NB: I wrote this at midnight so it could be a bit craaaaazy. Enjoy, if you can.

New canvas, 1200px x 1200px, 72dpi

Save as: “flaming-lips-yourname.psd”

Open texture, so both are next to each other. Use move tool, drag texture into canvas. Name layer, “texture”. Close texture image. Bye!

Open flaming lips pic, so BOTH are next to each other in photoshop. Using move tool, drag wayne into canvas. Name layer, “wayne”. Close Wayne, you are done son!

Position Wayne, then scroll through blending modes using shift +. Go for a surf, see how it changes through all modes. Finish up at “overlay”. Hide Wayne for a moment.

Time for some colour. Select texture layer, go to fx menu and select “gradient overlay”. Will look crap straight away. Click on gradient image, to bring up the gradient tool menu. For the moment select “blue red yellow”. Whole screen should be full of gradient. Change blending mode to “lighten”. (harder to scroll through this time). Drop opacity to about 75%. Give it a 25deg angle. Look, texture and colour! Click ok.

Now, let’s put in our own colours. Double click on the gradient overlay in layers palette, and click on the gradient colour bit. You can control the colours by choosing what colour is in what I call the “pots” at the bottom. You can also affect how big the colour bands are, and how fast or slow they transition. You can also add more colours.

WARNING: GRADIENTS CAN BE TERRIBLE. Try not to pick extremes, like dark blue to pure white. Can look cheap, real quick. I’m just trying to get a subtle wash, from light blue to pink to blue, all on the cool spectrum. Can also change scale if you like.

Turn Wayne back on. Turn the effect you just made on and off a couple of times to see what ya done. Good huh?

Now, it’s all a bit faint. Let’s get some colour in but not by upping the saturation or changing blending modes.  Select texture layer, new adjustment layer, and levels. There’s already plenty of white, so lets pinch in the blacks to about 75. Lock to layer by using option + click between layers.

Let’s see what we can get out of Wayne now. Select Wayne, do the same. Lock effect to layer first so you are only effecting Wayne, and not the layers beneath. Just blacks, 75 again. Good huh? Turn on and off, see what ya done.

SAVE!

Now, let’s bring in some of that blackboard writing. Open INTO photoshop. Select top layer in your canvas, use move tool, drag into canvas. Bye blackboard! Scroll through blending modes, see what comes up. Go back to full. Now hit “command + i” and invert. We might get better result. Scroll through, see what that looks like. End up on colour burn.

Now, I want to not have shit on his face, but I don’t want to destroy the image in case I want to go back. Using your maquee tool, hit command + a to select all, then make a layer mask. Nothing will change yet. Take out a paint brush, make the brush big, select black, and start painting on his face. See the mask? White will bring it back. Yeah, we’ll talk about it it.

SAVE!

Circle time. Select top layer, select shape layer, select elpse. Hold down shift and draw a circle. Creates a new layer, yeah? Can change colour by double clicking. For us we just want white lines, no fill. Take the fill down to 0, then select fx, stroke. I have 5 pixel width.

Duplicate circle by dragging onto new layer icon, cmd + T to transform, hold cmd + shift to drag in to centre. Repeat for another circle. Judge with eyes. Judgement eyes. Make opacity of first 70%, then 50%, then 30%.

Now lets get type onto the page. Select Type tool, draw a box, and type “flmglps”. Centre text, make big, click on all caps icon. Let’s put drop shadow on. Shadows are all about subtlety. Print designers hate them, but at least learn how to use them. Make quite opaque (35%), distance 8, spread 0, size 8. Should be soft. Rough up with a bit of noise (10).

Duplicate “opt + shift” and drag down. Change colour. Make text smaller. Put on layer underneath. Do we do the pattern thing? Maybe.

SAVE!

Last thing - open up original wayne jpg. Using pen tool, cut out balloon by using layer mask. Drag on to design. Find a cool blending mode (hard light / lighter colour / colour burn). Arrange on page.

Design is done! SAVE!

Now to export a JPG. Select file > save for web. Blah blah. Nice.

Create 10 different colour palettes using different rules.

1 - From a colour

Activate the Adobe Kuler panel in In Design (Window > Extensions > Kuler), create 5 different colour palettes from these rules:

1. analogous 

2. monochrome 

3. triad 

4. complementary 

5. compound

When you have created a palette to your liking, click on the “add this theme to swatches” button at the bottom of the panel. This will add the colour to your swatches panel. Draw boxes on page, create colour palette.

Write down what rule you are following, give each palette a name, and write down emotions and/or descriptive words.

