deborah julene owenVISUAL MEDIA PORTFOLIO

deborah julene owenVISUAL MEDIA PORTFOLIO

contactDeborah Owen253.625.6101deborah.j.owen@gmail.comdeborahjulene.wordpress.com

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table of contentsMagazine CoverPrezi PresentationPhotodesignMontageBusiness IdentityInfographicHTML & CSS CodingWeb DesignBrochure

magazine coverI had a couple of ideas in my head, both of real

magazines and made up ones. I knew which photo I wanted, and ultimately in the process of

brainstorming titles, I wound up picking the New Era.

I sketched out some basic layouts that would work with a couple pictures I have. I put together

my shape map in InDesign on an 8.5x11 page quickly, making sure that the different items all aligned.

I put in my picture and titles but knew I needed to do something with the background, which was a bunch of

grass. I opened up the picture in Photoshop and got to work removing the background. I tried to keep

things clean and smooth, removing the grass and hair frizz. I updated the file in Photoshop and

decided to add a subtle gradient background.

I finalized the layout of the items and exported it as a 150 dpi JPG from InDesign.

New EraN OT A M AGA Z I N E O F T H E C H U R C H O F J E S U S C H R I S T O F L AT T E R - DAY S A I N T S

THE

SEPTEMBER 2017

SCRIPTURECHASINGTIPS FROM ACHAMPIONP. 44

YOUNG WOMENVALUE PROJECTIDEAS FROMDEBORAH OWENTHE PERSONAL PROGRESS HELPERp. 7

A HOUSE OFLEARNING:HOMESCHOOLINGIN THE GOSPELp. 18

A FAMILY OF MISSIONARIESWHY ONE GRANDDAUGHTER

IS CHOOSING TO SERVEp. 36

WEIRDSUNDAYSCHOOLOBJECTLESSONSp. 11-12, 23

preziI had no clue what I wanted to do for my how-

to Prezi initially. Gradually, I started thinking about doing some sort of recipe, since that follows

a pretty methodical process (usually), plus food makes for a great visual. I knew I didn’t want to

include photos, and I didn’t have the time to create a really intricate vector, so eventually that lead me to an

ice cream sundae. It’s easy to follow, fun, and wouldn’t take hours in Illustrator (though I did, admittedly, spend

several hours creating and tweaking this illustration).

I got it all sketched out, including the general flow I wanted. I envisioned a sort of “Magic School Bus” experience of

zooming super close and being immersed in it. Then I went into Illustrator. I stuck with a flat design, adding

each element on a new layer. Originally I exported each individual element as a .png file, but that

both took a lot of time, and looked grainy when zoomed in a couple thousand percent. I added

my text, and while I wasn’t super happy with the fonts, there were only so many options.

photodesignWhen I was taking my picture, I loved the

contrast of the blue flowers amid the green and brown. Right away I thought about the phrase

“bloom where you are planted” and got to work at home. I used Adobe Color to pick out a good

color scheme for my photo, and then started playing around with things. I created a new 8.5×11 document in

Photoshop and imported the photo. I adjusted the levels and saturation on the photo, and especially sharpened and

brightened the blue flowers so they would really stand out.

I knew I wanted to keep things really clean, but also a little unpredictable. I placed each word in front of its

own block and intentionally misaligned them while keeping nice flow. The text blocks went on top

of a blue rectangle on the left third that helped organize the flow of the content. I made the

key words stand out in a bold cursive font and paired it was a neutral sans serif for balance.

Overall I thought my design was really well balanced, but I knew it needed more finesse.

montageI found the quote I wanted to use for this

project, and right away drew inspiration from it.

The first layer was the rainbow photo. One patch of sky was a lot brighter than the rest, so I filled it

with the gray sky around it and blended really well. . The next layer was the city. I masked out the sky and

decided to gradually blend out the tops of the buildings to make sure the montage was kept sort of dreamlike.

On the umbrella I increased the brightness a little bit more to compensate for the fact that it was taken at nighttime.

Last, I found a grayscale image of rain against a window and then used a screen mask to make it transparent.

For the text, I knew I wanted to use a sans serif with a thick script font. I found a great pair to use and

decided to stagger the alignment of each line of text for some variation. I added a soft glow

behind it to help it stand out on the background. I aligned the text box in the left two-thirds.

business identityRight away I knew what I wanted to do, I just

didn’t have a clear vision of it. I started sketching logos like crazy, but nothing seemed to work. I knew

that I wanted something minimalistic and abstract.

