Raymond Vasquez

Design depends on communication. Delivery is crucial. For this reason, a designer must structure their work with a format that creates paths for a viewer to understand. So this means there are titles, body sections, and other details such as contact information to consider. I have not thought about designing without an image before. Each time I think about page layout, for example, my sense is to gather all my supplies from type, images, and a mood board. Using black and white text forces me to think simply. I still have a lot of room to grow by trying out more complex ideas. The objective of this flyer exercise was to use a variety of point sizes and weights with the same font across three pages. I feel that I accomplished my task the third time for a more final finish. The first and second submissions were cleaned up to draw visual weights near the areas that introduced important information. I made sure there was a strong sense of alignment to repeat the theme the information was ti...

Monograms are a unified symbol of letters. The letters are arranged to complement each other in interesting ways. When I decided to approach my work, I understood that when it comes to design, it is crucial to develop a relationship with composition. I had to arrange the elements of my "R" & "V" so that however I individually manipulated them I would need to balance them out. I tried examples where there was a clear hierarchy in the elements and symmetry.  ex 1 on Hierarchy: ex 2 on Symmetry:  A lot of the challenges involved in design deal with letting go of a design that is not doing that well. I had to create nine unique variations of design with these letters. I wanted them all to work so I tried experimenting as much as I could. This naturally meant that some were more vibrant and visually busy.  ex 3 on Visual Business: I am becoming comfortable trying out the many options for manipulation Adobe Illustrator has to offer. It feels like trial and error, wher...

I recommend early graphic design artists upload for free their early work to stock photo websites of higher quality, like here https://www.pexels.com/. It tests your ability to share your work regularly and in larger quality to compete for attention. It helps you meet other designers with a different style to ask deeper questions.  Compare software, like Canva and Adobe products. Canva's text boxes can not be regulated to proportion management of type. Adobe allows for larger fonts, points (think of a pen tapping a paper), fills & strokes. At the same time you can use more AI power tools of repetitive menial technique needs like hatching. Or look at user experience and user interface. LEARN, LEARN, LEARN. Do not fear AIs. You can turn a computer off without it feeling like killing a person. Tools in art submit to our competence in stern decision making.  Here's a photo I'm proud of:

     I decided to approach my cutout with a flower in the foreground to clip the building behind it. Flowers are enjoyable to look at. When they are set as a clipping mask, the flower introduces elegance over the interesting architecture. The design is meant to share a message that the place to visit is not fully known, and it can only be uncovered by actually checking the location out.      I love the burgundy color of the red flower-clipping mask. To me, it matches the intention of a classy greeting card. The warm color encourages the recipient to visit. Yet the burgundy shade is not so vibrant that it is unsettling. I made it match the frames of the architectural windows to create color repetition. The consistency allows a thematic integration of the parts to harmonize without unnecessary color clashing.  I ultimately feel that the product's use of burgundy goes very well with the greeting card. The building behind the flower frame has strong yellow...

Typography is a way to understand a message. Not only can something be read, but it can have an experience attached to it by the playful or serious kind of type that is selected.  For me, I love the Rockwell font. It has a serif attachment to each letter, giving each a flare. Unfortunately, as much as I love the font I recognize that it is better to use fonts without serifs or 'sans serif' fonts for legibility. The main thing to recognize is that as a designer I must give a context to how I want something to be read.  The last thing I want to say is that focusing on one letter is useful. Playing with size, placement, rotation, and creating a border for it through clipping masks allows for interesting formats of a letter type. Here are my playful examples.

     I learned how the Rule of Thirds can best be used by allowing a subject to touch one or more frames in its placement to create visual interest. I have a habit of placing images in the center, so it was nice to try thinking about how to capture a subject within the context of my environment. I did not know that diagonals and triangles create tension within an image, or that an odd number of subjects allow a viewer to look and guess the main subject with more of a reason to pause than an even amount.     I do enjoy taking photos on my own but I enjoy stock footage more. I do not have to go to unique sites and the photos other people upload to places like Pexels.com are interesting. They are high quality plus done by professionals who do their best to capture visual interest. I get to learn what they do when I take photos but I would want to do that as a hobby.     I took the photo of the squirrel chomping on an electrical box because I thought it wa...

  ELEMENTS The elements of design include line, color & value, shape, texture, size & scale, and direction.  Element Definitions of Design 1. Line: A line is any connection between two points. 2. Color: color is a representation of emotion through layer fills in an enclosed area. 3. Shape: a shape is an enclosed area. 4. Texture: it is the graininess or smoothness perceived over the surface quality of the art. 5.   Size: the volume of a shape in terms of its dimensions. 6. Scale: it is the relationship in terms of ratio increase or decrease in the original shape. 7. Direction: this is the way an image seems to move given ray line change in position.  PRINCIPLES Principle Definitions of Design 1. Contrast: the difference in the properties between one object distinguished from another. 2. Repetition: elements that are used multiple times to show an association behind a theme. 3. Alignment: when items are organized with a distinct order or pattern. 4. Proxi...