Now that I have finished my portfolio, looking back on it I think I did a pretty good job for this being my first real graphic design class. I accomplished things I didn’t even know was possible. For example my first CSS challenge, I didn’t know how to do this coming into class and although I’m still not a CSS master I am now somewhat capable of being able to execute it. To the right of my CSS challenge is my first Prezi project. I had never heard of this website before coming to this class but now that I have had some experience working with it I have been using it for other classes because for me it’s a lot easier to use than Microsoft PowerPoint. Below my Prezi project would be my favorite image of the semester. This one is my Blake Griffin collage with downtown Los Angeles as the background. This one has the most meaning to me because I hope that one day I have people making collages of me when I’m playing professional ball. To the left of the Griffin collage is our first image challenge. I found this assignment very fun because it was creating the paranormal. Stuff like this always sends chills down my spine because you can never really tell what’s real and what’s not unless it’s a poor imaging job which I don’t think mine is. Below that was one of our more recent projects, which was another favorite of mine because we could create any kind of game we wanted. I had fun creating Championship Quest because it deals with basketball and the up and downs of a long season, it’s kind of like a simulation game. Looking back on this semester I can certainly say that I have learned quite a few things and if this page was presented to an employer I think I would get hired. Of course some things still need some fine tuning especially the CSS but now that I have the basics and fundamentals the sky is the limit.
My design process was actually pretty simple once I got started. At first I was going to try to do the gradient background like we did in class but when I tried to do it I had trouble actually figuring out how to take it from my media on my blog dashboard to making it my background on my blog. So when that failed I just began to mess with the custom css, color values, and borders. I first wanted the pale blue background with lime green lettering but when I tried it I found that it was hard to read so I changed the background to black which made the lime green stand out. once I got my colors right I then thought about changing my blog template but none of them except for the one I already have worked the way I wanted to which was to show the changes once you clicked an image, not right as you loaded the home page. I made my blog part of my portfolio as well as my favorite projects from this semester, however I didn’t add a description for them on my blog page because I felt that the viewer should just look at the graphic work and interpret their own meaning and not have to read my description to get a feel of what I meant.
CHANGES
added border around images
changed border color
changed font color
changed background color
changed home page header background
changed home page header text color
changed link color
changed comment color