Introduction to Graphic Design Vol.2

Introduction to

GRAPHIC DESIGN Vo l u m e 2

Ba ox u L i a n g

ARTD 151 Fall 2023 | Professor Briggs

Introduction to Graphic Design Volume 2

Introduction to Graphic Design Volume 2 Baoxu Liang

ARTD 151 Fall 2023 | Professor Briggs

COMMUNICATION 5 Stories x 20 Scenes

These are the thumbnails were from an assignment where I had to tell 5 stories in Illustrator using only 20 scenes, 5 colors, and 3 shapes. Afterwards, I had to choose one story that I wanted to elaborate on and turn it into a book. Here you’ll see that I am showing 1 of those 5 stories.

This one is based on chapter 1 of the game Xenoblade Chronicles 3. It tells the story between two factions, Keves and Agnus, who are in endless war. The characters from each faction will soon come to help one another and realize the true nature of their world. The colors I used were black, white, violet-ish gray, light green, and blue. The shapes used were triangles, circles, and rectangles. Altogether, it has 28 scenes, including the front and back covers and title card.

COMMUNICATION

5 Stories x 20 Scenes | Accordian Fold Book Here are some pictures of the book I assembled after printing my chosen story out. There are some things that I learned from this part of the activity. I learned how to use a bone folder and how to use it to make sharp creases. I got to know about the kinds of double sided-tapes avaliable. There's double sided tape for general use and the kind of fancier, more professional double-sided tape. Finding the ideal folding method was also a process. Sometimes it folds neatly and sometimes it folds unaligned. Additionally, it takes a lot of patience cutting all the parts out.

Nevertheless, I was very sastified with my results.

COMMUNICATION 5 Stories x 20 Scenes | Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Scene #1 In this scene, what’s happening is supposed to be an establishing shot of an ongoing fight between Keves and Agnus in the world of Aionios. The blue represents Keves, and the green represents Agnus. Each group also has giant robots, called Ferronis, fighting. In this scene, I represented the Ferronis as triangular structures with white “eyes” which take up most of the scene. This way they are represented as something big and terrifying. There are also small dots on the ground of each other representing the factions fighting one another. Since they are a lot smaller than the Ferronis, they are small dots in this scene. It is also nighttime, so used the violet-gray color to represent that.

COMMUNICATION 5 Stories x 20 Scenes | Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Scene #2 This scene zooms in and establishes the 4 protagonists from the Keves group, Mwamba, Eunie, Noah, and Lanz. Since they are from Keves, they are colored blue. How tall or big they are representative of how tall they are in the actual game. To distinguish each of them, I gave each of them a signature feature from the game. Noah has a ponytail represented by a single triangle. Eunie has wings on her head, so I show them using two slim triangles. Lanz has a short cut swooshed up which is represented by the two small triangles. Lastly, Mwamba has a short flat cut which is represented by one horizontal triangle. They are still in the same scene as in scene 1, so the background remains the same. I pondered if I wanted to make male characters have an upside-down triangle body, but I thought it would emphasize the difference in genders when the game doesn’t do a lot of that. Additionally, Mwamba and Noah aren’t that buff. Lanz is muscular, but Lanz only having the upside-down triangle will make it seem like he’s the only male character in this group. I tried using a square body for Lanz, but it doesn’t seem as dynamic as a triangle body. As a result, everyone here has a triangle body.

COMMUNICATION

5 Stories x 20 Scenes | Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Scene #6 In Aionios, soldiers emit motes of light when they die. There are also off-seers, soldiers who play music to send off the dead. As a result, their motes will change color and they’ll be sent off peacefully. In this scene, Noah is on a cliff playing Agnian off-seer music for the fallen soldiers on the field. For the viewer to know that Noah is on a cliff and not the ground, I made it so he it on a piece of land that doesn’t stretch the whole scene. Noah is also skewed a bit to the left to add some dynamics to his movements. To create his flute, I used a blue rectangle with some green rectangles as the flute holes. It makes it so that the flute is Agnian as well, but the green does hint to how it doesn’t just send off only Agnian soldiers. The music notes are made from rectangles and ovals, and it is also blue because it is the Agnian off-seer music. The notes themselves are the notes played in the game.

