PORTFOLIOAmy E. Mueller

CONTACT

Name: Amy Mueller

Phone: 503.956.0083

Website: amyemueller.com

Address: 228 West 1st North St. Anthony, ID 83445

Web PageEvent Ad

FlierTABLE OF CONTENTS

StationaryLogosMontageBrochure

Photodesign

Web Page

Event Ad

Flier

Photos

STATIONARY

DESCRIPTION Stationary and business cards for the company Idea Sprout that does business plan consultations.

PROCESS I used Illustrator to design the logo using the pen, shape and line tools. I then transferred the logo to InDesign to create a stationary. I applied an opaque green background keeping with the growing feel and created a letter head with a purchased font face. The image in the corner is a piece of the logo enlarged and set down to create unity throughout the piece. It took a bit to determine the correct weighted font face and stroke, changing them both to be heavier in weight gave the piece more polish.The concept is that this company, Idea Sprout, helps group entre-preneur’s ideas into a business plan. The light bulb is representative of an idea and the sprout growing within is their idea coming to life through the aide of the business.

MESSAGE

A person who has an idea for a business but needs help writing a business plan for funding.

AUDIENCE

DATE November 8, 2015

LESSON I used the ‘group’ and ‘ungroup’ a lot in this design as I scaled and tried additional options within the logo.

COLOR Monochromatic, Green

FONT Title Name & Category: Centuma Regular, Sans SerifCopy Name & Category: Centuma Thin, Sans Serif

LOGOS

DESCRIPTION A logo design, grayscale, and reverse white for the company Fidget Faddle, Sensory Products.

PROCESS I used Illustrator to with main use of the pen and shape tools. I used the pen tool to design many parts of the bees. I used used the eraser to erase parts of the ellipse paths. I originally created 3 different designs and this design was voted as the best. I refined the logo by placing the text within a white space a created to make the text feel like it was part of the logo. I used the Ebrima type face as it had the same sort of weight as the ellipses did.

The logo represents the energy of the brain of someone with autism. Some people describe it as feel like a beehive is in their brain. Constant activity. From an outsider’s point of view, a hive may seem like chaos with bees everywhere, but in reality, a hive is working in a logical progression towards a purpose. The logo represents that positve aspect of autism while providing products to help with that energy: weighted vests, stimming objects, and things to fidget with. I used blue as it is a calming color often associated with the autistic community.

MESSAGE

Adults with autism or parents of children with autism who would benefit from having items to either fidget with, or weighted products that help to calm.

AUDIENCE

November 1, 2015

LESSON How to use the pen tool. What an amazing tool to control curves precisely. Also, how to navigate Illustrator and create full pieces out of combining shapes.

COLOR Monochromatic, Blues

FONT Embrima, Sans Serif

DATE

MONTAGE

DESCRIPTION A spiritually influenced montage using Photoshop using multiple elements, filters, blending, and masking.

PROCESS I used Photoshop to begin with an 8.5×11 texture I got from textures.com. Originally I wanted to use a fire background, as I was trying to emphasis Babylon or Hell. When I saw the dead grass texture, I saw that it was a perfect fit for the mood I was trying to create with the piece. I put a mask on the grass.I then used the lasso tool to capture the woman figure in the art piece with 100pt feathering to help her seamlessly fade with the background. I resized her, making sure to keep her in proportion by holding down ‘shift’. By using the brush tool, I was able to create a soft white effect because of the mask to bring the pixels together from both images. For the text, I used font I found on the internet for free called “Death Font”, which seemed appropriate. I wanted a bold, heavy, font with serifs. I was able to give the text some depth and interest by using the Inner Shadow and Drop Shadow effect. Drop shadow can look a bit cheesy, but I used it to give a nice black spread under the letters so that it would be better seen. For the second line of text, I used the effects of Outer Glow and Drop Shadow to again make it more visually interesting and easier to read.

Once you give in to vices, they begin to control you and you have less of yourself in your own control. The faceless woman would make a person stop and consider the message.

