RR #10

1. [STRONGEST] Video: Since I am into photography I am pretty familiar with a camera and have made videos before for fun.
2. Graphic Design: I have always been using photoshop to mess with images and create posters, logos, and messing with layouts
3. Web Development: I feel pretty comfortable with coding although I’m just getting started. I think that there are a lot of small things that you can learn while coding that go a long way.
4. [WEAKEST]Writing/Editing: I would really rather not have to write, although I like to think I’m a pretty good writer and editor. However, I would much rather be a part of the designing.

RR #9

As I have been working on project 2, I have learned a lot about how to format and organize the text on a webpage. Specifically, I figured out how to use the ‘break’ code and ‘center’ code to be able to have the text clean in the middle of the page. I have chosen to showcase Travis Scott since I’m really influenced by his fashion style and I am also a huge fan of his music. I have chosen to include a picture of him in the background image of my website to create more emphasis on him. I also organized my main page to have the different parts of the site easily accessible and in order of importance. I also used color with the background. So far I have formatted the text how I like, but I still need to add some images, videos, and styling to the text.

RR #8

So this code is dealing with the stylizing of the clock and date that is shown under the Supreme logo. On the website, the time changes on its own. I’m wondering how you make this happen with a code.

This code deals with the footer of the website which includes 4 links, as there are 4 lines of code. The first link shows all the products available. The second takes the reader to the size chart. The third takes the reader to the terms of service, and then finally the last link leads to frequently asked questions about Supreme.

RR #7

I use the web every day for both entertainment and educational purposes. I know that there is a lot that goes into making a website from scratch but at the same time, people use a lot of templates to design their website. I have heard of some programming languages before, but I cannot remember their names, nor do I have any experience with coding. Most often, when I am asked to create a website I rely on the templates, even though I’m never completely happy with the end result. I think it is important to know how to create a website when you are someone that does photography and other technology-based activities. I feel pretty good about this unit, as I catch on to things related to technology pretty quickly. I really look forward to learning how to make a website due to the fact that one of my buddies is looking for someone to create a website for his business. I hope that I learn enough and keep practicing on my own so that I can eventually create websites for people.

RR #6 & Time-Based Text

I used Adobe Premiere Pro to create my video. I’ve used this program a few times to make videos for my friends, so it was the obvious choice for me.

I intentionally included a Travis Scott song in the background of the video, which you can hear behind my voice, starting at the beginning of the video and continuing throughout the rest. This element was used to appeal to the audience; the video is much more entertaining with the more bells and whistles it has. Also, I include an example of a Travis Scott poster this is simply because I’m a big fan of Travis.

I also included other text examples as I continue talking in my video, this is so that the viewers get to see more than one example and they can clearly understand what I’m talking about due to the visual aid.

Also, I fit the multimodal examples so that they were all the same size when they are shown on screen. This was to keep the consistency of the image size and in turn, makes the video more appealing to the audience.

Due to the fact that I’ve used Premiere Pro a few times already, I actually feel like I got to make this video completely how I wanted to, and there really wasn’t any choices that I didn’t have a say in.

Storyboard

1. 1. Video begins – Opening Credits begin, my name appears with the title of my video – background song “sdp interlude” begins playing
   2. I am shown in frame talking about why I chose this genre. I chose this genre because I feel like I am really influenced by musicians and I thought that concert flyers, specifically rap/hip-hop ones would be cool to analyze to figure out what makes a great concert flyer. I have seen concert posters throughout my life, and have gone to a few of these concerts so I thought it would be cool to take a deeper look at them.
   3. Cut to a picture of the Travis Scott concert poster. I begin talking about the purpose (The overall purpose for these texts are to advertise a concert for an artist, this means that the whole point is to try to get people to buy tickets and go to the show.) and audience (The intended audiences for these rap flyers are likely people that are ages 16-25. The secondary audience could be anyone that likes rap music, hip-hop, music in general, concerts in general, or anyone that happens to see the flyer) .and my voice is heard over the picture of the poster, over the background song.
   4. Cut back to a frame of just me as I explain the context (On these flyers, it is kind of just expected that the viewer knows what they see. For example, the Lil Wayne flyer

   has an overall Star Wars theme, which you wouldn’t know if you didn’t see the movie.) that is given in the poster.

