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CYNTHIA GOMEZ | 04.2013PORTFOLIO

a collection ofEXPERI-i visualnformation

MENTSn

DESIGN

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PORTFOLIO

Project 1: Advertisement

Libby, a shel-ter pitbull,

provided the inspiration for

this project, which in-

volved tack-ling a stereo-

type in the media. The

bold type and color

make this ad-vertisement

stand out.

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CYNTHIA GOMEZ

Concept & InspirationI chose this topic because it’s

what I’ll be tackling for my cap-stone project. As far as design goes, I chose a photo I took of a shelter dog, Libby, as inspiration because her personality breaks down negative pitbull stereotypes.

ProgressionI cut out the dog image used

here from the original picture and placed it in front of a bright yel-low background. The color choice has to do with the fact that pitbulls are naturally energetic dogs and always look cheerful because of their wide jaw line. This is often referred to as the “pitbull grin.”

Next, I wanted some separa-tion between the dog and the rest of the page, so I created a box around it with a wide black bar with lettering on the bottom. To me, that looks reminiscent of an old instant Polaroid photo.

As my project progressed from one version to another with input from classmates and the pro-fessor, my type got bigger and bolder. I also ended up rotating the photo on the page. The result enhances the old Polaroid look I

Pitbulls provide inspiration for anti-stereotyping advertisement campaign

was going for because it almost appears like a photograph has just been laid at an angle on top of the rest of the page.

ChallengesThis was probably the tough-

est class project for me because it was the first time I had to use Photoshop this extensively, so there was a lot of learning to do.

The choice to go with a statis-tics approach was a difficult one for me, because the point of the advertisement is to show that in-nocent pitbulls are hurt by ste-reotyping in media and society that portrays them as dangerous. However, the statistics show that pitbulls can kill people.

The solution was finding an-other statistics about people killed by other people much more often, to provide some context. I think the result provides a fair and balanced look at the issue.

Also, some concerns arose that the yellow color might be too aggressive, but experiment-ing with other colors yielded less attractive results, so in the end, I simply chose a slightly more mut-ed yellow for the background. ■

First attempt (way top) con-veyed point, but was too bright, bor-ing. In second version, the yellow was softened, image edges sharpened, and box ro-tated, but font still needed to be bolder.

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PORTFOLIO

Project 2: Color Profile

This proj-ect involved

choosing three colors from a

photograph to use in a

neighborhood newsletter

design. This photo was

the inspira-tion for my

color scheme and part of

the resulting newsletter

cover. A tropi-cal yet muted color scheme mimics neigh-borhood’s look

and feel.

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CYNTHIA GOMEZ

Annual neighborhood festival highlighted in color profile project

The use of varying color opacities, and overlap-ping lines and boxes helped create visual appeal.

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PORTFOLIO

Project 3: Poster

A bright, cheerful color scheme, and big, whimsical

type font creates child-like whimsy in this poster, while

slanted words add a fun feel.

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CYNTHIA GOMEZ

Doctor Seuss-inspired production lends itself well to whimsical poster design

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PORTFOLIO

Project 4: Multi-Page Spreads

A turtle pro-vides the

backdrop and color for the first page of this spread.

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CYNTHIA GOMEZ

Trips to Mexico’s Yucatan peninsulaprovide ample material for magazine spreads

Meanwhile, a clean layout and the man-atee photo complete the second page.

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PORTFOLIO

The de-scending text

in the head-line comple-

ments the article con-

tent, and the headline font color mimics

the color of the water in

the photo.

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CYNTHIA GOMEZ

The upward viewing pho-to provides contrast from underground photo on op-posing page, while plenty of white space makes for a crisp looking page.

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PORTFOLIO

The text floats above

and below fish image to take readers

on adventure beneath the sea surface.

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CYNTHIA GOMEZ

Here, wavy text boxes mimic the ocean waves, bringing movement to the page.

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PORTFOLIO

Project 5: Logo Design

A four-leaf clover made from retooled, resized and rotated “U”s provided a logo mark that complemented the logotype. Meanwhile, Photoshopping the new logo onto stock images provided a real-life look to the redesigned brand.

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CYNTHIA GOMEZ

Lucky Brand Jeans redesign brings color,fun logo to outdated branding

Zazzle.com allowed for experimenta-tion with the redesigned brand on vari-ous types of merchandize.

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PORTFOLIO

Project 6: Charts

Working with data

in a space-restricted

environment proved chal-lenging, but

combining data helped

overcome that problem.

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CYNTHIA GOMEZ

Charts help make otherwise dry data easier to understand

With so many accomplish-ments in the last few years, 3M makes a good subject for illustrated stock time line in this project.