Mini-Art 2: Revisions of an old image

Before:

After:

I decided to redo the image that was on my very first blog post when I was enrolled in Digital Tools. It is certainly not my best work, and it was done rather hastily. But there are still some glaring errors, such as:

• bad bullet points (sin #11 from Golombisky & Hagen)
• busy background (sin #9)
• and DEFINITELY tacky type (sin #10)

One of the hardest things for me to do is to rework something that I know needs reworking. The problem is that I am blinded by what is already done, so I find myself attempting to tweak just minor things, when really a whole entire re-work is necessary. That is what I did with this image: I started from scratch and went through Krause's Design Basics, and Golombisky & Hagen's White Space is Not Your Enemy texts ... attempting to first identify the problems ... then fix them.

My final product is better. I don't think it's perfect, but while I think I am good at spotting a good ad/bad ad, I find it difficult to apply the concepts to my own work. So I will say that this image is much better than what I had originally done. Suggestions are more than welcome!

I got rid of my beloved double helix. It was originally filled in with a white background, and I meticulously made all the white in the image transparent, and cut it out so that the double helx was only color. It took a while, and I fixated on this image that I forced it into the final product. The font is tacky. It is called Bookman Old Style ... in hindsight it looks like a hybrid of Christie meets Times New Roman. Though I was consistent with the font, it was not appropriate or legible with the background that I had chosen. The bullets were also hideous, with a lack of hanging indents ... something that GIMP (the program I used to create it), does not let you do.

In my re-work, I went with the simple background. I was indeed inspired by the simple background of my critiqued ad, and I used the images in Krause's "haromny" chapter as my main guidance. The little science icon at the top of the page is from a larger image (click on my profile icon), and it was going to serve as the main focus of the image. It didn't work; the font on the icon clashed with the type that I included "Science Nerds, Unite!" as well as the bullet points. So I cut it down, and left myself with just the icon, and repeated like the example with the sunflowers at the top of the flyer (Krause, 2004, p.53). And if you look carefully, the top of the repeat icons (where the bubbles start) is the same spacing as the text at the bottom to create symmetry.

Overall, I am much happier with the second image than the first!