JamesHamsley.com
Design Activity 1: Artist Statement: Design Activity 1 was the foundation assignment at the beginning of the semester. I learned how to use different shape tools in Adobe Illustrator. Though very basic and bland, it is really fun to see how much I have progressed and improved this semester using Adobe software. From designing simple shapes, to creating magazines with facing pages, my design skills have developed significantly throughout my Visual Media class.
Design Activity 2: Color Study
Artist Statement: Another one of my favorite Design Activities, Design Activity 2 was known as a Color Study. I used a beautiful picture from my vacation to the Colorado desert in July 2024 when I visited the Colorado National Monument. I used the eyedropper tool in Adobe InDesign to capture many of the outstanding colors I witnessed in the West. These lands were created and shaped during the same time period as the Grand Canyon, and I found it to be a perfect picture to learn how to utilize the eyedropper tool, especially with the sunset hitting the mesas.
Design Activity 4: One-Page Layout Using Smokestack.jpg photo and some filler text
Artist Statement: For this Design Activity, students were given the task of using Adobe PhotoShop to enhance a .jpg photo of an old smokestack from the early 1900s. After enhancing the vibrance, brightness, contrast and saturation, I exported the photo to Adobe InDesign where we learned the basics of a newspaper article and how to use columns for a layout. The text is just filler text that was generated by the Adobe InDesign text filler feature, as the point of this exercise was focused on understanding the layout of newpapers and magazines.
Design Project 2: Photo Essay
Artist Statement: Perhaps my favorite assignment all semester, Design Project 2 was a Photo Essay piece, where I was tasked with creating a 7-page spread in Adobe InDesign where my photos helped paint a vivid picture and tell the audience a story. I used my photos from a July 2024 rafting trip on the Colorado River. I used PhotoShop to enhance the vibrance, brightness, contrast and saturation of the photos to really make the colors pop off of the page. I essentially wanted these photos to display the beauty and brilliance of Western Colorado. Though technically a desert, this landscape was breathtaking, and the Colorado River itself is vital for all life to exist in this arid region.
Design Project 1: Typography Poster
Artist Statement: The DP1 Typography Poster was the first big project of the semester. Students were given the choice of which movie they would like to create a Hollywood-style movie poster for, and I chose one of my favorite movies ever, Forrest Gump. Using Adobe Illustrator for the first time definitely had a learning curve, but I tried to replicate the famous intro/outro of the movie, where a white feather is floating as beautiful music is played. The feather symbolizes many aspects of life, such as chance and destiny. I used the AI-generate tool in Illustrator to create the symbolic white feather from the movie. I used the gradient tool to symbolize the sun and sky, as the feather is floating. I did use the original movie poster as my model, and tried to find a similar font as well as red lettering, as if this was an alternate version the movie producers actually used. This was a fun project that was a great introduction into Adobe Illustrator.
Design Activity 7: Create a GIF Artist Statement: For Design Activity 7, I chose a video I had saved on my camera roll from the 2024 Indianapolis 500 in Speedway, Indiana. As soon as the National Anthem concluded, the 300,000+ people in attendance were serenaded by F-16 fighter jets. I had never been to a race before, so this was quite the experience. Capturing the Thunderbirds flying over the American flag was an extremely cool moment that made me proud to be an American. I imported the video into Adobe PhotoShop where I used the timeline feature to trim and modify the original video into a GIF. The original GIF was a bit longer, but WIX made me trim it down so I could export the video to the website.
Design Project 3: Magazine Cover
Artist Statement: For Design Project 3, the assignment was to create a magazine spread-style advertisement using a real company or brand. Students were not allowed to redesign logos. My brother-in-law has a very beautiful Porsche Macan in royal blue, so we drove around downtown Memphis and Shelby Farms capturing stillshots with my iPhone 13 Pro Max camera. We drove around downtown Memphis on Saturday night, then drove to Shelby Farms the following day on Sunday afternoon. I wanted to create an advertisement that looked like a real Porsche ad, making the reader want to buy the luxury car. I tried to incorporate many local landmarks such as the Orpheum Theatre, and Shelby Farms had a glorious sunset that evening, so nature did most of the work that Sunday afternoon. I used Adobe PhotoShop to enhance the photos, adjusting brightness, saturation, vibrance and contrast, before exporting the doctored photos to Adobe InDesign, where I was able to create a 4-page magazine spread using the facing pages feature. This was a fun project that helped me learn, and my brother-in-law loves his car, so he did not mind the extra publicity.
Design Activity 8: Bar & Pie Chart
Artist Statement: Design Activity 8 was learning to create bar charts and pie charts using generated data provided by my professor. It was a building block that led into Design Project 4: Infographic Poster, where I created a 5-page spread using real data that had been collected by the Pew Research Center. I used Adobe Illustrator, and had the opportunity to explore different pastel colors. I enjoy spring time and Easter-style pastel colors, so I really enjoyed tapping into the creative potential of Adobe software.
Design Project 5: Social Media Header
Artist Statement: For Design Project 5, I was assigned the concept of creating a social media header for a brand or company. Students were not allowed to recreate existing logos. The task was to reimagine a brand's Facebook, Twitter (X) and Instagram pages. Each forum has different margins and specifications. Facebook and Twitter headers have different sizes, and Instagram does not have headers so for the third artboard students created a post. I used Adobe Illustrator to download the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital logo and official font. St. Jude has a trademarked font "St. Jude" which is not available for commercial use so it was not an option in the Adobe InDesign toolbar. I used Illustrator to place the text in my InDesign project, while separating the praying child logo that is synonymous with the mission of St. Jude. I changed the logo to yellow as I wanted to child to mimic the sun, shining down from heaven and looking over downtown Memphis, like a patron saint. I used an AI-generated vector graph from Illustrator, prompting the AI to create the downtown Memphis skyline, with the bridge and Pyramid being integral parts of this scene. St. Jude's mission is incredibly important to the city of Memphis, but also myself included. My mother was a nurse at St. Jude for 20 years, and though she is no longer with us, I thought of her smiling down from heaven while I designed this project. I used "chalkboard" font in multiple colors for St. Jude's official slogan, as I wanted the motto to look like a child had been drawing with crayons.
