My Last Digital Media Post :(

I can’t believe Digital Media is over already. This has been my favorite class, probably ever.

Thing I’m going to take away from this class/things I like/ misc. :

I now find myself critiquing ads in magazines, billboards, websites, and pretty much anything else that has to do with graphic design.

This class has also helped me tremendously with yearbook.

I now know my way around PhotoShop and InDesign.

I discovered a love I have for gradient text and glitter paper. ( although I already loved glitter, so the glitter paper was just waiting for the right time to inch its way out of me)

I refer to AP Stylebook when in question of spelling, capitalization, etc.

I loved the projects. They were so much fun they didn’t even seem like projects.

I am no longer afraid of paper cutters.I actually love them and will find unnecessary ways to use them now.

When seeing collages of letters found in nature being sold for a lot of money I just laugh, because I can totally do that.

I will always remember the first question you ask when interviewing. ( it’s “Can you verify the spelling of your name?” in case you were wondering.)

I absolutely love having such a small class.

I would make this a year long class.

I would make check points on the projects so everything doesn’t sneak up on you at the end.

I like how I got to talk about Black Friday so much. (I think I have officially mentioned Black Friday in at least half of my blog posts. Mission: Accomplished.)

Work days saved me.

I love that the exam is in two parts, and that it’s not actually during exam week.

I love that part of our exam is designing a wedding invitation.

There are about a million other things I could say about Digital Media, but if I kept going, I wouldn’t have time to study for the exam. I am going to miss this class so much, but at least I still have yearbook where I can see 4/5 of the class every day! (counting Mrs. Huddleston)

Bad Examples of Graphic Design

Before clicking on the link below, please notice that this is Yale Art School. One of the best schools in the country. Now click the link.

http://art.yale.edu/

this is one of the former versions of the website. oh darn, i'm so sad i missed it.

The first thing that comes to my mind is seizure. The blinking so just so distracting. I don’t know if you noticed it on the top (because it is un-readable), but it says Yale School of Art, then something I cannot for the life of me make out, and the phone number. The white space on the right side…ew. If you click on the ‘about this site’ it has a background of pizza that says Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles… what? On the ‘everything else’ section there are flashing cats. If you click on ‘visiting’ you will find “murdered” flashing (again, do they want the website viewers to have a seizure?) across your screen. I don’t think flashing murder on your admission page is exactly the way to get people to apply to your school. My personal favorite is having Santana from Glee crying on the ‘recent changes page.’ I do respect them for being recent, because that episode of Glee was just on last night. I could go on and on and on, but that would take me hours. Maybe this is something artsy fartsy that I don’t understand, but I just don’t know.

http://webpagesthatsuck.smugmug.com/gallery/6837311_tyvTi#440032429_6bJAm-O-LB

text text picture text text

My eyes are bouncing all over this page; I cannot decide what to read. The text needs to be split up, or shorter. Sooo many pictures, and not one is dominant. I feel as if almost everything is on the top is a link, and almost everything on the bottom is text. Who makes their home page THAT long? I also cannot get over the fact that the text is in such weird columns. Thank goodness, this website no longer exists.

http://www.dokimos.org/ajff/

Rainbow Jesus

This is a website about Jesus, so I don’t want to bash it too much. It gives me a headache. Also, can anyone explain why a cat runs backwards across 1/4 of the page, then goes away, then magically appears out of the rainbow once it has traveled its short distance backwards? At least the message of the website is good.

http://arngren.net/

what is the purpose of this website?

I’m not sure which overload page is worse, havenworks (above) or this one. This website is definitely not in English, but then again I’m not sure what language this is. I’m also not sure what this website is selling. Remote control things that fly? I am also confused as to why there is a Christmas village along the bottom of the page. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Christmas scene is not just up during the Christmas season. Also, they broke a cardinal rule of homepage design: you can scroll down and to the side. Maybe this website makes sense in the country this website is made for?

Happy Thanksgiving!

My family usually just has a small Thanksgiving celebration, with just my mom, dad, sister, grandma, and me.

A few years ago we decided to buy some of our Thanksgiving dinner from Whole Foods, and it was amazing. They have the whole meal prepared for you, it’s just heat and serve. We will make some extra sides, just to make the meal more complete.

We usually have ham (no one in my house eats turkey, and I’m a vegetarian), stuffing, mashed potatoes, salad with homemade salad dressing, mac and cheese, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, rolls, strawberry jello stuff, and pies. This year we are going with pumpkin and pecan.

