Project #1: Identity Badge

When looking for a way to incorporate Photoshop in my life, I was lucky to have it given to me. This semester I’m in an art class for non-art majors on jewelry and metalsmithing. My first major assignment in that class was to make an identity badge. Using several layers of metal, I needed to come up with a design that reflects my identity in some way and fabricate it into a metal, wearable badge.

This falcon was my design base

During the process of creating my design, I decided my piece would be made out of shoes – yes, shoes. I’ve always had a bit of a hoarding problem. I have a tough time letting go of object I find sentimental in some way, so I’ve grown a collection of shoes I’ve worn in the past several years. For my identity badge, I decided to arrange my shoes into a collage of a falcon. I’ve always had an appreciation of birds and how they represent spirit and freedom, so by forming my own shoes into a shape of a bird I could make a statement of my identity. To do this, I took pictures of my shoes, edited them in Photoshop, and then printed out the pictures on a special paper that allowed me to etch the images onto metal. These metal pieces would then be arranged into a collage to make a falcon in flight.

This joys of staring at my dirty old shoes for many hours

Though all I needed to do was cut out each shoe from its background and change their color to black and white, the process turned out to be A LOT harder than I expected. My trouble was learning how to use Photoshop; I didn’t know the program’s layout or terminology, or even the terms for photo editing in general, so it took a while to find the help I needed.

I started by taking tutorials on Lynda.com, a website that makes tutorial videos on a variety of computer programs. While helpful, the learning pace on Lynda was far too slow for me; I needed to know certain techniques and needed them fast. Eventually, I moved on to good old Google searches. I was surprised to find how accurate, helpful, and variable the sources were even when my knowledge and search terms were uninformed in the language of Photoshop.

Whenever I became frustrated with Photoshop, I moved onto the familiar Microsoft Word to edit my photos. For instance, while I wanted the pictures to be in black and white, the colors had to be inverted first to make the desired design on the metal etching. But I soon discovered Word gave me less quality and choice in editing. Each time, I eventually moved back to Photoshop by finding the help I needed.

Final

Original

Without the border

This project was a fantastic learning experience for me. I discovered that though you might need to do a little research at first, learning to use Photoshop will take out a lot of the time and stress of editing photos compared to simpler programs. Furthermore, I learned the best path for learning a technology is the one most comfortable for you. By using Photoshop for both my art class and my portfolio on this blog, I was able to make one bird with several shoes.

I’ll post my final project later. Thanks for reading!