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Sports art feedback

Discussion in 'Design Discussion' started by Matt Stephens, Jul 25, 2012.

  1. Matt Stephens

    Matt Stephens Well-Known Member

    OK, I don't do a lot of design work, but what are your thoughts on this art I just wrapped up to go with my Saturday sports centerpiece? Not sure if "Fresh Start" is exactly what I'll use as the hooker, but text will go in that space.

    Granted, it's not the most exciting photo in the world, but with what we're going for, it definitely worked the best. We didn't have anything decent of him in our photo archive so I had to roll through the personal collection.

    Brought him out as a separate layer and applied a lens blur to the background. Then de-saturated it so the color wouldn't be distracting.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  2. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    At the newspapers I've worked for, those kinds of alterations would require a photo illustration credit. I don't care for the haze around him, either.
     
  3. Matt Stephens

    Matt Stephens Well-Known Member

    I agree with the haze. More of a hasty Photoshop job by me than anything else. Didn't think about the illustration credit since we run text on centerpiece photos sometimes, but just checked with my ME. He agreed about the illustration part. Good call.
     
  4. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    It's not the text on photos as much as altering the photo by blurring the background.
     
  5. Matt Stephens

    Matt Stephens Well-Known Member

    Updated version after mixed feedback. A lot of my designer friends agreed that the text doesn't really look like it's part of the art, just sitting on top.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  6. Dark_Knight

    Dark_Knight Member

    Here's my two cents, FWIW: The background and all looks good and it really makes him pop.

    The text, though, it looks too stacked, too boring, and it takes away from the overall picture. You want the picture and anything you add to it to work together, to create a compelling illustration. The BU logo sitting behind him isn't working for me, either.

    The open space to the left gives you a great chance to do more with the text. Play with different fonts, bring the words closer together –– an idea could be the words Chance For Change overlapping one another, which Chance the farthest back, For in the middle and Change in the front. You could change the colors of the text to green and put a gold stroke around it to help separate the words. And the words don't have to be all flushed left.

    I agree with losing the haze around him, it gives off too much of a halo effect.

    Keep playing around with it. You've got a lot to work with and you're off to a good start.
     
  7. Matt Stephens

    Matt Stephens Well-Known Member

    I appreciate everyone's help. Here's what I ended up going with (switched the font we usually use over photos):

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    I think it turned out pretty well. I was proud of the overall package (50-inch story went with it). I tried playing with meshing colors on letter contact, but it just didn't look right (might have been doing it wrong). Definitely something to build from in the future.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  8. BDC99

    BDC99 Well-Known Member

    Final version is the best. Nice to get some opinions and tweak it a few times. Looks good.
     
  9. STLwriter

    STLwriter Member

    Final version looked good. Before, it almost looked like a meme with that big block text on the photo.
     
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