Final Sound Slide!

Final Soundslide Rationale!

I was hesitant when picking a topic or something that I am passionate about for my final project, a 2 minute soundslide. I decided to complete a soundslide about my Uncle who passed away in Iraq. My uncle is very important to me, and I wanted to show the class just how much he meant to me. Also, I knew this would be a great keep sake and "gift" for my family. I chose to play the song "You Raise Me Up" (the instrumental version) in the background because it really connects to the message that I wanted to convey throughout the sound slide. The song really touched home, and made my project just that much more emotional, a characteristic I was striving for. One difficulty I faced when completing this assignment was trying to find an instrumental song that I could use for my background music. Not having access to an iTunes account to purchase the song, and having no means to download it, I found it difficult to not only find the song I wanted, but more specifically to find the instrumental version of it. Originally I had wanted to play "Crash Into Me" by Dave Matthews Band, because it was my uncle's favorite song, however I was limited and forced to use "You Raise Me Up". If I had more time I would definitely try to find an instrumental version of the song I actually wanted. My biggest challenge was putting all of my work together into the sound slide. I had my pictures ready, my voice over commentary, and the song I had chose. The difficult part for me was compiling it all together and aligning the slides with my voice and the pictures. I am most proud that I could incorporate someone I am very passionate about with my school work, thus making this project very personal and very meaningful. Overall, this project is something I will keep forever.

InDesign BiBi Card!

Unlike the Quark Express BiBi Card, which I found to be relatively easy, I was a little taken about when I began my BiBi card in InDesign. It was difficult to get used to the InDesign options and tabs, and figure out how I could convert what I had done on Quark into InDesign. If I had more time, I would definitely have spent it perfecting fonts, layouts, and making it look more identical to my Quark Express BiBi card, and of course the original. I am most proud, as I had stated in my last blog post, that I could work on this project all on my own, and still manage to do a decent job. My biggest challenge was keeping focus and not getting frustrated with this program. Although difficult, InDesign will definitely help me in the future.

Quark Xpress BiBi Card!

This assignment seemed challenging to me at first, however, after realizing that I had a good understanding of how to use quark from a previous assignment, and setting the margins and size of my document, I was well on my way to success. The most difficult thing I faced while completing this BiBi card on Quark, was that it was difficult to find the magazine cover used on the actual card. I thought it would be harder to match the fonts, however, that part was pretty easy seeing as though my original BiBi Card used many standard fonts, such as Times New Roman and Arial. If I had more time, I would simply perfect my BiBi card more. I feel as though I did a great job, however, more time would obviously mean a better quality assignment. The most fulfilling part of this assignment was that I could take a card from a magazine and completely recreate it on my own, making it look almost exactly the same as the original. With little direction for this project, I found that I had actually learned how to use Quark and could function with it by myself. Overall, I enjoyed this assignment although it was extremely tedious and time consuming.

Final Soundslide Script!

It was August 6, 2002. My family and I flew to Greenville, NC to attend m y uncle’s wedding. The entire time we were there, I spent countless hours laughing and driving around aimlessly with my uncle, listening to his favorite music by the Dave Matthews Band. My Uncle Chris was my favorite relative, and those 4 days in North Carolina were a blast. Little did I know that with a kiss and a hug and a plane ride back home, I would never see my uncle alive again. The saying goes “you don’t know what you got til its gone”. I never knew how much this statement would impact my life.

My uncle, Captain Christopher Cash was living the dream before he was deployed to Iraq. He was a 36-year old father of 2 teenage boys, he has recently gotten remarried to the love of his life, & he was looking forward to starting a family with her. His career as an exercise physiologist was keeping him in supreme condition on top of the countless miles he would run every day. Serving in the Army Reserves after almost 20 years in the Army, my uncle was required to attend boot camp once a month.

He was born and raised in Rhode Island, attending high school in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, and moving to Texas and North Carolina for the army. He had an accent that was a mix between the lovely melting pot accents of Rhode Island, with a twist of Southern twang. For as long as I can remember, my Uncle Chris had lived in North Carolina, so I really didn’t get to see him much. But long distance phone calls and short visits here and there kept us close. We would always sit down together and tease my mom, which is his older sister. We were like a tag team. He had a muscular build and I always believed that my uncle was my hero, no matter if he was in jeans and an Eddie Bauer t-shirt or his army fatigues, my Uncle Chris had always been a hero in my eyes.

