Week 12- The end....Or The beginning!

Week 12 already? …..
This last week has flown by faster than others, and sadly it marks the end of digital media. This class has been a joy to be a part of and I have learnt many new aspects to digital media. When I first started in the earlier weeks of school, I thought this class was going to be a bunch of internet creations and systems I wouldn’t understand. After going through the past twelve weeks, it has actually ended up being quite the opposite. In the lab portion of the class I really enjoyed the hands on portion write after our mini lecture/ explanation of our assignments. This allowed me to be able to try out whatever we learnt while it was fresh on my mind and get help if needed. I found the first hour of our class to be very helpful as well. By recapping the lesson from last week and then learning about the assignments and/or what we would be using. I was able follow along in steps, which I believe is key to working with Digital Media.
Bright and early lectures every Tuesday at 9 proved to be a very worthwhile class. What made lecture so interesting to me was the combination of colorful slides, examples, and Lori. The different colour schemes used in slides help to bring them to life. Watching examples in class, on clips, posters etc. also worked as a refreshment tool that helped me to connect the concept and how it was used. Lastly, having Lori as a professor was a bonus. She was able to talk to us and capture my attention. Her moving around the room kept me engaged and her general passion for these topics showed.
Learning about digital media has helped me learn about the programs as well as myself. In week one and two, I wasn't completely sure which path I wanted to go down. Digital Media has helped me with ideas and paths to where I may head in this industry. The assignments we worked on played a major role in the journey to what I may do after RTA. I was able to explore my own creativity and find what I was passionate to work on.
Throughout the years and day to day life I always seemed to know what I liked in media and my own work. The thing I never asked myself was why. I would say “ok this looks good with that and this should go there” but never have a reason. In digital media I was able to learn about CRAP principles, typography, web 2.0, target audiences and how they all work together. With lessons like these I have been able to feel more capable of designing my own work and contribute help to others. This knowledge acts as a tool under my belt that boosts my confidence in this area and open doors to what I know I can do.
Looking at everything I have learnt in these labs and lectures I can’t help but mention my favorite assignment and the skills I learnt from it. Animation was a joy to me because of the different elements I was able to use. Motion tweens, buttons, animated videos, and pictures were some of the main tools I used. When designing this interactive assignment, it was also a chance to go back and use things we have already learnt like CRAP principles and Typography. Learning how to use Adobe Flash was the biggest skill I gained this semester. Not only am I able to do the assignments we had for class but I can use what I’ve learned to make opening credits, short clips, and anything else my mind can think up. Adobe flash is a tool that you give you what you put into it. If you have a good idea and spend time working on it, it is easy to come out with a great ending project. With all of these great assignments, fun classmates, and Professor, Digital media or BDC 101 sec 32 has been an amazing experience and start to the RTA program.

Week 11- Web Control?

In lab this week we covered Dreamweaver, HTML, and CSS. During this class some of us worked in groups to combine our ideas. I did the same and joined with Lama and Keenan. In this class I was able to learn about how to make a web page, and what a cascading style sheet can do. Although it may sound simple, don't be fooled these two together open endless possibilities on a web site. We started with HTML and learnt about headings, titles, links, photos, and paragraphs. We were able to put our basic information in and add our own flare to it. This then was able to be seen on a web page on our browser. Shortly after creating our page, we noticed how lacking it was in colour. In order to fix that, we used Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). With this program we were able to select different fonts, titles, colours and sizes and apply them to our page. With this basic outline we were able to create a page for all animal haters to join together and read why my group hated the animals we selected on our site. We used a sneaky killing cat, an owl that watches you to death, and flickering moldy moth's. Overall this was a great lesson on what you can do one the web, and how to do it. Below are some photos, do you see the filth!

Week 10- Web 2.0 (Five characteristics)

Dynamic Content
An example of dynamic content is flicker. This is a site that bring together to different medias like photos and maps and makes them one, an example of Mashups. Dynamic content also includes RSS feeds, and helpful site that are viewable on multiple platforms.

