PSY Prof. Duarte Memory and Aging Lab: Banner Illustration Design
This past week, I worked on the banner illustration design for Professor Duarte’s new website. I mentioned a little bit about it in the last post. After picking a color scheme I thought would go well with the website, I began the process of making each of the silhouettes. At first, I tried using the pen tool on illustrator to create vectors, as Maddy mentioned this would be easier for changing colors. However, each one took me a long time, so I switched to photoshop and used the lasso tool. Since I was using Photoshop, it was helpful to have many layers and organized naming conventions to keep everything in check. I wanted to go for a paper cutout type effect, so I used a combination of effects like inner shadow, bevel and emboss, and pattern overlay. Since it was a lot of adjustments, what helped me speed up things was making use of the “layer styles” option. Once you have something looking the way you want it to, you click create new layer style, which can then be easily applied to the other layers. It took a bit of adjusting to get it to look right, but hopefully it does now. Below, you will find the iterations. On the left is the original design, and on the right is the design with a color overlay to help us get a better idea of what the colors would look like on the actual website.
This is a screenshot Maddy took of her testing the website with the banner, and it looks pretty nice I think! I think the colors worked out, so hopefully Professor Duarte likes it.
I’m looking for apartments next week, so I am moving my hours, but hopefully I can make it to the last fun times tuesday! I really like everyone on the STA team, and truthfully I am already emotional because the end is near :000. Anyway, on a personal level, I watched a video about how to read more (since this has been a long time goal of mine), and I think I am going to try out a speedreading technique. I find it really hard to enjoy books with all the other media around me, so I am thinking about not using my phone for a week once I go home. I tried this out last summer, and it was actually mind blowing how not having access to media made me crave literally any kind of mental stimulation and improved my focus dramatically. I did miss talking to my friends though. Have a safe and fun weekend!