June 24, 2004 changed my life completely. I had never really lost any close family members, and was unaware of the pain it caused. It was a typical summer afternoon, my sister & I were preparing for our softball game that night. We were just about to start eating dinner with my parents, when the phone rang. I picked it up and found that it was my grandfather was on the line. He sounded frantic and told me to get my mom as soon as possible. I handed the phone to my mom and the rest was a blur. I learned that my Uncle Chris had been killed in Iraq, due to an enemy sniper. My heart felt shattered and I couldn’t do anything but cry and scream “NO” over and over again. He was gone. I never got to say goodbye.

My mom always says you have to make the best out of every situation. After my uncle passed away my family and I started a memorial race in his honor. It was tough to celebrate Christmas and not get a phone call from him, and to celebrate Father’s Day when I knew my cousins had no one to celebrate it with. I still miss him more and more every single day, but I do know that my uncle, Captain Christopher Cash was a hero.

Powerpoint Soundslide!

For this sound slide, we were asked to use Audacity to cut 1 minute out of the same song we used for our PowerPoint presentation. I used the song "Burnin' Up" by the Jonas Brothers. It was not that hard to figure out how to cut the song down to a minute, however after converting it from an MP3 and then to a WAV and then back to an MP3 was very intricate and redundant. If I had more time I would have been more creative with what part of my song I chose and try to make it with my pictures better. The pictures were taken from the slide show I had previously completed on the Jonas Brothers. I am most proud that I could easily figure out how to upload the song and coordinate it with the matching pictures. Overall, I learned a lot throughout this assignment, and I know I will be using Audacity in the future.">

Newsletter!

This newsletter was not the easiest thing to do for me. I did not have a difficult time finding the information, however putting it all together and having the pictures fit the screen was difficult, because most pictures I found were not big enough to fit the newsletter's size. If I had more time I would definitely have been more creative with my pictures and try to put better and more interesting information in it. I am most proud of the fact that I could put together a professional looking newsletter by myself, using a color scheme and font scheme. Overall, I feel confident about this assignment however, I wish I had more time to perfect my work. It was easy to find the pictures however, because I used the same pictures and information from my already made brochure.

Bristol, RI Brochure!

Above is a brochure I created to advertise some museums that can be found in Bristol, RI. I found it easy to find pictures & backgrounds for the brochure, because Bristol is such a scenic town. My biggest challenge was when I forgot to save my document in my private folder, and lost all of my material and only found out the day the brochure was due. However, because I had saved all of my images, putting it back together was not a problem. I am most proud of my ability to make such a professional looking document. Quark Xpress was a great program to work with, and after using it for a second time, I feel pretty comfortable with it. If I had more time, I would definitely have worked with more fonts and more graphics to make the brochure look even more professional. I would also have used PhotoShop to customize every picture.
I chose to create a brochure about museums and historical sites in Bristol, RI because I feel that it is important to understand the culture and history that has taken place in a particular town.

Jonas Brothers CD Release Poster!

This poster was created on Quark Xpress, having never used Quark before I found it very easy to get used to. I enjoyed using the same band I used for my Power Point, so that I could use the same images and color schemes that I had used previously. If I had more time, I would definitely have used a more interesting background, probably one that incorporated a large image of the Jonas Brothers. I stuck with the same font throughout the poster because I believe that it made it look uniform, even though the fonts varied in size and color. My biggest problem was remembering to switch from the item tool to the content tool, I would always forget to do that and end up dragging around the wrong thing. However, overall, this assignment was fun and allowed me to be creative. I feel that by knowing how to use Quark Xpress, I will definitely be using this program in the future for classes and personal reasons.

The Jonas Brothers- A Kiosk Powerpoint

I created my power point about the Jonas Brothers, one of my favorite bands. Creating this power point came very easily to me. I thoroughly enjoyed using pictures as the backgrounds of the slides, and playing with the transparency and coloring of the pictures, to have it match with the font and text used on the slides. I felt that I used the animations very thoroughly, however, they did not go along with the music. The only challenge I really faced was figuring out what color font I should use, to ensure that the font was readable but still went along with the slide's color scheme. I am most proud that I was able to attach the MP3 file and figure out how to play it constantly on my own, without any help. The skills that I learned while completing this power point will definitely be of assistance to be for the rest of my academic career. If I had more time I would work more with the effects of the slides and the animations. I would make the animations coincide with the music, and have it go to the beat. Overall, I felt very confident in my final product and will hopefully be able to use my power point skills in the future.

