Book

Here is my eight page book that I made in inDesign. It is pictures taken of some of the things that I love about Ecuador, I hope that someone who looks at these images are curious to learn more and visits Ecuador!!!

Table of Contents

This is my table of contents that I made for our inDesign assignment. It was taken from the choices that we had, the reason I picked it was because Kick Ass was a GREAT movie!

Personal Image #8

For my last personal post I will post a picture of my little sister that I took in front of Ikes Place. Ikes Place was featured in the San Francisco episode of Man v Food, and of course I went. Ikes Place is a tiny little shop but there is constantly a line out the door of people waiting to receive strange sandwiches. My little sister and my friends accompanied me to Ikes Place and we had a BLAST! The food is amazing with sandwiches that are big, and a bit pricy. We met Ike and gave him the nickname Spicy (which, randomly, he was called in high school). If you ever want suggestions of where to eat then you should watch shows like Man v Food, you dont have to do crazy food challenges but the food is often (for me 100% of the time) really good!!!

Visual Research #8

When playing video games one often doesnt realize the hard work and dedication needed to accomplish the finished product. Call of Duty Modern Warfare is one of my favorite video games that I own. The game is full of detail and effects, and I often sit and wonder how long it would take someone to draw all of those items. Someone spent hours making every detail of those helicopters to make them look as realistic as possible. Furthermore they add animation to it so that they move and come to life. We are used to seeing art as a form of still expression, but video games are a form of art that moves. The art acts and moves in response to what the player does, truly this is amazing.

Personal Image #7

This is a picture that I took pre opening of the Latino Student Union's Cinco De Mayo event. This event took a lot of time, planning, dedication, phone calls, and effort to put together. There is a blissful feeling when everything is ready in the hours leading up to an event. Its a time where you can sit and look at the results of your hard work. This moment of pensive thought is normally accomplished before the crowd shows up, since you return to being busy and running around!!! I was so glad I did it when it was all said and done.

Visual Research #7

For my capstone I made a website, and asked my friend to make a banner. This is the banner for Imagination Unlimited Comics. The banner shows a strong eyed figure that is staring off into the distance. The log, from the last post, is in the middle of the forehead. The logo seems to have just landed on the forehead. The eyes have the same color flash coming out from them as the logo does.

Personal Post #6

This picture is one that I took in Guatemala. My family and I where taking a walk through the neighborhood and we noticed this fuzzy little creature hanging out in a hammock. When I approached I said hi to the guy hanging in his patio and asked if we could see his "pet". I noticed that he had a pet raccoon, it was just hanging out there. He told me it would hang out in his patio and he decided to keep it. He feeds it and shelters it, but it mainly enjoys hanging out on the patio. The picture shows the calm cool attitude of this normally wild animal.

Visual Research #6

This is a design my friend Gerald sent me for my capstone. I am a business major and for my capstone I need to do a business plan for a fake business. For my capstone I am doing a comic book shop. I needed a logo for my "store" and this is the one Gerald sent me. The name of my business is Imagination Unlimited Comics. The logo shows a blend of Imagination, Unlimited, and Comics into a sort of statue like logo. The color is gold and, to me, represents heroes. It would be interested to see how this would work in a store front sort of idea, but for now I really like it.

Visual Research #5

This is another picture that I found on my friends Deviant Art!! First my friend Nicole is AMAZING!!! She is a great person and an awesome artist. This photo is taken in Japan and shows beams of light coming down through a cloudy day. The city below looks huge!!! The mountain takes is being illuminated, in some areas, and the clouds are just awesome.

Personal Post #5

This is a picture I took during a cold walk downtown. Since this is my last year here at SOU I wanted to take pictures of downtown at night during the holiday season. I think its awesome how shops downtown come together to make downtown look amazing!

Assignment #5

This one is inspired by an online video I saw where this guy made Ryu and Scorpion fight, it was really well made and I felt it needed a movie poster!



