Joan's Palace of Creativity

I chose the image of Michael Jordan in the air because he is a highly recognizable person. In particular, the image of him in the air on the way to the basket is extremely well-known. His brand logo, the “Air Jordan” symbol, is also very famous, which is derived from his pose in the air. I wanted to alter the image in a way that it was still clear it depicted Michael Jordan, but completely changed the original photo. To achieve this, I used photo shop and tried different ways to alter the image.

To begin with, I thought that the photo had too much going on in the background. Even though the attention was already drawn to Jordan, I decided that only his body and the basketball should be in focus. I blurred out the background, including the court, basketball hoop, and the crowd. I was happy with the way this turned out, as it made Jordan in the air the only clear part of the photo.

Next, I thought I should incorporate his brand, Air Jordan’s logo into the image. I found a picture of it that was black with a white background. I put it directly underneath Jordan’s body so emphasize where the logo came from. The background of the logo was white, and I thought that I should liven it up a little bit. I added three background colors, in the three triangles the logo made. I decided to use fluorescents to make it stand out. I went with yellow, green and pink.

I then used the emboss tool to change the texture of the image. This made it resemble stone, which I thought was a dramatic change and took away from it looking like a photo. It was now not obvious that it was once a photograph. Then, I wanted to see what the new image would look like if I added a negative effect. This completely changed it. The colors around the logo got switched around, one even turned blue. Michael Jordan’s body and uniform changed colors, his uniform was now black and his body white. I thought this was really cool because again I changed it a lot from the original but you could see his number, 23, and his pose, which still made him recognizable.

As a final touch, I spray painted in the word “Air” in black. I thought before this addition something was missing, and I thought words would help. I chose air because that is the word that really launched his career and brand, and his signature dunks were most described with that word. Overall I am very happy with the outcome of my final project. The original photo hardly looks like the final product, but the fact that most people would immediately know who it was portraying, even without the Air Jordan logo, shows how recognizable Michael Jordan is and what an impact he has made on basketball and mainstream culture.