Contact Sheet- Image Editing Basics~

I found this assignment quite interesting to complete. The toughest part was finding images that were big enough to edit and were an image of something that would represent the kind of editing tool I was using. For the resolution tool I chose a picture of a red flower, a picture that you can easily track the change in resolution from 72 DPI all the way to 1200 DPI.


Next, for the Format/Mode tool, I chose a picture of Mount Hope Bridge, a picture that looks great in the RGB setting, as well as the CMYK, Black and White, and Duotone. I mixed the duotone with purple and yellow, to make a rustic look in the picture, the color kind of reminded me of a sepia tone. To the right, I have pictured the black and white version of the picture of Mount Hope Bridge, this image has all color stripped out of it, a setting you must put into effect before you can use the duotone setting.

For orientation I chose a picture of cars in a junk yard. This image was appealing to me because it was abstract and could easily be changed from landscape to square and portrait. For the tool framing, I chose a picture of a red car in a junk yard with a green hose. I gradually cropped the picture to the close-up, where the green hose is the focus of the picture. For the content tool, I started with a picture of a sunflower with a bee on it. I gradually cropped the picture to finally form the abstract image of the center of the sunflower, that has great texture and intricate colors. For the purpose tool, I chose an abstract picture of a red cross. I used the artistic finishes Fresco and Plastic Wrap, because they added interesting flairs on the picture. I finished with the Palette Knife, a finish that added a soft feel to the picture.
As previously stated, my biggest challenge was finding pictures that were the right size and had the right effect for each category. I solved these challenges by continuing to search for pictures until I was satisfied. I thoroughly enjoyed working with all of the different settings and seeing how one effect could change the whole picture. I am most proud that I could come from the first assignment, where I felt lost the whole time, and then complete this assignment all on my own. If I had more time, I would have looked for better images that were more creative and abstract. Overall, I enjoyed this assignment.

Font Poem!

This quote "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. The sinners are much more fun." is a quote from the Billy Joel song "Only the Good Die Young". I chose this quote because I truly live my life by this quote. I would much rather have fun and be considered a sinner, than to hold back from living just to be well behaved all the time. I strongly believe that one must rebel and make mistakes to learn life lessons and to most importantly have fun in the process. The song in its entirety has a great message, basically it states that you should live fast, die young. I am a firm believer that you never know which day will be your last, so you have to live each and every day to its fullest. This quote definitely portrays that message.
I chose to use the font Orator Std. for the words that did not need much emphasis, because the font looked like a pretty standard font and would not take away from the words I wanted to emphasize. For the word "laugh", I used the font Giddyup, because the font seemed like a very fun font, a font that would coincide with laughing. I used the font Eccentric for the word "Sinner", because the font stood out and appeared to be confident and standing tall. I put the words "laugh" and "sinner" in red because they coincide with each other and are in the same line. For the word "cry" I used the font Herculanum, because the font looked sad to me, and did not appear to make a bold or happy statement. I used the font Lucida Handwriting for the word "saints" because it appears church like to me. I chose to make the words "cry" and "saints" Cyan Blue because Cyan Blue appear to be saint-like and pure. The word "much" is in the font Cooper Black, because it is bold and really emphasizes the word "much". And finally, the word "fun" is in the font Rosewood, because to me, it looks like a font that would be used at a circus, and a circus to me, symbolizes fun. I made the line "The sinners are much more fun." much larger than the others because I feel that that line is the most important one, it shows that its better to have fun and be a sinner than be sheltered or held back and be a saint.
I found it very difficult to navigate around Photoshop at some points because as a class, we were not shown how to make different font effects and we had to figure them out on our own. I worked with this difficulty by asking one of my classmates for some help and by playing around with the tools.
I am most proud that I could use one of my favorite quotes and make it into a piece of personal art. It was awesome to be able to choose a quote that many people may know, and make it my own. If I had more time I would have played with the layout of the fonts, and would have added a halo over the word "saints" and a devil's tail around the word "sinners". I would have also rotated the fonts and played with the finishes I could put on the font.