Photoshop Project Report

Poster #1

Street Billboard Mockup of Poster

Final Poster #2

Street Sign Mockup of Poster #2

Intended Audience My primary audience for these images is Lady Gaga's hardcore fanbase, who intend to and want to see her live in concert. They want to experience a concert tour for her most recent studio album, Chromatica (2020), which had been delayed for several years due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. They're into punk aesthetics, like attending raves and enjoying loud music and partying. They're very familiar with Lady Gaga's work and are incredibly excited to see that she is finally able to commit to a world tour with this album. They have seen several promotional materials for this album over the years, so my image is a change in the direction of the original promotional materials. The posters give specific information on where the tour will be going and where fans can buy tickets, making the photo easy to view and share with others online.

Image Features Both images have different color pallets that give off a unique style. The first poster has more of a washed-out color pallet, spiky aesthetics, and almost a rave-like quality. The second image gives off a metallic and slick look that is very striking, as well. Both images utilize very simple yet engaging to look at because of the colors and composition. These will speak to the intended fanbase because the photos are promotional materials for big stadium concerts. Through their colors, fans can expect a bright and loud show to come with purchasing a ticket. Some of the specific features of the images that convey the message are symbols present throughout the album's promotional campaign. For instance, on the poster with the tour dates, a giant sine wave symbol is present in the middle of the screen. It is the definitive symbol of Chromatica, which, during the album cycle, was both the album's name and was presented to fans as being an alter-dimensional planet as well. This symbol was integral to the album's making as sine waves and the power of music are themes explored on the album. There are also eight other circular symbols present on both posters, and these symbols all represent "tribes" of Chromatica, which are different factions present on the planet Chromatica. This jargon boils down to these symbols being symbols of iconography to the intended fanbase, and to any other viewer, the symbols look very visually pleasing. The intended audience (Lady Gaga's hardcore fanbase) will immediately recognize the symbols and understand the story portrayed by the posters, and will want to buy tickets to see the concerts.

Photo Creation Process

When creating the photos, I first started by using a previous photoshop tutorial template to make the poster. I took the picture I created in Photoshop Tutorial #2 and added several embellishments, making a full-blown poster. Some of the text (IT's A SINE, CHROMATICA) and symbols presented in the photo were free assets from the album's promotional campaign that were available online from an Adobe Creative contest. The poster created is intended to look almost like slick fabric, created by utilizing hue layers, displacement distortion layering, and several layers blending techniques. I then added the two other text layers and transformed them. Afterward, I used the distortion -> spherize tool to give them a more round and jagged effect that was similar to the main text on the poster. This complements the poster well and effectively communicates that Lady Gaga will be bringing this "era" of her career back to life in 2022.

For the second poster, I started by taking a photo from Unsplash and added hue and saturation layers to the image. I then cut out the circular part of the image and left it as a background layer. Then, I created a gradient layer with washed-out pink, green, and blue colors and used the radial effect to turn the gradient into a circular shape. Next, I added one of the pre-made sine wave symbols uploaded for free use online and added a layer blending style to make the symbol see-through. I then added embossing styles to make it pop out more. Next, I began to add the text to the image. I turned all of the text white and added drop shadows to all text layers. I then utilized layer blending effects to create the outcome of the text layers. Finally, I took an image of the eight circular symbols and added a white color overlay to the image. Then, I used the spherize layer distortion onto the image, creating a cool shape. I then added embossing and contouring to the symbols to make them pop out more. Afterward, I added a layer blending effect to the symbols to have their colors stick out more naturally. Finally, I added a shadow box effect to make the text with the cities more readable. This was achieved by utilizing layer style features like an inner glow and drop shadow effect, along with a screen layer blend.

The two images of the mockups were created with the help of photoshop mockups that I found online. For the first image, I used this billboard mockup and I resized the poster, fitting the whole billboard space. I then played around with the contrast and brightness for the image. For the other mockup, I used this mockup to give the image a more lively effect and, once again, resized the poster for the template. The final results are to show that these posters could exist in the real world and can communicate the message to the audience intended for them.

Learning Process

I learned a lot about photo editing in photoshop during this project. I learned how to distort many things and how to use photoshops advanced tools in order to create new pieces. I specifically learned how to remap objects onto other objects and make them pop out more through use of embossing. I also learned a lot about color balancing, as well, as it took me a very long time to find the right color balance on the posters to make the text readable as well. In terms of communication, I realized that, for me, the best way to go about it is to make it as simple as possible. The features on all of my posters are relatively simple in their design, but are effective in communicating their message to the intended audience despite being simple. Through this project, I also realized that I am a lot more detail oriented than I once thought I was. It took me a long time to edit these photos together and to get them to a point where I was satisfied with them.

Next

For the next project, I'm hoping to keep up and be pretty ambitious as I was with this one. I definitely want to do something creative and continue how to create new works with other assets. I will also work hard on the projects, as I did in the class, in order to get them done on time. One change to my approach for the next project will be having a more definitive concept and execution in mind for the next project. I think that I may want to focus my efforts into doing one really good piece that is well fleshed out instead of trying to create multiple pieces that, although have a lot of detail, could possibly be added onto and improved. When I say this, I mean that I may want to focus on one image that I can detail very well in contrast to the two posters that I created for this project. I will also work more on the next project outside of class time because that will help me flesh out the project more.