Midterm - Tina Leung

(The gradients on the sides of the image actually fade to transparent but I only saved a jpg :P)

A web banner is supposed to capture your audience's attention quickly. Explain your over all intention to create interest and attention, your process using the Photoshop tools and end result.

The header I designed can be used for my dance crew's upcoming website. I wanted to the header to reflect our style/image so I tried to make it as clean as possible without being too plain. So, I stuck to a dark theme with sharp accents. I based the layout on our group picture and the dark blue to black gradient background. I chose sharp/thin text styles in white for "Liza's Dream Team" to keep a crisp look and to compliment the white in the group photo. At first, I had our logo (on the left) in plain white with the drop shadow but it looked imbalanced. To balance the image, and add more character, I found a cityscape of Portland, (we take pride in our city :]) with a color scheme that matched the scheme in our group photo, and linked it to the logo. Then I designed the link buttons to be as simple as possible to serve their function but not to add any chaos.

Most of the work was put into the background gradient, logo, and group photo. I had to use the polygonal lasso tool to cut the group photo since it blended with the original background very closely. After using the polygonal lasso, I just feathered and blurred the edges. For the logo, I just used stroke and drop shadow blending options in addition to linking the cityscape image. The rest was just done with text and rectangle shapes.

Did it meet your goals? Were you happy with the results? How would you change it in the future?

Overall, I am satisfied with my end result. If we were to actually use this header, I'd want to find another script font because "Liza" is frequently mistaken for "Lisa" and it's not very clear with the font I used. I also think I could've blended the edges of the group photo in a cleaner matter. Other than those issues, I think I created a clean and modern header that represents our group well.