobe Illustrator. I decided to make a sort of novelty map that is often found in tourist traps, for South Congress is often frequented by tourists, and it is a spot that is uniquely Austin.

History of Graphic Design - Image Analysis

2011-03-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

Black Swan International Poster

Most of our time in History of Graphic Design was spent listening to presentations on various art movements, innovations in art and communication, and the creation of various art/design mediums. At the end of the semester, we were expected to use what we learned to trace the origins of a recent work of design.

I decided to do one of the international posters created for the 2010 film Black Swan. It reminded me of film posters created before 1970, and of posters typically designed for the European market. For a time, I was interested in pursuing the career path of film marketing, so my choice for this project was influenced by personal preferences.

This poster was created in Adobe Illustrator. The poster images were processed in Adobe Photoshop.

Advance Typography - Activity Booklet

2011-03-24T17:45:00.000-07:00

Fair Trade Chocolate

Open publication - Free publishing - More activity book

This children's activity book was designed to educate Sunday School students on fair trade chocolate. We were given the text content, some photos, and some map vectors, but it was ultimately up to us on how the content was distributed and expressed in the imagery. I decided to hand draw illustrate the photos because when I attended Sunday Schools at Methodist churches in Northern Indiana, many materials used to instruct us utilized hand drawn illustrations.

This was designed in Adobe InDesign. The illustrations were scanned, processed in Adobe Photoshop, then put in InDesign.

Graphic Design II - Blanton Campaign

2011-03-24T17:22:00.000-07:00

Dada

Dada was an art movement that was a reaction to the carnage of World War I, and the imperialistic society that caused the conflict. It started at as anti-art, but as late as the lead up to World War II, it was utilized for anti-war propaganda purposes. When it came to designing admission buttons for a hypothetical exhibit at the Blanton Museum of Art, I decided to emphasis this later development of the Dada movement.

The American War in Afghanistan is a forgotten war; you hardly ever hear about it, though it is still going on. The Afghan people have a long history of enduring wars involving the West, though more recently, they are involving radical Islamists. The country has been left in a pile of ruins, and is considered one of the most devastating humanitarian crisis in the world.

One of the most iconic images of the plight of the Afghan people is the portrait of an Afghan girl taking by a National Geographic photographer during "Soviet Vietnam" (Russian invasion of Afghanistan).

For Operation Enduring Freedom, the Afghan theatre of the Global War on Terror, I decided to use a U.S. soldier. Since middle school, we've been subjected to images of U.S. soldiers fighting in tan camos against enemies in civilian clothing.

For the Anglo-Afghan Wars that occurred throughout the 19th century and early 20th century, I decided to use the image of William Brydon from the Elizabeth Butler painting "Remnants of an Army". He was the sole survivor of an evacuation of the British army in Kabul; the army was of a size around 16,500. The initial wars were the result of a territorial grab race between the British Empire and Tsarist Russia.

The Queen's Palace has become one of the symbols of a rich culture that was destroyed seemingly overnight. However, it has actually been slowly destroyed since 1979.

This button design variation was created for the B-scene events at the museum.

This poster was the most difficult aspect of the project; it was the end of semester, we didn't have much time, and I was burnt-out design-wise. This was not my best work, but it was a valuable learning experience for it helped me later on develop a more efficient process of generating concepts in a short period of time.

The images on the buttons were manipulated in Adobe Photoshop. The whole buttons were designed in Adobe Illustrator, as was the poster.

Graphic Design II - Instructional Design

2011-03-24T17:08:00.000-07:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More pbj

The purpose of this book is to instruct an individual, with a background in the maths or sciences, on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The design was based off scientific education materials produced around the 1950's. My friends in the Biology department got a kick out of it.

This was created in Adobe InDesign.

Interactive Design - Recipe Site

2011-03-24T13:10:00.000-07:00

The goal of this project was to get us used to using various Dreamweaver tools, and to get us in the habit of using CSS style sheets.

This screenshot highlights the rollover capabilities

This was created using Adobe Dreamweaver, and at the time, was hosted on my EdShare account.

Junior Studio - Concept Map

2011-03-24T13:04:00.000-07:00

Spread of Illness

Designed in Adobe Illustrator, the goal of this concept map was to educate about the HIV Pandemic by how it is spread, what fostered the origin of and spread of HIV, and the progression of HIV to AIDS.

I chose this particular illness because as a Biology minor, learning about this retrovirus is standard, but people with a typical scientific background (none) know very little about its origins.

