Mediterraneo Website- Assignment #10

To see my actual website, visit it Here .

1. home page

2. about page

3. contact us page

4. links page

5. menu page

This project was very fun to do. The task was to make our own website for the company or place we chose for our brochures.

While it may have taken me a while to get everything right, I did manage to stay focused and do everything I was supposed to.

My brochure was done on a restaurant, Mediterraneo Cafe. For my website, I had a home page, an about page, a contact us page, a menus page, and a links page.

The hardest part was just making sure everything ended up going where it was supposed to as far as links. If I had changed the place of a picture then it took me forever to find where it had gone. However, once I got the hang of it, I was able to make the pictures go where I wanted them to go and have them stay.

A snapshot of my pictures are shown above. In the home page I just have a welcome message to the viewer, the address, and a contact number. Professor O'Connell had stated that people want the information quick and available to them, so they do not have to go looking for it.

My next page was an about page which had the hours of operation and a fact or two about Mediterraneo.

The third page was a contact us page. The address was again listed as well as directions from every point available.

The fourth page was a menu page. It only showed about two entrees per section because I did not want to overwhelm the page. The foods listed were just samples of the many foods offered at the restaurant.

The final page was the links page. I had connected with a place to get dessert after the meal and the other link was to a hooka bar.

If I had more time I would have tried to add more pictures to each of the pages, as well as learn how to make the text more visually pleasing. I took the pictures from my brochure and even on my brochure they had a grainy texture so it showed on the website. I could have looked for more and better pictures, however, I was not concerned with it as much as I was with just getting the website up online.

Overall, I had fun learning new things on Dreamweaver. I had never used it before and I'm glad I got the experience of making something new.

BiBi Cards- Assignment #9

The bibi c ard assignment was not so much difficult, as it was time consuming. The one shown above is my work done from Quarkxpress. I first picked a bibi card that was from the GQ magazine. I worked very hard on it but in the end I didn't think I was going to get a good grade on it. I changed my mind on which bibi card I wanted to do and my reasoning behind it was because I would rather do a slightly easier bibi card and get a good grade instead of not doing my best on the GQ bibi card and get a bad grade. I worked hard on both of the cards but the Harper's magazine bibi card was the one I decided to use. I think the stress of trying to get it perfect made it seem difficult.

Working on Quarkxpress and InDesign is not all that difficult if you pay attention to what it is your doing. I found that I like Quarkxpress more than InDesign because it's simpler to navigate around. Also since I am more familiar to Quarkxpress, the project came easier, in that sense. Indesign was the same as Quarkxpress, just different language. It was still difficult because I was not used to how everything looked on the screen compared to Quarkxpress where I could get a better sense of how it would print.

The part I had the most trouble on was the back side of the bibi card, the mail portion on Indesign. This was troubling because it was tough to get the bar code lines to match up perfectly. I think they came out good but I am a perfectionist and I want things to be perfect.

If I had more time I would have stuck with the GQ bibi card because it became a challenge and I like to accomplish hard tasks that I am not used to or have never done before. I would have also worked better in Indesign to better my skills in that program. The promo code did not come out exactly as that on the original bibi card, because of the spacing, but the rest is still identical (in my opinion).

I am most proud of my ability to work through the hardships of Indesign. Even though the card I created in Indesign did not come out exactly (one part), I still am proud of what I did and I think it looks awesome. I thought the colors would not match up but luckily, they came out just like I had wanted them to.

I am overall proud of myself to overcome the hard parts of this project. If everything came easy then I would not want to complete them for the simple fact I would be bored. I'm starting to see how much I enjoy doing projects such as the ones I have learned in this class and I can definitely see myself doing this as a career.

Mediterraneo Cafe Brochure- Assignment #8

I really enjoyed using Quarkxpress during this project because I was really able to use my creativity. This was the second project done in Quarkxpress I did my brochure on a restaurant called Mediterraneo Caffe in Providence, RI. This was my second idea because originally I was going to do the brochure on traveling to Bora Bora. I thought the restauraunt idea would be a better idea because I knew more about Mediterraneo Cafe than Bora Bora.

The reason I chose this restaurant is because my dad is really good friends with the owner, and I have been there on numerous occasions. Also,the owner, Gianfranco, really liked the idea of my brochure being about his restaurant.

My first task was figuring our what I want the brochure to look like. I decided to use the colors of the restaurant (gold and blue) and make those the back

ground colors on the brochure. I also decided that the fonts would be the opposite colors (blue with gold font and vise versa). I thought this idea made the brochure become an eye catcher because all other brochures are usually white background.

My second step was finding the right pictures. I know I wanted the logo on the front cover and pictures of the foods I mentioned in the menus. The problem with gathering the pictures was that everyone that I had come out blurry and I didn't have time to make them clearer. The pictures were the hardest part of this brochure. It sounds like it wouldn't be true but I really wanted the pictures to come out clear and I didn't have time to fix them.

After I had decided what pictures I was going to do I then went and got all the food that I put on the brochure and divided them up into pasta, meat and fish dishes.

I ended the project by doing the back mail portion of the brochure. I found this to be very easy because Professor O'Connell showed us a simple way to make the indicia and the FPO box.