COMMUNICATION

5 Stories x 20 Scenes | Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Scene #13 This scene introduces 3 protagonists from the Agnus side sneaking up on the Keves team (Mwamba left the Keves group in between scenes). The main 3 Agnian soldiers are Sena, Mio, and Taion. Like the Keves group, they are the color of their faction, light green. These 3 are distinguished by one unique feature from the game. Sena has a side ponytail shown as a triangle to her side in the scene. Mio has cat ears, so she has two triangles making cat ears. Taion has a long scarf, so he has two triangles that make a scarf. These three are biggest and at the forefront of this scene, so it emphasizes what they’re doing opposed to the Keves group. The Agnus group is also hiding behind a wall, so I used the black from the ground to create a wall below their layers. Then the Kevesi group is made small, so they look like they are far away. They are also rotated so they look like they are moving.

COMMUNICATION 5 Stories x 20 Scenes | Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Scene #15 Scene 15 is one of the scenes when the Kevesi protagonists encounters the Agnian protagonists, and they fight. Lanz has a shield-like weapon and Sena has a giant hammer in the game, so I created their weapons using rectangles. These weapons are called Blades. These Blades also have the color of their respective faction, so the viewer knows who they belong to. In the Aionios, the soldiers from Agnus and Keves can summon and unsummon their Blades, so I didn’t include their Blades on them all the time. I made Lanz and Sena skew right, and that makes it look like Lanz is pushing against Sena’s attack. His shield is also in front of him blocking Sena’s hammer. I also used two white triangles to convey the impact of the collision.

COMMUNICATION

5 Stories x 20 Scenes | Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Scene #17 While they are fighting each other, a mysterious giant person comes in and stops them from fighting by jumping in right where they are fighting. He also has a glowing egg next to him, called the Ouroboros Stone (which is what the Kevesi group and Agnian group were trying to find). The egg itself is green and blue, which implies that it has a connection with Keves and Agnus somehow. In the background, there is a mountain instead of plain land. It was to show a change in scenery from where the beginning of the story is. The giant figure, named Vandham, pops into this scene as the first white colored character with an upside-down triangle. This implies that Vandham is from neither faction, that he is gigantic, and that he is someone who’s unfamiliar to the soldiers. There are also white triangles underneath him showcasing the impact he had on the ground as he jumped right in the middle of where they’re fighting. The Kevesi and Agnian groups were also rotated in a circle around Vandham so that it looks like they got blown away from the surprise.

COMMUNICATION

5 Stories x 20 Scenes | Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Scene #21 Then another party appears, monsters who call themselves Mobius. (Mobius is both a singular and plural noun) In this case, only one appears. It is shown that Mobius has stabbed and killed Mwamba! When creating Mobius, I decided to primarily use triangles as it reflects how horrifying he is. His eyes are upturned triangles, making it look as if he’s enjoying it. The teeth are white, which pops out from the dark surroundings and makes it look sharp. There is a similar circle on Mobius and the Ferronis, implying that they have a connection. Mobius is also a lot bigger than Mwamba, which shows off how big Mobius are in-game. Mwamba is rotated where he looks like he’s hanging off of Mobius’s arm. I used a triangle underneath and a triangle over Mwamba to get the effect of looking like he has been impaled. The motes flying off of him are an indicator that Mwamba is dead.

COMMUNICATION

5 Stories x 20 Scenes | Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Scene #22 The Kevesi group is shocked with what happened to their friend! I took Noah and pals and scaled them up. They are placed where it looks like the invisible camera is placed in front and slightly below them, forming a wide “U”. It’s there to give some dynamics in their perspective. There is a giant “!” made to express that the Kevesi group is shocked at what they’re seeing.

COMMUNICATION

5 Stories x 20 Scenes | Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Scene #24 In this scene, it shows the Kevesi and Agnian groups fighting against Mobius and something interesting is happening to Noah and Mio! Vandham is also at the back after he got hurt and did something to the Ouroboros Stone which made it shine. This is shown in the placement of Vandham with the Ouroboros Stone at the far right. The Ouroboros Stone is also emitting green and blue triangles upwards, which looks like it’s being activated. Noah and Mio have those same triangles and lines of triangles around them while working together while fighting. It implies that something is going to happen to Noah and Mio that is connected to the Ouroboros Stone. Everyone else has their Blades out while fighting. Mobius looks like it’s about to attack as he opens his mouth and raises his arm.

