I think the largest takeaway I have from this project is how to shape text. In terms of design, I knew how to rotate and change the size of text. However, envelope distorting objects is something I’d never done before. It was interesting to use a new feature. Although, the downside I found is that it seemed hard to edit the object after you’ve used the envelope distort feature. This could also be because this is one of the first times I’m using the feature. I think my biggest concern with this project was coming up with a design. I knew generally what photos I wanted to use and the topics I wanted to highlight. However, I couldn’t really settle on how to arrange everything. Originally I wanted to incorporated all 5 Portland Professional teams on one stamp, but it was going to be too much so I stuck with one of the most iconic sports teams; the Trail Blazers. Outside of that stamp, I struggled to pick a color scheme that would work. The only color design I was certain I wanted to use was on the Sights stamp with the White Stag. The colors used for that stamp are the same colors used on Portland’s city flag. There’s not much I’d really change about this project. I think of all the projects, this one was my favorite. You have a lot of freedom with the design of the stamps. One thing I think I would change is have students use a photo with words already on it. One other difficulty I found was that a lot of the buildings I wanted to use already have writing on them, so I felt obligated to stick to a font that was similar to the font on the building or at least kept with the theme of the stamp. There’s not an easy work around for this since buildings often have easily recognizable logos and fonts to go with. Too many letters doesn’t make for an appealing stamp design. I think it would be interesting to see how every student deals with this problem. Lastly, I think the number one thing I’ll take away from this class is to trust my eyes. If something looks like it might be slightly off in terms of design, I’ve learned that it probably is.
