For this project, I chose to make stamps based off of Hawaii, specifically Oahu. The four cultural aspects that I focused on were beaches (Waikiki Beach), sights (Hanauma Bay), sports (surfing), and animals (sea turtles-“Honu”). The reason I chose to do Hawaii is because I went in April and absolutely fell in love with it and everything about its culture. I actually took both of the pictures in the Waikiki Beach stamp, as well as the top photo in the Hanauma Bay stamp and the sea turtle photo for my animal stamp.

Reflection

1. What did you learn? From project 5, I learned how to take photos and incorporate them into a visually appealing design, including my own pictures that I have taken. I learned how to edit those photos as well as deciding which fonts and colors will look best for each stamp.

2. What was easy? The easiest part about this project was figuring out which location I wanted to use. It was a no brainer for me to pick Hawaii because it is my favorite place in the world and I thought it would have been really interesting to incorporate my own pictures that I took when I was there and make these stamps. Additionally, the second easiest part was finding fonts. Even though there were hundreds of fonts to search through, I found mine pretty quickly and really liked how it looked for the design of the stamps.

3. What was challenging? The most challenging part was coming up with a color scheme that doesnt just incorporate with the colors in the pictures. It was difficult to chose which colors will look best with each design without making it look like I just chose random colors. The other challenging part was figuring out the layouts for each stamp… it was hard to not make the design look too cramped or too simple and I had to come up with multiple sketches for each stamp until I came up with one that I liked.

4. How could your submission be improved? One way my project could have improved is possibly by making the “50 cents” stand out more in each stamp. It was not the most important part of the stamp so I did not really focus on making it look as good as it probably could be.

5. How could the professor improve the assignment for the next class? Honestly I dont think there is anything that should be improved, this was one of my favorite projects that we did this semester and I really enjoyed the option of using our own photos. I liked seeing my own photography come together to make a beautiful design for each stamp.

6. How might you apply your knowledge in future assignments or work scenarios? I can apply the knowledge that I gained in future assignments because I learned how to take my own photography and incorporate it into a design and I really enjoyed doing this and will likely continue to do something similar in the future because I love using my own photos and videos to make art and this will help me with any projects like that in the future.