User Contribution
The example I choose to use for this characteristic is Yahoo answers. This page can be accessed by yahoo account holders and is a portal to any questions you have. There are conversations about rating books, movies, places to eat or were to by the best cough medicine. To make sure you are getting the correct answers or review other members to the page give the responses a ranking, and the best answer is highlighted so you can find the right answer quickly. This relates to user contribution because it is a bunch of people commenting on what they have read, experienced, and found and share it with others.

Social Media
The example I choose to use for this characteristic is Netlog. Netlog is a site much like myspace or Facebook. You can create an account and fill it with personal information. From there you are free to check out other profiles of your friends and the other thousand users. It is a good way to find friends or connect with new ones. Membership is free and gets recommended to all your friends when you sign up. You can add music, events, blogs, and any links you want on the page. It is a social network that works for many who feel that one social network is just not enough or even for those who just want something different.

Online Applications
The example I choose to use for this characteristic is Scotia Bank online applications. This online tool has been coming out more and more over the years. Online banking is a tool many use to access their accounts, pay bills, and check their balances. This site allows you to cruse between Personal Banking, Investment Services, Brokerage Services, Personal Credit, and Insurance. All these services use to be something you could only do at the teller. This is a perfect example to how technology has been able to further our everyday tasks. A down side to this online application can be a slow computer, not having one at all or maybe experiencing a crash. This would cause the benefits of online banking to no longer be benefits.
Harnessing collective intelligence
This characteristic is using people’s common thoughts and putting it to use in sites, for songs, photos etc. It includes Tagging which is also known as Folksmonies that are created by viewers. They visit the site and create tags which help expand the amount of ways to access their site.

Week 9- Learning Can Be fun....Animation

Artist Statement:
Learning can be fun is an interactive game geared towards a younger audience. While it may be fun for grades two to four, it is directed more towards Kindergarten to grade 1. I choose to do this interactive game so younger children had something to partake in. As well I wanted them to learn, while not letting it be too much for them to take in. I was inspired to do this piece by some of the younger siblings in my life, and their drive to learn. I always witnessed my brothers and cousins watching games or reading books. As much as they have enjoyed it, there was always this energy to touch or talk with their activity. By creating my interactive game, I feel like I was able to help them partake in their learning experience.
In this game the player has the option to begin their path through ABC’s or 123. If they chose their ABC’s the player will be sent into a scene where they can see and hear the ABC’s individually, followed by a chance to sing. The 123 button moves the player to another scene allowing them to learn the basic numbers from 1 to 10.
I choose to base my backgrounds and colours on ones that were fun and intriguing, but not over baring and distractive. This is due to the fact that it is a learning tool and not just a fun game. The assignment also allowed me to combine both my design and audio, which helps bring it to life. The audio pieces are used as supports to the main message which I believe are key to learning. The audio clips help reinforce the letter, and improve the atmosphere and joy of the game.
Although Learning Can Be Fun works pretty well, I overcame several obstacles to prefect it. Some of my major obstacles included colour, Font, Timing and interactivity Buttons. The colour and font were two areas that needed to work in order to get a clean message across. As I am targeting a younger audience, I needed to make sure that the font and colour would stimulate their minds and keep them interested. Through many trial and errors and help from friends, I was able to achieve this interactive activity.
After completing this assignment I have learned the importance of planning, looking back on notes and how to simplify my thoughts. If it was not for the extra pre-production time that I took to map out my idea with drawings and the program I would have never been able to complete this assignment. Pre mapping allowed me to interpret problems I may have and areas were I needed to go back and look at the Tutorials. This helped me with my buttons, motion tweens, and timing.
If I had one more go of it I would work on my timing with audio and visuals as well as more interactivity for the children. That could be through putting your mouse over a letter or just highlighting certain numbers. In the larger picture I enjoyed doing this assignment and look forward to creating more work at a larger scheme.

