Design Your Mind

My name is Andrew Nelson and I'm a 20-year-old student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. I'm studying for a Bachelor of Science in Interdiciplinary Studies with minors in Communication, Business, and Aeronautical Science. I intend to continue to study to obtain a Masters in Business Administration.

This site is meant to demonstrate my abilities to communicate effectively both visually and through language. The work contained within it has been compiled by me throughout the Fall '11 semester.

TYPOGRAPHIC SELF-PORTRAIT

Typographic Self-Portrait

By using a variety of different techniques in Photoshop CS4 I was able to create this self-portrait made up of a variety of different words to describe myself. I used varying opacities on several different text layers in order to create a shading effect. I was very happy with how this project turned out.

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VISUAL DESIGN BLOGS

Introductions

This blog asked us to introduce ourselves to the class by posting a brief paragraph about ourselves along with a picture that we'd edited.

Allow Myself to Introduce... Myself

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I'm Andrew Nelson and Im a junior in the Interdisciplinary Studies program. Ive spent most of my life moving around the globe, but if theres a place which I would consider home most it would be Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I think that my global experiences have helped to contribute to the way I view the world and different situations.Though I dont have any formal experience in visual design, its always something that I have had an interest in. I think its incredible how much talent some people have for visual and graphic design and I like the way in which it can blend elements of art and something a bit more empirical.

Bad Signs

In this assignment, we were asked to post three original images which demonstrated poor signage.

Unfortunate Signs

The first example of poor visual communication which I noticed this week was the Bellevue Rd. street sign on the intersection with Nova Rd. As I was driving recently, someone made a comment about how similar the names Bellevue and Beville are to each other. I then remembered an instance during my freshman year in which Id mistaken one for the other and ended up completely confused. A mixture of the similar street names and very underestimated sign size had led to this mistake. This problem could have been eased if larger signs were placed near the lights over the intersections. I admittedly had a bit of a case of football fever recently, so I decided to buy the new Madden 2012 football game. As you can see in the picture, the color of the different main menu options is very similar to that of the background. This lack of contrast made it difficult to see them in a dark room, like pictured, and especially with glare on the screen. If there was a greater contrast between the menu options and the background, it would be much more user-friendly.Unfortunately, I must admit that I am responsible for this last example. I missed copying this particular figure in my Marketing class last week. As I reviewed my notes for the exam, I realized that I had not communicated well visually. If I were able to synthesize the same information from the chart which the teacher showed and communicated it in a simpler way, I may not have had this problem.

Typography

In this blog assignment, we were asked to experiment with several different typographical options and our names. Then, we were to show expressive words using typography.

LinkedIn Photo

In this blog, we were asked to create/edit an image of ourselves to be used on a LinkedIn profile which we were to create.

I chose to use and edit this photograph for my LinkedIn profile because I feel it demonstrates me positively. To begin with, the photo is fairly high quality. This has a better connotation that a poor quality photo. I edited the photo like such to make it slightly more visually interesting. If it was simply centered on me, the photo would seem more static and boring.