Fireworks Photomanipulation:
"The Product Parody"

The Project: Students will be using their Fireworks Skills to create a "homemade" label for a product in its purchasable form that makes fun of that product or some social convention.

Sample Silly Products:  For inspiration, the students were shown a slide show of silly products from the website www.worth1000.com.

Getting Started: Create a folder on your network space called “lastname_product” from our last assignment. Save all original files, plus your final product file, to this folder.

First Thing: Download the file called:

Open it in Fireworks. Watch the

Video Tutorial regarding Fireworks Blending Brushes

and change the color of the kitty's eyeballs. Then save the kitty to your “lastname_product” folder. Call it "lastname_kitty.jpg." (10 points)

The Base of Your Product Label: The students will create the label for their new "product" in Fireworks, using Vector Shape tools, much like we did in the Webpage Emulation Project. You are creating the label for a box, can, bag, bottle, etc. Any school appropriate product is fine, but your canvas should be LARGE in size (at least 800 x 800 pixels). SAVE THIS canvas (and all other original files that you may use in your product label) to your “lastname_product” folder. You will be getting credit just for turning in these files!

Label PIECES that must be Included:

  1. You must include a product NAME, using TEXT, FILLS and STROKES. (20 Points)
  2. You must include a MASKED picture that pertains to your product. (10 Points)
  3. You must include the weight, volume, number of products in the box, etc. (10 Points)
  4. You must include the manufacturer's name.  (10 Points)
  5. You must include any appropriate government warning stickers.
  6. Your label should be well spaced out, with all elements sensibly placed on the canvas. (10 Points)
  7. Your label must LOOK like the the label of a product that could be sitting on the shelves of a store.  Most of this assignment involves text, shapes and colors, with a small MASK thrown in for effect, it should look close to PERFECT!  (30 Points)

Techniques to be Used:

Students should try to use the indicated tools and techniques below at least once in their work (links will open Video Tutorials for the required techniques):

  1. Cutting images from their backgrounds using the MASK Tool.
  2. SHAPE and LINE Tools.
  3. Letters or shapes with FILLS and STROKES.
  4. Changing the color of all or a portion of an image using BLENDING brushes.
  5. Altering the perspective of an object in the work (by using the DISTORT Tool.)
  6. Adding blur to the image (FILTER>BLUR>GAUSSIAN BLUR)
  7. Manipulating parts of the image using the RUBBER STAMP Tool.
  8. Submission of any and all source files used in the project.
  9. Quality of your final product

Sample Parody Cooked up by Mr. B. (yours will be better!): 

Please note that this one is a photomanipulation of an actual picture.  YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO THIS!  You should be creating a product label on a simple canvas in Fireworks, only include your label in a photograph if you are looking for a challenge!

Project Submission:

Turn in your “lastname_product” folder to the class DROP folder on the M: Drive. Please make sure that it has your lastname_product.jpg picture, as well as any source images that you used along the way.