Homeless Shelter for Women Advertisements

    I recently traveled to Saskatchewan and visited homeless shelters for women. I volunteered at one and that is when I first saw the real horrific wounds of domestic abuse. I saw a young women with two children feeding her youngest with a very dark purple black eye. It shocked me to see this and it saddened me. I also saw a woman who could not stop crying in her room because of abusive relationship nightmares. I talked to an ebony woman who told me she never felt like she could stay in one place for too long and was always afraid of being touched and she wondered how she could ever share a bed with someone. She might randomly scream in the middle of the night or get in a fight without much thought. She confided in me and expressed that she prays every night and wishes for all of this trauma to go away. She just wants to be a normal person with a normal life and maybe meet a normal future husband and have kids. 

    In my room I noticed it was a lot nicer than in some other shelters, I think they did a fine job making the building accessible and comfortable for single mothers, kids and women. That night I was exhausted and crawled into bed and reflected on everything that I had seen and been through. I know Jesus Christ does not like women to be abused. I feel like certain devils don't care and others do. Why are some people magnets and why do good women die when they have been through so much hell that they didn't deserve? People have told me lots of stories to try and explain things but honestly I am not super sure what is true anymore. I think the bad guys who don't learn their lessons should be weeded out so they don't inflict any more pain on the good. I leave it in the hands of God to judge and organize. I am just a servant who also has her own batch of injuries but it seems like the more we suffer, the more we understand other peoples' sufferings if not always their successes. I am happy for those that overcome, but it's still a mystery to me how God evaluates things.

    I know Canada cares about the vulnerable. I know God watches over the people as well. I am proud to be Canadian, I just wish I wasn't so weak sometimes. Caring is a super power but it needs protection just like anything in this world. 

    

    Later that week I went home and worked on poster advertisements and a website mock up for women shelter concepts as my final project for the advance advertisement class.

Website and poster for Alberta Forest Care

 Information and Excerpts about the plight of Alberta’s forests:

 Numerous economic, social, and environmental advantages come from forests. The Canadian economy continues to be significantly influenced by the timber industry. The industry sustains more than 300 towns that depend on the forest, generates revenue for local employees in 2,400 villages, adds $25.2 billion to the nominal GDP, and directly employs more than 184,000 Canadians.

 The economic and daily lives of Canadians, notably those in rural and Indigenous communities, are greatly influenced by the country's woods. By supplying necessary habitat, food, renewable energy, and materials, forests support life. Additionally, they offer possibilities for spiritual and cultural development as well as crucial environmental services. roughly 300 forest-dependent communities are supported by the industry, which also directly employs 205,365 Canadians, including roughly 12,000 members of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit groups. Additionally, forests offer vital habitat for wildlife, produce commodities and services that may spur sustainable development, and are crucial to combating climate change. In order to control carbon and lessen the effects of climate change, sustainably managed forests and the wood products made from them are crucial.

 But there is evidence that our Canadian forests are vanishing due to fires and the lumber industry. We need to be extremely careful.  

 

Trees are mostly removed by using the logging technique known as clear-cutting. Clear-cutting involves using large machinery to remove enormous tracts of forest. This exposes the earth, which is therefore easily erodible.  - Clear-cutting a forest alters the kinds of flora and animals that live there.  - In the cleared regions, grasses and plants start to emerge.  - Many of the forest's species must locate new habitats and food sources. The forestry firm occasionally replaces the trees it has removed but they never succeed in restoring the original ecology, despite their best attempts.

 Should the size of cities be capped to prevent the exploitation of forest land?  Every year, more individuals relocate to cities. These folks require housing. The city planners have the option of annexing more property near their borders or of constructing inside those lines. Forest land is frequently present in an urban area. Today, many cities prefer to build inside rather than outward. They may preserve precious forest area outside of the city in this way.

