A Logo Sketch of a Lifetime

Here is my logo sketch! When I was reading the instructions for this assignment, the part that stood out to me was that the design should be simple. I thought about how everything that I make it simple, and thought about one of my favorite snacks: salsa! At first I drew a sort of mandala out of an avocado, but then thought of making a mandala out of all the ingredients I use in salsa! It’s not super clean or simple looking, but I think I could toy with the idea to use as a logo for my “company”

Final Graphic design project

Here is my final graphic design project! It’s definitely very different than my first draft, but that’s exactly what I wanted! I took all of these pictures myself, they were just super old and I had to dig through my laptop to find them. To me, these pictures symbolize all of the foods that are my holy grail; eggs, fruit, and veggies. My appreciation for these foods is profound, which is probably why I wanted to photograph them in the first place. The sky pictures in the background were also taken by me a few summers ago by my house. That’s when and where my weight loss journey really began, so I thought it would be interesting to add to the design. Clear skies also remind me of the mental side of health, because when the sun is shining and there’s blue skies, it’s so easy to be happier and make better choices regarding our health. When I’m powering through the toughest winter months, I always have to remind myself of the summer spirit to pull myself through, which is why I think this is .a great image for my blog. I created the images using the layering and cropping methods that I learned during the photoshop tutorials. I edited the pictures with VSCO, and played with the saturation in photoshop. Overall, I’m a lot happier with this final product than I was with my draft or image collection, so I’m happy with that. I feel that I learned a lot about photoshop techniques throughout this project, and I’m happy that I could incorporate my own pictures.

Graphic Design Project Draft

Here is my (very) rough draft of my graphic design project. Since my blog is about health, naturally there should be some pictures of healthy food, but I definitely want to include things other than that. I’m not going to use any of these pictures in my final project, because I want to take my own! With a topic as broad as health, I’m having a bit of creative block about what to photograph, but I think my own personal health and wellness journey should be the bases of the pictures. So we’ll see what I come up with by then!

I want the pictures to not only be aesthetically pleasing, but to also invoke inspiration in people who see it and might want to improve their own lifestyle. I want to take pictures of healthy food that looks smackin’, so people can see that eating healthy isn’t all about fruits and vegetables. I got all of these pictures from Flickr, so they look pretty generic and definitely not epiphany inducing. I feel like if they come from me, it will also be more meaningful to look back and see what I’ve created. I also think there would be an emotional aspect in creating something about my own health and happiness. I plan on having one picture of food, one picture of fitness or exercise related, and one picture representing mental health or happiness in general. I think it’s really important that there is also emphasis on the health of your mind, because if stuff isn’t going right up there, it’s going to translate to every other area of life. I hope that I am successful in depicting my story with pictures, even though a photographer is one of the last things I am. But hey, I have a phone, and now photoshop, so this world is my oyster now.

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

Growing up in an Italian-Jewish family was both a blessing and a curse. We never went hungry; Grandma would be making fresh matza the second she heard us come through the door and my mom always served delicious pasta dishes made from scratch (yes, even the noodles), and desert was considered a second entree to dinner. And I LOVE food. All kinds. If you served me the weirdest, most exotic or foreign food on the planet, I would probably like it. So there’s no wonder why I started gaining weight.

I had been active all my life, running sprints in track and joining my high schools cheerleading team for three years, but my weight was always a sore spot in my life. I felt so uncomfortable in my own skin, always poking and prodding at fabric to make sure they were laying right, always sucking-in in pictures. I always felt that i was just meant to be bigger, and that there was nothing I could do about it.

American diet culture had engulfed me at a young age, as topics like Weight Watchers and fad diets became commonplace in the language around me. My friend would tell me she would drink nothing but juice for a week, or a teacher would mention how she is cutting out carbs. None felt like anything I could do, so I didn’t. I stayed complacent and steadily packed on the pounds without even really realizing it.

In the summer after I graduated high school, I went to my doctor to get my immunizations updated. They also took my height, weight, and vitals. I stepped on the scale and cursedly glanced at the number, and was shocked that it reflected the highest I had ever seen. It was right around this time that I discovered the subreddit r/loseit, and my life changed forever.