   5. I am still in frame, but I want to have an overlayed picture of the concert picture on top of me, so that as I am talking, you can see what I’m talking about. I talk about the design concepts in this frame.

   Alignment – they are all center aligned

   Organization – Large image with information below, the artists name is usually large and above the picture

   Framing – The circle in the picture guides our eyes from “Travis Scott” to “Live in Chicago”

   6. Cut to a picture of two posters next to each other, the Travis Scott one we were already looking at, and a Drake one. Here we will be able to see how similar posters can be, but how different they can be at the same time. I end talking about design concepts and begin talking about the modes.

   Includes information about the location/date/time on the poster

   Use of images: large images will be places In the center of the poster to grab the viewer’s attention

   Colors: the name of the artist is always contrasted with the background color of the poster so that the name stands out as much as possible

   7. Go back to a shot of me and the Travis Scott poster in the same frame as I finish up talking about my genre.
   8. Ending Credits scrolling upwards.

RR#4 + Genre Conventions

GenreConventions

RR #3

1. Emphasis is a concept that is used to make things stand out. To do so, the author will make a certain element bigger than others, or in a different font or color that stands out from the rest. If something is standing out, it is probably important. Emphasis is clearly visible even by just glancing at this concert flyer. The emphasis is on the artist, Travis Scott. To give emphasis to his name, the creator of this text made the words “Travis Scott” quite a bit bigger than everything else, not to mention the interesting font that grabs the viewer’s attention. Our attention is pulled into “Travis Scott” but then after we continue to look at the flyer, we notice more and more information, like the venue.
2.  Contrast is the difference between elements such as size, color, and shape. In this picture, the colors are contrasted against each other in a bunch of different ways. The white background contrasts with the black, meanwhile, the white words are contrasted by the red words that are also contrasted by the background. Meanwhile, the bodies are being contrasted with the words and also the two different background. Overall this image is extremely contrasted, but it works to create an attractive text.
3. Organization is how elements are placed in relation to the whole text. In this example, the elements are organized into a couple different categories. First of all, it is being organized by measurement of time, future, present and past. Secondly, it is being organized by direction to symbolize that the future is ahead, the present is now, and the past is behind. This is effective and the text has a motivational type feel to it. Due to the organization, the text gives off a message that seems something like today counts toward your future, or something along those lines. 
4. Alignment is how the elements line up to compose a text which we can clearly read and navigate. In this example, we see a very literal use of alignment, but it works well for an example. By showing the stick figure outside of the church, the author is saying that this person does not agree with the church’s beliefs. As for the second image, by having the stick figure aligned HALFWAY into the church, the author is showing that this person only partly agrees with the beliefs, or maybe that the person is only partly committed to the church. By showing the final image of the person in the church, the author is saying that this person is truly who they want at the church, someone who agrees fully with their beliefs and is committed. 
5. Proximity is how far or close elements are in a text. In this example, the proximity of the dots changes from one side to the other. On the left, you see a big grouping of dots and it’s a little difficult to figure out exactly how many there are, but it still looks clean. As for the right side, there are the same amount of dots, but since they have been changed to be farther apart they make it seem like they are much more organized, and it’s easier to tell exactly how many there are. This could be an effective strategy if you were trying to make someone look far away, you could make them smaller.
6. Color is what colors are used in a text in relation to how well they go together, or how bad they clash. Colors can add to the overall theme of a text, or take away from it. In this picture, we see Kanye West with bleached pink/yellow/blonde hair. As you may know, Kanye does not have blonde hair. This is a great example that shows someone using color to add to an overall theme. In this picture, Kanye is wearing clothing from his own line, Yeezy Supply. To add to the aesthetic of the outfit and overall look, Kanye bleached his hair blonde. I think that this is effective to show that sometimes changes must be made so that things can go together. 
7. Framing is a way to explain how the picture looks to us in relation to the lines that we see and the actual frame.There are a few different ways that a text can be framed to guide our eyes to where they need to go. In this example, we see a very important and famous image, The Falling Man by Richard Drew. Although this is a rather horrific picture, it has very interesting framing. It’s very easy to be guided to the man in the very first instance of looking at the picture. However, the lines add to the effect and you can clearly tell that this man is falling and your eyes try to figure out what’s below him. 
8. Sequencing is the order that things happen to create a story or timeline of sorts. In this example, we see a music video that is cut quite a bit, and we truly don’t know when certain things actually happened. The elements are put into a sequence so that it matches the words and creates a story, almost. It might be possible to break the video down and figure out when everything actually happens but that would be missing the point and would be useless.

