What a change in inspiration that I’ve had in just taking another look at my project. It’s amazing the things that you realize you didn’t before when first starting out. After spending time away from it and allowing myself to digest what the others had to say I allowed myself to reconstruct something that I thought was initially a great idea and make it a better one. After a lot of feedback I took what stuck with me and applied it.

You’ll probably notice that the entire look of the project looks different and has gained collaboration from everyone in my group. My first area of focus was the lettering, something simple as making the letters white and bolding them went a lot further than I actually thought it would. It made a difference because this time around it matched my background, which I pitched altogether. I decided in the first trial to go with clouds but the brick wall would win me over, after some advice I decided to make my project more focused on being a hero and decided to put her in the air. I couldn’t have made a better decision.

I also was told that there needed to be some sort of produce in the background as opposed to only having children eating. So I decided to kick out one of the images and replace it with produce. And wow, it was a pleasant mistake, in that the image came through entirely too big at first. In trying to figure out how to crop it down to size, I fell in love with how much area it took up. So then was inspired to lay the image in the middle of the sky and have her flying through. I think it adds a level of creativity that I could have by keeping it the original size. The bright colors of the fruits and vegetables also add a needed color pop in what other wise would have been a dull baby blue and white background. Also I was able to keep a continuity with how the words were to be read, from top left to bottom right, it still had that component and I’m glad that one main picture, the bot eating, was able to hold its own. With the feedback from others I really took it to heart and tried to incorporate at least one piece of advice that was given.

Deciding to keep one of the children to bring the point home was somewhat easy and hard, I didn’t want to totally abandon my images but I knew that if I had him there eating, my message would be further driven home. In addition to that I also changed the wording so that they wouldn’t coincide with having a wall. So it simply reads, “Be a hero, feed a child, support your food bank”. I tried not to make it a question and more so a demand, and a call to action. This project has taught me how to become re-inspired and though I see something one way it’s always good to work in collaboration with others.

 

 

The two new additional photos are credited below:

https://www.pexels.com/photo/variety-of-fruits-890507/https://www.pexels.com/photo/nature-sky-clouds-blue-53594/

The inspiration for this process basically came from the idea of how much I love food and my willingness to incorporate it into a need for others. I wanted people to understand that though I have a love for food, there are those who rely on others to meet their dietary needs. And for that reason alone its dire that people help volunteer or donate at their local food banks. The concept in my head I thought was simple but the execution itself was somewhat difficult because I was now to physically design something on my own.

I began with the background, the brick wall symbolic because I wanted to “build”, I wanted it to be either a brick wall or construction site, which either way was hard. I needed to revert my audiences mind into thinking about food so I knew that I had to include food in settle way rather than just having a brick background. Next came the idea for the female lead if you will, I found dozens of characters but none was more perfect than the super hero that I chose. She was in the perfect position to come off the side of the presentation without taking up too much space. I knew I wanted my hero flying in from an angle rather than just in the middle of the page and she fit my idea seamlessly. I remember cropping her from her original photo wasn’t too difficult as the background was such a contrast in color compared to her, it was simple to plop her out of her environment and into my own.

As we had read before I wanted to use similarity but had to make it happen on my own, how could I bring different elements together and portray them in unison. My next step was to include children, which I surprisingly found difficult. I didn’t remember how to properly crop a photo and instead would crop my entire work. After re-watching the video about text and inserting pictures I went along with the demonstration and was able to fit the kids into my piece. I clearly wanted to use children eating to tug at the audiences heart strings a little bit but to also let them know that they’re helping children whom at times cant help themselves.

It was important that size and shape of the photos fit perfectly, so that the presentation didn’t have the audience wondering where to look next. I wanted to keep everything streamlined so that one could look at this photo and read it from the top down. Its meant to draw attention to the left hand side and read to the right hand bottom corner, this continuation is also characterized by the way the woman is positioned in the photo. She’s there to guide.

I find that this is appropriate for my intended audiences, I simply thought about what I would want to see and could it effect me? It was great to be able to think of something and within a few hours be able to create and see it visually. There are so many directions that I could’ve gone with this but I am happy with the end result and anxious but excited for critique. I believe that anything that could help me, and this image, is only made possible when others eyes are on besides my own.

 

https://pixabay.com/en/kid-boy-muslim-eat-eating-ramadan-635811/

https://pixabay.com/en/people-kid-child-baby-eating-2560321/

https://pixabay.com/en/super-woman-flying-3d-figure-female-1885016/

So happy to be working with Photo Shop, what once was so overwhelming, is now slowly but surely beginning to come to me. I have a great instructor that knows the ropes and without her direction I wouldn’t be realizing my dream and FINALLY designing! Excited to be doing more work soon!

What UP!?!? What Up!?!?

So we have it, I’ve officially started a food blog. Many reading this will understand it was only a matter of time and other will think to themselves, “why not sooner” for those that don’t know me allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dae’Shawn, but I go by ‘Dae’. I’m from Cincinnati Ohio and we’re known for Chili, so much so that our Churches here have communion with it  instead of grape juice. We believe Jesus himself had chili running through his veins!!! And why not, were you there?!

Anyways!! I have many passions in this world but food is my favorite. I’ve spent many years in the restaurant industry working at every level, and being around all types of cuisine and eating meals from all over the world I’ve come to understand that food is a pure representation of culture and the time we live in! Some foods remind of us of the past (remember Pepsi clear, that’s for my 90’s baby), other foods bring back memories from a moment in time that we’ll never forget. I know for me, plantain chips and guac remind me of my summer in Washington Heights, and empanadas remind me of Spring Break ’17 in Puerto Rico.(One of the things that I’m happy to actually remember from that trip).

In any case, food is a passion, better yet a priority of mine and with this blog I will do my due diligence to bring you some of my favorite meals and beverages from my favorite places! I’ll share moments with my favorite people as we eat our favorite meals. So with no further ado, welcome and CHEERS, to my new blog, “EatingtoDae”!!!

 

Stay Connected: follow ‘feedmeseamour’ on Instagram for all the latest that we’re ‘EatingtoDae’