MESSAGE

All teens and adults since we are all susceptible to vices that impede our spiritual growth.

AUDIENCE

October 25, 2015

LESSON I learned how to appropriately mask so that the pixels work nicely together.

FILTERS &COLORS

White filter mask applied to the dead grass with the picture of the woman then placed over. Color scheme and color names: Complementary: Red, White, Black, and a Lighter Green shading around the woman.

FONT Title Name &

DATE

BROCHURE

DESCRIPTION A two sided (duplex) folding brochure

PROCESS I started by creating a traditional tri-fold brochure in Adobe InDesign. I choose teal and tan for my colors because they are calming colors that represent the serenity of yoga. I was able to pull the teal from the cover yogi’s shirt with the eyedropper tool and implement it in varies opacities through the piece.For the front cover I shifted the photo down to make room for the title to lie on the 1/3 line which then required me to use the clone stamp tool to repeat the wood background vertically. For the logo, I used Illustrator to combine typeface with a yogi in warrior pose that I inserted into the “O”. The yogi was created using the line tool. On the inside flap, I used the Quick Selection Tool and the Magnetic Lasso Tool to outline and crop the yogi in pidgeon pose. After placing her in my InDesign brochure, I used the text-wrap feature to have the words flow around her. On the inside partition of the brochure, I continued my teal and tan theme while using white bars to add variety. Through the ellipse tool, I created two circles, one in which I placed an image inside of. I created shapes on either side of the ellipse tool and place photos within to fame them in those parameters. Throughout the body copy I used various portions of the typeface to create texture. On Illustrator I pulled out the warrior-posed yogi and increased his size then placed him within InDesign as a watermark. The large watermark and the repetition of him throughout the piece created unity.

An advertising piece for a yoga studio intended to entice readers to attend class.MESSAGEMostly females aged 23-60 who are interested in exercise and relaxation.AUDIENCE

December 6, 2015

LESSON How to properly cut out an image then do text wrap around it.

COLORS Analogous, teal and tan

FONT Title Name & Category: Myraid Pro, Sans SerifCopy Name & Category: Georgia, Oldstyle

DATE

PHOTO DESIGN

DESCRIPTION A foray into non-destructive editing in PhotoShop

For this design I utilized Adobe Photoshop. I practiced non-destructive editing by creating layers at every step. I added basic edits of adjusting levels, vibrancy, selective color, the sharpening tool, and the dodge tool. I knew I was going to do a full bleed design, so I wanted to incorporate an original photo that would accommodate this specification. My using the circles and diagonal swatches as design elements, I unified the piece with the spokes and wheel in the photo. Originally I had the color names on a diagonal, but by changing them to following the arc of the circle design element, it added more cohesiveness to the project.

An art piece embracing the wagon wheel and western living.

People in my rural town in Idaho who love all things western.AUDIENCE

October 18, 2015

LESSON How to accomplish non-destructive editing.

COLORS Monochromatic: Brick

FONT Title Name & Category: Rockwell Regular, OldstyleCopy Name & Category: Rockwell Bold, Oldstyle

DATE

PROCESS

MESSAGE

WEB PAGE

DESCRIPTION A display of my html and css skills combined with design skills.

PROCESS To continue with my logo design, I used Adobe Illustrator to adjust my logo that I designed with pen, shape and line tools. I pulled a single leaf out of my design and saved it as a .png to be used for the bullets points to contribute to a repetitive design element. To incorporate the leaves as bullets, I used CSS to set the type to: none. After, I used CSS to link the .png image of the leaf. Since I already had the .png made, I included it as a favicon as well to give the page more polish. I had the header and the Summary of Process echo the monochromatic logo by using green and white for the text. Tools Used: Illustrator, Photoshop, Notepad++.

Idea Sprout can take your idea and turn it into a growing business.MESSAGE

People who have a business idea but are not sure what to do next with a business plan or funding and need an advisor. The audience would ideally be someone who has the financial capability to hire an advisor before the business is profitable.

