The Final

THE PROCESS

      For the final in e-Communication we had to make a website of our own on DreamWeaver. I actually really enjoyed the making of this project. Although I do wish I could have done a better job at coding and figuring things out when making it I'm very happy with how everything ended up. 

     What we had to take care of first was figuring out and learning ho to properly set up DreamWeaver, which was a  fun experience in which we would then learn simple coding and how to change the headings along with the colors of our page. From there we posted up projects done in the past and more. I have to admit the making of the kinks was my favorite part.

WHAT WAS NEW 

      The whole project was very new to me since this was my first time ever using the program DreamWeaver, which I think is an excellent program for when it came to making our website. As I said before my favorite part was making links, but I also enjoyed following along the videos that were provided by the teacher. Another thing that was new would be the use of Web coding which is something we've never done.

WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY 

      If I had to do it all again I would have probably looked more into color schemes for the project and maybe even change the fonts that I originally used for the project. But overall I'm very satisfied with hoe everything turned out. 

House Animation and Building

THE PROCESS

      Our most recent project in e-Commiunication would probably be this one. We went into SketchUp with the challenge of finding a ouse online then building it there. Of course, I tried to chose a simple house that I would not have a lot of trouble with. Overall, I think it doesn't matter what house I picked, I was going to have problems. 

      So in starting the beginning of the house I simply made a rectangle and worked from there to make the base of the house. Then I went on to the roof then to the porch and from there to putting in details here and there. When I was finished I was actually pretty impressed with my work seeing this was my first time ever building a house in SketchUp. 

WHAT WAS NEW

      Well. the newest thing I learned when doing this would have to be how to use SketchUp. It was very easy and fun to use, so I enjoyed working with it. Besides that I also learned hoe to make an animation in SketchU, which proved to be just as easy as working the program.

WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY

       If I had to do this all over again I would pay a lot more attention to the roof since for me was the hardest part about this whole project. It took me a long time to figure out how to place the lines and tiles so that that it all lines up. 

Elevator Pitch

I'm a student at ONW in the E-Communication program with a love for writing and design.  I'm often told that I'm an avid reader and a good writer. I have an eye for details and I'm very confident with myself, I can find inspiration just about anywhere. The reason I'm making his pitch is because I'd like to go farther with my talents and learn more about what I can achieve with them. 

Word Project

Our project in e-Communication was to find a picture, then to make words that describe ourselves float into the picture.

THE PROCESS
Making this video had its easy parts and its hard parts. Starting off with making the words in Adobe Photoshop, I chose ten words that I thought described me fairly well and a photo background of a library. To make the video so as I made it, I used the transform option in the video animation on the timeline. Putting those together proved to be easy, it was just animating it be 10 seconds long that proved to be a challenge for me. Although you can imagine that editing the small video would be easy, and don't get me wrong it is very easy, I just happened to not comprehend my interactions of making the video 10 seconds long.

WHAT WAS NEW
Using the transform option in the video and just doing the video was new for me. I'm used to using frame animations and not video.  At first when looking at the video animation, I initially thought it was going to be more complicated than it actually was going to be. The video was fun to make and the transform option, which is what allowed my project to slide in the way it did, proved to be just as simple to use.

WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY
As I said earlier, I had misheard directions and thought that we would be making our video only 6 seconds when actually it was 10. This was a bit challenging to fix, but at the least I now I have future reference to know of what to do if I'm ever to do this project again.

Making the Bouncing Ball

      THE PROCESS
      When making the bouncing ball it was actually a lot like the other process with the plain, staying in place bouncing ball. After making the ball and adding shine to it it was very simple to continue moving it and making a new frame every time it got into a new position. Making the timeline was different this time since we also had to make an introduction slide going into the animation. The slide proved to be very easy, what I had most problems with was when got to the end. Overall, I think it went decently well.
      WHAT I LEARNED
      During the making of this animation I learned how to use the 'fade' tool which allowed me to have the slides faded in before the animation started. Besides that I also learned how to make the shine of the ball follow the path of light that was on it.
      WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY
      I messed up twice when doing this animation, the first part being not doing the beginning slides before making the timeline. After I made the timeline and tried to put the slides into the beginning it messed up some other parts of the animation which took me some time to fix. That and when I got near the end of the animation I realized I hadn't put an ending part when the ball would disappear or explode. Putting that in also took some time and messed up other parts of the animation.

