Graphic Design Communication

My name is Shannon Murphy and this blog is a documnetation of my First Year Graphic Design Communication work

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FINAL BRIEF: EVERYDAY THINGS - PHOTOGRAPHY

Photo 2 is a close up of the weight at the end of the balloons my sister got for her birthday. I like how the light hits the coloured foil at many different angles. I also like the contrast of the the way the light hits the curved ribbon compared to the more rigid folds around the weight. 

I increased the contrast of this photo slightly to exaggerate the lights and darks in this photo.

This photo makes me feel happy to be celebrating my sister’s birthday but also completing my first year in LSAD, even though this semester has mostly been spent at home.

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FINAL BRIEF: EVERYDAY THINGS - PHOTOGRAPHY

Today’s pictures have to do with the objects that are in my house for my sister’s birthday. It worked out nicely that my last day of my first year of college is a day full of cake and celebration. Even though during this time in quarantine birthdays are a bit different with surprise parties on zoom instead.

This first photo is a close up of the candles on my sister’s birthday cake. I really like the warm glow on the icing of the cake that highlight the higher and lower parts of the icing. I edited this photo slightly to make it darker just to give extra drama and contrast to the light from the candles.

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FINAL BRIEF: EVERYDAY THINGS - PHOTOGRAPHY

Photo 2 is of a small plant on the window sill of the kitchen too. It is yet to planted outside. With this extra time in quarantine, my family and I have the chance to do some extra bits around the house like gardening.  

I cropped this photo to be focused on the beautiful, bright red flowers and the smaller purple flowers. I also did some editing and lowered the brightness of the photo to enhance the bright red colour of the flowers so they appear less faded.

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FINAL BRIEF: EVERYDAY THINGS - PHOTOGRAPHY 

Photo 1 is of this see-through clock we have on the window sill in our kitchen.

During this time in quarantine, we have so much extra time on our hands, and with this clock you can literally watch time go by. I really like being able to watch the cogs of the clock interlock and move together in sync. 

I did some cropping and editing of the brightness and vibrance in this photo.

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FINAL BRIEF: EVERYDAY THINGS - PHOTOGRAPHY

This second photo is of a heavy chain and rope that became visible when the tide went out. 

I genuinely became fascinated with the vein-like streams of water that led to the chain in the sand. I found this man-made object that has been taken over by nature to be so beautiful in such a simple way. I really like the detail of the rusted chain, half buried by the wet sand and partially covered by seaweed. I also like how toward the foreground of this photo you can see the tracks of sea worm (at least that’s what I’ve learned that squiggily mound thing is in the sand). I find this photo to be quite beautiful and out of nearly 60 photos I took of this chain, trying to get the perfect angle with all the elements I loved, I chose this one because of the rare glimpse of sunlight there was in the harbour today that cast a gorgeous natural light on the chain and sand.

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FINAL BRIEF: EVERYDAY THINGS - PHOTOGRAPHY

Today’s photos were taken on my walk along the beach, something I’ve been doing a lot more since lockdown began. I live really close to 4 beaches, but the harbour is the nearest one. (well within the 2 km limit)

Photo 1 is of a close up of different fishing equipment that is down at the harbour. I really like how this close up, angled photo captures the winding of the fishnet with the small buoys interspersed. I like how, from this angle, you can see the fishing equipment bulge beyond the metal, rusting bars.

Other than cropping, I decided against editing this photo as I like the natural colour and lighting in this photo as is it, without alterations.

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FINAL BRIEF: EVERYDAY THINGS - PHOTOGRAPHY

Photo 2 is of a book I am reading for the third time, ‘I’ll Give You The Sun’ by Jandy Nelson.

Obviously, I love this book and the story, as it features twins who are both preparing portfolios to get into art college, amongst other things in their lives. Part of the reason I love this book is that it is overwhelmingly, bright yellow in colour, all over, around the edges of the pages as well as the book cover itself. The pages of the book also have what look like drops and swatches of paints and charcoal. I like how this photo gives a sneak peak into these lovely, authentic details that give a real sense of artistic character and lifestyle to the characters of this book other than the words of the story. 