RR #2

The audience that I have aimed my website to appeal to is male apple farmers that are at least 65 years’ old who are conservative and love to be around kids. This is modeled after my Grandpa, Gene. My grandpa is a farmer, although he doesn’t just have apples. My grandpa values the idea of respect as well as family and teaching kids right from wrong. He also likes to drink beer and eat ice-cream.

In class, I had the luck of drawing a rhetorical situation that asked me to create a website in order to convince farmers to go to the opera. At first, I didn’t really know what I was going to do to be able to effectively get farmers to go to the opera. I began to think about my grandpa Gene. My grandpa is an apple farmer who is about 66 years old. So now that I had an audience in mind, I had to go a little deeper with it, I had to think about what he would like to see. I came up with the idea that I would make this opera show based on a child and an apple farm since my grandpa loves both apples and kids. I also know from past experience that by using visuals of kids you are able to cause a change easier, due to the fact that people are more sensitive and caring towards children. So now that I had my idea, I needed to put it into action.

I began to look up websites that were created to advertise opera shows, opera singers, all things opera. I found that many of them are the same in the sense of the details they provide the viewer. The basic features I found was an “about” page, company logo, “contact us” page, “buy tickets” button, “news” page, brief introduction/description of the show, and finally, there is almost always a picture of the creator/star of the show on the site. So now I knew what information I needed to make available on my own webpage, and now the design process began. Modelling my website after another, I switched out the main picture of two actors to a picture of an apple tree with a kid on the side, picking an apple. After I sized up the picture, I needed to change the pre-exiting color scheme. I did so, making the left and right sides a dark red color (I color picked this color using the dropper tool on a dark part of an apple). Then, I needed to change the color of the area below the picture so that all the colors went together, I made it a dark green (used the dropper tool on a leaf). After I was done with the picture and color scheme, I continued the mock-up and placed the text where I wanted that item to be. For example, I thought that the logo of the company putting on this opera show should be displayed on the bottom left of the screen, under information like Contact Us, About, Buy Tickets, etc. After that, I added a few more details like the photograph of the creator, introduction to the show, and description of the creator.

RR #1

Part 1: To me, multimedia authoring means packaging information to be digitally presented. So for example, taking pictures, making videos, using text and so much more can be considered a type of multimedia authoring. With that being said, I guess I would have quite a bit of experience in multimedia authoring. Since about 6th grade I have been using Photoshop for both simple and more experienced tasks. For example, in 7th grade, I took a computer class during which I would find pictures of my friends in that class and put their faces onto animal bodies. However, I have done more complicated tasks like switching the background in a picture I have taken to look like the picture was really taken during the nighttime with a city view, rather than during daytime with an ugly background. I chose to take this class because I felt like it would educate me on a subject that I already enjoy.

Part 2: I chose this blog template because I felt like it was very easy to navigate and figure out what’s going on. Personally, I care a lot about how things look. This specific template, to me, has a very simple but fun look to it. There is an “About” page that has a brief introduction of me, as well as a “Contact” page for people to get a hold of me if need be. Other than that, all my blog posts are in order from most recent to oldest which makes the website simple for people who have not visited it before. However, I am kind of bummed out that the template doesn’t have a page where all of the blog posts are archived, instead of having to scroll through the main page to find old posts.

Part 3: Kristin Arola made many great points throughout her article in relation to design and the heavy use of templates. Arola says, “students in our classes learn only to fill up those templates and fill in those electric boxes.” By this, she means that if we keep using things like Powerpoint only for their technical ability, we lose our sense of creativity and our will to compose. Instead, we turn into a type of robot that is simply “filling up” the space we are provided with information. With that being said, I definitely agree with many of the points she makes, and I think my template could be much better. I see now that I don’t really like the size of the photo on my welcome screen, there are other colors I would rather have used but I was not given the option for many colors, just like Arola discussed in her article. Besides all that, I really feel like if I knew how to, I could create a website that looks far superior to this one.