AUDIENCE

November 22, 2015

LESSON How to incorporate my own design as a bullet point. It was fun to design the leaf bullet point myself in Illustrator, then code it into my web page design.

COLOR Monochromatic-Green: Light Green #b6d6be; Darker Green #288e43; White

FONT Title Name & Category: Georgia, OldstyleCopy Name & Category: Trebuchet MS, Helvetica, sans-serif;

DATE

EVENT AD

DESCRIPTION A flyer advertising for a plant sale benefiting a local park.

PROCESS I used Word to take my scanned image and add text and design elements (the line with leaf) on top of the photo. Once I located an image thought about which layout I should use. I considered laying the text over the entire picture with the plant picture being opaque, and several other ideas. I decided that the way to best use the photo was to treat the bark of the tree as white space and use to insert type to balance the vibrant green of the plants. Because the repetitious leaves take up a lot of the artistic space, I wanted the words to stand out by being a simplistic white that was stark against the dark brown. The leaf and line design element unite both parts of the photo.

Influence community members to attend a plant sale that benefits the local park.MESSAGE

Members of the community.AUDIENCE

October 11,, 2015

LESSON How to insert design elements to unify design projects and properly scan images in for the appropriate resolution while not being too large of a file.

COLOR Analogous

FONT Title Name & Category: Lucida Bright, OldstyleCopy Name & Category: Gulim, Sans Serif

DATE

FLIER

DESCRIPTION Flier advertising a conference whose audience would be graduating seniors.

PROCESS My first step with this project was to think of the audience (graduating seniors) and where they would encounter this piece (probably hanging on a hallway at college). From that, I sketched out several options that would grab attention while students were walking past in addition to making the most important informa-tion prominent. Grouping is essential for quick reading, so I was sure to put like items together. After settling on a final sketch, I used InDesign to implement my design. I made sure there was a natural flow to the piece and left room for the items to breathe in the white space. I used the Gestalt principle by adding angles to the banners since the logo has an angular V.

Influence graduating seniors to improve their skills by attending the Graduate Leadership Conference.

MESSAGE

Soon-to-be graduating college students.AUDIENCE

October 3, 2015

LESSON Using right and left justification to further emphasize the flow of the piece.

FONT Font Name & Category: Franklin Gothic Heavy, Sans SerifCentury Schoolbook, Oldstyle

DATE

PHOTOS

DESCRIPTION Demonstarte concepts of outside light, inside light, foreground, background, composition in thirds, and compisition in lead room.

PROCESS For the outside light, I made sure to focus on the sky as to not wash out the color. I was able to enhance the colors of the fields in Photoshop so that it more closely match the reality that I was seeing. For the light inside, I had to be attentive as to when great light came streaming onto my window bench. The natural light made for a beautiful vibrant glow on the teacups. Through Photoshop, I was able to use the sharpening tool to make the image more crisp. The foreground and back-ground focus photos proved to be the most difficult. I used a Nikon Coolpix L105 so it does not have manual settings. By walking close to the sign and holding the shutter halfway and backing up to a good framing I was able to blur the back-ground. I then switched to a landscape mode and focused on the playground so that it was more clear and the sign was more blurry. While having my son play out at the sand dunes, I saw a perfect opportunity to try to frame him in a third composition. In the past I would have centered all subjects, but I can now see that this composition feels more professional. For my second composition, lead room, my daughter was sitting on a swing and I was able to capture her looking in towards the center and framed her to the extreme left to allow lead room.

I learned a lot about photography through this activity. I found myself paying attention to many more details then I usually do in my daily life. Things like shad-ows, where light is coming from, how close I am to an object required quite a bit of my attention. All of these items create quality photos.

The back portion of the brochure I wanted to have some visual interest, but did not want anything competing with the contact information for attention. I ap-plied the same teal color with the eyedropper tool, but applied a gradient to it.

October 14, 2015DATE