Reflection:
In class we were able to watch other student’s assignments. This was a wonderful opportunity to share different creative ideas and show off what we have been working on for so long. This worked out well because we were able to critique the work a bit and share what we really liked. As well the more we looked at assignments, the more I was able to see targeted audiences and how different aspects were used for them. For example, pieces that were suited towards a 14-25 year old market used humour, and mystery. While assignments that had a more seroius message, used timing and bold photos, words etc. After seeing the classes work it also motivated me to continue learning and improve my own work.

My Inspiration

Week 8- Graphic Design

This Photo was found at <http://alexsteinweiss.com/as_index.html>

This photo was found at <http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000DD7NL.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg>

These two photos are similar to me because beside the huge pianos in both, they both have a rough look to them. By this I mean not clean or glossy. As well both of these phots use very basic colors that dont over whelm the photo. Alicia Key's cd cover uses browns, white, and a little black while Alex Steinwess uses black, white and a little bit of pink.

Week 7- Motion Tween

We are just over the half way mark for class and we have now begun to dig into animation and all the workings of Flash. In tutorial we were able to make some motion tweens, and neat paths for our bumble bee to follow. Though I am not much of a fan for the bee’s it was fun nun the less. This tutorial was like a sample to all the work we can create in this program. Working with Flash was also something nice to learn because I have never worked with it before. In some of my first trials my motion tween didn’t work out right and I got the broken lines (not so fun). After continuously trying and asking for help I got it and the rest went well. After completing this tutorial I am excited to continue learning and practicing on my own.

Week 6- Animation Assignment

For my Animation/Interaction assignment I have been thinking of doing a piece that is geared towards children in jk-gr.2. This Interactive activity would include number counting, matching colours and letters. I want this assignment to be fun and engaging for children at the same time. Through each slide the children will gain knowledge, use focus and interact with a helpful activity broadening their minds. I was inspired to do this for my assignment by the children in my life. I have two brothers 3 and 6 and a 1 year old nephew who is learning his colors. All three of these children have a wonderful love for technology (computer, play station, leap frog and the TV). With a game like this they can watch or play along and actually gain something from this. After watching examples in lecture, I realized how much I enjoyed the ones that you had to participate in. I was more open to them and felt that by doing something similar I would be able to interest others.
Growing up I watched Barney, Sesame Street, Mr. Dress Up and of recently Blues Clues, Bob the Builder, Dora and more. All of these shows, which cater to a younger audience, have times in which they get the children to interact through questions and activates on screen. This lets the children think and join in with learning. I plan to watch a few more of these shows to see what other tools they use such as, colours, words, expressions, and more. After learning about all of these things and seeing what works I plan to test them out on my family and go from there. I feel that I will have to use a lot of colours and buttons on flash, maybe even some music. During the next two weeks I will continue on this path and hopefully create an assignment that is unique and fun while still able to appeal to my younger siblings.

Week 5- POSTER!!!!

Artsist Statment:

Do your part recycle is a poster representing the need for a greener earth. It is targeted towards a younger demographic so that they can learn from early. Through this poster young children will see the joy and brightness available from cleaning up. To create this poster I used spray brush, cropping, contrast, brightness, and repetition. I started of with a blue spray brushed background and moved on to the message. I know that the message needed to standout but be short and sweet so I thought of key words and how to bring them to life. The bright colours are used to grab the attention and bring a happy feeling. While making this poster I found difficulties in finding the write colours and a good balance throughout. I didn’t want one half to be to top heavy or clustered. By working on my alignment and spacing this helped. I want people to look at this poster and want to recycle. This poster is designed to let people see our world as a happy bright place that can stay that way with the help of everyone. In the end I am happy with the outcome and hope to do something like this again.