Design Activity 10: Pen Tool
Artist Statement: One of my favorite Design Activities in class, I had the opportunity of recreating perhaps my favorite fruit, a peach. During Design Activity 10, I tried to recreate a peach, and used a gradient that transitions from orange to yellow like a real Georgia peach. I used shape tools, pen tool and experimented using anchor points to try to hone-in on what a peach really looks like.
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Design Activity 9: Magazine Cover Mock-Up
Artist Statement: For Design Activity 9, students were given the task of removing the original actor from this real magazine cover, using Adobe PhotoShop. We were taught the skills of how to highlight an individual, remove them, and import a different person onto the magazine cover. We were also taught how to clean the photo import up essentially, cleaning the edges so the new photo looked professional and as if it was part of the original magazine. Mastering PhotoShops array of tools and layering was necessary to completing this assignment.
Design Project 4: Infographic Poster
Artist Statement: During Design Project 4, I was assigned the task of creating a 5-page Infographic Poster, using real statistics from a survey the Pew Research Center published on the rise of AI, and how this technology will impact the journalism industry. As a Journalism and Sports Media major, I found the subject to be very important and relevant with my path. I was able to use a vector graph that resembled an Artificial Intelligence network, and created a series of pie chart and bar graphs emphasizing the data the Pew Research Center collected. This project was completed using Adobe Illustrator to generate the graphs before exporting to InDesign to finish the layout.
In-Class Activity: Flower Artist Statement: An in class activity using Adobe Illustrator, we designed a flower utilizing the pen tool. This was a great first introduction into mastering the pen tool and though tricky, we learned how versatile this vital tool is for creating professional art. Mastering this tool and utilizing anchor points is necessary for generating professional-level art within Adobe software.
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Design Activity 5: Personal Logo
Artist Statement: For Design Activity 5, students were required to utilize Adobe Illustrator to create a personal logo by fusing letters from our names together. Though I go by Jake, James is my first name, and I was able to use anchor points in Adobe Illustrator to blend the letters together and then bring the "S" in James forward as if it was 3-D. I used a gradient blend similar to Miami Vice colors to transition across the name. I was able to blend "James H" together fairly well. I really enjoyed this project, as creative logos are a big component in the sports world. Personal branding and likeness are key to establishing oneself as a professional.
Design Activity 6:
Artist Statement: For Design Activity 6, students were tasked with filming a video incorporating the multiple types of shots, such as the "over-the-shoulder" shot which gives the audience a first-person view of what the subject is seeing. Since I work at the best fine-dining establishment in Memphis, the legendary Folk's Folly Prime Steakhouse, there was only one person I could think of who could give the "over-the-shoulder" angle an intriguing point-of-view: Antonio Sloan, the butcher at Folk's Folly. If you've ever had a prime steak from Folk's Folly, or taken a steak home from Humphrey's Prime Cut Shoppe next door, Sloan is the man behind the meat. He cuts ribeyes, New York strips and filet mignon daily, as well as salmon, sea bass, halibut and pork chops. He also grinds a prime ground beef everyday with the steak trimmings. I was able to incorporate multiple types of shots, such as the extreme close up, the medium shot and the establishing shot. I used CapCut to edit the video before loading it to my YouTube channel. I chose a beautiful, classical song that complemented the beautiful steaks for the premier dining establishment in Memphis.
Design Project 7: 12-page Magazine: For my final project of the semester, DP7, I chose Gaelic football, camogie and hurling, 3 ancient Irish sports. There is a league here in Memphis that I'm a part of so I had access to ample photo opportunities. I used many different fonts depending on the article or section of the magazine. American typewriter on the editorial section, as well as futura for a modern sans-serif look. On one article I applied a gradient to the font to try to emphasize the word "connection". I went back and forth with the idea of splitting the 4-page Porsche ad up from DP3. I ended up deciding to keep the ad all together so it wouldn't confuse the reader. In my last editorial piece, PAST PRESENT FUTURE, I was able to turn the opacity down on green and orange squares so that the shape became transparent. I uploaded the photos of choice to PhotoShop where I was able to make the photo black and white in the adjustments panel. I chose orange and green transparent lenses because green and orange are the colors of the Irish flag. I wanted the photos to be black and white to symbolize the past, present and future. Using the colored squares as lenses sort of gives these ancient Irish sports new perspective and new life.
So that is why I chose to use the opacity slider to make the colored squares transparent, to sort of act as colored lenses of the past, present and future. I used green and orange as the color scheme throughout the magazine because those are the colors of the Irish flag. I tried to implement the parent page number technique so that each page number is on the correct page. The final ad was created by me. I used the AI generative tool in Adobe Illustrator. I just typed in generate "cows grazing pastures in Ireland" and it gave me that cartoon-looking generated image. I sized it down a little bit and then typed in the text and then downloaded a .pdf with transparent background of Kerrygold Irish butter. Kerrygold Irish butter is famous for using butter sourced from Irish grass-fed cows, so I wanted to incorporate that into an advertisement that was short and to-the-point.