I propose a different way. I recently scoped out the middle east side of the province. I drove from Lloydminster to Vermillion Alberta. While on the road I saw so much land prepared for cows to graze on. Someone told me that the farmers had cut a lot of the forests that use to be there to make room for these free roaming cows. I love that they have room to walk around in and eat but these hilly lands were bigger than most of the small cities in this Alberta region. I think the big and successful farming businesses should give 1/3 or ¼ of their land to build cities. The trees have already been cut and are nowhere to be seen. We need to utilize these vast hills and give the customers and consumers of these cow products that the farmers make money on by building them a town, or a small city so they can live and buy even more stuff. The cows don’t need 3 hills worth of grazing pastures. I feel like that is a little excessive.

 

I made this poster and website pictured below to promote better treatment of our forests and wildlife. 

The Poster I Made for The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow

My teacher told me to design a poster for a board game called The Werewolf of Miller's Hollow. I did some research and decided to make a photoshopped, digital poster that embodies the vibe of real human beings, friends playing the board game as characters of that story. Juenzo and Abrill. 

The poster’s concept art highlights the two important key characters of the group game called “The Werewolves of Millers Hollow.” The pilgrims who close their eyes at night to sleep and the werewolves who open their eyes at night to kill. In the little village of Millers Hollow, where this portable party game is set, werewolves commit murders every night. Before the village loses its final few residents, it is now necessary to seize control and vanquish this ancient evil. The poster has a cheeky sense of trouble brewing in the air about it while the beautiful, blindfolded lady Abrill, gives the poster a sense of drama. Technically, the guy Juenzo isn't really a werewolf. The person with wolf characteristics is a friend of the redhead, and he's secretly supposed to be a werewolf since that's what the card he picked up states. The background is a photoshop stencil effect on a pilgrim town photograph. I like how it shows pilgrims gathered and running around town. It’s like an intriguing scene from a movie that makes you hope that the good guys in the game win. I find playing this card game to be very captivating, especially when the special roles are used. The Sheriff, The Hunter, the Witch, the Little Kid, The Fortune Teller. The Werewolves of Millers is a guessing game. Because no one knows who is who and everyone has knowledge to contribute and identities to hide at the same time, this people card game is incredibly intriguing. 

The game starts by the moderator introducing the scenario, which is a sleepy small town, maybe in an alternate dimension. Late 16th-century Pilgrim area of the Southeast South Carolina region. The residents of the town are individuals who are focused on maintaining their farms and crops on a daily basis. One afternoon, a bunch of schoolchildren head down to the stream at the edge of town to go frog catching. The silence is abruptly broken by a scream as the kids scramble up the hillside to their parents' arms for protection. Words like "Terrifying!" and "Blood!" almost escape their shaky mouths as they point trembling fingers at the willow trees along the creek. When the grownups get at the creek, they see one evening guard reclining against a willow tree. His body was ripped, with gashes everywhere. Is he alive? What can be capable of doing this? The word werewolf flows into their minds. The search for answers is on! To appease their fans, this game has released several expansion packs after its initial 2001 release.

Building a Board Game Instructions Manual

    This week I got the chance to make another poster but for the 50th year Special Edition of any board game I like. This was a mock-up of course but it was a fun project!

    I love building posters. Every time I have the opportunity I research new techniques and tricks to push myself in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. I now know that if anything is pixelated, a simple surface blur that isn't very high will soften that and make it look more appealing. I am also getting more comfortable designing my own lettering and logo designs and using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator.

I chose the classic and simple game called, "Guess Who?"  I love how it doesn't make my brain work too hard and I can actually sit back and enjoy it. There is no violence, it is all about guessing who your mystery character card is. And in this day and age you can even customize your character tabs on the gameboards to your liking. There is also a commercial version made in 2019 that has a wider range of diversity in their characters' features.

Here are a couple of pages from the 6 pages manual I made:

Page Layout ideas

    Using the provided star photo and passage, I created three different compositions that represent classical, post modern and experimental page layouts. The first picture is inspired by the traditional book. The second picture I made could fit well in an urban magazine. The third page layout was influenced by modern poster designs. We were told to put the star anywhere in the layout and to do with it whatever we wish.

 

I designed a WW1 Vintage Poster style in Photoshop

    I am not into wars and politics so when I was told to recreate any WW1 art posters that used recruiting tactics I wasn't sure what to make...So I Googled and did research and I came across a vintage "Join the Land Army!" poster. 

