This assignment was to create a website with working links and four seperate pages. The website was created on the same topic that our QuarkXpress brochure was about. My topic was once again Casa de Claire, a vacation destination frequently visited by my family and I.
Because this project involved very little creativity, I found myself only making a few small decisions. I chose a background color that was as close as possible to that of my brochure. I also chose the topics of each page. These were the home page, information about the house, information about the island of Vieques, and information about rates and fares.
This project was challenging because we did not have the correct software on our computers to put our sites on the internet. We overcame these problems by eventually downloading new software onto all of the computers.
Overall, I am not very proud of this project. If I had more time I would have tried to figure out Dreamweaver enough to make my website more detailed, and closer to my mockup.
In this project we were told to use QuarkXpress to recreate postcards made by various companies to advertise their products or services. I chose to recreate a postcard sent our by People Magazine advertising a deal that they have for people who subscribe to their magazine in bulk.
This project was different from the others that we have done because we were not really able to make decisions on our own. All of the decisions that I did make were based around the fonts, images and colors that would best match the card that I was recreating.
I found it very challenging to create the pink arrow featured on the card that I chose. In the end, I made the card on Adobe Illustrator, edited it in photoshop, and then added it into my design. There must be some easier way to do this, but I was unable to find it.
I am proud of my attention to detail on this project, and the fact that I was able to complete the assignment on my own, without help from my teacher.
If I had more time I would have worked on the pink arrow much more. I am disappointed with the way that the arrow came out, and I do not feel that it adequately mirrors my original postcard.
For the final project of the semester we were assigned to create a sound slide using our own voice and music as audio. The subject of this project was something that we are passionate. It was easy for me to pick a topic for this project. The thing that I am most passionate about is my family. I chose to do my sound slide on my mother's artwork in particular. My mom is a role model to me in many ways, but one thing that I admire about her is her ability to transform thoughts, feelings and ideas into beautiful, meaningful pieces of artwork. I chose to incorporate pictures of my family and pictures of some of my mom's paintings into my sound slide. I also chose to use the song "Heart of Life" by John Mayer in the background of the sound slide because it reminds me of my mom.
Overall I really loved creating this final project. I think that it was fun to create because we were able to pick something that we are passionate about as the subject. However, I did find it incredibly challenging. It was difficult because we were completely on our own in creating this sound slide, and were not allowed to ask any questions about the project. I had a hard time overlapping, cutting and editing my audio file in garageband and then transferring it to itunes, and then transferring it to an MP3 file so that it could be used in the sound slide.
I am proud that I was able to overcome the challenges that I did face. I am also proud of the fact that this project really means a lot to me. Regardless of my grade, I created something that I am passionate about and that reminds me of many memories loved ones.
If I'd had more time I would have scanned small cards and letters that my mom has sent to me over the years that I have been away from home. Although the images on these notecards are not at all fancy, they reflect the relationship that my mother's art plays on my life. I am still very happy with the result of this project even though I did not have time to incorporate these pictures.
The script to my sound slide was as follows:
Art is an expression of one’s self. A work of art can reflect a person’s experiences, passions, opinions and hardships. One of the most amazing things about creating art is that there are no rules. No boundaries. My mother, Sheila Boss-Concannon, has been a huge influence in my life in many ways. One way that my mother has impacted my life is with her artwork.
Starting out as a graphic designer, my mother became an art teacher in the mid 90’s, right around the time that I began elementary school. Her artwork evolved during this time from sharp lines on the computer to picturesque landscapes, house portraits, and images of people she loved.
She primarily worked with watercolors, and brought her sketch book with her everywhere we went, capturing our experiences in paint, to look back on later.
Looking through my favorite pieces of my mother’s artwork, I realized a reoccurring theme. The subjects of my mother’s artwork are the people, places and things that are most important in her life. They are things that my mother is fascinated with.
