This week I began my piece for B and C, starting with a low poly piece. Last year, when I first came to the Academy, and we were still following tutorials and learning the Adobe programs, I attempted to do a low poly piece of Lana Del Rey, following a tutorial by Brazilian artist Breno Bitencourt. However, last year I grew impatient as I did not know how to work Photoshop that well and everything seemed to look really really bad. This year, I am going back to the same tutorial and doing Lana Del Rey once again, this time with a different picture that might make it a little bit easier. After that, I want to make a futuristic background and add the low poly figure into it, with text and geometric shapes. I’m still trying to figure out how to work with Photoshop, it’s one of my least favorite programs out of all the ones we have used, but it is also one of the most important. I know that it’s super important to learn because it’s key in the real world and in jobs, but it doesn’t interest me at all and it’s super frustrating to work with. I am now almost finished with my business cards and logo for my website, so soon I will be beginning the header design. I still have to buy a hosting site for WordPress, but now I’m starting to think it’d be easier to use Muse. However, if I use WordPress it would probably look a lot more professional, so I’m weighing the options at the moment. Tomorrow, I will be bringing in a few of the skin care products I have to measure and start a template so I can start on that half of my senior mastery. I also created a quick business card for Elor this past week for his HOSA Parliamentarian campaign. I somehow got the design done in 20 minutes, but once he came in it took us nearly an hour to figure out what he wanted. After many changes to colors, fonts, and his picture, he had his friend come in and say the original was a lot better than his changes, so we reverted everything and kept the original design I made.

This week, I was not able to internship due to Miss Call being out of town on a business trip. However, I was able to catch up on more of my annotated bibliographies and blogs, as well as work on my business cards. For now, I am still working on some of the website graphics for the Pelicans website, as they have not begun the actual transitioning of the website yet. I had to redo my business cards after last week, because I was absent on Friday and they reset my computer, without me backing everything up as I intended. For my Art Fields piece, I decided to finish off my State Fair piece from earlier this year. I had a lot more planned for it, but I ran out of time because I was too busy trying to figure out how to execute it. So instead, I took it and added a lot more than what it was. I added a lot of stars to the sky, as well as touched up some of the clouds and fixed their placement. I also changed the color of one of the mountains in the back, to give it more variety and make it pop. Finally, I fixed the colors of the sun, inverting them so that the red would be on the outside, with a yellow-orange gradient on the inside, and adding a glow to make it pop a little more from the background. I still have yet to hear about the winners from the Infographic Contest Clayton, Henry, and I entered in, and neither of them have either. Their website still has registration open, so I assume maybe they have got caught up in something else. For Valentine’s Day, Ayana and I made a quick design that we both used with our partner’s name on it. Then, we took it down to the library and got it carved into wood. While we waited, I finally got to play on the school’s VR, and Gabe taught me how to use Google Maps with it. I wish students would use stuff like that in the library more often, most of them don’t even know we have them.

This week for my senior mastery I began working on my business cards and logo. I originally planned for it to be super minimal and basic, but I wanted to add more. Instead, I drew out some lavender flowers with no color and kept the outline, and then I added a clipping mask to each individual petal. The clipping mask was free watercolor texture I got, and then I edited the color with the hue/saturation adjustment in Photoshop. However, when I did not come to school last Friday, they updated my computer while I was gone, and I didn’t get a chance to back up my files, so I’ll have to redo my business cards again. The style this time is a bit different but I really like it because it looks more like me. The logo on my business cards will be the same style and theme I use for the remainder of my senior mastery. I will now be working on promotional design, and marketing. It still fits very well with my research question, on what are the best marketing strategies to draw attention to consumers. However, instead of doing a full 12 pieces that are my own, I will be doing 6 of the works I do with Pelicans as they want me to redo some of their designs, and 6 of my own. For my own personal designs, I will be doing a fake skin care line and I will be measuring out 6 different containers for different types of skin care products. Then I will individually wrap each product to display for my senior mastery. The products will include their own similar theme, include ingredients, and directions on how to use them. I will also include a display box that i make as most skin or makeup packages include, to hold the products.

This year, I enrolled in Dance 1 and Probability and Statistics for my second semester to keep my workload a minimal so I can focus on my senior mastery. Waking up and having dance as my first block feels amazing because I can wake up to stretching and being active, energizing me for my next class (and sometimes tiring me out). I will be busy my first quarter of the second semester with trying to keep up with my Probability and Statistics project. I will be studying how mental illness affects student grades and productivity, comparing it to the average student who does not suffer from a mental illness. I will have to study 100 “subjects” (students at AAST) and have them answer a questionnaire that asks about their school ethic at home and in school. Since my data can not be biased, for example asking people who I think might have depression, I will ask the entire class (both seniors and juniors) to answer the questionnaire, rather than ones I think are friends. I’m also excited to be starting my internship with Ms. Call at Pelicans Baseball. I will be helping Ms. Call move over images onto their new website, which is getting completely upgraded by National Minor League Baseball, as well as helping her figure out what layout she would like for the website. In the mean time, while MILB begins the website, I will be redoing almost all of Pelicans’ promotional work, including their schedule boxes, their website headers and images, and a few others. I got to meet Slider, Deuce, and Willow, the three Pelicans field dogs who come out onto the field before games and during breaks, and they sit at my feet under the desk while I work, so it really just feels like home. For my infographic, I chose how to increase your productivity in your work at school, home, and in the office. I chose this topic from the list of topics the Students Infographic Center chose, and I will be entering it in the contest. I was really proud with how it came out, and after so much effort, I’d say it is one of my best pieces I’ve made in DC so far.