After a lot of sketching, I still hadn’t come up with anything I really loved, and so I opened up Illustrator

and started playing around with shapes. I figured if I have the shape of a saxophone and the shape of a piano, I’d be

able to play around with it more freely. Pretty quickly I was able to come up with a concept design that I loved.

I then incorporated my logo into a letterhead and business card design. In addition to the logo, I used

repeating elements of piano keys and bold lines.

infographicI had a couple ideas for the layout, including using

the framework of a house, a desk in Santa’s workshop, a Christmas tree, or the North Pole as the setting on

my infographic. Ultimately I settled on a Christmas tree. I sketched out different basic illustrations to use as

inspiration based off of the statistics I had gathered. Then I played around with the layout some more, with placing

different graphs in different layouts I could use. While sketching usually helps me out a lot, in this case it really wasn’t helpful.

I got started in Illustrator once I’d finished sketching. I was able to quickly figure out my layout once I was in the

software, and from there I was able to quickly figure out the flow of everything. I knew I wanted it to be

pretty flat and minimal, but still playful. I used a lot of different shades of red and green for contrast

I also wanted to play with different ways to use the illustration to demonstrate the statistics

instead of just bar graphs, so I used a cookie pie chart, and stacked presents of different sizes.

the

NORTHPOLL

what people actually believe about

Santa Claus

yesno

notsure

43%50%

7%

Yes72%

No12%

are you on

Santa’sNiceList?

Not sure

16%

DEMOCRAT33% REPUBLICAN

20%

OTHER/NOT SURE47%

do you believe in the

WAR ONChristmas?

not sure

no

yes41%

47%

12%

ChristmasYES

NO

NOT SURE

KwanzaaYES

NO

NOT SURE

HanukkahYES

NO

NOT SURE

what is your holiday greeting of choice?

MerryChristmas

51%

41%

8%

yes15%

no76%

notsure9%

Source: "Polling the Holidays." Public Policy Polling.'December 19, 2013<http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/12/polling-the-holidays.html>.

Created by Deborah Julene Owendeborahjulene.wordpress.com

html codingBefore even starting the coding, I wrote all the

content for the webpage. From there, I glanced through the premade files and got to work in

Notepad++. I decided I wanted to challenge myself and actually code the entire site without the premade files,

and then check my files against the premade once and reconciled a couple differences for the sake of continuity. It

was more challenging than just going through the template, but I’m glad I did it. I was able to leave out some things I

didn’t want in the first place (like the rounded corners on the body) and add in some new things that I may not have

thought of including otherwise (like the link colors).

As far as the design goes, I stuck to the monochromatic scheme of the logo, incorporating different shades

of the same hue. I wanted to make sure there was plenty of white space in the margins, and

good leading between lines to make it easy on the eyes. And as much as I love system

fonts (not really), I opted to use Google Fonts to make the design stand out.

web designI’ve created website mockups before in Illustrator,

but never in Photoshop before, so this was a new, exciting challenge for me. I went into this without a

clear idea of what I wanted to do beyond the brand itself. I found some photos which would work, and

that gave me a better idea of where I was going with it.

I sketched out a couple potential layouts, but there was only one I really wanted to pursue further. I opened up

the grid template in Photoshop and started arranging elements like on my sketch. I ended up adjust things a

little bit, but the concept was still mostly the same.

From there, I started adding to the elements. In general, I was pretty happy with the final

layout. I did several different layer comps to demonstrate how things would change

when you’d hover, but kept it pretty basic.

brochureI wanted to take this opportunity to do

something creative and create a fake brochure that could serve as publicity material for the event.

I wanted to go beyond a traditional tri-fold, and so through trial and error I eventually wound

up doing mine cut at an angle as a 4 fold, which would create triangles on the front when folded.

I wanted it’s primary goal to be to tell the nativity story, with the secondary purpose of advertising the festival, so

I had each element on the front tell a different part of the story. Once I had solidified my vision as a sketch, I

was able to quickly assemble it in InDesign on an 8×12 page. I created each icon in Illustrator, as well as the

triangular background layout. I used a clipping mask to trim the picture of the wisemen in Photoshop.

The printing and trimming process was luckily pretty quick and easy, and then I tried to

make my folds as precise as possible.