As my mother’s life changes, so does her art’s style. My older brother left home to go to college in 2006. At this time I noticed a major change in my mom’s artwork. She began to create multimedia pieces in which she used multiple mediums. She started to create collages with photographs, fabric swatches, and clippings from books, magazines and newspapers that have meant something to her. She then paints on top of these collages. Her multimedia artwork means much more to her than the watercolors that she created earlier in her life. These pieces show the passion that my mother has for the subjects of her paintings.
When I left home two years ago to go to college, my mother’s artwork changed once again. Now that my brother and I were both away from home, my mother’s life had changed dramatically. She began to work on a new piece of art. This was a multimedia piece as well. This piece took her almost a year to complete. When I came home for the summer from my first year of college, she showed me the multimedia piece that she had just finished. The piece was painted on a small canvas covered in images of my brother and I with our parents during our childhoods. On top of those photos she had painted a bird’s nest. The nest had nothing but a few feathers inside. The painting was called the empty nest.
It was at this point that I realized that my mother used art to communicate the things that she could not say out loud.
Now, my mother’s artwork has become a way of communication between the two of us while I am at school. She often sends my little sketches, or home made note cards with small images on them. She sends me invitations to her art showings, even though she knows I may not be able to come.
What started out as one of my mother’s hobbies became a way for her to show the importance of different parts of her life. My mother’s artwork has become a way for the two of us to stay connected while I am not home. It has become a shared passion, and a link between the two of us.
The brochure assignment has been my favorite one that we have completed so far. I was hoping to design my brochure to give a tropical, sunny and relaxing feel to reflect the vacation destination.
I chose to do a brochure on "Casa De Claire," a house in Vieques, Puerto Rico that I visit every summer with my family. I tried to use more pictures than words because I think that the house is beautiful, and pictures of it would be much more convincing to a vacationer than detailed descriptions would.
I chose to divide my brochure into the following categories: the cover section with contact information, a section about the
sights and activities on the island, a section about the house and its features, a section ab
out the adjacent apartments and bunk house, a section about rental rates, and the mail in section with an area for the address and a pre-paid indicia.
I found QuarkXpress very challenging at first. I had never used it before, and the first day that we began our brochure I had a very hard time keeping up while we divided the brochures into sections based on the information we would include.
In the end, I feel more confident now about quark express than I do with any of the other programs we have used in class. To solve my problems I basically explored the various tools that Quark offers and search for solutions. I also used a lot of online tutoring sites to figure out the things that I did not initially understand.
Overall I am very proud of my brochure. I like all of the fonts that I selected and the colors and images I chose to use. I think that the decisions I made along the way show the vacation spot in a very positive light.
There is only one thing that I would have done differently if I had more time on this assignment. I wish that I could have figured out how to make my images more exciting. I tried framing them but I didn't like how harsh the frames looked around each picture. what I wanted to do was make the edges of each image fade out. I could not find a tool to do this on QuarkXpress or in online tutorial sites. I do not think that it would make my brochure incredibly different, but I do think that small details like fading do make designs look much more professional.
For my presentation I chose to look into animation on the web. When designing my powerpoint for this presentation I focused mostly on readability and relating my design to my topic. I chose to use fonts that were easy to read and backgrounds that were not distracting.
One of the major decisions that I made was regarding what specifically to research involving animation on the web. The topic is incredibly vague, so I chose to give an overview of the most commonly found sources of animation on the web. The fact that my topic was vague was one of the problems that I faced in this project. Solving it was stressful to me because I basically had to define my topic on my own. I was worried that I had interpreted my topic differently than I was supposed to. I basically had to take a risk in order to overcome this problem by defining what my topic entailed by myself. I think that I was successful in this.
I am proud of the fact that I was ready to present confidently with all of my materials together on the scheduled day of my presentation. I was surprised that I was one of the few people in the class who was actually prepared for my presentation. I felt proud to be prepared.If I had more time I would have looked into each type of web animation in more detail.
Information that I found:
Webster's dictionary defines animation as the creation of artificial moving objects. There are two common types of animation used. The first and most simple of these fomats is GIF format. GIFs are low bandwidth, low technology ways to create animations. CGI animation is the second common form. CGI stands for computer-generated imagery. This is the type of animation seen today in Pixar films. It looks three-dimensional and much more realistic than GIF animation does.
