Pikachu's Campaign

Introduction

I created an election poster and button for Pikachu's campaign for major. I first researched different styles of election posters then used Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to bring my ideas to life.

Description-how I created the poster

Character

My goal was to create an election poster for a cartoon 

character, so naturally, my first thought was to decide what cartoon to center my campaign around. I thought Pikachu would be a good candidate since he is adorable and many people can reminisce about their childhood memories, playing Pokemon and watching the television show, while looking at my poster. I went on google images and searched for a cute Pikachu image. Then I dragged the image onto my election poster, an 11"x17" landscape file in Illustrator. While clicking on the image, I opened up the image trace window. From there I traced, ungrouped, and expanded the image. This way I could manipulate the image. I ended up keeping the same colors and proportions as the original image, but I delete the white background. As a result, when I place my traced image on top of a colored background, there will not be a white square background surrounding my image. My result, traced image is on the right. 

Text

Next I came up with a slogan. I choose "Pikachu is for you" since it was catchy, and therefore, it would stick in the voters' minds. I wrote "Pikachu" in all capital letters with a yellow color and navy stroke. To make the text color the same shade of yellow as the Pikachu character, I used the color picker and assigned the new yellow color as a new swatch. Afterward I clicked on the word with the black arrow and pulled on the corners to enlarge the text. Then I right clicked and selected outline so I could manipulate the shape of the text to look more appealing and unique. I repeated these steps for the words "Is For" and "You." I made these two different text groups so I could rearrange the spacing between the two lines. I set the color to navy and the outline to light blue to contrast with the word "Pikachu," effectively accentuating my candidate.

Extras

Then I added some extra visual effects. I placed a background behind Pikachu to help the character stick out and to add some flavor to the poster. I first added a navy rectangle with a light blue stroke color to complement the words "Is For" and "You" to help the poster tie together. Then I used the 3D effect to tilt the rectangle in an interesting position. After I was finished with Pikachu's background, I placed a few white stars with a maroon stroke around the poster. I wanted to complement the null space and show my candidate's patriotism, which is also why I strung the theme of red, white, and blue throughout my poster. Within my theme I also used hints of yellow since Pikachu is yellow. Lastly, I created a background for my entire poster by adding a large rectangle, changing its order so it is behind all the words, stars, and other images, and assigning its fill color to be red.

Touch-ups

Finally, I made some touch ups. My original poster looked like the photo below. However, after

talking with a few people, I discovered that my poster could use a couple of improvements. The people with whom I talked to suggested that the word "Pikachu" should be the largest item on the poster because potential voters will quickly glance at the poster as they drive in their cars, so the name should stick in their heads, effectively triggering them to vote for my candidate. As a result, I needed to make the character and words "Is For You" smaller. Then I thought it helpful to have what my candidate was running for, so I added "Vote Him Mayor" to my poster. Then I noticed the "K" in "Pikachu" was touching the "A," so I ungrouped the word and moved the "A" a little more to the right. I looked back at my poster and realized there was a lot of empty space after resizing the words and character, so I made the poster flow together with a few more stars. I also added three stars between "Is For You" and "Vote Him Mayor" to divide the phrases from one another and help distinguish them apart. My finished election poster is shown below.

Button

After my poster was finished, I decided to make a button to help promote my candidate. I made the background image in Illustrator. First I made a 2.75 unit circle with a line through the center. Second, I used the shape builder tool to divide the circle into two different shapes. I made the the top semicircle red and the bottom semicircle navy with a white line in the middle and yellow text on the left to relate to the color theme of my poster. The text also allows viewers to know the purpose of the button. Next I added Pikachu to the right of the circle and again used the shape builder tool, but this time to delete the extra parts of the image that were outside of the circle. Lastly I added three white stars to show the similarity between my button and my election poster. After I saved the image I made on Illustrator, I added it to Photoshop. From here I just worked in Photoshop. On top of my image I created another circle, to which I added a couple effects, such as a shadow and
highlight, making it appear 3D. However, I needed to reduce the visibility so my image that I created in photoshop would shine through while the effects of my new circle would still be seen. Then I created a gloss to the button by adding a radial gradient that started from white to nothing in the oval outline from the elliptical marquee tool on the top of my button. Lastly, I create another highlight by create a similar oval outline, but this time I rotated it to the right and used the eraser tool so there would only be a little glare showing. To the left is my finished button. The combination of both my effective election poster and button, Pikachu's chances for being elected major are definitely increased!

