Video

So, if anything these mini-art projects are forcing me to use software that I have never used before.  Though I have iMovie and Garage Band on my Mac, I never really had the time or the interest to learn to use them.  I used both to construct this video.  Creating the video took me a few hours because I was learning the software but I can see that with a little more time and practice this assignment would have gone fairly quickly and smoothly.

The images from the video come mostly from Getty Images, however, some are from the multimedia sites themselves in the second part of the video.  I wanted to contrast the past against the present and show how technology has changed.  I also left out images of classrooms because I didn't feel like they conveyed the true power and potential of technology and learning.  Many of the images were similar to the vintage images I found of schools - in neat rows, working alone, except with a computer in front of the student.

Storyboard

I have to admit that I was not sure of the purpose of the storyboard activity in context of the MMP.  However, what I got from the assignment was the fact that you can manipulate perspectives and points of view to make the story more interesting or to draw attention to certain details.  I chose to infuse a bit of humor with the first picture to demonstrate how it feels sometimes to put together a substantial unit of study.  The storyboard also allows you to see what might be missing from a storyline or what could be eliminated.  I can see this being used as a pre-write exercise for struggling writers who often get bogged down with the mechanics of writing which limits content.  Perhaps if students are able to storyboard and "see" the content in an organized manner they may begin to understand how to elaborate and organize their own writing.

Cropping Exercise

I found this exercise to be the least time consuming of any we had this week.  I used the cropping tool on GIMP that allows you to move the margins around easily before you crop.  When I take photographs, I'm careful about what I am choosing to put in the frame, so when I was going through my photos, I had some difficulty choosing one that had enough interest to crop.  I chose this picture from a Greek island I visited in 2005.  The blues in the photo really intrigued me and I remember trying to fit the building in the frame and the boat passing by.  There were many ferries that came through that bay and I waited until I could get the front of the boat and the building.  I did not want to have the back of the boat in the frame.  I also remember having difficulty with this building because the shape is more square than rectangle, so to get the entire building I had to zoom out which is why the background with the boat was necessary.

When I was cropping the photo, I wanted to draw attention to a couple of things.  First I wanted to highlight the blue in the dome and the blue in the sky.  I also liked the curve of the dome and wanted to make that the focus.  Then I wanted to show the white of the building against the blue of the bench and show a serene and calming place to rest after a lot of walking and sightseeing.  Finally, I wanted to try to highlight the building itself without the background and the boat, but I am still not happy with the shape.  I find photographing buildings to be very difficult.  Often the best angles are not from the street but from places that one can not get to to be able able to shoot.

Logo Variations

For my dissertation, I will be researching how boys interact in an all male book club and what changes might occur in their attitudes toward reading.  So I decided to create a logo for our book club so we have something to identify with when the club is up and running.  I used what we have learned from the exercises involving fonts to try to convey a coolness and grittiness to the logo.  I wanted something that would be slightly edgy to contrast what people may normally think about a book club.  I also wanted to reflect the potential "dangerous" conversations we might have as a result of participating in the club.

I tried to use GIMP again and I was slightly more successful than I was with my previous attempt.  I am beginning to learn (little by little) how to use various tools.  I was able to cut the skull away from its initial background and change the background to red using GIMPs fill feature.  I am happy with the overall design of the logo but still feel limited in what I can do because of the limits of my learning of the software.

Color Echo

Wow! These mini art assignments eat up a lot of time.  Part of the issue is my perfectionist need to get everything just right but a lot of time was taken up trying to learn the still image software.  I really liked Johanna's presentation on GIMP.  She warned us that it takes a lot of time to learn.  I, however, was cocky enough to think I could learn enough to use it for this assignment.  Three hours later, GIMP has proven me a chump.  I had to revert back to Pages but I was able to learn how to use GIMP enough to remove blemishes from my photo.

I really like muted colors and simple designs.  Yet, the simple designs force the designer to be more creative it terms of layout and color.  I found that a simple shift of a line or a large field of color really enhances the design.  I also chose to echo the star shape and the stripes as well as the color in the design.  I found that I really could not do one without the other if I wanted the design to create some interest.

Color

In my aimless earlier college days I managed to sneak in some art classes.  One of the classes I took was called Color Theory.  I could not imagine how you could talk and play with color for an entire semester but I soon found out that one could experiment with color for a lifetime.  I had to buy very expensive Color-Aid paper and we used it to analyze color, change colors, make color vibrate, and make color seem transparent.  We learned about hues and tints and how unequal tones in color create uneasiness and distraction.  We also learned how color can anchor other objects.  For example, dark furniture against stark, white walls can make the furniture small and appear to be floating in space.  However, with the appropriate color on the wall the furniture would appear more anchored to the floor.  Colors also have weight.  Our eyes prefer darker colors to be below lighter colors, however, the reverse causes interest and grabs attention.  So I was happy that one of our assignments encouraged us to play with color, but I was unsure how the color would come across on the screen.  The Color Aid paper I used long ago had a matte finish and the texture of a paint swatch.  The paper itself seemed to give the color some more depth.  I recreated a couple of the assignments I remembered from the class and they seem to have the same general affect.  However, working with the color on the screen was harder than the tactile paper though it was quicker to move from color to color.

This first design uses the red and the blue background to enhance the red and the blue in the purple and makes the purple look like it is two different colors even though it is the same exact color.  The reverse can also be done. You can take two different purples and use the red and the blue to drain the reds and blues out of the purple to create the illusion of one purple.  IF you squint your eyes the purples appear different below.

Here are those purple boxes side by side.

This is the same idea using a grayscale.  The grays in the figure below have different tints but placed on different backgrounds they can appear similar.

Here are the original grays.

Another interesting effect of color and design is how you can use color to make an image seem to vibrate.  Contrasting colors in close quarters tend to fight with one another in our eyes.  The result is this...

Finally, I love stripes.  I think there is a kind of serenity and order to striping.  Yet, I find random stripes with various widths to be more intriguing.  It is important to have some sort of harmony in tint, however.  Otherwise the colors may vibrate.

Fonting Around

As much as I like to think I pay attention to design, color, and layouts, fonts never really caught my interest.  I knew I preferred simple, elegant fonts to heavy, elaborate fonts.  However, I never really paid attention to the power a font can hold to convey meaning.  The activity in Design Basics Index (Krauss, 2004) open my eyes (so to speak) about the messages that can be conveyed through the use of a particular font.  What is interesting to me is how that meaning came to be.  In some instances meaning has been attached to a certain font because of its frequent use in particular situations.  For example, you'll notice below that the word "Marines" is in the Stencil font.  I have seen this font used often in the context of the armed forces and on all of my father's gear from his participation in the Marines.  Other fonts seem to draw meaning from their very shape.  I used a font called Cracked which displays its glyphs as crumbling to the ground.

I found this activity to be easier than I expected going into it.  As I looked through the list of fonts on my computer, many of them did not seem to inspire any words that would be amplified through the font.  Yet, once the I was able to come up with the first word it became easy to imagine situations where many of the fonts might be used.  Developing words that contrasted the font was an interesting exercise because you could imagine how the font could be used to create humor.  It also proves the importance of using a font that aligns to your message.  Enjoy the images below!

Krause, J. (2004). Design Basics Index: A Graphic Designer’s Guide to Designing Effective Compositions, Selecting Dynamic Components & Developing Creative Concep. HOW Design Books: Cincinnati, OH.