Zombies in Space!!! I though of cheesy movies, and somehow I think it would be funny to try to piece this story together!

Visual Research #4

I can openly and fully admit to the fact that I am a terrible artist. Luckily I have friends who are amazing artist, one of them being my friend Gerald. He is currently attending Expressions in Emeryville, Ca to be a graphic designer specifically for video games. This is his drawing of a famous video game character, Chun Li, from Street Fighter. Gerald drew this in photoshop fro scratch, and I believe its very good. Starting from the character, she looks like Chun-Li from the game. She is in a flamed background, but she doesnt look worried. She looks mad, possibly whatever the source of the flame is came from her. The background also transforms into a starry night sky in the upper left corner. the detail in the night sky is amazing, from the stars to the night cloud. Overall this is a great drawing.

Personal Post #4

This is a pretty cool picture I took myself last year. I remember the day very clearly, it was spring term of last year on my birthday. My ex and I decided to go out and take a day to explore Oregon and take some pictures. We went to Lithia Park and was exploring the river bed. I walked under the bridge and found this little flower laying still on the river, the current just passing by it. The flower, even though it was not on its plant, was full of life and color. I believe I captured its location in the perfect maner.

Assignment #4

Scratch Project:

I found a cool way to make simple backgrounds!!! I think its pretty nifty.




This one was fun, I was gonna make it about the San Diego Chargers, but then I remember I hate that team!



Who you gonna call???

Visual Research #3

This is an image I found that is from my home. I love the bay area and when I think about it I imagine the water, bridge, and city. In this image we see all three. The water is calm and wavy, there is a clear, blue, sunny sky. The bay bridge is running across the image spanning 2 pieces of land. The city looks beautiful in the background. On the back right corner we see that fog coming in, which happens all to often in the bay area. This picture, taken from sea level, perfectly represents what I think of when I think of home.

Personal Post #3

This is a drawing I did last term for a class I was in. I made a collage centered around video game themes and this was one of my best pieces. Its based off of the Mortal Kombat video game, which is a favorite for all gamers. It came out really good and even though the colors are basic, I feel it flows well.

Lab Assignment #3

These are my letters that I found:



This is an X made out of the holder for the dishes.



This is W made out of a candle holder that I found in my friends house.



This is a Q made out of this inflatable cup holder.



This is an O made out of a light fixture.



This is a C made out of a towel rack.

Visual Research #2

Deviant art is a great resource for finding picture and art from others. There are tons of people that post their art for others to appreciate. I found this picture while looking at photographs and I thought it was really cool. This is what the photographer said about this image: "Shot at Le Lac du Salagou, close to my village, Southern France". This image of landscape shows a beautiful calm waters with a hill in the center. The water looks bright, based off of the reflection of the sky, and it looks very calm. The hilltop is very unique as well since some of it looks full of life, while other parts are pretty bare. My favorite part of this image is the sky. On the left side we see brighter contrast, making me think that it is day time. On the right side we see more of a darker contrast. The balance between light and dark both on the ground and in the sky really makes this image stand out.

Personal Image #2

I hope this isnt cheating but I believe that film is a way of motion in art. Popular clips on all over the internet are based off of parodies, this is mine. I work at Best Buy back in the bay area and I often had to close. Closing was very boring when customers where not present since we didnt have anything to do. I made this clip on my camera phone after having the idea of making a parody of the Mac Book air commercial. My store had just received the new Mac Book air and I decided it would be fun to redo the commercial where the laptop arrives in a manila envelope and the person takes it out to show how small the laptop really is. It turned out to be a bit of a comic disaster since we didnt have the right envelope and I didnt know how to open it. I thought it was funny, especially for my first attempt at a parody.

Lab Assignment #2

So for the first photo on this assignment I had to take a self portrait of me. I was in class and for some reason was feeling the color. It was super bright inside since the color of the walls, the lights inside, and the sunlight. I am showing my school spirit, and I just shaved the beard :).