History of Graphic Design - Image Text Investigation

2011-03-24T12:51:00.000-07:00

Research Paper

Open publication - Free publishing - More film

I was assigned this research topic based on a brief presentation I gave at the beginning of the course. We had to talk about what put us on the path to major in Graphic Design; for me, it was the movies. I originally wanted to be a costume designer, and by high school I wanted to be an art director (it even says that under a picture of me in my senior yearbook). In my presentation, I mentioned how I love film sets, especially in the old Universal horror movies, so that's how I was assigned to research the history of theatre and film sets.

Currently, my dream job is to be a film director. I hope to some day save up enough money to go to film school, or get really, really lucky and get involved in the industry by some other method, or in a different capacity.

This was designed using Adobe InDesign.

History of Graphic Design - Presentation

2011-03-24T12:24:00.000-07:00

Motion Graphics

Open publication - Free publishing

My presentation was basically a crash course in pre-cinematic and cinematic history. I mostly focused on the inventions that lead to the first motion picture camera (building off The History of Photography presentation). I also briefly covered the invention of movies with sound, and contributions to film by graphic designers.

This powerpoint presentation was designed in Adobe InDesign.

Graphic Design III - Locating Place

2011-03-24T08:27:00.000-07:00

Exploration of East Austin

This animation was created in AfterEffects using photos my classmates and I took in East Austin. Another goal of the project was to get us out of our comfort zones, and into the field. My classmates kept saying that East Austin was kind of a ghetto, but its Disneyland compared to Westside South Bend, and is Disney World compared to Gary and Chicago Heights. This animation was supposed to represent a trip to East Austin (exploring, eating out, doing some shopping).

The Image of the City

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

Using the text "The Image of the City" by Kevin Lynch, I compared Austin, TX and industrial cities in the Midwest, such as South Bend, IN, and Chicago, IL. The photos were processed in Adobe Photoshop, and the book was designed in InDesign. The book itself was hardcover and was sewn.

Advance Typography - Weather Report

2010-03-04T09:49:00.000-08:00

This animation project was created using Adobe AfterEffects and Adobe Illustrator. It is a weather report utilizing L.A.T.C.H. (location, alphabetical, time, category, hierarchy). My animation consists of three L.A.T.C.H. categories in the following order: alphabetical, location, and hierarchy (by elevation).

The most difficult part of this assignment was using the same elements throughout the animation, and having all the cities and all the weekend forecasts on screen at the same time.

Kitchen of Meaning

2010-02-23T08:49:00.000-08:00

This poster was created by utilizing Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, and scanning sketches rendered by hand. The goal of the assignment was to create a poster for an art exhibition that showed a certain word in action; mine was "zeitgeist." Zeitgeist literally translates to "spirit of time." I decided to do a movie poster within a movie poster in order to compare the early 60's to the late 60's, and placed emphasis on fashion.

The early 60's poster was inspired by the movie posters for The World of Suzie Wong, The Apartment, and Ocean's Eleven. The logo for the exhibition was sketched, scanned, and vectorized in Adobe Ilustrator. Instead of billing the featured designers, the word assigned to each designer was billed. The fashion was based on Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, and Jackie Kennedy.

The late 60's poster was inspired by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Easy Rider, and Midnight Cowboy. The designers were billed as members of the "film" crew. The fashion was based on Sharon Tate, Faye Dunaway, and Twiggy.

Advance Typography - Black Squares

2010-02-09T17:24:00.000-08:00

This was created using Adobe AfterEffects. This animation really consists of three animations: playful, tension, and increasing. Playful was expressed through spinning and a sort of swinging back and forth motion. Tension was expressed by using excessive blurring and the building anticipation of the squares finally being on stage at the same time. Increasing was expressed by the squares being added to the composition one at a time, and by doing this, the overall movement in the compostion was also increasing.

Advance Typography - Blue Squares

2010-02-09T17:14:00.000-08:00

This was my first time utilizing Adobe AfterEffects. This exercise helped me learn how to move and rotate on the x, y, and z axis, and how to use motion blur and opacity changes in AfterEffects. Compared to Adobe Flash, I think AfterEffects is much more smoother and is definitely easier to manipulate when compared to Flash.

Image Methodology - Document

2009-12-09T14:13:00.000-08:00

These web gallery templates for my Critical Mass project were created in Adobe Photoshop. The idea was that the template would equally compliment all of the showcased postcards. I believe my second one is the most successful for it is the least busy and allows the viewer to concentrate on the exhibited piece.

