e9 Quarter 2 Reflection

     While taking graphic design, I noticed that my strength is using color. I enjoy using color to create eye-catching, visually appealing designs and logos. Color has always been something that I admire, it gives things life and energy, excitement. I noticed this while we were working on our color wheel projects and explaining why we liked our favorite colors. We learned that colors can trigger different memories and mean a variety of different things for everyone. For example, my favorite color is blue because it is very calming like the ocean.
     An area I need to improve on is simplicity. Sometimes I have so many ideas that it is hard for me to represent it all in one simplified version. Along with this comes timeless appeal. I would like to learn more on how this is accomplished and see some examples of logos and designs that have excelled in this.
     My favorite part of this quarter is learning how to use a familiar program to make basic designs and logos. I have seen and used programs like this before such as Paint and Photoshop, but this program brings it to a new level. We learned how Adobe Illustrator is the preferred program over Photoshop because it has better quality photos and photo enhancing tools. I liked seeing that this was true and it was very easy to operate.
     Later in my eCommunication career I plan to come back to my Adobe Illustrator projects from this quarter and improve them using my new skills. Since we only learned the basics of the program I think it will be interesting to see how my work can evolve. I can't wait to be able to see what this program and I are capable of and how I can create more clean, detailed, and inspiring work.
     This semester I learned how to channel my thoughts and opinions through colors and shapes. I really enjoyed the element of representation we learned to include in our work. I will continue to use these artistic skills in all of my work no matter what class I am in. I really feel that I am learning more about computers and how they can help us in our daily lives
     Next semester I hope to get into the depths of this program and how to use Adobe Illustrator to the best of my advantage. I can't wait to see what kind of work I can make with the help of my teachers, classmates, and computer.

e9 Semester 1 Final- Web Design Project

     For the past week we have been using Adobe Dreamweaver to make a two-page website that holds all of our projects. Since the program was new territory for all of us, we downloaded videos made by Mr. Olsen to teach us how to work inside the application. First we uploaded some files to the e9 server. We created a new folder for these to stay in that was for web design and then downloaded this new folder into Dreamweaver. These files helped create the basic layout of our website. Next, we used photo booth on our computer to take a professional photo of ourselves to apply to our website's home page. Also on the home page we had our elevator pitch from the beginning of this quarter. Before we started the second page, we made sure that our website had a proper title if you pulled it up on your browser. The second page of our website was for our projects. We learned how to embed YouTube videos into the page so that you wouldn't have to go to another window. Lastly, we finished it off with some color.
     We worked on this project all week long. If we used our class time wisely we should have been finished or very close. I tried to view at least one-and-a-half to two videos each day. There were six videos that were each around 15 minutes long. However, to understand the videos and provide the best work one may need to pause or rewind the video.
     The videos and the program were very easy to use and follow. I had very few problems, most of the ones I faced were during the YouTube video uploading section. I was confused at first as to why you couldn't drag-and-drop a file containing the video into the website. Once I figured out how easy it was to embed the video, I went to work adding all of them. When I had gotten halfway through adding them, I made a mistake and I tried to use the undo button. However, I didn't save my work and the button took me back to my last save, deleting all of the videos I had just added. This set me back about ten minutes.
     During this project I learned how to read and write some code for the website. I have very rarely worked with code so it was fun to see how it worked in the professional world. I also learned what a ZIP file is and how to use it. I liked learning how to use another Adobe program. I have never worked with professional computer project editing systems before and it is a great opportunity and experience.
     I really enjoyed this first taste of web design and I might consider taking the class sophomore year. Creating a whole website may be a lot of work, but once you see it finished, you are really proud of yourself. I think that it is the best thing for someone to learn and understand a human's power to create and that you can do absolutely anything, the possibilities are endless!
I cannot provide a screen capture of my website at this time.

Presentation Blog

This week we worked on presentation skills and how we can use them to present our personal logos in front of the class. We learned some key things that we need to remember while presenting such as: posture, facial expression, eye contact, loud voice and appearance. Your goal is for the audience to understand and like your presentation.
We watched some videos that showed examples of what to do and not to do. Then we watched TED presentations from Bill Gates, Bjorn Lomberg, and Jamie Oliver, and rated them based on what we saw in the first minute of their presentations. By watching these videos we saw that you don't always have to wear nice clothes, you should just watch your presentation. They also showed us how to engage with the audience.
The next day we presented our own logos, we explained the colors, the representation, and how the logo shows who we are. During my presentation I could have used a more happy facial expression and I could have acted more professional. Another thing I need to work on is ending a presentation, we should practice saying "Thank You" instead of "That's all".v I will keep these things in mind the next time I do a presentation