This is a picture of my good friend OG that I took. Its a close up of his face in an attempt to capture his beard. The reason why is because my good friend OG goes through fazes with facial hair where he tries to experiment with new styles and he believes he looks really good. Unfortunately his hair blends with his face, so it doesnt always look that great, at least in my opinion. I took the picture to have him look at himself and so he can see what I saw in that light! I was only clowning on the guy, if he is happy with the results then I am too.




This picture was kind weird to do. It is a bit strange to go up to someone and take a picture of them, but I am a pretty open, outgoing guy so I got over it. I was sitting at a restaurant with some friends and I knew it was potentially a good place to take a picture of someone for this assignment. I noticed this guy and at first glance I thought he was a pretty serious dude. He was just hanging out and talking to his buddies, but there was something closed off about him. He was calm and collective, where I am outgoing and loud. I approached their table and explained to them what I was doing and they asked me to sit. At first he was really quiet but after a while he got a bit more talkative. I learned that he was from Chico and was passing through on his way to Seattle. He was 24 years old and was on vacation heading up to visit his sister, he had friends in Ashland. After talking to the guy for a while I learned that, although I assumed he was different than me, we had a lot of things in common. We where able to share stories about video games and movies and tv shows and what not. We where also cracking jokes back and forth. I took the photo after I got him to laugh a bit to perfectly show the good times we where having.

Visual Research #1

For my first image as visual research I picked this awesome picture of the Golden Gate Bridge. I grew up in the Bay Area and I LOVE where I come from. I believe that one of the most recognizable image for the Bay Area is the Golden Gate Bridge. I have always admired photographers for being able to show you a frozen moment in time. All of the popular images of the Golden Gate Bridge are taken from a location called the Marin Headlands. I have been there a lot of times before and its always interesting to try and recreate these pictures. This one would be pretty difficult to recreate. The cars crossing the bridge make the bridge a passage way for lights, not cars and people. You can not even tell that there are cars on the bridge. The glowing lights reflect beautifully off of the water supplied from the pacific ocean. We can see a clear night sky directly above the bridge. In the background we see the beautiful city of San Francisco. The city lights are always a nice beacon of civilization for me. The last interesting point that I'd like to make about this image is the ambient light in the sky. There is a bubble of light in the background hovering above the city. Unfortunately I can not credit an author, since I have had this picture of a while. I hope you enjoy!

Personal Image #1

So for my first Personal Image posting I am going to write about, in my opinion, a really cool decal I found. When I am bored I look at random sights and while browsing lifehacker.com I noticed an entry about a cool decal for macs. I looked up the website and saw hundreds of decals for mac books that finds creative ways of using the apple logo. The one I liked was the Iron Man decal that used the lit apple logo as the hand laser. I thought it was awesome, but sadly it was sold out. I waited a whole month for the guy in China to make more and post them to sell. Once I received it I was very excited to make my mac unique, at least in comparison to the people I know. The decal gets a lot of attention and represents how geeky I really am!!! Etsy.com has a lot more mac decals that finds creative ways of using the apple logo, you should check them out.

Lab Assignment #1

So its time to continue blogging for Digital Media Foundations. Its going to be fun to learn more about photoshop. Here is my first lab assignment, I was placing my head on something else, enjoy :)




This was inspired by the decal I have of Iron man on my laptop, Ill post a picture of it on the blog, its pretty cool!




This was inspired by the movie I rented, Ninja Assassin, I wanted to be a bad ass ninja too!!!

Assignment 3: Animated Library

This is my animated library:


A whole bunch of random little events, some of them significant to the times, some of them is my attempt at humor. I hope you enjoy! :)

Interactive Post #3

Interactive Experience #3


Interactive Experience #3

So I understand that this may be cheating but, to me, the time that I spend with my close friends is the most interactive experiences that I can. When your with people that are close, and that you love, any experience is treasured. My friends and I have been through a lot of good times together. For many years we all even worked with each other, at Best Buy, making even work a very fun and interactive experience. Customers could tell that there was chemistry between the employees at our store, especially when it would be between the people in my group of friends.

