my cartoon network games page and other progress...

Hey all.  This is my inside page for Project 1.  As for Project 2, as of yet I still have no proof and I just have one drawing.  Progress on that has been kind of slow since I have had trouble deciding what I want to use.  Right now I am thinking maybe a Pepsi t shirt design?  I have this idea of an arm holding a can of Pepsi animated much like Saul Bass's Man with the Golden Arm.  About what I said before about the four-paneled piece - not bloody likely lol.  We'll if I can pull what I have in mind off..

for project 2 in GDS 120...

For project 2 in my Graphic Design class I have to choose a famous designer and an example of their that I find is the most outstanding, and finally use that design and put it on a t-shirt.  More complicated than it sounds ^_^.  Fortunately, I've chosen a designer and a piece of their work, so I got the easy part out of the way.  I have chosen designer Saul Bass.

Here is the example of his work that I am going to use:

A number of things drew me to this piece.  There's the four characters, each being a horror film character.  There's also how they are drawn - geometricly with a side view of their heads.  There's also the use of color in the four panels.  These colors do not clash with each other.  All of these characters have the same pose, but are differentiated by both the color and borders.  It can work in two ways - all four on one t shirt, or one character for a single t shirt and the t shirt be that particular color.  There's flexibility there.

my first website proof for GDS 120

Well, here is my completed rough draft or proof for my website design project.  Voila!

the website that I want to redesign...

The website that I wanna redesign for my Wesite Redesign Project is going to be the Cartoon Network website.

This organization, of course, targets children 7 and up to adolescents with cartoons and the like.  It began in the early 1990's when Turner Network purchased multiple libraries of cartoons from various production companies and stop airing movies.  The company was thus named Cartoon Network, and it has aired nothing but cartoons (and some movies) since.

While this site has a lot of cool graphics and games that the young audiences would enjoy, too much of a good thing can be bad.  As it is right now, the content in the site is very distracting, even disorienting.  All of the flashing graphics and their crowded proximity on the page makes it an adventure just to remember what it is you really wanted to do when you got there in the first place.  Also, the navigation bar and the very small logo are neglible.  I plan to make it so the graphics (even the background) are not so distracting, and make the logo and navigation bigger more noticable.  This can accomplished by changing the size of of some things and rearranging some things.  I even plan to take some things out or just move them aside, like the flashing graphics and background, which does not work with the content very well.  I might even go with different colors for the site pages.  I will, of course, keep characters as part of the site's content and design.  After all, it is a website about cartoons.  I just feel the site could more appealing if it were better organized.  

More cool designs

 I like both of these logos here.  First there's the Sonic logo on the left, which I chose not only because I am a fan of him and his games, but also there is something about the drawing and graphics that reels me in.  Perhaps its the early 90's air about it :)  Then there's the basketball logo on the right.  I am not really into basketball, but this team's logo has always been a favorite of mine.  It's probably the color and art work of the stars.  Could also be the basketball looking like a meteor lol.  Yep, the logo definitely looks magical!

What I think is a good piece of graphic design

Here is a picture of one of my all-time favorite cartoon heroes - Mario.  This is a Nintendo Power magazine cover for Super Mario Bros 3 for the NES.  This looks to be about 20 or so years old.  What draws me to this is, obviously, the central figure Mario.  But it's not just his presence.  He is also drawn particularly well.  Take his figure for instance:  his colors are radiant and he shines as if he were metallic.  Although he is two-dimensional, he is drawn with great depth and use of various saturations, giving a three dimensional illusion.  That is some definite 20th century animation right there - no computer generated 3D animation, what we remember from our childhood - a selling point for me.  Then there's that he takes up most of the page and yet, he is such a diminutive figure that it just makes you want to play with him, and he is at the very front of all the action on page, which is something we would want.  There's also his enemies that he must face in the background on this also well-animated cliffside, giving the readers the urge to play the game and defeat them, and if the racoon ears and tail do not make you want to be Mario for pretend, what would?  By the way, does anybody else like the red cover with the golden "Nintendo Power" title in contrast?  Seems like a good choice to me...