Realistic Illustration

I took a photo of an old ring my mother gave to me, and I drew the ring using the Adobe Illustrator. I was trying to create this image as realistic as possible.
Isn't it interesting that I like my ring a lot more than before I did this project? I may brain washed myself by staring it so much for so long.

Here is the photo of the ring I drew:

Zootool

One of my classmate shared this website call "Zootool", and I fond this site really useful.
Zootool is about collecting, organizing and sharing your favorite images, videos, documents and links from all over the web.
Now a days, it is a little bit overwhelming to bookmark links you like because there are so many of them. This site would help you collecting all the links you want to save and not only you can access to the Zootool, but you can also log in to your page from any computers to find the site you saved. How cool is that?
Oh, and yes, it is free to use.


http://zootool.com

AIGA Event: Pixel Punchout, Round 1,The Elite Eight

http://www.aigaseattle.org/events/pixel-punchout-round1

There was "Pixel Punchout" Round 1 this past Friday at the Art Institute of Seattle. It was my first time attending to the AIGA event.

The eight competitors were:
Nate Johnson of frog
Bryan Mamaril of Hornall Anderson
Zach Pfriem of Ascentium
Brian Piper of Tether
Anasazi Wade of Starbucks
Jeff Barlow of Starbucks Global Creative
Josh Peters of Cicada
Tara Lee of Graphiti.

I thought it was very fun and I am thinking about going this Round 2 this coming Friday. It will be at north campus of the Art Institute of Seattle.
Are anybody also interested to go?



My Other Post about Pixel Punchout Event:

1. AIGA EventPixel Punchout Round 1 "The Elite Eight"
2. AIGA EventPixel Punchout Round 2 "The Final Four"
   

My Own Logo

I created my own logo last quoter. It was so hard me to branding myself. I wanted my logo to be simple and stand out. I also wanted to add a little bit of brush stroke to end of each strokes to include my culture of Japan.

What do you think about my logo?

Project 3: Icons

Project 3: Project Statement

Kubota Garden Project Statement
Design Team Tokuzato & Holmes

Kubota Garden is a twenty acre park located in the Rainier Beach neighborhood of Seattle. It was pioneered by Fujitaro Kubota, who built a successful gardening business in the 1920’s. The Kubota family generously granted the public access to visit the beautiful garden featuring waterfalls, steams, ponds, rock gardens, and an expansive collection of plants.

Visitors to the garden have increased over time, which is now owned by the City of Seattle and maintained by the parks department. Seattle Parks Department is looking to update the wayfinding signage in the park. The goal is to enhance the user experience of the Garden by highlighting all that the park has to offer.

The Kubota Garden will be featured in a campaign to showcase Seattle area Gardens and Parks to visiting tourists. The wayfinding project is planned in advance of the campaign to prepare the Garden for increased traffic in the summer of 2010.

The target audience is older audits of varied ethnical back grounds. The Japanese manner of the garden should be maintained in the signage. Thought should be taken to accommodate people with limited sight.

Fresh Fish Design, of Seattle, has been hired to redesign the wayfinding signage. The final presentation in due December 15, 2009, and should be printed at 300 dpi on 11x17 paper. The design team should document the design detail to be manufactured by the Seattle Parks Department.

Week8: Reading Homework (Chapter 6)

1. Summary of information, topics covered
Chapter 6 talks about the information graphics case studies of Alejandro Tumas, The New York Times, Funnel Incorporated, White Rhino, Nigel Holmes, and The Wall Street Journal. Humans are visual learner. Info-graphics is turning something complicated into a clear, appealing, explanatory diagrammatic, and to five audiences a better understanding of information. You have to have good information to make effective info-graphics and it could help to start with more information than you would need to create it. A Whiteboard sketch gives the client something to react to, and allows them the opportunity for everyone to agree in the end. Good info-graphics tell the story with as little words as possible and helps people to read. It is important to pay attention to the use of colors and typography. You need to know the subject and have a desire to be a good designer. Complicated finance fields often hire someone who has background in finance, math, economics, or journalism to teach them to create an information design.

2. Two links germaine to topics covered
http://blogof.francescomugnai.com/2009/04/50-great-examples-of-infographics/
Here you can find a lot of good examples of infographics including some example we have seen in the class. You can see the how they create good images with text, use of colors, and kind of information other designers use.

http://flowingdata.com/2009/03/13/27-visualizations-and-infographics-to-understand-the-financial-crisis/
The website give you 27 visualizations and infographics to understand the financial crisis.

http://www.nigelholmes.com/
This is a website of Nigel Holmes who is one of the designer in the chapter 6. Here you can see some of his motion graphics, diagrams, charts, maps, and other information of him.