We become very fun and wild and just have a good time together. We go out to dinners, movies, crazy adventures, you name it. The emotion associated with good times are ones that I would never give up for anything in the world. I tried to pick a single moment in time where I could describe what we do together but not one was better than the others. I choose the picture above since it shows everything that I am trying to describe in words. Although it is not all of my close friends it is a good representation of the feelings that we all get when we are together. For the people that are not in this picture I do apologize but I know that you know that you are loved. I am sorry, again, if this is not specific but in my mind there is not a single interactive experience more special than the times that you spend with your friends.

Interactive Post #2

Interactive Experience #2




Once again another experience from another one of my crazy Man v. Food adventures. Unlike the last one this one was enjoyable, kinda, and did not have lasting effects on me. Once again I followed Adam Richamn to Walnut Creek where he attempted the Kitchen Sink Challenge at the San Francisco Creamery.

The Kitchen Sink is a challenge where the challenger has 1 hour to eat 8 softball size scoops of ice cream. It is called the Kitchen Sink because they serve it on a Kitchen Sink looking place. This giant sunday is accompanied with 8 toppings, 8 servings of whipped cream, and a few bananas. The challenger is allowed to request any ice cream combination of ice cream and toppings that they want. Due to the fact that I had learned something from the hot wings experience I knew that I was not going to attempt to do this alone. I decide the challenge would be more fun, for us normal people, if I did it with a team. The benefit of the Kitchen Sink is that anyone that orders it gets their picture framed in the restaurant, that being said I decided this was going to be more fun to do with a group than it was to do alone. I assembled a 6 man raid to tackle this giant sunday.

The experience was AMAZING. The restaurant had an awesome smell as you entered and all of us where really hungry. We decided to have lunch first and then have the Kitchen Sink. Another awesome surprise was the fact that the General Manager of the restaurant was our server for that day, she was the one that served Adam in the show. Seeing here there made it an instant good day!

We all ordered our burgers and they where really good. My little sister and my friend Darcy where the only ones to actually finish their plate (I was a proud older brother). Then it was time to order the sink. The waitress brought us over the order form and we started the 15 min debate about what will be on our Kitchen Sink. I do not exactly remember what was in it but there what I do remember was: vanilla, chocolate, rocky road, strawberry shortcake, gummy bears, oreos, m&ms, sprinkles etc... It was a crazy sunday. Watching them build it was crazier. Scoops after scoops of ice cream, tons of toppings in between, and a pressurized whip cream dispenser.

The Kitchen Sink was overwhelming, it smelled very good and very sweet. At first every bite tasted like its respected scoop. All 6 of us attacked it from different angles trying to meet up at the middle. It would melt and we would try to catch it. I remember getting surprises with some bites like M&Ms or gummy bears. Biting into gummy bears was not pleasant since they would be hard when you bit on them. After being half way into the ice cream sunday it started to all taste the same since it would all melt into each other. About 3/4 of the way into it your stomach feels like a refrigerator it would just feel cold. It took us about 45 mins, but we finished it. Afterwards we where all very cold, and very full.

It was a victory for our group since we all had a big lunch and an even bigger desert. It was a great day with a great group of friends. In the show Adam was able to eat it all by himself in about 46 minutes.

Interactive Post #1

Interactive Experience #1




For my first interactive experience I want to talk about my experience at Smoke Eaters in Santa Clara, California. Just a bit of background first, I am a HUGE fan of a show on the Travel Channel called Man v. Food. In the show the host, Adam Richman, travels around the country attempting food challenges. At each city he features a total of 3 restaurants, only one of which he attempts a challenge at.