Image Methodology - Critical Mass

2009-12-09T14:08:00.000-08:00

"The Right to Bear Arms"

The motivation of this project was to directly and/or indirectly express a right from the Bill of Rights or one of the Seven Deadly Sins. These postcards were designed using Adobe Photoshops, and the images were cut out of magazines, specifically Harper's Bazaar, Entertainment Weekly, and Seventeen.

I opted to do The Right to Bear Arms, because though it is straight forward, you have to tone down the temptation the show outright violence.

*This was an additional postcard designed but not submitted for a grade*

Graphic Design I - Personal Geography

2009-12-09T13:54:00.000-08:00

Artificial Map

Perceptual Map

Cognitive Map

These three maps are three possible ways to express my journey from my dorm room to work. All were created ultimately in Adobe Illustrator; however, in the case of the Cognitive Map, the illustrations were hand drawn, scanned, cleaned up and colorized in Adobe Photoshop, and finished in Adobe Illustrator.

The Artificial Map is basically a typical map. The hardest part of creating one is that you are often tempted to include landmarks that you won't encounter or see on the designated route. I decided to use toned down, calm colors because people are often frantic when looking at maps, and they don't need design anxiety on top of all that.

The Perceptual Map is a sensory map; it informs the user what senses will be experienced on the route.

The Cognitive Map is the most personal; it is what I am thinking on the way to work. The images are sketches on purpose for sketches are inexact, like memories.

Graphic Design I - Illustrator Exercises

2009-10-20T15:09:00.000-07:00

Duck

This was created by using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator, and this was my first time use the tool in Adobe Illustrator. The image was achieved by vectorizing a pre-existing image, and deleting that image once vectorization was completed. I did have some difficulty doing this assignment, but I have since gotten better at utilizing the pen tool.

Graphic Design I - Symbol Methodology

2009-10-20T15:01:00.000-07:00

This was created using Adobe Illustrator. The goal of the assignment was to create a system of symbols for three themes of engineering: design, science, and construction. The design symbol was based in the combination of the wheel and the pyramid, two of mankind's greatest engineering feats. The science symbol was based in the combination of the calculator and the beaker. The construction symbol was based in the idea of transforming an object into something new.

Graphic Design I - Interaction Exercise

2009-10-20T14:45:00.000-07:00

This animation was created using Adobe Flash CS4. The goal of this project was to animate the design process used in the symbol methodology assignment. Both scanned hand drawn sketches (altered in Adobe Photoshop) and vectors (created in Adobe Illustrator) were used.

Image Methodology - Transformations

2009-10-16T14:06:00.000-07:00

This project was done using Adobe Photoshop to manipulate images that originated in magazines and/or scan objects. The goal was to merge multiple images together in a way that at times was totally abstract, or somewhat realistic to a point.

Image Methodology - Scavenger Hunt

2009-10-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

These photos were taken using a Canon digital camera and were somewhat manipulated using Adobe Photoshop in order to bring out the principals of design that linked each photo, and to generally make the photos presentable. The goal of this project was to find a common ground (design wise) for objects that were mostly physically and/or aesthetically different. This common ground was found by taking a photo, and discovering which principles of design were present.

These photos were all taken at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, TX.

Typography I - Type Specimen Book

2009-10-15T15:22:00.000-07:00

Type Book

This book was designed using Adobe InDesign. The goal of the project was to present a typeface in a way that exemplified possible uses for a given font; to sell it, in other words.

Frutiger was created for signage at a French airport. Its selling point was that it is a very legible font at many different sizes. In my research, I found that Frutiger is utilized around the world in travel oriented signage.

My main inspirations were examples of travel kiosks from the country of Australia.

Typography I - Design Culture Now

2009-10-15T15:08:00.000-07:00

This was my first time utilizing Adobe Illustrator for a poster design. The goal of the project was to create a design that reflected, and represented, the work of the exhibited artists in the Design Culture Now exhibition, while at the same time, represent was is perceived today as contemporary design.

What I perceived as contemporary design was the current need for nostalgia; remembering when times were good. In the Chicago area, where I grew up, this was in the post-WWII era, especially in the late 1950's and early 1960's. My poster could be described as having an updated Mod style.

Typography I - Prototype

2009-10-15T14:27:00.000-07:00

This was the first project I did that utilized Adobe Illustrator. The goal of the project was to create an original type face with the constriction that it had to conform to a grid made up of squares. I named this font face New Mandrin for it reminded me of oriental fonts and the fonts utilized in both China and other satellite countries during the times of the Soviet Union.