Reflection:

Doing this assignment was a wonderful experience for me. I was able to use adobe flashworks to create an image that included colours layering and a good message. Doing this assignment enabled me to get a greater understanding of how to focus a message and gear it towards a targeted audience. Once I had understood that it became easier to choose font colours and my wording. After presenting this assignment in class we got feedback on things to improve, what was used well and things to keep in mind. One of my feedback comments was on the colour and font of “Do your part.” They suggested choosing a colour from the poster to fill the font which would have made it tie in better. Feedback like that helped me to look at my poster from a different eye and observe very simple solutions that you can’t always see. After working on that poster for a couple of days I begin to loose that fresh eye which can help you with pretty easy solutions. The feedback from my peers helped reinforce that outside eye and make my poster flow better. As well they commented on the green border edges that didn’t really serve a real focus but were included around the edges. A key thing to remember from this is do not put anything on your poster/CD cover if there isn’t meaning behind it. Everything should serve a purpose and add to the flow and/or message of your poster/CD cover.

Week 4- Typography

"Light bright and Sparkly" is a very light font with a magical touch to it. These letters match the magical feel of the poster and compliment the poster by bending and twisting like some of the flowers and stems in the background. I feel like it works well with the poster because the words compliment the theme of magic and tiny creatures without over powering the poster. Even if these words were not on the poster, it looks like a font that can represent fairy's and describe something light, secrative but fun. This works well because it shows that the font used can be for anyone with a good message, positive ad, or maybe even a romantic/elegant message.

This "Cook Book" is using many different font's on its cover page. The fonts vary depending on the message. One common thing to notice, is that the fonts seem to represent how somebody would say each text. For the "I Don't Know How To Cook" portion, the designer choose to use Times New Roman-Bold, that suggests a strong statement. In italics the words "You can't mess up!" seem to be the second most important text. Once again written like how one would feel, this font show more of a whisper/something you're trying to hide. The font helps to draw your attention back to the cover and almost talking in your head, answering any doubts that you may have had. Both texts' work well with for this book because they relate to common emotions people may feel when thinking about cooking. The times New Roman-Bold font doesn't seem to be the only font used for cook books but it is common when looking at serious messages. The book seems to be geared to anyone who cannot cook, but the font does not seem to be a stereotypical one.

"27 Dresses" uses a very unique font across the wedding dress. The designer here choose to use a script type of font that ranges in different sizes. When I first saw this photo I thought of busy brides and wedding planner's scribbling in their books for things to get and meetings to attend. As I have seen the movie myself, I believe that the designer did an amazing job and choose the correct text. The loose scribble type of writing works on this page, for the text varies drawing your attention to more important sections with a lot of creativity. I feel like the text used can also connect with women and maybe even men who are in a rush, or organize loosely like this cover. As the movie may be classified as a "chick flick" this text is a good drawer of attention for women and everyone who has ever had to jot down a note.

Week 3- Colours & Radio Format

Being in the third week of school has been surreal, travelling has become routine and I am much more comfortable with the schedule. This week in our Digital Media lecture we focused on colour, how it’s used, different terminology and complementary colours. Though this lesson opened my eyes to the importance of relation through colour and how it helps to focus certain items on a page, it felt familiar. I got great comfort out of the lesson, as it reminded me of kindergarten and the good old times of matching colours and learning which colours made what. Though I enjoyed the whole lesson the piece on saturation and tint stood out to me. With the poster assignment coming up I feel like those tools will be useful to me on some of my photos. As well in the lesson we were given a sight that helps one find complementary colours, different shades and tints and variations of saturation (www.colorsontheweb.com/colourwizard.asp). This site proves to be very helpful and may help with my poster but can also help with painting a room, getting dressed or decorating various things. After this class I found myself looking at designs all over downtown. I was searching for the focal point on posters and lookingat the mixes of colours and how they worked. During the other portion of lecture we took a look at Radio formats and how programming works for each format. We looked at Adult Contemporary, Contemporary Hits radio, Rock, Country and more. I feel like I relate the most to Contemporary Hits radio and with no surprise it caters to my age group. I was surprised to learn about the times when music was played, and when commercials and ads were incorporated. Everything seemed to be related to times of the day and when there listeners were tuned in. For instance during mid day, many stations tend to play more music and fewer commercials because they cater to people at work in offices or on there lunch break. Learning about these formats and styles are really helpful to me. They will be very useful in our radio show assignments as well as when I listen to stations. After learning about the various genres and formats, I plan to expand my listening band to stations I normally would listen to and see how they work as well. I look forward to the next couple of weeks and how this information will help me and how I will change with the knowledge I’ve learnt.

