The way to get started is to quit

talking and start doing.

~Walt Disney

Contact:
James Woody Faw Calhoon:
570 South 2nd West Apt #6
940.224.4749
d2x491@gmail.com
woodycalhoon.com
Comm 130 Section 06
Brother Judkins

Table of Contents:
Montage
Brochure
Letterhead
Event Ad
Flier
Business Card
Imaging
Web Page
Logos

Project 1
Montage
Description:
A montage project intended to showcase skills in Photoshop including blending
using layer masks as well as adjusting saturation and sharpness.

Date:

02/15/2015

Course/Instructor:
Comm 130 Section 06
Brother Judkins

Program(s)/Tools:
Photoshop
Internet

Objectives:

Learn to use Photoshop Layers

Learn how to apply layer masks
Understand typography
Learn to lay out images in an appealing design

Process:

I started out with a rough sketch of how I wanted my image to look (although, admittedly,
at the time I didnt know it had to be an uplifting poster and I had planned to use the
Decepticons over the Autobots) and began gathering the images I wanted to use with the
project. Heres a small tip for anyone looking on Google images for montage pictures, you can
adjust the size from the advanced search options and tell it to search for very large images;
it is actually because of this that I ended up using the movie versions of the Transformers as
there were no big enough images of their 80s counterparts. Once I had my images, I began
putting everything together in Photoshop. It took me roughly an hour and a half on each
Autobot in order to mask them out of their background, especially with how intricate the film
models are. For a while I was torn between which Autobot to include on the left hand side of
the image as everyone knew who Optimus and Bumblebee are. I was stuck between Ratchet
(Medic) and Ironhide (Weapon Specialist) but ultimately went with Ratchet because he is
yellow like Bumblebee and created a good symmetry in the image. The Autobot Insignia wasnt
to difficult to mask and I actually used a few tricks I learned during Sister Esplyns Comm
300 class in order to get the words to look metal like that. I also put a 3px stroke around the
letters to make them stand out.

Project 2
Brochure
Description:
A fictional brochure for the fictional Jurassic Park, detailing the Parks main
attraction: The Jeep Tour as seen in both the original film and novel

Date:
03/29/2015

Course/Instructor:
Comm 130 Section 06
Brother Judkins

Program(s)/Tools:
Adobe InDesign
Internet

Objectives:
Learn to properly measure sizes for creating brochures in InDesign
Learn to create an appealing Brochure layout in InDesign
Learn how to convey information clearly and concisely in a limited amount of space

Process:

I started off with a rough sketch of what I wanted the project to look like and information I
knew I wanted included at the time. i started creating the basic shapes in InDesign, using the
base we had made in class the day before as a starting point before filling it in with images
and temporary, placeholder text. In the original draft there was going to be a small section
detailing each of the six paddocks that the Jeep Tour would pass by. My critics however
convinced me that there would be not enough room to cover this in the limited amount of
space available and persuaded me into replacing it with a checklist of the Dinosaurs in the
park with the idea being that this would be a brochure visitors would pick up before getting
on the tour and use to keep track of their sightings while on the trip. After the first wave of
critiques I began adding the text into the newly designed brochure with the inside detailing
the ride itself and the checklist, and the back detailing the modified Ford Explorers that were
used for the tour in the film. The last thing I added to the brochure was my custom logo
which is a logo for the Hammond Foundation. The Hammond Foundation was the name of
the foundation that Jurassic Park founder, John Hammond, created in the Novel in order to
raise the funding he needed to start the Jurassic Park project. The dinosaurs featured on the
checklist are a mix of the ones that appeared in the first Jurassic Park film, the first Jurassic
Park novel, and the new Jurassic World film that will be coming out in June.

Project 3
Letterhead
Description:
A simple design for a company letterhead using a logo I personally created after
updating one of the logos from a previous project.

Date:
03/01/2015

Course/Instructor:
Comm 130 Section 06
Brother Judkins

Program(s)/Tools:
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Illustrator

Objectives:
Understand appealing layout when designing letterheads
Learn how to import Adobe Illustrator files into Adobe InDesign
Learn how to use the opacity tool in Adobe InDesign in order to create a watermark

Process:
I began this project by choosing one of the logs from a previous project and putting
more work into refining it to make it look better. I chose to refine the first one
from the last project by simplifying the gear design through making it an almost
solid silhouette and removing the excess gears and pulleys. After refining the logo
and coming up with some extremely rough concepts for the letterhead I got some
help from my evaluators in deciding to make the gear the symbol that would carrythrough onto both the letterhead and the business card below. I really like the way the
letterhead turned out. The gear is used both as part of the logo, fitting into its own
little circular niche, and it became the watermark for the rest of the page. It has a very
simple design that isnt too busy and many of my evaluators told me that they could
see this working as an actual business letterhead. For both the Business Card and
Letterhead, the primary program that was used was Adobe InDesign.