2 - From an image

Find an image you like that has a good range of colours in it. Using the kuler.adobe.com website, click on “From an image” from the “Create” menu, and upload. Kuler will automatically create a colour palette from the image. Create 5 different colour palettes from these moods:

1. colourful 

2. bright 

3. muted 

4. deep 

5. dark

If you are logged in to Kuler (it is free to join), you can export the palette and load it into In Design. Select your colour palette, click on the “Download this theme as an Adobe Swatch Exchange file”, and save it to your desktop. Open the swatches panel in In Design, click on the down arrow in the top right corner, and select “Load swatches”. Locate your swatch, and import it into your swatches panel. Draw boxes on page, create colour palette.

Write down what rule you are following, give each palette a name, and write down emotions and/or descriptive words.

3 - Converse All Star

Using the template provided, pick one colour palette and create a design for a Converse All Star in Adobe Photoshop. You will be using shape layers, textures, and blending modes. More about this in class next week.

Whaddup freshers!

Right, this is how this works. Every now and then I will forget a whole bunch of stuff and you will get one of these things in your inbox. It is called an email and you need to use your eyes to like, suck all the words into your brains like some sort of knowledge vacuum cleaner.

So, first thing that I forgot to reiterate - THERE IS NO CLASS THIS COMING FRIDAY! SCHOOOOL’S, OUT, FOR, WINTER! (er, just a week of winter, er, and just in my class). We’ll be making up the time as discussed, more on that later.

But just because I’ll be mountain side shredding mad powder (I think that is ski talk), doesn’t mean you should get complacent. Spend an hour or two and go over your type suite assignment. I’m really super happy with the work you guys have put in so far. Type is SO IMPORTANT I FEEL THE NEED TO WRITE ABOUT IT IN UPPER CAPS. Seriously, it’s the number one thing I judge when looking at someone’s design portfolio. So spend a bit more time with it. I’ve put the lecture I gave up on the web, have a look at it here:

http://www.slideshare.net/chrisdeal/typography-7238567

Also, you can download the FontShop type guide here:

http://www.fontshop.com/education/

What I am not supper happy with, is the number of people who didn’t show up to class on Friday. Far out am I that ugly? Do I have to wear a paper bag on my head or talk to you on the other side of an opaque screen? TELL ME WHAT TO DO AND I WILL DO IT. Come on crazies, don’t be missing classes in the second week, that’s, for want of a better word, crazy!

For those that missed out, I’ve attached an In Design template of the assignment. This will be due the week before mid semester break (along with the next three in class assignments). I want a typographic artwork, black and white ONLY, one font, in your name, with the emphasis on ART. Don’t type out your name in a font and go “oh it’s perfect! I’m so minimalist!” Nice try. Get arty. We need to explore possibilities of type, so explore.

The second part is three (x 3) different type suites that could form the basis of your lookbooks. One with a serif font at the top, one with a sans serif font at the top, and one with a decorative/display font at the top. I want you to find fonts that CONTRAST (not CONFLICT) with the font you choose at the top, and then I want you to describe the font in the text boxes on the right hand side. This will help you breakdown your contrast. So if you have three fonts and they are all light upper case traditional serifs, then instantly you will see that you are not employing contrast.

So go to:

http://www.fontsquirrel.com

look through the fonts, pick fonts that you think look sophisticated, and use them in your assignment. And remember, while we are looking for contrast in font families (ie serifs and sans serifs, thin and thick, upper and lower case), we are looking for HARMONY in style. If you have picked a scratchy, grungy font, when you go to pick your next font ask yourself, “what is this style, and does it go with this other one?” 

Personify your fonts. Say, “this one kind of reminds me of an army lieutenant in the 1940s driving muddy tanks through no man’s land, while this one reminds me of bright green aliens invading earth in their time travelling futuristic space ship”. Then say… do these worlds live together? Sometimes things can be so wrong they are right, sometimes they are so wrong, they are just wrong. Your gut will tell you (and also I will when I see it and throw up/not throw up).

I’ve attached a PDF of the assignment as if I was doing it.

So, get to it kidlets! And bring in all your work each week so i can see your progress and give you tips. And please try not to miss any classes, I may not have the time to write out these explanatory emails in the future, plus it’s totally taking away from my TV watching time and I’ve completely missed The Block so pretty much everything is ruined even Christmas and it’s all your fault.

See you all Friday week!

Chris

Right fontaholics, listen up. This is a great little guide to the basic ins and outs of typography. The design is tidy and the language is (fairly) entertaining. I heartily recommend downloading it as a reference. Especially when we start working on the final assessment.

http://www.fontshop.com/education/