We will try to cook a few things the day before, just so we are not so busy on Thanksgiving. So we spend most of the day Wednesday and Thursday cooking, while watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. We will eat around 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. We will usually clean up and wash some dishes before eating pie. We will usually go back for our favorite things later on that night, which are stuffing, mashed potatoes, and pie for me (healthy right?)

Now, you know you cannot ask me about Thanksgiving without expecting me to mention Black Friday.

We have finalized the list of stores we are going to, but we are still iffy on what time we will wake up this year. If we wake up at midnight, we can’t go to the stores that don’t open until 5, and our last store opens at 8 a.m. My sister still wants to wake up at midnight, so we’ll see.

Needless to say, I can’t wait for Thanksgiving! (and Black Friday)

yummy, minus the turkey

what's that stuff in the lower right corner? it looks like sweet and sour chicken, but that's not very Thanksgiving-y

this just makes me all giddy inside

Good Examples of Graphic Design

Colors

This ad has a color scheme of yellow, pink, and blue. I like how they blend the colors in the text, and the clothes match the color scheme. I also like how the headline is “Running Wild,” and the colors are wild. I also like how the arrows point you toward the text.  I think the spread is very balanced, and overall very well designed.

simplicity

This ad is very simplistic. I think the bracelet stands out on the ad, because it is the only accessory other than hte model. I also like the logo because it stands out. The ad is very balanced, and is in thirds.

ew.

I know this ad is gross, but it is effective. It shows how bad smoking is for you. It gets the point of the message across very clearly. I think the ad would still even be effective even if the Singapore Caner Society wasn’t there. This ad is very clear and gets the point across.

Printing Ad

I like this ad for the most part. The only thing I would change , keeping the size of the ad the same, would be the center the learn more tab. I can see why they put the learn more there, because it lines up with “standard…” I also like that they have examples of their product on the ad. I think it is well balanced for the most part, and clearly shows what the company does.

website design

I love this ad. This, of course, is a website. I love how this looks like it is on a coffee table. The table of contents looks like it was just written out. It also looks like it was torn off of a page. I love this because it is very simple and looks “handmade.”

Amazing Grace

Ever since my sister found out I had a blog, she has begged me to write about her. So I am.

Grace Sophia was born on Saturday, September 23rd, 2000.

I was 6 at the time. I remember my mom saying she didn’t feel Gracie kicking anymore, so my dad made her go to the hospital. She felt my unborn sister start to kick right before she left, but decided to still go anyway.

Meanwhile back at home, my dad and I were watching the Oregon vs. UCLA football game, and of course the Ducks ended up winning, but we would find this out later. (side note: Gracie likes to say she is a true Duck because she was born during an Oregon football game)

Being 6 and impatient, I coulnd’t sit and watch an entire football game for hours and hours, so I made my dad set up the Easy-Bake Oven I had recieved for my brithday just 2 weeks earlier. We spent a long time trying to figure out how to work the mysterious baking machine. (apparently my dad didn’t read the directions) Finally, I started to make the cake mix, and I put it in the oven. Sadly, it came out uncooked, but I ate it anyway. (After my mom got back home, we realized we had to take the oven apart and put a lightbulb inside to make it work. This is much more complicated than the ovens today, because they now come with the lightbulb installed.)

While I was eating my uncooked Easy-Bake cake mix, my dad got a phone call from the hospital. It was my mom’s doctor saying the baby was coming right now. We lived about 30 minutes away from the hospital, so we had no idea how we were going to make it in time to see the new baby.

I remember picking out my clothes all by myself, which was a big deal. I picked out velvet hot pants and a flowy shirt with a lot of different fabric on it. I just remember crying really hard and saying “I’m going to be a big sister,” over and over and over. I’m not sure why I was crying, but I remember crying the whole way there.

My dad was going probably 100 mph on the interstate to get to the hospital in time. Thank goodness, we made it.

My dad went back to the room my mom was in, and changed into scrubs really fast. I stayed out in the waiting room, supervised of course.

I remember seeing my new sister for the first time. The first thing out of my mouth was “Why does she have powder on her?” My dad told me she still needed to be cleaned.

I later asked to hold her, but I wasn’t allowed to standing up, which made me really mad. So I sat down on the couch in my mom’s room and held her.

