Aesthetics and Technology
Desert Eagle
One aspect I always find challenging with fantasy compositions is selecting source imagery. Having good images is critical, and if you can’t find the right image, you’ll need to take your own, which can be time-consuming. Birds of prey have always been some of my favorite animals, and much of the inspiration I found myself drawn to used animals as the main focal point. Since this was a fantasy-themed project, I knew I wanted to add a sci-fi element to my final piece. I incorporated the planet and galaxies in the background and as texture. The sand reminds me of the Dune series, and the eagle serves as the focal point. Integrating the two seamlessly took experimentation, but I am happy with how it turned out. I wanted to use the beauty of God’s creation to compose something interesting, and I think I achieved that here. What I like about this piece is that it invites you to look deeper. At first glance, you may not realize that the dunes are, in fact, sand. They look like part of the wings. The same goes for the galaxy. The galaxy image I used looks like a brush-on texture, not the Milky Way. All images were sourced through iStock and composed using Adobe Photoshop.
Tropical Plant Icons
For my icon set, I chose a tropical plant theme. My wife is part Hawaiian, and we often visit her family in Oahu. One of my favorite areas to visit is my wife’s cousin’s home in Manoa Valley. We often go for neighborhood walks where you’ll see exotic-looking plants of various sizes and colors. This awesome creation from God is where I drew my inspiration.
For each plant, I needed to identify what made the plant recognizable and unique. Was it the leaves, the pedal shape, or some other unique feature? Once identified, I could then focus my efforts on creating those features using basic shapes. I created my initial sketches by hand and vectorized the final iterations with Adobe Illustrator.
Forest Bathing
This piece is inspired by Jan Tschichold (1902-1974), who was a German-born calligrapher, typographer, book designer, and educator. He is highly regarded for his work and Modernist style. His early work uses lots of sans-serif fonts, open space, angles, and off-center type. However, when he fled Nazi Germany for Switzerland, he started working at the Basel School of Applied Arts, where he broadened his philosophical approach. Tschichold began using center-aligned type and serifed fonts.
In this layout, I pulled many stylistic elements from Tschichold, such as the angled lines, thick blocky type, and a touch of color. I played with the size and fill of the numbers to help guide the eye. Tschichold had unique and modern-looking designs, so that is what I tried to capture here.
Whos Problem?
For this poster, I used data from the Our World in Data website. I found the article “How worried are Americans about their work being automated?” particularly interesting. I compared two age groups on their outlook towards work automation. From the data table provided on the website, I can break this down to Ages 18-29 and 65+ for the years between 2021 and 2026. I was interested to see how younger generations felt versus older generations about AI’s impact on future job prospects.
For the design, I went with an old-school ’90s look. I like the juxtaposition of out-of-date, replaceable computers with humans facing the same issue. It is something I find both interesting and disturbing. I used data from an Excel sheet to create a graph in Illustrator. I then took the graph into Photoshop to finalize my composition. Source imagery was purchased from iStock.