Personal Logo Project

Recently we have been working on logos. We learned what makes a great logo (consistency, simplicity, uniqueness, color, timeless appeal, and more), and how we can use these traits to make our own logo that represents us. First, we sketched out three ideas in our sketchbooks of what we might want our logos to look like. Next, we chose out favorite and redrew it to fit a full page. Lastly, we moved on to Adobe Illustrator to create our logo using the skills we have learned in the application and about logos themselves. My logo was my name in large, light blue block letters that were towards the middle/bottom half of the page and on the top was a music staff with notes that were colored green. The backdrop of the music staff was red. Using the traditional Christmas colors on my music staff represented my love for music and that my name means Christmas in French. This project was fun and I may come back to it later to improve.

Colors: Favorite vs. Least Favorite

Blue has always been my favorite color because to me it represents calmness but also energy, like the ocean. It reminds me of beauty or royalty. I see blue on many local sports team logos, royal blue is one of my school colors, and I see dark blue on items such as cosmetics. My favorite kind of blues dark blue or blue-violet. I like to wear the color blue to match my eyes. Someday I would like to paint my room a pale blue (tint).

I really like most of the colors, but my least favorite color is orange. To some, orange represents warmth. To me, is says angry and stressful. It reminds me of someone who is in a rush or panicking. I don't see orange that much in logos but when i do, it is usually for something that I don't like. For example I don't like orange flavored soda, you can see orange in the Fanta soda logo.

Sketchbook and Illustrator

This week we were given the option of choosing a bird, tree, house or flower and drawing it twenty different times in our sketchbook. I decided that I would be drawing a flower. It took a while but once I was done, I had a variety of flowers scattered across my page. From Roses to Begonias I had drawn and now I had to be up to the challenge of recreating one of them in Adobe Illustrator. So far, we have only learned how to use the rectangle tool, shaper tool, selection tool, and the color tool so my options were slim. I ended up creating a beautiful blue Daisy. That wasn't enough, the Daisy looked lonely and out of place on the plain white canvas. So I gave it some grass to grow from, a sun to look at, and a cloud for a little shade. In the end, I really liked what I had made but I wish I could make it more diverse. Maybe once we have learned how to use more tools in Adobe Illustrator I will return to this project and add more.
My twenty flowers:
My Adobe Illustrator Daisy:

The Illustrator Experience

This week, we learned how to use a new Adobe program called Adobe Illustrator, which is the main building block program for graphic design. You may be wondering why we use this program instead of Photoshop. Adobe Illustrator is a program that uses vectored images and Photoshop uses pixels. In other words, If you went into Photoshop and enlarged a picture to its fullest size and compared it to a fully enlarged picture in Adobe Illustrator you would see a very pixelated looking, bad quality picture in Photoshop and a nice clear image in Adobe Illustrator. We learned how to use many tools that are used for basic designs such as the tools used for shapes: the star tool, ellipse tool, rectangle tool, and the polygon tool. It is easy to make different shapes of different sizes using these tools. We also learned how to color the shapes we had created using the fill tool. First you must select the shape tool and then double click the fill tool in your toolbar. A window will pop up allowing you to choose the color of your shape and then apply it easily. I am excited to learn what else I can make with this program and I am looking forward to our next project.

  

Social Media

Today we read about social media and how it can impact our future. Admissions officers can look at our social media when we are applying for colleges. If they see something that they don't like, they can turn down your request. This might prove to be problematic though, some people have had issues such as hacking on their social media and whatever the officers see may not be their own. Someone may also have the same name as another person on the internet, which could lead to mistakes in identification. People can be turned down from a college without ever knowing why, they can be turned down for a simple mistake that wasn't even their own. This all seems unfair, how easily a student could be denied their right to a great education and a fantastic opportunity.

This information should impact students to be careful while they are online, if not avoid social media altogether. If you are thinking about making an email account or a joining social media outlet, you need to be aware that every move you make can be observed. Imagine that your posts are your first impression on someone that you want to become good friends with. You want that first impression to be a good one. Make sure that everything you do is something you would be okay with reading out loud to the entire world because it may as well happen to you.

Elevator Pitch

The other day I began graphic design, our first project is to create an elevator pitch:

What is an elevator pitch?
An elevator pitch is a simple, short message about yourself. It tells people about your skills and strengths. Your elevator pitch should help people get to know you/like you. When I was creating my elevator pitch, I thought about what my goals are in life and how I am planning to achieve them. I also thought about what I like/would like to see in the world as I reach my goals.

