Microagressions

There have been multiple instances where I have been involved in microagression, here are a few examples:

1. Being a white passing Puerto Rican, people naturally assume that I am not Hispanic. They pay no attention or take little interest in learning about my background and instead assume that I am white. During the times that I do reveal that I'm Hispanic, I often get the same responses such as, "Really? I never would have guessed!"
"Are you sure? You're too pale to be Hispanic..."
"Do you speak spanish fluently?"
No, I don't speak spanish fluently (unfortunately) but that doesn't mean I'm not Puerto Rican. I'm a proud Puerto Rican and it angers me when people say, "If you don't speak spanish then you don't count"

One time I was in spanish class and sat in a table with this girl who I barely knew, she asked me if I was Hispanic to which I replied that I was. I then added, "I'm not too good at speaking spanish though".

Her: Oh, I thought we were actually going to have an advantage by sitting with a Hispanic girl.

2. Now unlike me, my dad isn't white-passing. There has been multiple instances where my dad has been followed around in stores to make sure he isn't stealing, or people refusing to stand next to him on the train. There was even a time where police officers had stopped him and said he looked like a criminal they were looking for. When shown the picture it was just another Hispanic man, the interesting part was that the man looked nothing like him.

3. Another thing people usually target is my short hair, apparently no girl should have short hair.
I often get told that "Short hair is for boys", "You look like a boy", and even " guys like girls with long hair"
Since I have 'stronger' facial features than most girls I am often confused for one, or people naturally assume I am trying to be one and my hairstyle plays a huge part in it.

It's led me to believe that I when I don't wear makeup I appear more masculine than most. Regardless of what I wear or my how my hair is, I still identify as a girl. I hate that women have to look a certain way in order to be taken seriously.

4. "Your hair would look way better if you straightened it"- classmates in middle school on my naturally curly hair.

5. "Your lips are so big"

Favorite Logo

A logo from a band that I really love, I have this logo on the merchandise that I own, and it's easily recognizable for the fans that listen to their music.

I really like this logo because I thought the design was pretty cool, and it also gives the idea of what exactly it is representing. For this one, the skull matches the business due to the fact that people who have tattoos are associated with "rock".

This logo also gives the viewer a bit of insight on what the product, or the purpose of the business may be. I think it was clever that they incorporated the use of wheels in the logo.

I mainly chose this one because I thought it was clever of the designer. You can easily spot the '2' in place of the N. 

I thought this one was a bit more simple in comparison to the others, but the shocked face reminds me of a movie reel, which that on its own is pretty funny to me.

This logo was also pretty simple in my opinion. I like this logo merely because I find it rather appealing to the eye.

Poster Project

Reflection:

1). Do you believe your stance is clear within your poster? 

My stance was that people dedicate more of their time to judging people for the illnesses they may have, and not enough actually listening and attempting to help those who need it. I think my stance is interpreted clearly within my poster. I believe the font gives it a more darker vibe, and more emphasis on the wording due to the larger size and switch in colors. The pill bottles represent the bad things being said to the person, that being the reason why they take medication in the first place. Eventually the person winds up overdosing because of the common responses and the aid they do not receive from others. 

2). Do you feel like you were successful in recreating your idea digitally? If not, do you like the new visual outcome?
I feel like I was rather successful in recreating my original idea digitally, the only main difference that was pretty noticeable between the drawn draft and the final was that my draft had a girl's hand, and the change in pronouns for the heading. Overall, I'm satisfied with the new visual outcome (both the final and first version can be seen below). I managed to fit more pill bottles than the first version, and put in speech-bubbles like I had originally planned.
3).What were the changes made from your first version to your last version of the poster? Explain.
For starters, there's an obvious difference in the colors used, for the first version I had used only blue while for the last I had separated them into three different sections. I had also used three different fonts for the last version, and on the first I used only one font. Two different fonts for the heading so I could create emphasis on "Maybe I'm Better Off Dead" since I believe it was the most important part of the poster besides the actual visuals.  
4). Which category do you think your project is strongest in?
I think my strength is concept, it's not confusing and it is very clear along with the images used, and the image that I provided is very powerful in my opinion. I think my the weakest could possibly be the design just because I can see how the separation of colors was not incorporated creatively like the other posters I had seen.
5).What was the most challenging part conceptually? 
I think the most challenging part was trying to figure out a way to convey my stance into an actual memorable image. There are a lot of posters that mention suicide and depression, that don't have people walking away thinking about it, which is the complete opposite of what I want when people look at mine.
6).Technically?
Figuring out how to use text-wrap, it took me a while and it still looks a bit strange to me.

Original Poster

Final Poster

My Stance

There's a rather large variety of topics that circulate on my feed, most of which revolve around social justice issues. I take part in educating myself on these particular problems that occur around the world that impact myself, as well as my fellow peers.

I think one of the biggest things that I feel strongly about is feminism, intersectional feminism to be precise. I think one of the biggest misconceptions of feminism is that 'all feminists are against men'/ in support of misandry which is completely untrue. Feminism is fighting for equality among women and men. Intersectional feminism is fighting for equality among both genders, race, religion, as well as sexuality. I just want everyone to be educated on the topic of feminism and what it truly means to be an active feminist. 

I am also really interested in discussing racial discrimination and how it still is (and most likely, always will be) an issue that exists. I think this is a topic that I tend to argue a lot about with people, who majority of the time just don't seem to understand why certain things are racist. Cultural appropriation specifically, is something people just don't seem to grasp. 

