Final Blog Post

Some projects were more frustrating than others. I had a difficult time with the Audition project, but I ended up learning a lot. Although, I have to say that my favorite project was the graphic collage using Photoshop. I had always been intimidated by Photoshop and was always afraid to try to learn it myself. The tutorials that were provided help me to learn the basics of Photoshop (even if it was frustrating at times) and enabled me to use a different platform for creativity. I liked the graphic collage because I was able to utilize my newfound knowledge of the program while also putting together something that reflected my personality. I plan to continue using Photoshop in the future, especially in conjunction with Illustrator to create both professional and personal designs.

Although I did have previous experience with Adobe Illustrator in the past, I learned so much more about it and other Adobe programs this semester. In Photoshop I was finally able to learn the basics and gain resources that I had not previously been aware of. I think the tool that will be most helpful is erasing the background from a photograph. I will definitely use this when designing posters for events. In Illustrator I was able to learn about utilizing more than just the pen tool, especially gradients and layers of the same object. I will definitely use Pathfinder more because it is so useful in so many ways. I know that I will be using Illustrator for the rest of my career, using all the tools in it as well because I want to become a graphic designer. In Audition I learned how to make a multi-layer track that could be organized into a cohesive story.  In Premier I learned to take footage, music, sound, script and word sequences and put them all together into a fluid story. I love that all the Adobe programs are very similar. Adobe includes layers in every program and I think that is one of the reasons why they are so easy to use and successful. Being able to organize all these things into layers and categories and folders helps the creator to stay organized while making their composition.

I already knew, before taking this class, that I wanted to go into Advertising. More specifically, the creative side of advertising. I have been meaning to learn more about Adobe programs because of this. Com 210 has been a great addition to my education because it has taught me the basics across the Adobe suite programs. I will be able to take what I learned from this class and build on that knowledge so that I may develop it to a professional level some day.

Even though we learned about four very crucial Adobe programs to Advertising, I wish that we could have learned about Adobe Dreamweaver or Adobe InDesign. I know that those are commonly used programs in the advertising world and I wish that I had at least a minimal amount of knowledge of those programs.

A lot of the time when using Adobe Illlustrator I also utilize font or typography websites such as dafont.com or losttype.com. They are great for finding more modern fonts beyond what is offered in the default menus pre-programmed into our computers. I would definitely recommend those sites to students taking this class in the future. Other than that, this was a great class and I learned a lot of useful information from it that I will be able to use throughout my college and professional career.

Final Video

So here is my final video product. It is essentially the same as before, but I have added a couple extra clips so that there is more variety and now there is a more complete conclusion.

The topic of my video reflects my blog, but it focuses on how to post your designs on the internet. I wanted to make a video that helps people. I think it is important, especially for designers, to know how easy it is to get your designs out there. I think that with the combination of my narration, video footage and pictures, I have made a video that will successfully help fellow designers or aspiring designers get their work noticed via social media.

I made a few changes since I posted my draft video. I have added a video segment I took of the drawings displayed in the fine arts building that were done by the FA 110 class. I inserted it into the part where I explain about coming up with an idea for a design. I also changed the background music because the people who gave me feedback said the music didn’t necessarily go with my narration, which I agreed with. So I took the same music from my title sequence and extended it for the whole video. I also included the finished product of the drawing I made and the picture of it posted on my blog. I believe this made it so that my video had a more solid conclusion. I added the credits at the end to that I could cite the background song (BomBom feat. The Teaching by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis) which I had purchased. I am happy with my final product and believe it effectively shows that I understand the tools in Adobe Premier. I used title sequences, effectively used video transitions, edited both the audio and visual sequences and made a seamless and well-organized video. Below I have posted the revised story board and script that go with this final version.

Storyboard:

1) 0:00-0:32 Title Sequence	Beginning titles fade in and out accordingly. At 0:28 fades to black. Music is playing in the background; BomBom by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.
2) 0:33-1:10 Main footage of me drawing3) 1:11-1:17 Flash of compositions footage 4) 1:18-1:35 Main footage of me drawing	Intro narration; see script below.Continued narration, music, see script Continued narration, music, see script
4) 1:36-1:46 Flash of materials footage	Continued narration, music, see script
5) 1:47-2:15 Continuation of main footage.	Continued narration, music, see script
6) 2:16-2:38 Images of social media sites	Continued narration, music, see script
7) 2:39-3:19 Continued footage of me drawing	Continued narration, music, see script
8) 3:20-3:26 Text of tags appear and then dissolve	Continued narration, music, see script
9) 3:27-3:49 Continued narration with original footage then conclusion	Continued narration, music, see script
10) 3:50-3:55 Concluding statement, final drawing shot, posted image on WordPress shot.
11) 3:56-4:09 Credits

Script:

Many people believe that in order to make it big in art and design you need your art to be professionally recognized. That it needs to be shown in galleries or bought, but in this day and age, we have the advantage of social media. Anyone has the opportunity to display their art or designs to the world. Not only has this promoted freedom of expression, but it’s also a great way to get a foot in the door of your career choice. I am going to discuss the advantages of using social media as well as how to use it effectively.

