Project/Assignment Outline:

I. STA WIKI Graphics

II. Gebaur Signage

III. What Jane Saw

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I. STA WIKI Graphics

• A. Time Spent: 6 hours
• B. Description: New graphics for the STA Wiki
• C. Status: Complete: Group Portrait, main masthead
• D. Images: Will be posted after voting is over.

II. Gebaur Signage

• A. Time Spent: Approximately 8 hours?
• B. Description: I worked with Deborah Femat of UT Project Management and Construction Services to create a You Are Here sign for the new Liberal Arts Conference Room on the 4th Floor of Gebaur. I’ve recently been asked to create another sign for the 3rd Floor of Gebaur.
• C. Status: In Progress: 3rd Floor Gebaur Sign
  Complete: 4th Floor Gebaur Sign
• D. See previous entry for image.

III. What Jane Saw

• A. Time Spent: Forever (I’m going to try time tracking on Basecamp from now on)
• B. Description: Website for English faculty Janine Barchas which will recreate the space in which Jane Austen saw the influential exhibit of Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1813.
• C. Status: In Progress: I’ve completed the SketchUp model and reorganized site content and am starting to sketch the finalized views. Images coming soon!
• D. Images: Previous entries have many images. But here are the mockups that show the current reorganization.

Old Homepage

New Homepage

Catalogue Pages

Information Pages

That’s all for now, Folks!

This entry’s primary function is to continue my facade of updating this wiki biweekly (not semiweekly). So not much has changed from my previous entry, but I’ve worked on my tutorials a bit. I’ve changed the colors on my cascade page and cleaned up my code on the html/css tutorial.

view the cascade page.

bask in the html/css final product, but don’t dwell on the overly bright green on the menu mouseover 😛

In addition, I am working on outlining the basics of Google Sketchup, an extremely useful free software for 3D modeling.

Until the ives of September, now.

August saw many tutorials and progress on projects.

Tutorials:

HTML/CSS, Cascade, and 960 grid:

I’m almost done with the HTML/CSS tutorial. There are a few minor kinks that I need to work out, but otherwise I’d call it a success!

My progress on the Cascade tutorial can be seen at www.utexas.edu/cola/orgs/sta_megha

And we’ve just been introduced to 960 grid by Ming last week, but so far it seems like a fairly simple but extremely useful tool!

Projects:

Gebaur “YOU ARE HERE” Sign:

I had the pleasure of putting some of my architecture skills to real life application in the design of the Dorothy L. Gebaur, 4th Floor sign designed to help visitors find the new Liberal Arts Conference Room.

Though the project had inherent paramters I would not have chosen myself, I enjoyed the creative exercise to “make it work.” The color palette was dictated by the existing materials and paint colors in the Gebaur Building itself. The resulting plan highlights the two most important rooms, the space off the elevator where the viewer is standing, and their presumed destination–the conference room.

What Jane Saw:

I’m nearing completion of the research portion of this project. I’ve been working closely with Professor Barchas in trying to achieve the most historically accurate placement of these paintings. It’s been a learning experience, putting modern aesthetics aside to recreate a historical place.

I’ve been having with the sketchup model. Here are some images.

Hooray! The next step is setting views and translating them into rendered perspectives with a sketchier aesthetic.

tutorials:

Realistic Illustrator Tutorial (Complete):

I completed the portrait with a little bit of architecture, because it’s cool.

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HTML/CSS and Cascade Tutorials (In the works):

One thing I’ve definitely learned about HTML and CSS so far is that, while there might not be a right way to do things, there’s certainly a more logical way. After playing with various lines of code, I finally achieved the desired effect, but Ran’s way was definitely more straightforward. ><

I also have some ideas for the site we have to put together using Cascade, but I’ll post more when I actually do something!

projects

What Jane Saw

The basics of the site are reaching a level of completion as far as mock-ups go, so I’ve turned my attention to the part that will make or break the site’s success… the perspectives. I have been playing around with rendering techniques while working with Professor Barchas to constantly update the sketchup model. If only the catalogue for the exhibition came with wall elevations in addition to painting dimensions, this project would be infinitely easier!

As far as rendering techniques go, I’ve tried scanning in a paint stroke and clone stamping that. The effect was somewhat fuzzy (see previous post). My latest rendition is using large photoshop water-color brushes to stamp large sweeping brush strokes across the image and layer it with shadows with lower opacities. But the one thing I’m almost literally dying to try is the new Illustrator CS5 perspective feature.

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/illustrator-cs5-feature-tour/perspective-drawing/

The reason I think this could be such a great tool is that it is more artsy than sketchup and it has a feature that allows you to draw something full-on and then place it on a plane in the perspective. I believe that this tool would be brilliant for doing a lot of the work for the picture frames that I have been struggling with rendering. And because Illustrator works in vectors, it would be easy to resize without distortion or fuzziness. Also, to maintain the hand-rendered watercolor technique I’ve been aiming for in previous rendering attempts, I hope to try and apply some of the techniques I used in the background of my portrait. I’m going to have to download the trial version of AIcs5 and play around with it to see if it can help me out.

Tutorials:

1. Illustrator Shapes, with Ashley

I illustrated a caribou/reindeer in a technique that emulates the Chinese paper-cut style.

2. Photo/Color Correction, with Chris

This house was my favorite image to correct.

3. HTML/CSS

> RRR Mock-up

I attempted to focus on creating an iconic logo for the conference. I was taken back to my Sesame Street days….This project brought to you by the letter R.

4. Illustrator-Realistic, with Emma and Ashley

My progress photo is a bit scary with the place holder eyes and mouth, but I think it’s coming along! I tried to focus on overlapping shapes and playing with opacity, thinking about how I would generate this image if I was actually watercoloring it. Therefore, I have a lot of overlapping shapes with different opacities and a few gradient shapes where I had imagined the pigment in the water diluting as I “painted.” This is most evident in the forehead area. I’m still working on achieving a consistent technique within the rest of the face.

PROJECT:

1. What Jane Saw

-cleaned up floor plan graphic in navigation and tested out organization of navigation links.

Project: What Jane Saw

– Meetings with Professor Barchas, Ran, and Suloni discussing overall design of WJS site

– Photoshop mockups of homepage, navigation, and interior room renderings

– Using a working Google Sketchup model for selecting and modifying perspective views

Tutorials:

– Met with Ashley for Illustrator tutorial and am still working on the assignment

– Met with Chris for Image Correction tutorial and am still working on the assignment