Images

Check out some images that were constructed and submitted for various design projects during my time at AU. These were assembled using Adobe Photoshop and show an understanding of basic design fundamentals as well as familiarity with vector techniques, masking, lassoing, and compositing images.

Mike and the Green Free-Mu

This image depicts the marriage between a green tree frog and an Emu. The challenge was to take two drastically different animals and blend them together to create the illusion that they were a new species in some sort of natural habitat. The background for the image incorporated the ground that was present in the original Emu picture, and a sky scape that was captured during a trip to New Zealand that same year. It seemed natural that the Green Fre-Mu would be at home in a swamp-like environment, but unhindered by a larger, more rocky terrain. The icing on the cake was the opportunity to add myself (captured on the arm of my couch in Washington, DC) riding this majestic beast. You can see my elation and excitement in the picture, and it was certainly an experience I will never forget.

Vh1 Save the Music Campaign - The Guitar

Theses images were collected from various sources on the internet including: The background scene of the open ocean, the dorsal fin of a great white shark (which was increased in size, touched up, and in some cases flipped horizontally), and the life raft. The guitar and amplifier were images that I captured working behind the scenes setting up a rock show at American University. The instruments were subsequently removed from their original backgrounds using the Lasso tool, and placed next to each other, and layered to appear “in” the raft.

Vh1 Save the Music Campaign - The Piano

What made this image more unique to work on was that the original image depicted a climber with NO ROPES dangling from the cliff side. Once I saved the image and imported it into Photoshop, I immediately noticed that the guy had been noticeably “Photoshopped” into the image originally. As I zoomed into the image to lasso the primary character and replace him with the piano image I had taken, there appeared to be a faint, white outline around the figure…exposing the original photo manipulation. After I finished chuckling to myself, I proceeded to remove the original character and insert the piano. However, in order to make the transition look clean and natural, I double up the background layers so that the trees “flowed” through the image instead of showing the removed character, or a choppy overlap with the piano. Finally, I painted and textured the rope to create the illusion of the dangling piano.

Vh1 Save the Music Campaign - The French Horn

This image required a great amount of time and attention to put together. Both the flooded home and the flooded car were individual images that I resized, and then overlapped on top of each other. It was VERY important to preserve the continuity and perspectives of both images in order to make them appear to be part of the same picture. It wasn’t a matter of simply placing one over the other because there were focus issues in the images both above the car, and below the front door of the home. I used the “cloning” tool to “mirror” the water and raindrops from both image to seemingly allow the same storm to affect both images. Finally, cutting and pasting the French Horn into the image proved time-consuming when attempting to remove any background material from in between all the numerous "ins and outs" of the instrument.

The Fat Mike Logo

This image was composed using only vectoring tools in Photoshop. The overall structure of the design was meant to convey the "sonic" nature of the fictional company created for the assignment. Vectoring was used to create the gradient blend of colors in all of the individual components, and to manipulate the "round" look of the company's fictional title. The overall design utilized the principles of symmetry and fluidity of color.

The Botanical Gardens Poster

This was a design project where students were expected to incorporate a specific number of floral designs into a poster promoting the upcoming event at the Windham Botanical Gardens. Using the lasso tool, I cut out all of the various components that represented the food & music that the event was promoting, and masking techniques allowed me to "drape" those components in the floral images provided by the client. Manipulation of opacity and layering created the proper blend between the original images and their floral counterparts to create the illusion that they were one.