Animation is used for many reasons on the internet. Advertisements are a common source of animation on the web. Pop-ups often feature moving shapes in order to catch the viewer's attention. Ads that are found along the sides and tops of web pages called "banner advertisements" are another place where animations are found frequently. An example of this type of ad is an ad that says "Punch the monkey and yu will win a free ipod!!" These ads are not very credible, but the animation that they feature draw people in so that their attention is grasped. Virtual worlds are a new animated phenomenon on the internet. These are social networking sites taken to an extreme. People can create "themselves" and interact with other people in an animated world. These sites are a more realistic version of "the sims." Common virtual world sites are "SecondLife," "There.com," Mabinogi.com" and "IMVU." These sites are sometimes criticized because they are expensive to use. "SecondLife" if the most popular of these sites.
Surgical Simulations are another new common way that animation is used on the internet today. When a person is looking into getting surgery, they can order the animated version of their procedure on the internet in order to see what will be done to their body. The imagery used in these simulations is incredibly realistic and allows patients to be more confident about the surgery that they will be getting.
Tools like "Javascript," "Flashplayer," and "Quicktime" are needed in order to view most animations. Internet archives and video sharing sites are used to search for animations along with other forms of video. The most common of these is Youtube, but Hulu is also becoming incredibly popular.
Today, web animation is becoming more and more popular. It is used in games, programs, advertisements, presentations and so much more. Weekly online animated programs were once a cult phenomenon and are now going "mainstream." A creepy but popular example of one of these programs is "Salad Fingers."
For the poster assignment the goal of my design was readability from far away, and for the poster to catch the eye of people passing by. Originally this was not my goal. Before I was focused on the artistic aspect of the poster, making the background a complex picture and using red font that was smaller than it should have been. After seeing my poster printed out I made the decision to start from scratch with readability in mind.
To make the poster noticeable and easy to read I decided to use a black background and bright fonts. I decided which information was the most important and made that information the biggest. Other information used was still big enough to read from a distance, but would not be the first thing to catch the viewer's eye.
I found it challenging to keep the poster simple and readable while still incorporating all of the necessary information. To do this I had to prioritize which pieces of information were crucial and what could be left out.
I am proud of the fact that I was able to start over with little time left and successfully finish my poster. It was hard for me to come to terms with the fact that I needed to throw away my old ideas and start over because my original work was insufficient. I am glad that I was able to overcome this and I think that my final project is much better as a result.
If I had more time I would have played more with fonts in order to keep the lettering easy to read, but also to be a little more creative. I also would have found a more conducive image to put on the poster.
In this assignment my goal was to choose a band and to reflect their style in my powerpoint using music, fonts and colors. I chose Kings of Leon for this project because I love their music and knew that I would not get sick of it after listening to it over and over while creating and editing my powerpoint. I chose to use their song "I Want You" as my music file because it has a long non-lyrical introduction that I thought would be easy to loop in my slideshow.
I was pretty challenged overall by this assignment. I had used powerpoint before and found it simple to make the presentation, but when it came time to add sound and create a sound slide I was challenged. In class everything felt unnecessarily rushed, and it was very stressful because I had never done anything in powerpoint with sound so I struggled to keep up. I found myself being confused a lot in class and then looking up instructions on how to do things online when I got out of class.
Online tutorial sites were a big part of my completing this assignment. They were very helpful and allowed me to catch up when I fell behind in class.
I am proud of the fact that I successfully completed this assignment. Because it was such a struggle I was very releived when it was done. I hope that I do something with multiple steps in powerpoint again at some point in my four years in college because it seems like it will be a very useful tool to master for careers.
If I had more time I would have been more creative with text and backgrounds in my powerpoint. My strategy in this project was to do the basics first and then go back after and add detail. If more time was allowed I would have concentrated on these details.
The brochure assignment has been my favorite one that we have completed so far. I was hoping to design my brochure to give a tropical, sunny and relaxing feel to reflect the vacation destination. 
