My creative motivation for this project was “characterization,” rather than storytelling, which was most likely sprouted from me majoring in creative writing. Characterization involves more than how one appears in a writing piece, but also includes their interests, response, and decisions. With this, I decided to attempt a characterization of myself through this project, scanning items that I believed best represented myself. Some of these items include some writing prompts from my old creative writing notebook, a little ghost with a twig on his head that I doodle often, movie tickets, the wrappers of my favorite snacks, and things from those most important to me. One of the items I used came from my significant other and says “this is Korie. She means a lot me,” in which I used for both as a linguistic mode, but a juxtaposition mode too. Understanding McCloud’s definition of a comic, I placed this said material in the middle of the entire collage to support readers in knowing where to start. It is large and in the middle in which should pull people to look at it. This is where the linguistic aspect comes to play as the words suggest that the surrounding images to this text are the items that either represent Korie, or are the reasons why Korie means so much to this person. I also use my said doodle of a ghost to direct viewers around the notebook pages, starting near the first text, to the movie ticket. I made it so the ghost appears as though he is falling through the materials, being my attempt at juxtaposing images in a sequence to convey a sense of direction through the collage, and an understanding of what is being shown. Another reading that helped me to organize this collage is Lynda Barry’s reading in class as she leaves little to no space on her creative pieces. As a creative writing major, this was not my first time seeing her work and being influenced by it, so I was glad to see a DTC perspective towards her. With this, I grew fond on how she creates a sense of direction in her work. Furthering on, these materials helped me to make meaning through my collage process as they do not only represent me, but they allow me to make use of the linguistic mode and my visual choices. As mentioned above, my writing pieces can be seen throughout the entire collage, and more importantly as the background. However, since the lighting on the notebook is darker and does not stand out too much, I placed a ghost next to the writing section I wanted to stand out. With this, the page lists my favorite words, being linguistic, in which I do list my favorite items or words. This is another way for the readers to grasp an idea of what makes Korie significant.

In terms of photoshop before this class, I have had minor experience with it. I do have the app on my phone, but can only do so much on it. I also took a class last semester that required us to make flyers or book covers with photoshop. However, I had little idea on how to make these projects look clean and sharp, often using the erasure tool instead of masks. This is the most significant thing that I have learned, the clipping and vector masks. I used this tool a lot during this project, always having open the videos provided on the DTC website for class, such as “use layer masks to adjust parts of photos” and “removing and replacing a background” found on the photoshop materials page. They are pretty clear videos, but I often find technology confusing so it did take a minute to adjust to using it. I did enjoy composing in a digital environment, but it can be less enjoyable when you are not artistic individually.