Project 4
Event Ad
Description:
A full-color, full-bleed event ad meant to promote a fundraiser or some kind of
event. In this case the event is a fictional fundraiser for the Wounded Warrior
Program hosted by the National WWII museum.

Date:
01/31/2015

Course/Instructor:
Comm 130 Section 06
Brother Judkins

Program(s)/Tools:
Microsoft Word
Photo Scanner/Printer
Online PDF Converter

Objectives:

Learn to create an appealing layout using Microsoft Word

Learn to control layers and image locations in Microsoft Word
Learn to use the Remove Background tool in Microsoft Word.

Process:
I began this project by scanning an image of a World War 2 soldier into Photoshop
before transferring it to Word. From there, I sat down and brainstormed several ideas
on what I could do with the image, ultimately deciding to focus on The National WWII
Museum I had visited when I was young. I started by placing the ad in-between two
black boxes in order to give it a poster-like appearance. Next I started playing around
with various background colors and inserting various shapes until I started to get a
look and feel similar to the sketches I had made at the beginning of the project. After
that, I inserted my photo and (after spending about two hours trying to get it to show
up on top of all of my custom shapes) I removed the background and placed it inside
of a frame in order to cover up the face that he doesnt have shoulders in that picture.
Finally, after I added the text explaining the museums name, its contact information,
and the information talking about my fictional event, I added the museums actual
logo into the bottom corner to give it a bit of authenticity.

Project 5
Flier
Description:
Black and White flier used to promote a leadership conference.

Date:
01/25/2015

Course/Instructor:
Comm 130 Section 06
Brother Judkins

Program(s)/Tools:
Adobe InDesign

Objectives:
Learn the basics of designing an appealing layout
Learn to apply the Visual FOCUS techniques
Understand what audience the flier applies to

Process:
To start things off I sketched out several ideas for how I wanted to do the flier. I came
up with several different ideas, but since this is a leadership conference meant for
seniors I decided to go with a more refined, professional look to it. Once in InDesign I
started with a simple contrasting white text on black background title. It was actually
my professors suggestion to repeat this effect on the bottom with the website
information. I chose to use the same font as the title in order to give it a wrapping
feeling around the whole flier. I also decided to just add a ton of white space to the
right because, going with the more professional look, I thought staying minimal would
look good. I wanted to try and cut the womans hand out and have it hang out of the
image in order to give it a leading effect into the text beneath it, but I couldnt manage
to do it without the hand looking like a Nintendo 64 polygon. All images and logos
used in this project were provided by my professor.

Project 6
Business Card
Description:
A simple design for a company letterhead using a logo I personally created after
updating one of the logos from a previous project.

Date:
03/01/2015

Course/Instructor:
Comm 130 Section 06
Brother Judkins

Program(s)/Tools:
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Illustrator

Objectives:
Understand appealing layout when designing letterheads
Learn how to import Adobe Illustrator files into Adobe InDesign
Learn how to use the path tool in Adobe InDesign to write words in a circle

Process:
The business card ended up going through several revisions before I finally decided
on a design that I liked. I originally started with a simple, rectangular business card,
but my roommate was the one who suggested doing something more unique and
helped me to come up with the idea of using the gear itself as the shape for the card.
As I was making the card however, I did run into a major issue. According to the
guidelines for the project, I was supposed to incorporate the same information from
the heading of the letterhead (name, phone number, address, etc.) into the design
of the card and make it look good. I mauled over this problem for a couple of hours
before settling on having the information written in a circular path around the inside
edge of the grey center of the gear. I did this by creating a circle in InDesign and then
using the Type on a Path tool to type my text along the newly created circles edge.
Afterwards I deleted the circle, leaving the text free floating around the inner edge of
the gear. For both the Business Card and Letterhead, the primary program that was
used was Adobe InDesign.

Project 7
Imaging
Description:
A photo design project meant to teach us skills in taking pictures with digital
cameras, performing basic edits to them in Photoshop, and learning basic Photoshop
design skills.