Now, eleven years later, she is one of the best people I know. Her pediatrician, when seeing her for the first time, called her “in your face Grace,” which could not be any more accurate. I can’t imagine life without her now.

http://www.heraldextra.com/lifestyles/article_925f596c-21b1-5508-848d-2486c886ab3f.html

old school Easy-Bake Oven

quack quack

Shattered Glass

This week in Digital Media we watched a movie about Stephen Glass. Stephen was a writer for The New Republic Magazine, the in-flight magazine of Air Force One. He was very well liked, and loved his job. Not only did he love his job, but  he was good at it.

One day Steve wrote an article titled “Hack Heaven.” This was about a boy named Ian Restil, 14, who he met at a computer hackers convention. Glass went on to tell about how Ian had hacked the website for Jukt Micronics, a large technology firm located in Silicon Valley, California. The big wigs at Jukt met with Ian, and decided to hire him for their company.

The article received tremendous feedback.

The editor from Forbes.com, the online version of Forbes magazine, asked one of his writers why he did not pick up the story, and asked him to do a follow up. The writer was researching the names and doing other fact checks to get information so he could interview the people mentioned in the article. The writer discovered there was no information on any of the people, quotes, companies, laws, or conventions mentioned in the article.

Forbes.com decided to call The New Republic to ask where they could get the information for the follow up article. Steve came up with all these elaborate reasons as to why he did not have the information.

The story goes on with Stephen coming up with more elaborate information. He also supplied fake voicemails, websites, and business cards.

If you have not already figured out, Stephen was lying. This was not the first time Stephen had lied. His editor first suspended him for two years. Then after reading Steve’s past articles, he realized over half of his articles were fabricated in some way. The editor, Chuck, decided to fire him.

Stephen Glass obviously had a mental disorder, because he kept lying, and would convince himself his material was true.

Fiver years after the incident, Stephen was interviewed by 60 Minutes. He realized he had a disorder, and had been going to treatment. The timing of him getting better could not have been more convenient, because he coincidentally had a book coming out around the time of the interview. He said he was better now, and he realized what he did. The reporter brought up a good question, “How do I know you’re not lying right now?”

As sad as this is, Stephen will never be able to be trusted with anything again.

If journalists lie, they will never be able to be trusted again. Their bad choices will follow them for the rest of their lives.

Stephen repeatedly stated that he just “wanted to make the story better.” Because he “wanted to make the story better,” he compromised his budding career as a journalist. Stephen Glass threw his life away  just to make his story better.

 

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Today parts of the Northeast and the Rockies got their first snow of the season. This made me VERY excited. I have always loved cold weather and snow ever since I was little. I think spending the first year of my life in the dessert made me dislike the heat and love the cold.

When I think about snow days, one particular time sticks out in my head.

When I was in second grade, a freak snow storm occurred. (snow storm meaning more than three inches) I don’t remember the details exactly, but I know the snow caught people off guard. I think it came too late. This is why I got trapped at school.

My house at the time was about 20 or 25 minutes away from school. Most parents decided to pick up their kids up early in anticipation, when nothing had even fallen. If that didn’t happen, then everyone lived close to school, and was picked up as soon as the snow started to fall.

I got sent to the library with about 20 or so students, because we were the only ones left in the lower school. My mom, with my 2 year old sister and my grandma strapped into the back seat, started her long voyage to FRA at 9:30. They were stuck on I-65 for 2 hours. Keep in mind we were only four exits from FRA .

My friends mother so graciously offered to drive me to the Walgreens in Brentwood, where my mom would meet her. When we finally all loaded up in her mini-van, her brakes froze. I would have to assume now that this was the emergency brake, otherwise we probably wouldn’t have made it to Walgreens in one piece. We finally made it to my family, and we started our journey back home.

We finally made it home at 3 in the afternoon.

I am very glad I made it when I did, because I heard the five or so kids still stuck in the school at dinner time had to raid the cafeteria for food.

There ended up being around 7 inches of snow on January 16th, 2003.

That is by far my most memorable snow day.

http://nsidc.org/snow/

pretty

at least we didn't get THAT much snow

The First Amendment

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The First Amendment has many pros and to the normal person, and can be a wonderful thing. Extremists, or even just ignorant people, will take advantage of the freedoms stated in The First Amendment.

Freedom of Press can be taken too far sometimes. It is usually good, and used to inform the public. It can be bad when the press publishes hurtful or untrue things. Paparazzi are part of what is bad in the media today. They have caused many accidents, and even gotten so up close and personal that they have been run over by cars, and sometimes even punched. Gossip magazines also are a negative of Freedom of Press. More than half of what they publish is untrue, and usually causes more harm than good. Also, everyone has a voice, so there can be  more than one outlook on stories. This allows for diverse views, which helps stories to be unbiased.