I will also show an example of a design I made and how I effectively display it via social media.

First: Come up with a design; something that expresses your style and who you are. It doesn’t necessarily have to have a purpose, it just needs to be a strong composition that gives viewers a glimpse of who you are. Here, I am drawing a portrait based on a photograph. I decided this is a good way to show my personality because it shows my technique and the style that I like to use when making my designs.

Next: Decide on your medium. Whether it be paint, audio, visual, pencil, paper, clay, etc. It should be something that will show off your design how you imagine it. For my piece I just decided to use pencil and a sheet of paper. I prefer using mechanical pencils because they always stay sharp and I like to incorporate lots of detail. Other times I might use Adobe Illustrator or paint.

Once your design is finished, you should decide what social media site you wish to use. Some popular ones for the beginner are Facebook, WordPress, Blogspot and Tumblr. For the more advanced I would recommend building a portfolio on Cargo Collective, Behance, and Ffffound! For this demonstration I will just post the picture on my WordPress blog, but I use Facebook and Tumblr most of the time. For my more professional pieces I post them on my online portfolio. Now I can post my design and get feedback from friends and other critics.

Other ways to get your designs circulating is to ad tags to your posts, invite friends and ask fellow bloggers to promote you. If you are looking for a job in the design field, put the link to your blog or online portfolio in your resume, it is sure to impress. Some tags might not even seem that related but your design will get more traffic flow. I often use the tags ART, DESIGN, DRAWING, and ILLUSTRATION.

It is up to you how you make your designs and how you would like them displayed, but the use of social media gives the modern designer an advantage that has not been present until recently. Displaying your designs online gives you free advertising and promotion and it opens you up to the design community. Get started today!

Drawing

Here is the drawing from my video. It’s not my best seeing as how it’s really hard to draw while holding a camera and filming at the same time.

Draft video

My blog’s topic is basically about the broad category of design. For my video I chose to focus on people like me, those who would like to get more involved and known in the design community. It is basically an instructional video with tips about how to create a design and share it on the internet. It’s very basic but I think it gives the viewer a good idea of how to start, which was my aim. I included a text sequences in the video like we had learned in the tutorials. I also effectively incorporated transitions between videos. I used multiple clips from original footage that I had filmed and I also used my own voice recording from a script I wrote;

“Many people believe that in order to make it big in art and design you need your art to be professionally recognized. That it needs to be shown in galleries or bought, but in this day and age, we have the advantage of social media. Anyone has the opportunity to display their art or designs to the world. Not only has this promoted freedom of expression, but it’s also a great way to get a foot in the door of your career choice. I am going to discuss the advantages of using social media as well as how to use it effectively.

I will also show an example of a design I made and how I effectively display it via social media.

First: Come up with a design; something that expresses your style and who you are. It doesn’t necessarily have to have a purpose, it just needs to be a strong composition that gives viewers a glimpse of who you are. Here, I am drawing a portrait based on a photograph. I decided this is a good way to show my personality because it shows my technique and the style that I like to use when making my designs.

Next: Decide on your medium. Whether it be paint, audio, visual, pencil, paper, clay, etc. It should be something that will show off your design how you imagine it. For my piece I just decided to use pencil and a sheet of paper. I prefer using mechanical pencils because they always stay sharp and I like to incorporate lots of detail. Other times I might use Adobe Illustrator or paint.

Once your design is finished, you should decide what social media site you wish to use. Some popular ones for the beginner are Facebook, WordPress, Blogspot and Tumblr. For the more advanced I would recommend building a portfolio on Cargo Collective, Behance, and Ffffound! For this demonstration I will just post the picture on my WordPress blog, but I use Facebook and Tumblr most of the time. For my more professional pieces I post them on my online portfolio. Now I can post my design and get feedback from friends and other critics.

Other ways to get your designs circulating is to ad tags to your posts, invite friends and ask fellow bloggers to promote you. If you are looking for a job in the design field, put the link to your blog or online portfolio in your resume, it is sure to impress. Some tags might not even seem that related but your design will get more traffic flow. I often use the tags ART, DESIGN, DRAWING, and ILLUSTRATION.