In the San Jose, California episode he goes to a place called Smoke Eaters where he attempts the Hellfire wing Challenge. This challenge consist of the challenger eating 12 habanero hot wings. The challenger must eat all 12 wings in 10 minutes, during the challenge (and 5 minutes after) the challenger can NOT drink anything or wipe any sauce off of them, after they are done with all 12 wings the challenger must lick all the sauce of off their fingers and remain with the pain for 5 minutes. If they complete the challenge they get a t-shirt and their picture on the wall of flam.

I, foolishly, decided to attempt this challenge. I love spicy food, and I figured it would be no big deal. I go to Hooters all the time and get their "spiciest" wings with little effect to me. What I did not factor in was the fact that I had no experience with habaneros. The spiciness of a pepper is measured on the scoville scale... to put it into perspective on the scoville scale a jalapeño falls in the range between 2,500-8,000 where as the habanero can fall between the range of 100,000-350,000. I was completely oblivious to the difference in the spices prior to taking the challenge.

After ordering the wings, which required to fill out a waiver, I anxiously awaited my wings. Once I got them I was overwhelmed with the look, and consistency of the sauce. It had a heavy smell, where it would send shivers down your spine with a deep inhalation. The wings where swimming with the sauce and the wings where covered in about an inch of sauce. The moment of truth had arrived and it was time to take my first bite. The wings where hot and my hands burned a bit when holding it, after taking my first bite it hit me as to how ridiculous these wings where. I knew that to beat the challenge I had to eat fast. The sauce gets everywhere after biting in. All over your mouth, fingers, hands. Your lips and tongue start to tingle and your body starts to sweat. I was able to get through 2 wings without feeling the burning sensation on my mouth and in my throat. It was when I bit into the third wing where I knew I was not going to make it. I could barely manage the burning feeling on my lips and inside my mouth. I finished the third wing and made the foolish mistake of taking a break. The break gave my body the chance to fully accept what was going on. I thought about attempting a fourth wing, but I could not. All I could smell was the fumes from the sauce, I knew I had to give up and get the sauce off of my face and hands. I threw in the towel and took out the quart of milk that I bought from the Safeway next door.

The aftermath of the wings effected me for 3 days. For 5 hours after the wings I threw up. My body completely rejected the sauce and did not want to digest any of it. I had a sore throat for 3 days and nothing that I ate for about 2 had any taste to it. I also had very uncomfortable bowel movements (I am saving you from a lot of detail). The sensation that I had from food that day was amazing, it really put my senses into perspective and taught me a valuable lesson, DONT attempt spicy challenges unless you have trained yourself in that spice.

During Adam Richman's visit to Smoke Eaters he was able to complete the challenge, and now every time I see that episode I have a new found respect for the difficulty of his task.

Assignment 2: New Collage HUGE

So this is a new one, playing around with doubling the height and width the stage and playing with scales of the symbols:

Assignment 2: Expanded Xbox 360 Collage

So this is my submission for Assignment 2. I added some symbols keeping in with the theme, but basically just expanded to it.

Xbox Collage

This is my collage featuring games that where popular on the Xbox consoles.

Playstation Collage

This is my collage featuring games that where popular on the Playstation consoles.

Nintendo Collage

This is my Nintendo Collage, it features symbols from popular games that where on Nintendo consoles.

Dingbat Library

This is my Dingbat Library. My theme is video games concentrating on cross platform games ranging from Nintendo, Xbox, and Playstation.

Update to my Project

Hey so its a bit behind but this is a sneak preview of what I got down:

Assignment 1 Update

For my first assignment we have to make 26 symbols around 1 theme. My theme, of course, is video games. My idea is to make symbols representing popular video games as my symbols. This is what I have so far, hope you enjoy.

First Blog of '10!!!

OK, so this is the first time I am doing this... I had to set up a blog for my Interactive Studio Class and I must post items on it on a weekly basis. I promise I will try to make them interesting!!!
Check this out: