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.

Do you blog?

Blog- first named "weblog". In simple terms, it is an electronic journal you could update. Blogs are used in many different ways; some use them as a diary, some to share work from a class or work setting, and informational blogs. despite what you write in a blog, you can add pictures, videos, projects, links, etc.

*Key terms*

Blog: online journal

Blogger: person writing/updating a blog

Blogging: the process of writing or updating your blog

One particular site used for blogs is Blogger. It was launched in 1999 and has been the home for millions of blogs since the start.

I have personal experience with Blogger (hence I am writing this post on Blogger). I had never had a blog until my Elect Comm class this Spring semester. My blogs consist of the work I have done for this class and my reactions to the work. So far I have about 4 or 5 postings (more to come because the class is not over) and along with written reactions I have pictures, links and animations.

Since I only have experience with Blogger, I will mostly give information about this site.

Some of the key features Blogger offers are:

1. Blogger Comments: Anyone is allowed to comment and give feedback on your blogs. The comments you don't want on your blog can be deleted by you. Posts can be an optional choice per blog.

2. Access Controls: This is for deciding who can see and comment on your blogs. There are options in which there is more than one author, or a single author for personal items.

3. Blogger Profiles: The privacy settings give you the options to to be found, if search for, let others see certain things in your profile (interests, name, etc). This setting can be removed for safety or personal preferences.

4. Templates: To personalize your blog, you are offered different blog templates that come already made and if preferred you can change the HTML to your liking.

5. Custom colors and fonts: As with any other website, you can change the font and color to your liking.

6. Drag-and-drop page elements: You have the option to add any animation or picture and choose where it goes.

Caslon Analytics Blogging states the following:

"In July 2006 the Pew Internet & American Life Project estimated that the US "blog population has grown to about 12 million American adults", some 8% of US adult internet users. The number of US blog readers was estimated as 57 million adults (39% of the US online population), although few of those people read widely or read often. David Sifry reported in April 2007 that growth in the number of blogs created had slowed - "matured" - with other observers noting that the percentage of active blogs are compared to the total number of blogs tracked by Technorati was declining, down from 36.71% in May 2006 to 20.93% in March 2007".

"In July 2003 BlogCensus suggested that there were 701,150 "sites we think are weblogs", of which 380,657 appeared to be in English. It claimed that Portuguese, (with 54,496 blogs), Polish (42,677) and Farsi (27,002) were the next most popular languages - well ahead of French (a mere 10,381) and German (7,736). On a per capita basis the language with highest blog penetration appeared to be Icelandic, with 3,542 blogs. "

*LINKS*

http://hnn.us/articles/1572.html

http://www.blogger.com/tour_start.g

http://www.geardiary.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/blogger.png

http://www.dailyblogtips.com/wp-content/uploads/blogs.jpg
http://www.blogger.com/tour_con.g

http://www.caslon.com.au/weblogprofile1.htm

Animated font poem- Assignment #4

This project I thought was rather difficult the whole time I did it. Getting the poem together and making the pictures wasn't a challenge. It was putting the words in the animation form and getting the pictures together. I had hoped to add more animations to the words but as I kept going and following my notes I still couldn't figure it out. I made the choice of just having the words appear (as you see above) in different orders but looking the way it does on the regular non animated poem. I do love how the pictures go together from the blending of one set of colors to the next, it does look very appealing I think, and that makes me happy.

One of the big challenges I faced was when I was making the words into separate slides. This was difficult because numerous times the placing of the words didn't look right and when I tried to get animations just for the words it didn't work so that process was frustrating. One of my fellow students helped in making the words look appealing in the separate slides so that made it not so stressful anymore. The last problem was when I had thought I saved my work I accidentally deleted it and the work I had done for two hours had to remade.

What I enjoyed about this project was gaining the knowledge and experience to be able to do similar and advance projects in the future using Photoshop. I was able to teach my boyfriend how to do this project and by teaching it I was better aware of what I had to do.

I am most proud of the final outcome of the project. I think the words go together in a good order when they appear and the photos are awesome and just bring the whole project and meaning of the poem together. If I had more time I think I would have made the words look better with animation and better layout affects. But I am happy I was able to successfully complete this project.

Font poem- Assignment #3

The third assignment was taking the animated postcard and put a poem to it.

The most enjoying part was being able to successfully complete this project. I stressed about it alot, but in the end I was able to make a project I'm happy with.

If I had more time I think I would've been able to make the words animated. I wasn't sure how to do it and it became too late to fix it. I don't have photoshop on my laptop and I commute to RWU which doesn't give me the time to work on these types of things.

I wanted to put emphasis on the word "if" because not only is it the first word in the poem but if read out loud then it makes you wonder "yeah, what if". The same with "just". If you read it and actually put it out then it could make or break your message.

"Good enough" is in all caps because thats the message of the poem. Being good enough is equivalent to being perfect, and that is how some societies want us to be.

"Life" and "Easy" go hand in hand because in life things don't come easy. In reality nothing that comes easy is worth it. You have to live life with some challenges to really enjoy it.

"Nobody" is emphasized because different people would think maybe there is nobody to show me how to live my life "growing up"

"Hard" is what sums up the whole poem. It concludes that life is worth living if your able to enjoy the hardships.

Overall, the project was challenging and it made me push myself to get the work done in a way that made me happy. I'm glad with the final product and I can teach others how to do it was well.