The Art Institute of Houston
Daisy Carranza
Designers Statement
My design concept started with the idea of color. The initial brainstorm I envisioned in my head was that of a girl in an empty street holding an umbrella. It would be raining around her and instead of the regular grayscale raindrops each raindrop would be multi-colored. I was basically going to toy with the contrast between grayscale and color. Well, the first task I had to tackle to get my design underway was to find the perfect girl to pose for my design. I found a fellow student that fit the part well, and I got our school photographer to take the photos. After I uploaded the trial pictures, I was torn between two select pictures that I couldn’t decide between. One was a somber pose that I made black and white, and the other was cheerful which I made more colorful with the color replacement tool. My resolution in the end, was to incorporate both pictures in the piece, which in reality, kept the theme I had in mind of contrasting grayscale and color. After I decided on the pictures, most of the design in the background came pretty naturally. I incorporated everything from original sketches, shape tools, brushes, and gradients, and I also played a great deal with the blending options, especially in the fonts.
This type of work really interests me. The fact that you can manipulate something so much with just the click of a button is really remarkable. It’s the reason I decided to try to get into this field of work. Throughout the beginning of my early years in school I was bent on doing something with computers. I had decided that I maybe wanted to be something like a computer engineer. But I still had that interest in art, so I decided to enroll in the Digital Graphics and Animation class that is in my school. And my eyes were opened to a new type of work that you can do with computers that incorporates art and technology. I talked to my instructor about how I could make this into a career. And he told me that I should consider a job in graphic design. Ever since then, I have tried to take every opportunity to pursue this profession with all my ability.
Local First Place Winners 2008