It is up to you how you make your designs and how you would like them displayed, but the use of social media gives the modern designer an advantage that has not been present until recently. Displaying your designs online gives you free advertising and promotion and it opens you up to the design community. Get started today!”

I was able to create both a title and credit sequence with the title tool and effectively controlled the volume on multiple clips.

For my final draft I would like to include a clip of a jpeg of my final drawing posted on my blog, but my scanner isn’t working right now so I wasn’t able to do that. I also might choose a different background track for my narration, I’m not sure if the song fits with my video but it was the best one I could find for the time being.

All in all, I believe that this video effectively displays what I’ve learned from the Adobe Premier Tutorials and that I have been able to use those tools to display my topic.

1) 0:00-0:32 Title Sequence	Beginning titles fade in and out accordingly. At 0:28 fades to black. Music is playing in the background; BomBom by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.
2) 0:33-1:35 Main footage of me drawing	Intro narration; see script below. Music Days to Come by Seven Lions
3) 1:36-1:46 Flash of materials footage	Continued narration, music see script.
4) 1:47-2:15 Continuation of main footage.	Continued narration, music see script
5) 2:16-2:38 Images of social media sites	Continued narration, music see script
6) 2:39-3:19 Continued footage of me drawing	Continued narration, music see script
7) 3:20-3:26 Text of tags appear and then dissolve	Continued narration, music see script
8) 3:27-3:53 Continued narration with original footage then conclusion	Continued narration, music see script
9) 3:54-3:55 Concluding statement, black video	Conclusion narration
10) 3:56-4:09 Credits	Credit text then music fades at 4:08

Premiere Tutorials

These are both the tutorials for the Premiere tutorial assignment. The photo in the first video was found on jimmywayne flickr account. My title sequence used Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ song BomBom, which I had bought. The film is my original footage.

Raw audio footage

I must say the challenge for me was figuring out how to upload the darn video footage onto my computer in a viewable format. Fortunately I figured it out. The footage I got is meant to be paired with voiceover so that there is a narrative and music playing as the scenes go. I filmed my coworkers at the Student Organization who are graphic designers. I am filming them working, along with the many posters they’ve designed. I also filmed my painting and pictures in my room that serve as my inspiration. All this will come together to create a video project that clearly plays on my topic of design.

 

Final Audio

I was not passionate about this project, to say the least. I am not all that talented with anything having to do with sound. Visual mediums are more my forte. As a result, this was a great challenge for me. Not just because I am melodically handicapped, but also because I had zero passion for this project. Not excited in the least. I worked through it though, and finally came out with something I am proud of.

My draft just consisted of a clipped of version of my raw audio footage, so this has come a long way since then. I added music. This is a song called “The only place” by Best Coast. I own this song and I am only using it as background to my audio story. I tried to go with a more instrumental piece but none of the songs really matched the tone of the story. I think it added a lot to it. Made it much more dynamic and brought the listener in more.

My story isn’t necessarily a story format and that’s how I like it. I wanted it to be more of an organized collage of sorts. I mixed up Erin and I’s interviews so that what we were talking about related but it was still more sporadic than an organized piece, which is what I was going for. I wanted it to be different and I think I succeeded in that.

I used the clipper tool A LOT. I took out so much content, both large and small chunks. It was really hard to get out all the filler phrases but I got out like 90% of them. I consider this to be one of my greatest accomplishments of the piece. I also used the multi-volume tools, as well as the fade tool. All combined to make a complete audio story discussing my blog topic; design.

My roommate was the person I interviewed besides myself and I interviewed her because she is involved in design but not in the graphic or 2-dimensional sense. She is an interior design major and therefor has to work with 3D visual concepts. I thought this would add a different point of view to my audio story and give it a little more variety. If you listen you can start to distinguish the difference between the two inputs and it effectively helps the listener understand design in multiple ways. I would say this piece is more of a matter of opinion rather than just based on fact. We both use fact but only to support our opinions.

All in all, I worked my best on a project that was out of my element using the tools I had only learned about less than two weeks before. I think I did an effective job of keeping my personality and style reflected throughout the story while making it concise and interesting.

Audio Story Draft

So I interviewed myself and my roommate (an interior design major) for my audio story draft. My audio story was about my topic: design. I covered mostly what it means to us and the different aspects of it. I think in my final draft I am going to have a song playing in the background and I might interview my art teacher as well.

Raw Audio interviews

I did a self interview and interviewed my roommate Erin since she is an interior design major. Enjoy.

Adobe Audition Audio Tutorials

Check out my handi work with Adobe Audition. Not my favorite program but still really cool.