Original image by - Candace Jean Anderson
This image is NOT mine; for this project, I borrowed the jpeg of a piece by a local Utah artist I really really love. I wanted to use this picture both out of respect/affection for her, and because I really love the image. |
I added a levels adjustment layer to Candace's image to boost the color just a smidge, and I cropped it.
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Process:
- First, I adjusted the luna moth image in Photoshop. I added a levels adjustment layer because I wanted to bring up the greens a bit. I also cropped the excess from the sides.
- I created a new artboard file of appropriate size.
- I embedded the luna moth and played with the size/shape/placement until I was happy.
- I pulled a dark green out of the moth wing with the eyedropper tool and used that color for the text I added.
- I downloaded watercolor brushes from the internet to use (a new experience for me!) and figured out how to install them.
- Each brush stroke I added to the back of the card is a color I pulled with the eyedropper from the luna moth.
- I added my name in the same font I used on the front, but used black.
- I added the additional information in separate text layers.
- NOTE: This is NOT my real phone number. This is a number I invented based on personal numerical preferences. Please don't call it. It probably is someone's real number, and you don't want that hassle, do you? No, I didn't think so.
- NOTE: This is actually my real email address. It's the one I use for school anyway, so I didn't see the harm in using it for this assignment. However, that's not really a blanket invitation for y'all to use it . . . please don't.
Design thoughts:
- I don't really have a job with marketable skills, or a job that requires a business card, so I used this opportunity to sort of create a "personality" card, I suppose. I wanted to follow the assignment, so it's as "business-y" as I could make it, but I added a little personal flair to the information.
- NOTE: I meant "dreamer," as in, "one who dreams," not as in, "beneficiary of DACA."
- I love luna moths, so I knew I wanted to use this image, but I also considered my choice in practical terms -- I thought the color scheme of greens, brown, and light yellow would work with a white business card background and would compliment each other.
- I took proximity rules into consideration when right-aligning my personal info in the bottom right corner and made sure to keep all the information pretty close together. I did the same with my name and the footnote in the above left.
- This week's advice in the reading about making text smaller than you think you should was something I had in mind, so I tried to keep to that. (Even though it felt unnatural.)
- Although I realize I didn't exactly follow the "make your own object" suggestion from the "How to Design a Second Page" reading, I kept it in mind. No, I didn't directly pull a shape from the front onto the back, but I did make an abstract shape on the back using colors from the front. A similar process, maybe . . . ?