COMMUNICATION

5 Stories x 20 Scenes | Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Scene #28 The fighting was over, and Vandham had succumbed to his injuries. Vandham is placed laying down emitting motes to convey this. Noah and Mio both play their off-seer music in memory of Vandham. Mio and Noah are placed closest to Vandham with their flutes out. Mio’s flute is the inverted color scheme of Noah’s flute.

The motes gradually become green and blue as they are playing. Signifying that he’s being sent off. Eunie, Lanz, Sena, and Taion are at the back with their groups watching the off-seers play for Vandham. The others are made small, so they look like they’re at the back of this scene. Thus, ending this adaptation of Chapter 1 of Xenoblade Chronicles 3.

It was fun creating this story and it was an exercise in being able to tell this story within the limitations of this assignment. There are also some creative liberties I have made during this process due to limitations or for aesthetics. The motes themselves in the games are white but actually red in the games. When off-seers play for the fallen, their motes only turn blue, but I figured that the motes turning blue and green would look more aesthetically pleasing and interesting. The Ferronis do not look similar to how Ferronises look in-game. Anyhow, it was a great exercise in communicating this story with just 5 colors and 3 shapes.

BOOK

Facsimile Pages from Bringhurst’s book Lastly, I had to create a facsimile of Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style in InDesign. A facsimile is an exact copy of a printed or written work. It was an exercise in getting more sensitive to typography and typographic choices.

I chose pages 142 and 143 as the pages that I’ll create a facsimile on. These pages were the end of the Digital Typography chapter and the start of the Shaping the Page chapter.

There were a lot of things I learned from making this facsimile. I had some practice using the pica ruler to find out the font size, leading, and margins of the pages. I learned about scanning and writing manuscripts which will be placed into the InDesign file using the place command. I was able to get used to using paragraph styles and character styles to streamline my processes. I was able to familiarize myself with the hamburger menu and all the styles I can apply to text.

I learned about justifying text, serif and sans serif, and ways to make my typography look formal

Appendix 1

Photoshop Tips & Takeaways RGB is subtractive CYM is subtractive, part of the light spectrum, has way more freedom of colors than RGB since their colors are brighter RGB is additive, part of the light spectrum Change from CYM and RGB using File > Document Color Mode Mastering Photoshop’s shortcuts is a definite way to get more efficient and better at photoshop.

Some of the most useful shortcuts are: “v” selection tool “r” rectangle tool “q” lasso tool “g" bucket tool “i” eyedropper tool

“x” swap between the selected foreground and background colors selected “p” pen tool “e” eraser tool “t” text tool “z” zoom tool “r” ruler visible/invisible Double clicking on the ruler can change the ruler measurement Hold “space” + drag to quickly drag the screen “ctrl/cmd” + “x” cut “ctrl/cmd” + “c” copy “ctrl/cmd” + “v” paste “cmd” + “0” to go out to view the whole canvas “shift”+ drag to scale proportionally “option” + drag while in the selection tool makes a copy instantly “crtl/cmd”+”s” - save in the same file ”ctrl/shift”+”cmd/ctrl”+”s” save as another file “opt/alt”+”cmd/ctrl”+”s” save a copy of the file.

Generally, make different versions when saving as a failsafe and to document progress The shape tools are very useful Going into the view panel can change the snap settings There is a color field in the upper right corner, but double clicking the current foreground color in the lower left corner lets you select a color as well.

The eyedropper tool can sample colors and it’ll be useful when determining value or adjusting colors.

Swatch groups can be created to maintain consistency when working with certain colors. They can also be transferred to other Adobe programs.

Naming, grouping, and organizing layers is always important for efficiency and ease. Layer masking is when you put a mask on an image and where it’s black on the mask is revealed and white would conceal the image. It’s useful if you want to erase something but don’t want it permanently gone.

Drag from the ruler to create guidelines, hold option/alt to reverse direction Guidelines and the guide layout are extremely useful for guiding your work and creating consistent margins.