Date:
02/08/2015

Course/Instructor:
Comm 130 Section 06
Brother Judkins

Program(s)/Tools:
Canon Digital Camera
Adobe Photoshop

Objectives:
Learn basic photo taking techniques such as the rule of thirds
Learn to create a basic layout in Adobe Photoshop
Learn to import images and size them correctly in Adobe Photoshop

Process:
I got the idea to focus my picture on my X-Box 360 and, while I hadnt decided what to do with
the rest of the design yet, I decided to stick with the X-Box idea and use a monochromatic
color scheme focusing on the color grey (mostly because I had one of the original, grey X-Box
360s rather than the later jet-black slim ones.) After I messed with the light levels, vibrant
levels, sharpness, and colors of my image, I cropped it into a circle and began playing around
with my design. Sticking with my monochromatic color scheme, I stayed within three major
areas: a far, lighter end (the color of the X-Box itself;) a medium, cool grey color (the color of
the controllers D-pad;) and a far darker, black end (the color of the controller itself.) I showed
my roommates the design while I was working on it and they suggested adding the extra
colors to mimic the buttons on the controller and to give the whole piece a little bit more
color. Thinking back on it I feel I should have found a way to work in a d-pad design to carry
over the cooler-grey into the banner, making it look even further like the controller. I may add
that before the portfolio at the end of the semester. I also experimented with ways of making
my buttons look like the ones on the controller with various effects, but Ill need a lot more
time to perfect that and decided to add it later, rather than add it now and have it look bad.

Project 8
Webpage
Description:
A web page designed to talk about one of the logos I made for class.

Date:
03/14/2015

Course/Instructor:
Comm 130 Section 06
Brother Judkins

Program(s)/Tools:
Notepad ++

Objectives:
Learn the basics of HTML in order to create a simple webpage design
Learn the basics of CSS in order to styalize the HTML created for the webpage
Remember to constantly validate both HTML and CSS as you work on it

Process:
I started by taking the HTML that was given to us as part of the earlier activity and adapting
it to talk about my logo and the process behind creating it. The HTML was the easy part as
it mostly required simple writing skills and a basic understanding of how certain aspects of
coding works. Once i had validated my HTML and made sure that it worked, I was able to start
creating the CSS, using the CSS that was given to us as part of the demonstration as the basis
for my own. CSS, in my opinion, is much more complex than working with HTML, you have to
determine how big the screen that will be looking at the site will be and adjust your images,
you locations, everything on the webpage will fit into that browser. For my CSS I ended up
changing quite a few of the colors and used a free background image over choosing a solid
color. I also chose to make my body color slightly transparent in order to better incorporate
the metal background into the actual content, rather than just having it surround it in all
directions. Finally I also sectioned off the main section of the page using its own unique color
in order to draw better attention to it and make it easier to read, rather than trying to read it
on a transparent background. The final step in the process was validating my CSS just as I had
validated my HTML

Project 9
Logos
Description:
Three logos designed for a fictional company.

Date:
02/21/2015

Course/Instructor:
Comm 130 Section 06
Brother Judkins

Program(s)/Tools:
Adobe Illustrator
Internet

Objectives:
Learn the basic criteria for what a logo needs to convey
Learn the basic tools in Adobe Illustrator that are used for creating logos
Learn appropriate color schemes for drawing attention at a smaller scale

Process:
To be completely honest, creating logos is not one of the things that I am the best at; however,
I did put a lot of effort into trying to make these three logos look good. The projects outline
was to create three unique logos for a fictional company, while also following several design
principles for each logo that would make it seem like the logo could really be seen in everyday
life. For this project I used the company, Massive Dynamics which I didnt entirely make up
on my own, it actually comes from an unused name for a fictional company in an early script
for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. I started with some rough sketches before deciding
that I wanted to make gears a constant theme throughout the design of each logo because the
idea behind the fictional company was that they had created the robots and had accidentally
caused the battle at the end of the first Transformers film. After the sketches I had to actually
create the gears for each logo and, while I think Illustrator is the worst/most difficult to use
of the three adobe programs, I eventually got it figured out with the help of the circle tool
and tracing some gear images from the internet in order to get them spaced apart properly.
Finally, the colors were chosen for each logo because I felt the name Massive Dynamics
really conveyed an Industrial feel and I wanted to capture that by using loud, warning colors
like you would see in a hazard sign or something.