Week 2- Design Principles.....CRAP!

CRAP?... what is it you may ask,


Contrast
Repetition
Alignment
Proximity







These four principles are helpful tools when creating visual design.
<http://www.ecostreet.com/blog/energy-saving/2007/11/04/use-electricity-wisely/>



The following poster's each represent a different principle used in their visual design.

In this poster from <http://www.digital-day.com/default.aspx>, The principle I will focus on is proximity.

The first thing you notice when looking at this poster is the dogs. Of hand I can tell that the three little dogs are on a separate side to the larger dog. Secondly the words under both dogs show the same message by their spacing as well as what they say. These are examples of proximity and their spacing through the page. By continuously separating the words and photos it allows you to follow the flow of the page and notice the differences. As well the information comes across clearly through this design. If all the same information was to be spread on one side or closer together, the message would be lost.




















The dark Knight poster is from<http://www.johndavidhead.com/jhead/johnhead.nsf/dx/new-dark-knight-movie-posters>, it is an example of the principle of Alignment.

One of the more obvious alignments in this poster can be seen as the frames of the window. They are spaced evenly from right to left and act as a marker for the poster. This is for the main focus of where, when, why on the poster. As well a very good technique they used was aligning the important "must knows" of the poster. If you look in the centre from top to bottom, you can see the poster has the title, character and when it would be coming out aligned down the centre.
Also at the bottom of the poster were the makers and studios are printed they are put in a straight line spaced throughout the page. This ads to the simplicity of the page and were focus is to be. If all the words were justified left underneath each other the focus may be shifted from The Dark Knight to unimportant information.














This Sony billboard is from<http://www.2dayblog.com/blog/2007/09/17/attractive-billboards/?lang=en>, it is an example of the Contrast principle.

There are many different billboards around the world that are very creative and unique like the Sony one above. This poster uses colour and challenges the limitations of billboards. The Red on this billboard is very different from the whit back splash it is posted on. Both that and the realism of the paint contrast with the billboard. The television and white back spread act as solid objects. The flowing paint is opposite of the very static billboard. Showing that contrast can be in not only colour but objects.















Fantastic four poster<http://muragdoctor.wordpress.com/2007/07/07/unfantastic-4/>, an example of repetition.

This poster is a good example of Repetition because it shows examples in more than one way. First of the poster is divided by four and in each section their is a character. As well the names of each character is represented along the bottom of the under each character. Some little similarities and use of repetition os found in on the characters. The way the light falls on each of their faces is the generally the same, each is posed facing the same direction. This adds a unison look to the poster that goes along well with the whole team, and superhero look. In use of the colours on the page, the blacks and blues are used throughout the page getting really dark in some areas and light in others. One more small detail would be the title of Fantastic Four being on the right side of the poster just like all the emblems on the team members.

Digital& Audio Media- Week 1

Well hello,

Week one of universiity,and boy have I learnt alot. The classes are amazing and I am constantly learning something new.

Before class started I belived digital media to be about several forms of media through a digital form. To me this was the web, billboards, electronic signs and more. I expected that we would learn to make ads, groom our creativity, learn how to express our messages and display media at a new level. After my first class in lecture I learnt what the course would be doing in detail and what I could expect. I still believe that we will be learning new froms of media. Some will be new and others I have a little knowledge in. A difference, and something I didnt expect was the detail to original images, music and work that we produce. I didn't think that we would be copying and pasting, i just thought that we were able to use more things than we can.

Taking a course in digital media is more than just learning about web design or how to create a poster. It is important for the attention to detail, creativity, and skills that may be used across the board in seperate areas. From taking this course you learn about skills that ultimatley benifit you. For instance, one of our assignments to come is creating an original poster or CD cover. By learning how to do this, I am able to market myself in the future with portfolio covers, personal CD's and more. All these skills will help broaden my comprehension of the media world.