All posts in Graphics

Online projects

By Patricia On August 13, 2009 In Graphics, Multimedia, Sailing With 6 Comments Permanent Link to Online projectsPermalink

This website has always focused on my photography, particularly my concert photography, but I also work on online projects here and there. We’ve had a few trainings at work to improve our multimedia skills. Until recently we were working with HTML and CSS. I particularly started playing with JQUERY.

I wanted to share a project I undertook, mainly to have something to practice on that, in the end, could potentially have some applicable use. I would like to have a more comprehensive portfolio of online work. I have the skills to put together portfolio-type personal websites, so I figure, why not market those skills? Since lot of people nowadays are interested in having their own .coms.

So I combined three things I like: photography, web-design and sailing into one project:

Click on the image to go to the site, or HERE. It’s not really ready to “go live” as they say. The text is mostly just whatever, but it gives you an idea of what the website could look like.

Now, moving onto Flash. For years, I’ve been stuck with ActionScript 2, but we’ve just started learning AS3, and hopefully I’ll have a few more project coming my way to develop those skills further. Here’s an interesting project I worked on last week, about what’s probably the WORST marathon on the face of the planet. It’s 135 miles right through Death Valley, in JULY. Check out the photos, soundslides and story. It’s just fascinating that people, sane people, willingly choose to do something like this. You have to give ‘em mad respect though.

I worked on the interactive graphic part, but I also had to do quite a bit of research and (gasp!) math to get some of the time averages. Overall, an interesting project, but hopefully next time I’ll be able to code it with AS3 and save me a variety of headaches.

Anyone need a website? I’m what you’d call, cheap labor.

SkyCycle

By Patricia On July 1, 2009 In Graphics With 5 Comments Permanent Link to SkyCyclePermalink

I’m happy with the response from the wedding photos, particularly glad that Matt and Talat liked them (p.s., I’ll be mailing you two some actual prints). 

Moving onto non-wedding things. 

Last week I got the chance to work on a pretty cool graphic for the Phoenix community paper. The reporter wanted an infographic to show how a new exhibition at the Arizona Science Center worked. It’s something called the SkyCycle: pretty much a bike on a high-wire cable, suspended over the first floor.  Ever the investigative journalist, I popped in to check it out and do some ‘research’. 

Not sure if you can tell there, but the bike is not harnessed to anything. The rider is harnessed to the back of the bike, and that line you see there at the bottom is just so if someone freaks out, the staff can pull them back. Obviously there are all these physics aspects about how/why the bike doesn’t flip over, and I had to understand those in order to then turn around and explain that in a simplified way. So I talked to a few people there, took notes, slept on it, and hopefully I was successful in at least conveying the basics to our readers. 

I did everything in Illustrator, using another photo as reference, and a lot of people around the newsroom seemed to like it. 

When I get to do stuff like this, I realize that my job doesn’t always suck, and sometimes I forget to mention that because, yes, there’s a lot of crap that goes on (case in point: the upcoming layoffs were officially announced today). I suppose with the impending and very real possibility of losing my job, it’s easier to see the things I’d be missing out on. 

A1

By Patricia On May 17, 2009 In Arizona, Graphics, Random With 2 Comments Permanent Link to A1Permalink

A speed cameras map, which I like to think of as my area of expertise (my beat if you’d like), ran on Friday’s A1. Cool to see my name on the cover of the paper, and I’ve yet to receive any angry emails about mistakes, though it is the weekend, so maybe I just need to give people some time.

Update: AtlasRider just asked for a link to a speed cameras Google map, which is totally helpful for us speeders! Here is it: http://www.azcentral.com/news/datacenter/speedcams.html. Now kids, just remember these are only DPS cameras (basically only the ones on the highways). Every city has it’s own separate set of cameras, not shown.

Thanks go out to Chris George for refining the look of the map. I think often times designers go unrecognized, since they don’t put their names in credit lines. But they truly deserve as much credit as reporters or graphic artists.

Something I’ve also been pretty excited about is the growth of my html and css skills, learning how to use jquery. More on a project I’m working on for the sailing team once I have it further along.

Nothing much going on… the heat is getting up there, but that’s not new.

Ever since I housesat Manny’s place, where I caught a random episode of Showtime’s The Tudors, I’ve been hooked. Granted, I can’t afford Showtime but that’s what the internet is for, so I’ve been catching up with previous seasons. Just as good as the show is the Pop Tudors website that they have as a sort of “modern” day companion to the series. Hilarious. Check out the video recaps. Oh and the pie charts! Too funny.

License plate inspiration

By Patricia On January 11, 2009 In Arizona, Graphics, Random With 6 Comments Permanent Link to License plate inspirationPermalink

A few weeks ago I did this graphic explaining how, from now on, frames around cars’ license plates cannot obscure the word “Arizona” at the top of the plate. This is another one of these ridiculous money-making scams that the lovely state of Arizona has decided to adopt. Do not get me started on the photo speeding cameras. 

Wrong— you’re a bad Arizonian. 

Wrong— I’m calling Sheriff Joe. I hope you like camping, because he’s got a spot for you in Tent City. 

Right— Now go drive on our roads so we can catch you speeding on camera and fine you outrageous amounts of money for a violation that a live police officer would have never pulled you let alone ticketed you for. 

“If a witness can tell us that a vehicle has an Arizona plate because they can clearly see it, that helps us immensely,” said Harold Sanders, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety.

Yes, because the purple cactus is so overused by other states. 

You see, here in Arizona, we care about the details. I feel much safer knowing that valuable police resources are being spent patrolling the streets for license plate frame criminals. Interestingly enough, at the beginning of December, half of the 26 cars in the Arizona Senate parking lot had illegal frames around their plates.

At any rate, while I was working on that graphic, I was inspired by the Arizona plate, and well, I’m a sucker for grungy Photoshop brushes, so that’s how the new banner/masthead came about. I also thought the font was slightly “western” looking without being too obvious and corny. I’m thinking I could’ve done a bit more with the typography, like a stroke or a shadow or some sort. Eh, I can always update. 

Photoshop tutorial

By Patricia On December 22, 2008 In Graphics With No Comments Permanent Link to Photoshop tutorialPermalink

Here’s a website with a compilation of good Photoshop tutorial. Courtesy of the blog at work.

USB key below is proof of my ability to follow instructions, although that’s debatably not a good thing. My only complain is that, well, it tells you in amazing detail what to do, but it doesn’t really explain why you do certain things. Still, pretty cool stuff.

Also, people on the comment board were bitching about how it’s not a vector graphic. Point taken, but if you do it big enough to begin with, you should be fine. Now if I was doing it for a client, yeah, maybe I would build it as a vector in Illustrator, just because you never know.

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