My Elevator Pitch

When I am working I work hard to make sure that it is my best. When working in groups, I work to keep everyone happy feeling comfortable around each other. I know that people enjoy working in a cheerful environment. My favorite thing is making people laugh because laughing can help you achieve the things listed above. All of my actions are inspired by idea of world peace, which may sound a little strange, but I think that if everyone could take one moment every day and close their mind off from the world and forget about everything around them, the world might be a little better.

Chase Scene Project

For the Past two weeks we have been working on our final project, the chase scene. Our video had a twist: instead of people chasing each other, we had people chasing a soccer ball (Emma Ridgeway and Gaige Hunsaker). When we were planning the video, we wanted to make it different that the others, so we decided on the soccer ball. After watching my finished video and revising it with my classmates and teacher, I came to these conclusions:
-I used all shots in the six shot system
-good storyline
-did not cross the axis line
-I could have had more closeups
-I could have incorporated the rule of thirds into more shots
-there was a jump cut that I could have fixed
I finally incorporated music into my video and it was fun to learn how to do that so I won't have silent videos anymore. This project was probably my favorite because we got to incorporate everything we learned this quarter into one exciting video. I really enjoyed video and I am planning to return next year!

Here is a link to my video:
Preview YouTube video chase scene - Noellechase scene - Noelle

Using the Six Shot System

The six shot system include the main shots you should include when producing a video. The six shots are:

• Rule of thirds- imagine a grid that looks like the one below over the video you are watching. While using the rule of thirds, you want to make sure that your film subject stays within the areas of the grid with dots on it for most of the video. This is to avoid staring into the center of a screen for long periods of time (which is very boring).

• Closeup- Ex. if you are taking a shot of someone, to make it a closeup you would make the shot only of their face 
• Extreme closeup- Ex. if you are taking a shot of someone's face, to make it an extreme closeup you would make the shot only of their eyes
• Medium wide- when filming a medium wide shot, you should show from the waist up of your film subject
• Extreme wide- when filming an extreme wide shot, you should show a full shot of a person or more
• Over the shoulder- an over the shoulder shot is when the camera view is over the shoulder of your film subject
• (180 Degree Rule)- this rule states that the camera must not pass over the invisible axis that is in place during all filming

Here is a link to my video:

Preview YouTube video Noelle - Technical Blog VideoNoelle - Technical Blog Video

A to B Project!

During this project we created a video showing a beginning middle and end. In our video we showed someone typing their project in the beginning, going to the printer in the middle, and putting away their project at the end. We started out storyboarding, this time we had to make enough shots to fill 40 seconds worth of video. Then we began filming which was a quick process because all of our shots took place in the room or very close by the room. Afterwards, the editing process didn't take much time either because I am more familiar with Adobe Premiere. I learned how to quickly upload my finished video to the server and post it on Google Classroom without asking for help. Next time I am going to make sure that I am wearing the same clothes in all of the shots. I will also be sure to add music to the background of my video because I have not learned how to do this yet. I will continue to keep the good sequence and use all the shots, but I will try harder to use the rule of thirds throughout the entire video.

Here is a link to my video:
Preview YouTube video A to B project NoelleA to B project Noelle

6 Shot System Project!

Recently we finished our projects featuring the six shot system: over the shoulder, rule of thirds, wide, extreme wide, closeup, and extreme closeup. First I drew the storyboard for the video, then we began filming and I made changes to work with our filming environment. Lastly, I edited it all to run smoothly. During this project I worked with Jessica, she was very helpful because I have never worked with filming equipment before. During this project I learned what the six shot system was and how to use it. I also learned how to professionally edit a video using a computer program and how to set a tripod with an iPad. Next time I would add music instead of having it be a silent video. One revision I will make is showing my closeups more clearly. This project was fun, and a great introduction of the different shots used during the making of a video.

Here is a link to my video:

Preview YouTube video 6 Shot System Noelle6 Shot System Noelle

Flag Project!

   On Wednesday we made a flag reflecting the personalities of the people of our group. Our flag was blue and orange showing calmness and creativity. The colors were incorporated into diagonal stripes with a white stripe in the middle showing purity. Our symbol was a sun with an ocean inside. The sun's rays had our names and one of our favorite things on it. The sun symbolized bright thoughts and happiness. The ocean inside symbolized how our moods change from calm to aggressive just like the water. The project was very good for collaboration and I enjoyed meeting other people who were also in freshman e-communication.