Happy (Almost) Holidays

 

September 23rd (my sister’s birthday) marked the official start to fall, even though it has been unseasonably warm. Fall means cold weather that is bearable, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and so many other wonderful traditions.

Fall is my second favorite season, with Winter currently in the lead. Cold weather, sweaters, apple ciders, and the start of the Holiday Season are my favorite parts of Fall. Halloween is, in my opinion, the start of the Holiday Season, though I don’t count it as part of the Holiday Season. I only say that because when it is Halloween, that means it’s almost Thanksgiving, which means it’s almost Black Friday, which is the start of the Christmas season; my FAVORITE time of year.

My family has always been crazy about Halloween. We are “that house.” The one the little kids in the neighborhood won’t walk by because it’s too scary. Then after finally being convinced, they run screaming and not looking to just get by the house. (Yes, this actually happened last year) Some of our decorations include Bates Motel signs, (I’m still curious as to whether or not we will put the sign out this year, because my little sister had a traumatic experience with Bates Motel this summer at Universal Studios) zombies coming out of the ground, skeleton pirates, the grim reaper, turning our house green, and a fog machine. (which has also scared little kids before)

Things get a little more peaceful after Halloween, with Thanksgiving just around the corner. Every year that my family and I have lived in Tennessee we have gone to our friend’s house for Thanksgiving. This has always been extremely fun, and has just become a tradition. One Thanksgiving after dinner, all the girls surrounded the dining room table, and spread out all the ads for Black Friday. This is how I found out about one of my favorite days of the year, Black Friday.

After minutes of pleading and begging to go to Black Friday, my mom gave in. My mom, sister, and I have woken up at 4 in the morning every Black Friday since then, buying our Christmas presents, and other things that we probably don’t need, but just can’t resist because they are 99% off. We always shop until around 6-8, then take a Starbucks break, and go back to the mall and other stores that put the finishing touches on our gifts. After setting up the Christmas Tree when we get home, I will probably go back with my dad to Best Buy to buy more manly things, (such as TVs and Blu-Rays) since he didn’t participate in the morning excursion. (I guess I can’t blame him. What man wants to wake up at 4 in the morning to go shopping?)

Another reason I love Black Friday is the fact that once this day rolls around, Christmas is not far behind. From the moment we get home on Black Friday, we have Christmas music and the cheesy Lifetime Christmas movies playing in the background non-stop until Christmas is over.

Today is October 12. October 31st is only 19 days away, meaning my favorite time of year is just around the corner!

Happy (Almost) Holidays everyone!

http://bfads.net/

the wonderful chaos that is Black Friday

it's the most wonderful time of the year

What would the world be like if…

Steve Jobs never existed? About two hours ago, I found out Steve Jobs lost his battle with pancreatic cancer. I think it is safe to say everyone is shocked and saddened by the death of the Jobs. Even Job’s rival, Bill Gates, expressed his remorse, “The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come. For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.”

Apple was started in Steve’s parents garage. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak made the world’s first personal computer. Job’s was a millionaire by 25, but was still fired from the company he created. While Jobs was away from Apple, he created NeXT, a company similar to Apple. He also bought what would become Pixar. Apple bought NeXT in 1996, and Steve returned to his rightful position as CEO.

Since then, Jobs has created such wonder as the iPod, iTunes, iPad, Mac computers, and, of course, the iPhone. If you don’t own any Apples products, then you definitely own knockoffs of the iPhone or iPod. Even though it seems as if Apple releases a new version of their products every other week, the new product being introduced always somehow beats the last product.

I remember being in lower school, and playing Oregon Trail on the colorful Mac computers in the computer lab. Now, I have been through several iPods, and every member of my family owns at least one Apple product.

Jobs never quit. He was forced to step down in August after his health no longer allowed him to work to his full abilities. Jobs died Wednesday, Obtober 5th, 2011 at the young age of 56 after he lost his eight year battle to pancreatic cancer.

What would the world be like if Steve Jobs never existed? There are a million possible answers to this question, but I assume that computers would have developed much slower. People would not be able to do just about anything from their cellphones, anywhere at anytime. Music would not be as easily and widely listened to as it is today. Of course one could argue that there are a million other versions of all these products, but these products were only created after seeing the inventions Apple had created. I would also have to assume that Microsoft would have a monopoly over the electronic world.

So now I will ask you, what do you think the world would be like if Steve Jobs never existed?
www.apple.com

Steve Jobs in his younger years

iPad