    What was the Land Army? I dugged deeper and found out that women of the Land Army were assigned to farms in need of extra help, acting as their farmers' employees and undertaking the same duties previously assigned to the men. At first, many farmers were not willing to accept the idea of women toiling in the fields, but labor scarcity made the decision for them and the capability of farmerettes to accomplish farming tasks became evident. Women in the U.S.A, regardless of their role in society, played a part in the war effort too. All housewives were asked to sign a pledge card promising to follow the Food Administrator’s advice on managing their households, such as canning food, cultivating a backyard vegetable garden, and restricting their consumption of certain goods like meat, wheat, and fats. Above all, women everywhere were asked to do their utmost to lift the spirits of those they held dear both in their home and across the sea.

    The women of the Land Army in WWI inspired me. I absolutely loved the original yellow Land Army recruiting poster. The painted lady is made in an almost vector art style which inspired me to try and recreate it and I managed to do something similar. I also loved the “Get behind the girl he left behind him, Join the Land Army.” Slogan. I kept this meaning in my refreshed slogan but changed the words a bit. I thought the shadow of the soldier behind the farming lady was profound so I put a soldier saluting’s shadow behind my farming lady looking all around her for help. The lady looking for help on the farm on my poster conveys the recruiting that is needed. I also made my poster speak to Canadian women by adding a Canadian flag to my art piece.

The original vintage Land Army poster

My own creation

Assignment 9, Making Text Effects

    I decided to use a variety of text effect techniques to achieve a cool look for the idiom " In the twinkling of an eye." The sentence sounds a bit magical and cool. It inspired me to use the font called Wizardry and to make my own font for the rest of the sentence. I tried to use colors that can be found in eyes. I am proud that I got the hang of this style of effect. I recommend this tutorial. Click the word tutorial to go to the video that helped me.

Adobe Illustrator lesson 1, basic logo symbols

 I am now dipping my toes and learning Adobe Illustrator. I followed the first lesson in the digital book called Adobe Illustrator CC classroom in a book (2018) and made a logo and a few symbols from scratch. I really like the simplicity and elegance of the flyer so I decided to post it on my blog. Now I can make logos and professional looking flyer ads 💬🤠

Movie Poster creating is a fun learning experience

    I recently watched the last Matrix movie, number 4 and I thought it was super interesting. I love the story and concept of The Matrix and it's rebels. When I was younger I would have picked the red pill in a heartbeat, or so I think. Now that I am older, a happy life with purpose is what I am aiming for and thus I don't mind the blue pill. As long as the robots are being good to me-What is there to complain about? LOL 

I had to make a movie poster for my Photoshop class final. I quickly gravitated towards The Matrix and made a faux movie poster for The Matrix 5, Reincarnation. I really like the tagline I invented, "A new generation." I went all out creating a cool computer screen with html code on it and my boyfriend popping out of the bottom with a materializing cockatoo on his shoulder. Everything has a digital flare that goes along with The Matrix's theme. I also learned how to use gradients and change a regular portrait picture into something cool. I added a pill bottle with the red and blue pill near a VR headset- because we all know The Metaverse is going to be a lot like The Matrix, hehehe...For good or for worse. 

I read an article online that made me feel a bit better about the future. The article talked about how people with disabilities and/or illnesses could benefit a lot from an online world where they can customize their avatar and then go to places like virtual museums or homes or planets. That's how they can do things like able bodies can. Everyone deserves a way to interact with other people. Human beings need friends and a community. Maybe some people will befriend robots too, as long as it's not hurting anyone then I think The Metaverse could be benevolent. Hopefully some people will prefer the real world and keep fighting to keep it as green and as healthy as possible...Without the Earth, we can't live or have a lifestyle.

My professor liked my first movie poster version but he thought that I could put my talent to good use and watch a few more online tutorials on how to make a classic The Matrix style poster. He was right. I can do something more Hollywood poster-ish. I am happy that he kindly pushed me in the right direction. Both posters were fun to work on.