Mike's Portfolio from Comm 130

1. Mike’s
PortfolioComm 130: Visual Media • Spring 2016

2. Mike Summers
2186 Frontier Drive
Ammon, ID 83406
208.346.2124
mikesummers675@gmail.com
www.msummers.com
Contact

3. Magazine Cover
Prezi Presentation
Photography Project
Photo Montage
Business Identity
Infographic
HTML & CSS
Web Page Mockup
Brochure
Table of Contents

4. Magazine Cover
Description
The assignment here was to create a magazine cover.
Many students (including myself) used an actual
magazine name.
Programs Used
Photoshop and InDesign
Process
After a few pen and paper sketches, and taking a photo
of myself, I just started laying things out in Photoshop. I
found a font matching the MAD magazine font, a UPC
graphic, and basically just threw some funny headlines
here and there. The color scheme is just a simple one
using strong, bold primary colors.

6. Prezi Presentation
Description
We were introduced to the Prezi program for this week
and assigned to create an animated “slideshow” on a
topic of our choosing.
Programs Used
Photoshop and Prezi
Process
I simply looked up some fun facts about spiders, put
together some interesting “factoid” graphics and used
Prezi to animate from picture to picture across a webbed
background image.

8. Photography Project
Description
I’ve always loved sunsets! I wish I could take amazing
photos of them. Though I wouldn’t claim to be a great
photographer, I think I got a nice shot here.
Programs Used
Photoshop
Process
After taking the photo and noting some nice contrasting
colors therein, I enhanced those colors by making a few
minor adjustments to the photo. The scene made me
think of what a beautiful world we live in, so I thought
a few lyrics to “What a Wonderful World” would be
appropriate. I added a few more elements to bring out
the color scheme.

10. Photo Montage
Description
On this assignment we were to merge at least 2 different
photos together in Photoshop. It had to be spiritual in
nature and use masking to “blend” the photos together,
avoiding hard edges. This was a lot of fun to do.
Programs Used
Photoshop
Process
I did everything in Photoshop. I used the masking tool
to control how the edges blended from one to another.
Masking is nice because (as opposed to just “erasing”
edges) you can move around the image OR the mask
independently. It’s nice that you don’t have to “undo”
to get the original photo back.
I used a blur filter on the cloud photo to get it to transition
into the main image. I also desaturated one instance of
the original photo and used a mask to bring out the
frog subject.

12. Business Identity
Description
For this assignment we were to create a business identity
including a logo, letterhead, and business card.
Programs Used
Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop
Process
We were to use Illustrator primarily for the creation of
the logo, and then InDesign for the layout. I basically
just used the pen tool to make fun curvy shapes for my
simple “loon” character. When you examine it, I really
just used simple shapes. The head (mostly), the body,
and the eyes are just circles, and the wings are just circles,
cut into by other circles to make football shapes. This is
applying Gestalt to create unity in it. I also paid attention
to contrast with the colors, different fonts, and took
alignment into consideration.

14. Infographic
Description
An infographic, from my observation, is just the marriage
of information and graphics. Here is my take at one.
Programs Used
Illustrator
Process
Everything was drawn out using shapes directly in
Illustrator. The icons were just put together combining
shapes and using tools in Illustrator to combine them.
After creating each of the elements I just played around
with laying them out in different ways until I was happy
with it.
I used principles of contrasting fonts, colors. Also, I took
into account alignment, balance, and white space.

16. HTML & CSS
Description
We were tasked to code a custom web page using HTML
and CSS. The Business Identity graphics were used.
Programs Used
Illustrator, Photoshop, HTML, and CSS
Process
First I created my logo in Illustrator. This was done for a
previous assignment. I created my HTML file and started
adding my content and tags. I then created my CSS and
adjusted the CSS and HTML until I got it looking the way
I wanted. I then validated my HTML and CSS using the
links provided and adjusted things until they validated
with no errors or warnings.

18. Web Page Mockup
Description
The “scenario” for this assignment was that the CEO of
your company asks you to create a web page layout for
a new company website to communicate the executive
committee’s vision to the web developer.
Programs Used
Photoshop
Process
I sketched out a few ideas, created a wireframe, and then
found a couple of nice photos. I chose my color scheme
based on the colors found in the background photo. The
other images are just thumbnails of some of my paintings.
I received some nice comments on this from the instructor
and classmates. I was pretty happy with it.

20. Brochure
Description
The assignment was simply to create a brochure with a
topic of our choosing. We used several principles and
tools used throughout the course.
Programs Used
Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop
Process
After a few sketches I simply went about searching for a
few nice photos of wolves. I found several on Pixabay,
and used a photo of one of my paintings as the cover. I
also created a simple logo in Illustrator.
I ended up choosing a tri-fold format with some of the
brochure cut out to create interest. I was really happy
with how the photos blended together and how the piece
as a whole ended up.