I played around with different angles for this photo like suspending the book and photographing it from beneath, but I preferred the brightness and simplicity that came with this overhead shot

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FINAL BRIEF: EVERYDAY THINGS - PHOTOGRAPHY

Photo 1 is of jigsaw pieces.

Today’s photographs are of things that have entertained me during this time in quarantine. Today I started yet another jigsaw to fill the time.

I really like the colour, and natural light and vibrancy in this photo. I also like how the focus blurs from the front to the back as you look into the 500 pieces, it appears never-ending.

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FINAL BRIEF: EVERYDAY THINGS - PHOTOGRAPHY

This is my second photograph for today. 

The reason behind this image, similar to my first photo, also reflects the busy construction work being done at my house. This is a track mark I left yesterday while I was driving the teleporter (yano JCB machine) in the yard while helping my Dad and brother with the construction of the shed.

I found that yesterday’s track marks matched with today’s rainfall made for an interesting photo of my mundane and ordinary (for me) surroundings. No editing was done to this photo as I found that the colour and lighting works perfectly as is.

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FINAL BRIEF: EVERYDAY THINGS - PHOTOGRAPHY

For this brief we are instructed to take two images each day of an object/surrounding from your life at the moment, from the mundane to the spectacular. 

My first photograph is of my dad’s work boots in muddy puddle. The reason behind this image is that during this lockdown my Dad has been doing some construction work around our house, in particular he is in the middle of building himself a huge shed for his machinery and such. 

I took this photo, and then straightened, cropped and inverted the image so that the main focus is of the reflection of the boots in the muddy puddle. Other than that no editing was done to the image and its colour etc. as i found the simplicity of the faded reflection in the muddy puddle needed no alterations.

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OBJECT ALPHABET

Here are my 2 typefaces in action with some small illustrations I did thrown in too ;)

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OBJECT ALPHABET

This is my second typeface made of lightbulb-prints!

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OBJECT ALPHABET

Here is the finished alphabet made of toilet paper rolls!

I really enjoyed learning about and becoming more familiar with Adobe Photoshop. Not gonna lie, I seriously couldn’t get the hang of it in the beginning even after doing all the application tutorials, but eventually I got there in the end.

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OBJECT ALPHABET

Here is a lil progress pic of my work on Photoshop. (I forgot D). The next steps include finish editing the rest of the alphabet and then add some symbols too, like ?!&#£ and then put my alphabet into use in a short phrase or word.

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OBJECT ALPHABET

My second alphabet is made using toilet paper rolls, something many people are going mad over during this pandemic for some reason! For this brief, we have to use two different objects and two different processes for each alphabet. For my first alphabet I used lightbulbs and the process was printmaking. My second alphabet I’ve used toilet paper rolls and the process I’ve used is dissection and photography. 

I did think about assembling the toilet rolls into shapes of the letters but that seemed to similar to the circular shape of the lightbulbs, so I decided to dissect and stick down the toilet rolls to create a more interesting, angular typeface.

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OBJECT ALPHABET

So... I did it again. I wasn’t happy with the quality of my first attempt with my lightbulb-print alphabet so I gave it another go from scratch on Adobe Photoshop and I’m much happier with my second attempt. I feel like I’ve gotten a better quality this time with neater, sharper edges around each letters and higher quality in the letters themselves, with more visible brushstrokes made by the paintbrush before being printed. 

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OBJECT ALPHABET

This is my lightbulb-print alphabet!

My process to getting to this was long and tedious and included both working in illustrator and then photoshop. I’m sure there is easier, more efficient and better quality ways of doing this but to be perfectly honest, I simply just don’t know how to do it. Hopefully when we get back to college I will learn tricks of the trade to improve my quality of work, but right now, with the small bit of knowledge and skills I’ve taught myself from online tutorials, this is the best i can do :/