Self Symbol GIF

The Cut

1. My concept behind the GIF that I had created was a rather personal one, rather than something silly or fun. I decided to show the increase of confidence I had gained after cutting off my long hair, which I had hated since I was six. Since I had such long hair I always felt as though I was hiding behind it, I hated my long hair so much that it had in a sense made me hate everything  about myself. It corrupted my self image, but yet after cutting it short for the first time I felt happier as a person (hence why the background and clothing becomes a light yellow, insinuating happiness and joy). I came to the idea of this GIF by thinking of all of the things that have happened in my life, and how I could portray it into something that moved. I wanted to show a form of growth as a person, and what better thing to do than a before and after in the process?

2. Originally, I wanted to create a GIF that involved music, which from previous posts it is known that music has impacted my life to a great extent. But after thinking about it more I decided to go a different way with my concept. My thumbnail posts and post it notes showed a completely different idea, I decided last minute to go with this concept. 

Gif :)

On Her Way

Portrait Transformation: Which has a higher value?

Final Product

1. After changing the concept several times, since I couldn't think of solid ideas I finally decided on this one. The concept is basically the values of life, and what society and others believe has more value. As you can see, my hand holding the money is slightly more elevated than the other, it signifies what society sees as more important. As for the opposite hand it represents peace and happiness, which is something I value more than wealth which is why I am looking at it.

Overall I'm not as satisfied with my results, I'd say it came out okay. I think the style of the peace sign and heart make it seem childish which is not what I wanted.

original picture

background

money

2. The tools I used were the burn tool, magnetic lasso, filters, layer mask, and image adjustments to fit the photo into the background.  I got the background, the image of money, and the other details incorporated into the final product from google images. I used the burn tool to make the money look darker, and show how  money doesn't assure a person automatic happiness (...or at least for long period of time). I used a mask around the image of myself and erased the background, using the feather brush to get the harder to reach edges. I then used the magnetic lasso for the other images and
made them smaller so that they could fit in the palm of my hand. As for the filters, i chose whichever filter that made it seem like i was actually there.

Mini Lesson 4

Marissa- Melanie Martinez and Halsey 

Letter Project Reflection

Note: The idea of this particular project was to create a design for the letter assigned. In my case, I was given the letter E.

 

List of ideas I came up with

1. Overall I would say the process of planning out the project did help me to a great extent. I struggled a lot with coming up with an idea for this project, and I think through all of the sketching and brainstorming I was actually able to get something out of it (normally I  don't). The process consisted of drawing random pictures, and writing down a list of things that start with the letter E.I decided early on that I wanted to have my design be music related but I wasn't sure how I could actually go through with the idea. I realized that a lot of the bands that I listen to have an 'e' in their names (ex. All Time Low, Sleeping With Sirens, Twenty One Pilots, etc.) so I wanted to include them in some way. After many crumpled up papers, and thirty minutes worth of songs I finally came up with my concept. The peer review did help, I received good advice, and was able to translate it onto my art.

Random Sketches

2. I suppose my concept for this project would just be the joy in music. I wanted to include some band symbols on my project just to show my interest in music, and the type of music that I listen to. The 'tattoos' I had drawn were logos from the bands Sleeping With Sirens, Five Seconds Of Summer, and Twenty One Pilots. The quotes written are song lyrics from DollHouse and Rejects, two of my favorite songs at the moment. In order to create the E I used a hand holding drumsticks, an electric guitar, and a microphone stand.

Final Piece :)

3. I think the most challenging part was coloring it in, I'm pretty terrible when it comes to tracing and using colored pencils. I'm so used to using chalk pastels that it was difficult for me to actually make it look decent. 

First Draft Ideas 

4. Overall I'm pretty satisfied with how it turned out, I went from having no idea what to do- to a solid idea and I like how it turned out  even though my coloring abilities aren't very good. 

5. If I could change something about my project I would change the materials I used to color it in. I think it would have looked much better if I used chalk pastels like I always do.

My Summer

Hi my name is Marissa, I'm a Puerto Rican sixteen year old girl who has an obsession with bands and Halsey! Music is everything to me, it's my way of escape and it fascinates me how just a song can easily make someone feel as though they aren't alone, or give them a reason to smile. I'm a proud feminist and I hope that one day my capability of being able to do something will no longer be based off of my gender or race. 

Now onto the main point of this particular post, my summer vacation:

East River

 I have to admit my summer was pretty boring, I didn't travel like most people had or explore the city with friends. I stayed home majority of the time, and played video games. So it was pretty uneventful. The picture shown above was taken in the East River. That day I had gone with my mom, older sister, and a cousin to have a picnic. I remember how we had blasted music and I had practiced skateboarding for a bit. Although it was pretty hot that day I had a great time and enjoyed spending time with family. It was nice to get out for once :)

The view of a sunset outside of my building

 I had gone out with my parents right before the sunset to get ice cream. We sat in front of our building at the park and watched it. The colors were so pretty so I had to take a picture. It was a nice night, and a good family moment.

In front of my cousin's house

I remember I was looking outside of my cousin's window, and I thought the view was really pretty. It was a beautiful day outside, and I loved how house in front was covered by trees only showing the roof. I was with family at the time, guiltily ignoring them as I took this. It was rather refreshing to be out of the city for once :)