Final Project (Book)

UGH! That's pretty much all I have to say about this project. A lot of that is my own fault for not starting sooner, but for the record, I HATE InDesign. Next time, I'm just going to paste everything into Photoshop! Unfortunately, I don't have time for that now. I'm gonna have to try and post the pages I made in Word along with the front and back covers I made.
I'm pretty sure that most people who look at this will find it impressive or interesting. I will forever see it in the opposite fashion: missed opportunities abound here, not to mention an extreme lack of focus. For a project that we were given roughly five weeks to complete, this is UNACCEPTABLE.
On the other hand, what I DID put together here strikes me as interesting, and if my test group (3 people at RCC) is to be believed, it's interesting to the readers as well.

This is my cover. It's very different from what I originally planned to do. I was going to make it several different images that were partially transparent directly over each other, includinga picture of myself. But that was before I ran out of time and also before I made the decision to include only one essay in the book.

This is the back cover. It's very similar to the front except that I included real life people in it. That was intentional. I was trying to distinguish the stuff that fascinates me in gaming from the stuff that fascinates me in more serious subjects like politics.

UGH!!!! Mr. Arellano, I'm sorry, but I can't get the other pages uploaded. I went back to GP right after our class ended and I had to make a stop off at the courhouse about a citation. By the time I got back here, there was no time for me to translate my word pages into Photoshop JPEGs. My only real hope now is that you give me your email address so I can send the document to you. MY email is derangedgamer2@gmail.com.

REFLECTIONS:
The term is over. Thank christ. I am SOOOO stressed. To tell the truth, I don't know if I'll be over it for a couple days. That's how much this drained me, due in no small part to my own "do-it-at-the-last-minute" attitude. This was a HUGE mistake. Generally I work better under pressure than not, but this was one time when--for whatever reason--I was just ready to stop long before the term ended. (Not an excuse; merely an explanation.) I will need to fix this next term and if I ever wind up doing a project like this again I'm gonna need to budget my time more effectively. I MIGHT have been able to hammer something truly incredible together if I'd started earlier, even if I DID take it up to the last minute. Instead, I wound up with something that feels completely unfinished, even if it looks otherwise.
When it comes to the skills I used most, many of them were skills I already had. I'm very good with transparency and cropping in Photoshop. Those were the primary things I used. The wolf in the background is actually something I put together in Illustrator and ported over. Everything else is pretty much internet pictures. If I can think of any skills I learned and applied here, it would be the use of flat colors in effective ways.
In terms of catering my design to my book type, I was pretty lazy about it. I pretty much planned on presenting a text-heavy book with some pictures mixed in for good fun. The cover and back were supposed to be the primary picture pages and the rest were supposed to be white with lots of text. Along the way, however--and Mr. Inada knows why :) --I decided that my regular pages needed to be spruced up as well. It may be questionable, but I decided to give them all the same background formatting. The title, "Your New Name Is..." was meant to coincide with different names for the different essays. The phrase itself is taken from one of my favorite computer games: You Don't Know Jack. In the case of the one essay I got into the project, the response was "...Clueless Pat Thompson." (Hopefully you will actually get to SEE the essay!)
So now what do I do with it? Well, if I was going to get it back before the break, I'd probably set it somewhere and try to forget about it for at least a few weeks. I certainly wouldn't burn it though. It's not like it's a TERRIBLE project. But I don't think I'd gift it or sell it either. (I aint' selling my essays until there's actually more than ONE in the book.)
Anyway, thanks for an interesting term. I'm going to take away a lot from it. :)