Overall I'm very glad with the way the brochure came out. If I had more time I would've made the pictures more clearer. People have noticed that the pictures came out pixely and if

I would've changed it then everything would be to my

liking. I am proud of myself for making my first brochure and it came out looking amazing.

Soundslides- Assignment #7

This was probably the hardest project I have done in this class. I have never created anything with sound or anything close to it. I struggled with this project but in the end I did my job.

The song I used is Lupe Fiasco's "the cool". I was lucky the beginning of the song had about a 5 second instrumental part so I could loop it. The final time was 28 seconds in the soundslide.

I haven't used Audacity so it took some time getting used to. Like I stated I took the 5 seconds of the beginning of the song and looped it to 28 seconds for the final soundslide. It took about 4 or 5 loops to get it to 28 seconds. The process wasn't hard, it was the uploading and extracting that made this extremely long.

Once I had my music all set, I put it to the slide show and adjusted the timings so it could be enough to read each slide. This was the most challenging part because the timings I had when my project was on powerpoint were very different to the soundslide program. I then edited the captions and credits and little things here and there.

If I had more time I would have played with the looping much better. I think there might be slight problems with how it sounds in the final piece but maybe that's just me and I am very picky about my work. Guess you could say I am a perfectionist when it comes to things like these.

In the end I really struggled but it was definitely worth it. I wouldn't mind doing more projects like this but I would really have to dedicate my time to getting it right. Overall, I liked the way my final soundslide came out and I am proud of what I have accomplished.

QuarkXpress poster-Assignment #6

When first hearing about the assignment I got really excited because I love creating new things and putting my creativity to good use. Although I have never used Quarkxpress, I was excited to try something new. We created a poster about the artist we chose for the power point saying they were coming to campus for a cd release party. Quite frankly I wish Lupe Fiasco would come to campus, that would be very exciting to me.

My first attempt at the poster actually became my final piece. I took a picture Lupe looked really good in and cropped his face so only half his entire face and body were showing. Professor O'Connell said that making it that way would really capture someone's eyes and make them want to read who that person is. Before putting the picture in quark I edited it in photoshop, making the picture look heavenly. It actually came out good!

I was glad in the picture he was wearing red because the yellow wording I used complemented it perfectly and made the words pop out at you. Professor O'Connell also said that yellow catches reader's eyes. I also added Lupe's CD cover of Food & Liquor. I thought that gave the poster something extra.

The only trouble I had was figuring out how to use my space with the wording. I didn't want to clutter the poster, but I didn't want empty spaces. I made sure the title stuck out and that all the information was there. I put a star burst and had the pricing information in it because I think that if I were to go to an event, the first thing that I would want to know if I was interested in going would be the prices.

I will be honest, I thought my poster was going to be plain and boring. However, it turned out really good and I am really proud of it! Everyone in the class loved it and that makes my hard work even more rewarding.

Making posters or any other project can be easy if you pay attention to the steps and take your time. If you rush then the project comes out bad and you really don't learn anything. It took me about 2 1/2-3hrs to complete this project. I really enjoy creating something new and that is all my own.

Artist Slide show- Assignment #5

When Professor O'Connell explained that we were going to use Power Point in our next project, I thought it was going to be tougher than she explained it.

The assignment was to choose a band or artist we really enjoyed and make about a 5 slide presentation about the artist or band we chose. The artist I chose was Lupe Fiasco. My boyfriend gave me alot of his albums and I really enjoy listening to his music, he's different than the rappers heard on the radio today. He doesn't rap about being a "gangsta" or having 10 hoes, he raps about whats real to him.

I think the most difficult thing about this project was deciding which pictures to use as the backgrounds for the different slides. Lupe's pictures doesn't really have that many pictures that show his artistic talent.

1. The first picture I chose for this project I thought made the project very interesting because Lupe is standing in front of lights that look like he's ready to begin a show. And in this case begin the slide show presentation.

2. The second slide was titled "Lupe 101". This contained 5 informational bullets about Lupe Fiasco. The picture I chose I was able to change it up and make it a mirror image. I thought the slide didn't look boring because of the picture change.

3. The third slide was the album slide. I took one of Lupe's albums, Food and Liquor, and put all of the songs and song times together. My favorite part of this slide was the album because I was able to add shadow and mirror to the album to make it pop and not just be ordinary. During the class review everyone thought this was the best slide.

4. The fourth slide was a similarity slide in which I took Lupe's album, Food and Liquor and compared it to Nas' Stillmatic, Jay-z's Reasonable Doubt and Erik B & Rakim's Paid in Full. I found the similarities for each album by their notable attributes and the most important lyrics in each album (in my opinion). The challenging part of this slide was getting the album covers to fit in the table and which color(s) to choose. I wanted the slide to stand out and not be boring. The black and yellow was a good mix in my opinion.

5. The fifth and final slide was the reference slide. I chose a black and white picture of Lupe for the background. I thought this slide came out good because the last picture in the presentation is a really good picture of Lupe.

Overall, I really enjoyed this project because it gave me a chance to use my creativity in a program I am already familiar with.