Reflection

Using Illustrator and Photoshop to create an election poster and button was something that I have never done before, and honestly, I would have never thought of using such programs to accomplish these tasks. Throughout this process, I found that I did very well with understanding how to use image trace and manipulating the anchor points on the text. However, using Photoshop was a whole new experience. This has been my second month using Illustrator, and I just finally started to get use to the format, but when I opened up Photoshop I became completely lost. I ran into a bunch of brick walls from trying to click on my image that I imported from Illustrator to creating the radial gradient with the elliptical marquee tool. I overcame these challenges by asking my neighbors how they went about using Photoshop. I also looked on YouTube to see if there were any tricks I could learn. Additionally, I also played around with the different tools to discover if there was something I overlooked or another tool I could use. After a while of searching, I finally figured out I needed to click on my image with a specific arrow tool, and that even though I was administering the gradient effect, it was in the wrong layer, so my effect could not be seen. One thing that I was able to accomplish very well in Photoshop was creating the effects on the circle which I placed on top of my image I imported from Illustrator. I could follow the tutorial very clearly once I opened up the effects' window. I was able to switch the filters, change the numbers, and swap the images within the window to the ones that were on the tutorial. After this whole process, I will probably remember the importance of layers in Photoshop, for that stumped me for a long time, and once I figured it out, it was that AHA moment that whenever I would run into another problem on Photoshop, I immediately checked my layers to see if it was somehow related. I learned how to use Photoshop, but the aspect of this project that I found most interesting was how after only two months, I was able to work in Illustrator without any problems or bumps in the road. I believe that this project was a 9 out of 10 for challenging since I ran into a couple of obstacles while working on the button, but I worked extremely diligently so I believe my performance deserves a 10 out of 10!

Spaceship

Introduction
For this project, I created a spaceship using and manipulating different shapes.

Description

To create my spaceship, I first used the ellipse tool, then copied, pasted, and shrunk the duplicate to use as the window. However, I had to get rid of the extra anchor point on the left side of the window, so I used the pen tool to delete it. Then I used rectangles to create the exhaust pipe. With the pen tool, I added an anchor point to the sides of the rectangle and transformed it to a handle. Then I copied and overlapped the spaceship several times and used the shape builder tool to delete the overlapping area to create the flame. I copied and shrunk the flame to make a smaller flame. Afterwards, I made the fins by overlapping the areas of a duplicate spaceship body and a square, then by using the shape builder tool, I delete the overlapping area. I also made shadows by coloring the shape of the shadow to black and changing the opacity to 20%. In addition I added a gradient to the spaceship by using a gradient tool. Then I made the outline thicker by copying the whole ship, putting the duplicate behind the original, and changing all it's strokes to 7. Lastly, I rotated my ship, added a background color and stars, and admired my project, which is above and to the right!

Reflection
Throughout the process of creating this spaceship, I came across some bumps as well as some surprises. The most difficult task was finding the tool, such as the shape builder tool. The tutorial said to use tools I could not find. Instead, I interpreted what the directions wanted me to do, and then created the end product by using the tools I could find. The most rewarding part of my project was when I finally figured out how to use the shape builder tool. From then on, I excelled in that area. I was also successful at manipulating the shapes by using the pen tool. Into the future, I will remember how to use the shape builder tool since I learned how to manipulate it. The most interesting part of my project was operating the pen tool. It was intriguing how I could delete anchor points and transform them to handles using the pen tool. I always thought of the pen tool as just a drawing device, but never as a manipulative tool. Overall, this project was about a 7/10 for challenging, but I believe my performance deserves a 10/10!

Next Step

For more work using shape builder tool and pen tool, I would look at this video! It uses the idea of combining shapes instead of deleting the overlapping area, so you can use this idea to let your imagination soar and create even more shapes!