I started counting calories, and learned just how much I was consuming day to day. I learned so many things about health and diet from reddit that debunked common known dieting “facts” that I accepted as gospel prior. Now here I am, 50 pounds lost (and maintaining!), and I feel that I have so much to teach about this subject. I failed so many times, and now that I’m on the other side, I can reflect on the things that made my journey the way it was. I can really say that there AIN’T no mountain high enough. Conversely, there also ain’t no valley low enough. Every single person can take control of their health, even if it feels unsurmountable.

I learned that health is so much more than what you put into your body, so that’s exactly what I want this blog to be about. Mental, physical, and spiritual health all come together in making us who we are, and if one of those is out of wack then we will be out of wack. I know the things I wish I knew getting into this, so I can’t wait to share those to help others who might be in the same position.

As for materials, I will definitely be using my own progress pictures and media to showcase my journey. I’d like to do workout videos and videos that show what I eat in a day. For the Graphic Design assignment in Unit 1, I will include pictures that I’ve taken throughout my weight loss journey. For the Audio Story project in Unit 3, I think it would be super easy to describe some elements of what I’ve learned and things that have happened to me throughout.

Here is the subreddit that is my pride and joy, which really kickstarted my path to a healthy lifestyle: https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/

Here is the youtube page of a girl named Alyse, who runs a company called Raw Alignment. She inspired me be going through this journey not only through her diet and fitness, but her lifestyle as a whole: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzLQ_5hu5fuVSEHkMGEq7Vg

And here is another subreddit that saved my life later along in my weight loss trials, which talks about the practice of intermittent fasting: https://www.reddit.com/r/intermittentfasting/

About

Hey there,

My name is Lauren Reed Petri, welcome to my blog! My middle name is Reed because the doctors told my parents I was a boy, and no one really knows how it happened (maybe my leg looked a little weird…) and they had picked out the name Reed for their baby boy. When they found out I am decidedly a girl, they thought it was so funny that they made it my middle name. My first name is after my grandma Lorraine, but that isn’t as funny.

I was born and raised in Snohomish, Washington, even though I tell most people I’m from Seattle because it makes me feel cooler. I have one mom and one dad, as do most, but I also have a really rocking older brother, which most do not. We are complete opposites in every single way, from our looks to what we snack on, but I still think we have a twin telepathy. As for me, I really like to run, draw, and hangout with my friends! I am blessed to have the same friend group since middle school, and they are seriously the funniest and dopest girls that exist.

My biggest interest in my life is easily music, you can always find me with a headphone in, bobbing along to Frank Ocean. I have a really diverse taste in music, ranging from new age rap to oldies. Fleetwood Mac is by far my favorite band of all time, Dreams can literally have me dancing at a moments notice. My first love was Michael Jackson, and I went as him for Halloween for four straight years. I still feel bad for my parents about that phase.

As much as I would love to make this blog about music, I’m not smart or diligent enough to deal with the beast that is copyright, so I think I’m going to make it about murder. True crime and serial killers have also always been a major interest of mine, and I have watched enough documentaries for a lifetime. I like horror movies too, but my favorite ones are the ones that are kind of real. Like Silence of the Lambs is definitely a far out concept, but the fear and suspense feels so real throughout it. I’m also an avid Stephen King fan, and my biggest life goal is to read every single book that he’s ever written. The problem with that, though, is that he’s written a lot of books, so I just hope I don’t get hit by a bus any time soon.

As for my real and perhaps more important life goals, that part is a bit more of a mystery. I’m majoring in journalism, but I’m not really sure what I have to say yet. My ultimate dream job is to be Oprah, but I don’t think they’re really taking applications for that. I think it would be so fun to have my own talk show, like I really think I could keep a crowd going for a few seasons. I’m also very interested in law, so maybe law school or a CNN anchor is in the future, but I also cry really easily so I’m scared for that. Maybe I’ll go for a more John Oliver type of vibe, because who could make John Oliver cry?

I hope you enjoyed reading, stay tuned for more of my thoughts!

Lauren Petri

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