GRA160: Colour Theory Final Project

So this is the final project for my first semester of Graphic Design at Seneca College. This project really brings together a lot of skills/knowledge we've acquired throughout the semester such as tracing with the pen tool, graphic translation, focal point and colour compliments. Our task was to find a high-res photo of someone (I chose Olivia Wilde) showing the eyes, no hands and preferably not a lot of bare skin. Patterns and jewelry were also recommended as simplified tracings of them could yield some decent results.

Our first composition, after our initial trace, was to grayscale the image. No white or black, just varying shades of gray. This is our reference image for the other 3 compositions. The second composition is a black and white image with one or two pure hues as an accent colour. The fourth composition is a split complement using pure hues and shades. Let the analogous colours dominate the composition, but have the highest amount of contrast on the eyes/face; this applied for all 4 compositions. The third and quite possibly the hardest composition is a complementary colour with low chroma. The highest value you could achieve is about 60% saturation which was only to be used on the eyes and face, everything else, the saturation had to 30% or lower. The way you achieve contrast by this is to add black to the desaturated colour, thus creating tones.

This project was tough, but it was also a lot of fun, this was about 4 weeks in the making and I stand by the quality of my work. I enjoy tracing things in Illustrator with the Pen Tool, so I found this project to be a little more fun than most of my classmates.