Today's Workshop 20.08.14

Today's workshop worked to enhance our Photoshop and Illustrator skills. Our tutor spent the first 20 minutes in class introducing us to grids and columns (960.gs) which ideally got us to think about a more structured/evenly proportioned design to our projects, including "one which we will need to do next semester". During this time, we also discussed contact related tasks that we would need to give in in the near/distant future, such as the three concept cards, pitch & poster and project documentation. Our discussion on 'What makes a good poster?' was more in depth as it involved more class participation and writing on the board. Eventually the board was filled with different aspects that made a good poster including visual appearance (colour, space (spread out and balanced), text vs. images), context (purpose of ideas, audience, aim) and incorporated Trove content.

Finally the class was free to work individually on either a Photoshop or Illustrator tutorial  from ow.ly/AvOjm (Photoshop) or ow.ly/AvOpF (Illustrator. Many others in the class as well as myself couldn't open this one). Compared to the previous tutorials in the workshop, these tutorials were  much more advanced and required more effort, skill and time to complete.

This is what the final result should look like after we finish the photoshop tutorial..

..and this is as far as I got. On the left is what i did and on the right is what its supposed to look like. Ashamed to say, throughout that hour and a half i only completed adding the background which is pretty much the first step (and you can see that one box isnt even the right colour..or the right height..) In my defence, i worked on Illustrator last time and using photoshop confused me. The guy next to me only got this far too which makes me feel better. 

Even though i literally just added five coloured boxes to a canvas, i admit that i did gain some photoshop skills today. I actually did do more than what the photo captures. I added a transparent background pattern behind the coloured boxes (which means i actually completed 2 steps). This may not seem like much but this took me more time and skill than you may think. Anyway, the workshop was concluded after we all signed our name on the roll sheet. I dont remember being assigned any homework but considering my current photoshop skill level, i think we all know what i need to do.