1. Reflect on everything you worked on this week for your senior mastery in school and outside of school.
2. Where will you be interning and what day will you begin in January?
3. What is your all time favorite design, art, or photography blog, and why?.
4. Who is your favorite graphic designer, artist, or photographer, and why?
5. Share the best thing you learned this week that was not assigned to you to learn.

For my senior mastery, I have decided to begin with creating greeting cards, graduation invitations, stickers, and posters of original artwork I’ve made. I will create my own website with a working shopping program where people can actually buy products online. I have contacted Coastal Media Brand to see if they could intern with me, but unfortunately the two times I have called them they have not answered. Hopefully they will be able to give me answer answer by the time Christmas Break ends. Until then, I have emailed Meagan Michel asking her if she knew any other businesses or people who could help me begin coding. She told me last time she came to visit AAST that if I ever needed help with an internship, even if she may not be available, she can help me find someone who can take me. During this week, I have been teaching myself typography by watching videos at home and reading helpful articles online. This helps me better understand things such as placement, font size and color, spacing, and many other ways of using emphasis to draw attention to my poster. I chose the quote “When it rains, look for rainbows, when it’s dark, look for stars.” This quote means a lot to me because it emphasizes that it is important to find positivity in all the bad things that happen to you. I have been looking to go out and take pictures of the sky for the poster itself, something I haven’t done in all of my time here in the major. I have no experience in photography, other than on my phone, but I hope it comes out nice.

For my final micrography piece, I originally wanted to do a character from a game called League of Legends named Ahri. I started out attempting to do her face, but as I continued to do it, it became less and less like a face. With so many different colors and shades from the picture I was using, it made it difficult to tell where to place what, what size and colors to use, and how to space it evenly. Ayana did her best to try and help me, telling me I should do her face all in one text box. This worked for some time, but as soon as I got to her nose and mouth, even with different spacing and sizes and colors, it seemed off. I tried various methods, like drawing a shape and filling it with text like Henry showed Danielle and I. I tried warping the text into different arcs so it’d give her face dimension, but it just ended up making her look unproportional. Finally, after working on it for the entire week, I scratched the idea of doing Ahri for my micrography. I decided to do Sylveon from Pokemon, the same show/game Rosie did hers from last year. This ended up being a lot easier, given how little time I had left to finish a newly started project. The style of Pokemon is very basic and cartoonish, with minimal shading and basic shapes. I combined both Ayana’s and Henry’s methods for each part of Sylveon, tracing the shape of the bows and her face to fill it in, and some parts of the ears were made using one big text box and spacing the text correctly. Then, I went back and colored the text according to the picture. This part was the most frustrating just because I had to keep going back and manually clicking the Eyedropper tool because if I clicked “i” while I had text highlighted, it’d replace all the text with the letter “i.” I really enjoyed the video in advisory because it felt genuine, not just one of those “stop bullying” campaigns. I connected with it on a more personal level because I could see who it was affecting, my friends and my peers who volunteered to be in the video.

Over the past week, my grandma and I were debating if we should evacuate or not. On Thursday, as Irma made landfall in Florida, we decided not to because we knew the hurricane would be weaker after that initial hit. The weather channel also tracked that Irma would be heading more westward. Throughout the weekend, I worked Friday and Saturday, but on Sunday we closed down the bowling alley. I was happy to hear we had school out that day because I really wanted to stay in bed with all the rain, but I was also disappointed because I knew we’d have to make it up on a sunny day we would be out for. In my opinion, we should have gone to school on Monday or have a half day, and get out on Tuesday, because part of Horry County, mostly Surfside and Garden Beach, were flooded and some didn’t have power. It took us 10 more minutes to get out of my driveway and neighborhood because of the rain and all the flooding (my grandma is a slow driver as is). After we got back from the hurricane, I worked on ordering supplies for my bullet journal for my Senior Mastery. Instead of doing typical PowerPoint slides, I want to display my information for my Senior Mastery in a much more creative way. A bullet journal is a journaling system designed to increase productivity, while staying creative and designing your layouts, or spreads, and keeping your creative juices flowing. I’ll be using this journal to keep track of deadlines, create sketches and drawings of ideas, make spreads based on what I’m feeling, and keep track of all my expenses and orders once I get my business started. I’ll be using it for much more, but that’s just the start of it. Below is some examples of what bullet journal spreads look like and what you can keep track of with them. I will also make an outline for the beginning of each month of what I need to do for my Senior Mastery based on my timeline in my Senior Mastery Proposal.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/7d/fd/12/7dfd129174b2d1add167d83912eb15e7.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/68/10/6e/68106e795300e60c3f4ca8c2973af5b7–bullet-journal-notebook-studyblr-bullet-journal.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/68/a9/07/68a9072a54c0321b402684e890647d7c–bullet-journal-notebook-bullet-journal-weekly-spreads.jpg
http://sheenaofthejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/17-best-expense.jpg

