My Font Poem!

For our first Photoshop project, my classmates and I had to chose a poem and experiment with the different fonts available to us. For my poem, I chose a quote by Benjamin Franklin:

Hide not your talents
They for use were made
What's a sun-dial
In the shade?

I decided to use this poem because I've always loved Benjamin Franklin, I've always felt like we've had some kind of crazy connection. Ever since sixth grade, when I made a Benjamin Franklin puppet for a class, I've been fascinated with his life and accomplishments. I particularly like this quote because I think it has a great message; it encourages people to be proud of themselves and make use of their talents and abilities. Some times people prefer to hide or downplay their talents for fear of being considered arrogant, but I think this poem puts a positive light on self-confidence.

I used the following fonts in my project:

• Onyx
  
• Gill Sans Extra Bold
  
• Zapfino
  
• Candara
  

I thought Onyx worked well because it was a small and narrow font that reflected the word "hide." It makes it appear as if the word itself was trying to remain hidden in the piece. I used Gill Sans Extra Bold to emphasize the importance of "not," "use," and "shade." I made the font red for "not" to illustrate the severity of the word and its meaning. I also did gray shadowing with this font on "shade" to act as a literal interpretation of the word's definition. I really wanted those words to stand out, and I think that Gill Sans Extra Bold font helped me accomplish this. Zapfino is a very fancy and elegant font, which is appropriate for the words "talents" and "sun-dials." These words represent a person's skills and accomplishments, and Zapfino helps portray this idea. For the word "sun-dial," I changed the color to yellow in order to convey sunlight. Finally, I decided to use Candara for all of the other words because it seems like a somewhat understated font. It didn't detract from the other fonts, but it's still slightly decorative.

I arranged the words the way I did to place emphasize on what I deemed to be the most important words. I didn't want to stack the most powerful and significant words directly on top of each other. Instead, I alternated the lines in order to separate the main words, whose fonts I also increased.

Some of the problems I encountered include the shadowing I put on the word "shade." I had no idea how to make shadows, but I was really interested in executing that effect. I looked up the steps online, but was still a bit confused. After trying to decipher the instructions, I realized I needed some help from Professor O'Connell. She came over to provide some aid, and in addition to the online directions, I was able to figure out the technique and include shadowing in my project.

I am the most proud of the shadowing effect, because I did not think I would be capable of figuring it out. As I just explained, after some help from both my professor and the Internet, I was able to. I think this experience made me aware that I can navigate through and overcome tricky situations, and I'm extremely proud of this realization.

If I had more time, I think I would have worked more with the arrangement of the individual words. I maybe would have tried manipulating the words more and experimenting with the different types of effects that I could apply to them. It would have been fun to play around with everything that Photoshop has to offer. I'm looking forward to doing this with future assignments.

Hello!

Here's my first blog for my Electronic Communication course at Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island. Throughout the following semester I will be posting all of the projects I do for this class. These projects include, but are certainly not limited to, a QuarkXpress poster, an InDesign newsletter, and a Kiosk PowerPoint. Amongst other information, I'll include pictures of my work, descriptions of the challenges I faced while completing them, and the changes I would've made if allotted more time.

I'm new to the blogging world, so I definitely need to explore this website and see everything it's capable of doing! I'm excited to start experimenting with fonts, designs, pictures, audio, and video. I'm hopeful that this blog will transform into a professional-looking showcase of my work.