Filter gallery, layer>filter>filter gallery, to apply many layers on each other Layer blending modes accessible in the layers panel, Properties panel is extremely useful for changing the selected item’s properties

Adjustment layers can be used to change a/multiple layer’s properties Using the curves adjustment layer will be useful for changing brightness of the brightest/darkest parts Opacity slider is useful for creating transparency and creative true mixes of colors Match fonts by selecting an area with lettering > type > match font Photoshop has many color modes like indexed, grayscale, duotone, and bitmap useful for applying to images Double clicking on the blank space right of the layer will allow you to apply effects Image> Canvas Size – to change the canvas size, but it can also be used to make a keyline When trying to find an option on the Mac, use the help button to search for what you’re looking for The window button allows you to open and close panels Packaging the files allow you to have all the assets in one place for printing and viewing

Appendix 2

Illustrator Tips & Takeaways Same as Photoshop with RGB and CYM, also with Document Color Mode Useful Shortcuts: “v” selection tool “a” direct selection tool “i” eyedropper tool “m” rectangle tool Selection + “g” group selection “shift”+”m” shape builder, combine shapes to make new shapes “t” text tool “x” swap between the fill color and border color “p” pen tool “\” line tool

“z” zoom tool “r” ruler visible/invisible Double clicking on the ruler can change the ruler measurement “ctrl/cmd” + “x” cut “ctrl/cmd” + “c” copy “ctrl/cmd” + “v” paste Hold “space” + drag to drag the screen “ctrl/cmd” + “0” go out to view the whole/all canvas “shift” + “o” edit/make/move artboards Window > Workspace > Essentials Classic – the Classical type of workspace from Illustrator File > Export – to access exporting as jpg, png, and such When creating a new file, you can create multiple artboards to have many different canvases worked in one file Going into the view panel can change the snap settings Placing files may create links There is an option to unlink files, but cropping it also does that Click multiple times on a grouped objects to enter isolation mode and edit each

of them individually The swatch panel is extremely useful where you can create your own color palette When a swatch with a little white triangle has its color changed, all places where the swatch was applied on the canvas changes The layers panel is good for organizing objects and guides can also be organized The asset exports panel is useful when there are multiple assets on a single canvas the needs to be exported The color panel can be used to select colors Stroke/Gradient/Transparency panel is useful for their particular purpose The color guide panel is useful for finding colors like the selected color and other palette with the selected color The appearance panel has a breakdown of how the object looks Patterns, graphic styles, and brushes can be made and applied to paths Similar to Photoshop with how their window button allow you to show and hide panels

Appendix 3

InDesign Tips & Takeaways Same as Photoshop with RGB and CYM but with Convert to Profile Useful Shortcuts: “v” selection tool “a” direct selection tool “i” eyedropper tool “m” rectangle tool “t” text tool “x” swap between the fill color and border color “p” pen tool “\” line tool “z” zoom tool “e” free transform

“r” ruler visible/invisible Double clicking on the ruler can change the ruler measurement, preferably to pica “ctrl/cmd” + “x” cut “ctrl/cmd” + “c” copy “ctrl/cmd” + “v” paste "shift" + "left/right/up/down" key to make big jumps when shifting the selection Hold “space” + drag - drag the screen “cmd” + “0” - go out to view the whole/all canvas Window > Workspace > Typography – for editing typography File > Export – to access exporting as jpg, png, and such Use File > Print Booklet to print as a booklet Going into the view panel can change the snap settings Pages panel allow you to navigate through pages Glyphs panel allows the selection of glyphs On the top bar, you can edit font, font size, kerning, style, subscripts, superscripts, and justification Use real small caps and other styles instead of manually creating the style

On the three lines panel/ hamburger panel, there are a lot of OpenType effects that can be applied to text, where there are brackets means that the effect is not available to be used Paragraph and Character Styles can be made to create easy preset settings to text The A-parents are similar to how paragraph styles and character styles in a asense that they are a premade format that can be applied to anything, and if they are edited, their children pages will change as well Use rectangles with strokes surrounding the spreads to create a keyline On the bottom left, there are different settings to view the document Packaging the files allow you to have all the assets in one place for printing and viewing Find more fonts from Adobe Fonts, some fonts aren’t accessible in other types of computers Set up a baseline grid relative to top of page to see the lines that the text is on, set after face, font, and leading, then align the text to the baseline grid Instead of using hard stops to align text, change the size of the text boxes instead for ease Create a prototype to plan out how it'll look like and keep in mind how these pages will be printed out since a leaf has 4 pages 1 leaf = 2 spreads = 4 pages