Magazine Layouts

The repetition of the patterns between the shoes and the pattern along the bottom of the page makes the image pop. It brings the eye toward the shoes. Also, the contrast of the light legs against the dark car helps to bring attention to the shoes.








This ad for lighting focuses on the use of color. The actually image is dark with light areas while the red boarder along the bottom brings attention toward the text which includes the information. The contrast between the two, adds to image without overpowering it.








This layout works with both text and images. There is a balance of dark spaces and color. The black space contrasts with the white text while the circular images contrast with the squares. The asymmetry also helps the image. I think it adds interest to the page.

Greek Welcome Mat

These are all pages from my sketch book. My country was Greece and I focused on how much their culture was centered around family. The government of Greece considers anyone who lives under the same roof to be members of the same family. I played with the idea of connection and grouping of individual pieces creating a whole. For my final product, I used rope to create individual spirals that were connected by a blue ribbon. The mat reflects the idea of the journey a visitor to a house would encounter. The individual circles come together to create a larger composition just as an individual entering the house would be part of the family.

Hysterical

For my project I wanted to use random images but still create a composition. I added the clouds to make it seem as if the chickens were in the clouds and the tennis ball represents the sun. My mood was hysterical.

Culture Collage

What is your full name?
-Camila Perez-Albert Castillo

Where were you born?
-Guatemala, I lived in Guatemala City.

When did you move to the US and for what reason?
-I moved here in August of 1999. My parents arrived in February of 1999 and my brother and I came later. We chose Chapel Hill, North Carolina because of my dad’s job. We also had family here. My mom’s brother is a doctor at UNC. We still had our house in Guatemala so for the first three years my dad would spend three weeks in Guatemala and then one week in the US.

Where do your parents live now?
-They moved back to Guatemala in the summer of 2007. Since I have graduated high school I have spent my summers back home. My family comes to visit once a semester. It is were not having a house in the United States but I have gotten use to not having them around.

How did you learn English?
-I went to a private school in Guatemala. In preschool and during elementary school everything was taught in both English and Spanish, so I learned both. Guatemala is a 3rd world county so the public schools are very poor, over 70% of the population is poor. Some public schools don’t even have desks. The private schools have waiting lists and my parents put me on a waiting list since I was born because there is not a lot of space in the schools. My mom had gone to school there so that is why we chose that one.

Do you speak English or Spanish with your family?
-We speak Spanish. I only use my Spanish when I talk with them on the phone so I am not practicing it very much. It is hard if I spend time at home and then return here and the same goes when I return home. After a short time though I catch back up and it is not so rough.

So did your parents grow up in Guatemala?
-My dad is from Spain and my mom’s family is from Spain but she grew up in Guatemala.

How did schooling work?
-We went to school from January to October. In Guatemala there is a rainy season. From October to December there is not a lot of rain so that is when our break is. In the mountains of Guatemala City it is usually 70-80 degrees and the beach is warm year round, usually in the 90s. It is weird for me to think that it snows at the beach here in the winter because we are use to spending New Years at the beach.

Describe the differences of culture between Guatemala and the US.
-The main difference is in the way people interact. Instead of just saying “hi” we would greet each other with a kiss. Family is also very important and we take family very seriously. Most people stay in Guatemala all their life. Everyone knows everyone and stay close throughout their lives. It is not uncommon to live with your parents until marriage. I know all of my friends’ family including their grandparents, parents and siblings. I still keep in touch with my group of friends. There are 31 of us and out of that only 8 live in Guatemala now. Many students go out of the country for college. It’s common for people to go outside of the country to get experience for 4-5 years and then return. Since so many students are going to college outside of the country, they have slowly started to change the school year to be same as it is in the US. My friends who graduated back home were in the first graduating class to graduate in June. They did that so students would not miss a year of school since they would graduate in October and start back till August.

What did you and your friends do for fun?
-A lot of my friends had beach houses or houses on the river. We would go to relax sometimes just with friends and sometimes with their families. The city is not safe. We would go out because there is a zone where the clubs and bars are. Here everything shuts down at 2:30am where there it was 1 am. Drinking is much more of a social thing. The age is 18 and many of my friends do it with their family, it’s not wired like it is here.

What was your idea of the US before you arrived?
-I had been here before. We use to come two times a year. There are not many stores in Guatemala so we would come to Miami where we had family usually between October and December when there was no school. We came sometimes in June or July for 2-3 weeks and we would go to Disney World or California.

What are some of your goals for your future?
-I pan to return to Guatemala. Right now I am an ESS major and there is a great need for physical therapists back home. I would be a nurse but they are not considered a great job. You can’t make a living wage being one. I plan to go to grad school after UNCG for physical therapy for 3 years and work for another year in the US. My mom always taught me to pick something that would give back to the community to help the poor and be some kind of social work.

IAR 212 Pattern Perception

I started with a picture of the Eiffel Tower. I took the idea of trees growing in a forest and wanted to portray that idea. I took a sliver of the original picture and duplicated it to create the image and the idea of growth.

Computing In Architecture

I never took the time to think just how important and necessary computers and computer-aided software is to designers and architects of today. After sitting down and reading this article, I found that computers are more than just a way to get work done faster. The software developed for use in today’s design world, works side by side with the actual designer or architect to create a better product that individuals might not be able to develop just on their own.

There has always been a desire for perfection. Since the Vitruvian man by da Vinci, the quest for creating a perfect product has been present. The software used today, is able to assist designers to create their perfect buildings. Software has means to tools that can be used when designing that humans do not have access to. It can see what is not already there. For example, the article discusses how details of buildings can be shown by the computer almost instantly, but would take an extremely talented artists countless hours to complete. The computer also has the ability to show buildings that have not been built yet merely designed. It can take that design and place it where the building will one day stand. This ability of the computer greatly impacts the design process.

Computers have impacted what designers can do. Before these programs, everything in the design process was done by hand. The computer is able to take what would take hours upon hours to do and condense it into only a few minutes. The time saved by the computer can be predisposed into other parts of the design process. This becomes especially important if further down the project the designer realizes that a mistake has been made. Many times one small change will affect the whole project. By hand this could take long hours of finding the mistake and then fixing it and everything there after it. The computer could fix the mistake in minutes and without much headache.

I believe that the future can only be positively impacted by technology. I believe that these programs will only help designers to create better products with faster results. It is hard to even imagine what will be developed next. It seems that every time a new program or technology is developed the next version is only a year away. Even with all the technology there are still problems that the will need to be addressed in the future. A computer that freezes and documents that continue to get lost are only a few of them. If designers sill plan on using computer-aided programs to design their projects, there needs to be a way to save their work that is more reliable.