A new school year! It feels so weird being a senior. I definitely feel pressured to get everything done; homework, college applications, club activities, projects, and all the excessive buying of class rings, caps and gowns, Senior Trip, and prom. But at the same time, I just want to sleep all the time. I feel a lot more tired after school this year, maybe it’s because of the pressure, or maybe I’m just getting older. Either way, Senioritis is hard, I just want to procrastinate everything even more than I did before. A big goal of mine this year is to get all of my blogs done on time, which I’m also failing already. Senior mastery so far isn’t too dificult, but I still need to find someone to intern with. I don’t know of any companies that build websites or work in the small business industry in the Myrtle Beach area, but maybe Ms. D can help me out (wink wink). I want to create a small business out of being an illustrator by selling prints, stickers, and other various items. I might also take a go at selling handmade crafts, like miniatures or stuffed animals. I’ll be creating my own website, business cards, social media, promotional work like logos and brochures, and products to sell. The website will be fully functional, so people browsing who actually like the products can buy them if they wish. I’ll have to research the fundamentals of business and how to promote my work, as well as come up with a way to make profit off my work. I also plan on starting a bullet journal to write down ideas, dot down information, keep track of due dates and times, record research and internship hours, and keep everything neat and organized in a creative and fashionable manner. I also need to brush up on my Illustrator skills, as being away for the summer has caused me to be a little slack when it comes to computers. I also need to get back in the jist of freehand drawing on the tablet. All in all, I’m happy to be back with my DigiFamily <3

This month, we went to Charleston to visit the college and I loved it. College of Charleston is my primary college that I want to go to, I love the city and the scenery, from the Cooper River Bridge to the historic buildings to the beautiful parks. It’d be an amazing experience to live there and go to college for 4 years. I got to hang out with my friends as we walked around Thomas St. and King St. We ate Jimmy Johns, even though I prefer Subway, and then looked around at all the shopping areas. Rachel and I went into Urban Outfitters, Forever 21, and Earthbound. For my final website, I loved the outcome. It came off as very cutesy and very “Lexi.” I was quite proud of myself because I did all the code myself instead of using a template. I learned how to connect files to make different tabs for the website, and I learned a lot more in CSS and how to style things. I also learned how to place words over images so I could have a background image to keep it from being plain. For my Cooper River Bridge contest poster, I was pleased with how the font and sunset came out, but something about it always felt off. Maybe it was the way the bridge was angled and the words looked like they slanted with it. I also didnt like the shading of the bridge, and I wanted to add mini people on the bridge running, but then it looked too much and I didn’t have time to finish it off. As far as the colors go, I really like the  warm colors of the sunset that blended very well together. Over Spring Break, I mostly stayed home and worked, but I did get to go out and lay in the sun a lot. My grandma was in Punta Cana and I got to stay home alone for 5 days.

For my website, I want to learn a bit more of CSS to format and style the website as I want. I want to maintain a professional look, and keep it nice and clean. It also will maintain a simplistic and minimal look. A lot of my inspiration comes from free templates and photography sites that have lots of slideshows/background images. I also want to set it up with tabs that you can click on to new pages on the website. For example: “About Me,” “Portfolio,” “Contact,” etc. For my color palette, I want to use nude/cool colors, like rose gold and yellow and white, etc. It keeps a fresh look while also adding a splash of color. I might have to redo my logo to suit the overall design, but seeing as I’ve completed the basic design, all I’d have to do is change the colors. My top 5 Illustrator designs that I’m proud of are: Into the Wild, one of my candy wrapper designs, my hot sauce label,  my reindeer holiday card, and Earth Day at the Bay. I might also include my You Can Make a Difference poster as well, since I was very proud of how that turned out. For Photoshop, I can include my background image and my model edit, but I do need to do some more designing in that area. I have always had a fear of Photoshop, and learning it frustrates me as Illustrator is a lot more simple and easier to use. I’m really proud of my Into the Wild poster because it was one of my first designs that I used a tutorial for, but I also edited some of it to fit my style. This helped me learn and grow in Illustrator, giving me inspiration to take something and make it new. I also love the look of the end result, it looked professional, while also having that “Lexi” feel. My candy wrapper design was not the one I used for print because I had no “lover” to give it to, but I loved the look of the chocolate drip and bold and cursive text with it. It looked like a real candy wrapper, and while I did not use it as my primary wrapper, I still loved it.