Animation

THE PROCESS OF MAKING AN ANIMATION
      Is surprisingly easy considering what need to be done. The first step into making an animation, I was making a ball bouncing up and down, is to start with a shape of whatever it is you want to animate. So I started off by making a background, which was pretty simple, just a sky blue background and a green rectangle to act as grass. The next part was just as simple, in which I made colored circle and added a gradient to it for lighting. Next I created multiple layers in which I made many different versions of the ball (same color and gradient just in a different place for each layer) go lower, till in eventually hit the ground. Now to make it into frames. The process of making frames is the exact same of making layers. Using the time line this part was very easy and I was satisfied with the results I got.

WHAT I LEARNED
      Is very simple and not as complicated as most people would actually think. I learned how to ad gradients, make different layers, use the timeline to create different frames, and basically create an animation using photoshop. It was very fun and simple process, one I hope to do again in the future.

WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENT NEXT TIME
      Is add some more background, maybe some clouds here and there. Also put more shading onto the ball, definitely use a different color this time around. Last, I would make the ball smaller and instead of having it just go up and down I might make it bounce to the left or right.

College and Social Media

      Being accepted into college is a hard task to complete in general. But imagine being accepted into a college only to later be declined because they saw a tweet you posted. In sounds pretty bad to me, to have good grades and a nice GPA only to not be accepted because of one photo or snapchat. Recently all of the e-communication members of my hour have read an article talking about the issue about social media affecting whether some kids get into college or not. I've already heard that it's common of colleges to do so, checking your scale media, but I didn't think that it affected your entrance into the school so severely. Apparently about 30 percent of admission officers found information online about students attempting to enter the school that had negatively affected their prospects, at least so the article says.

      Personally I think it's a good idea, checking students social media, but at the same time it seems a bit unfair to the students since they most likely were just joking or maybe even in the heat of the moment made a post. I thought of this as very surprising since you'd think that more people would be more wary about what they post online, especially since it could drastically affect their chance of entering college. 

This Week of E-communication...

      One of the first things we worked on this week in e-communiction was to make a logo of our name. We did this in order to improve our technical skills and learn more about expressing ourselves. I thought the project was interesting and very fun to finish. Although it didn't look very professional when finished I like how mine turned out in the end. 
      The next project we started working on was the handwriting project. In this project we wrote our names multiple times in different fonts and write ten different aspects about ourselves. For the first time I wrote my name I simply wrote my name in my own handwriting. Then I wrote it again this time with the Disney font because Disney was basically my childhood and I love it. I then wrote my name in a font that was my handwriting only no with no cursive inside of it and instead of putting dots on top of  the i's I put circles. For the last one I simply put my name in full cursive, mostly because I love writing cursive since it's easier than picking up the pencil for every letter but also because it looks nice.
       Then for the different aspects I chose to write down imaginative, creative, odd, quiet, weird, honest, random, bookworm, intelligent, crazy, and nice. I chose these words because ai think they describe me rather well. Either way, in the end I think tis was a great project to do and I certainly hope that in the future we will have more projects like this one.

Presentation

      Well, I'm not really one for talking or presenting. But today we learned about how deliver a successful presentation using different skills and assets. For example we learned about important appearance, facial expression, loud voice, eye-contact and posture are. Appearance is important because it shows who you are or who you're trying to be when presenting. Facial expression is also important because you need to show emotion to show that you care about whatever you're talking about. Using a loud voice is pessary because you need everyone in the room to hear you. Eye-Contact is also very important since you don't just want to be staring at your feet the entire time. Same goes for posture.

     After learning all of this we were too watch TED presentations. The first presentation was one by Bill Gates, whom I thought did very well with his presentation. He was dressed appropriately and did held good eye-contact and posture. The next presentation we watched was by Bjorn Lombard, who didn't do as well. He wan't dressed as appropriately and seemed to be more focused on making the audience laughs than his own presentation. Though, he also held good posture and good eye-contact, I suppose he also did well. Not as well as Gates. The last presentation we watched was Jamie Oliver, who was dressed to simply for the presentation that he was giving. His posture was terrible but overall he managed to get his point through when presenting.

      Sadly, we had to give our own presentation in e-communication, which did't go so well for me. I'm better at giving presentations when there's few people or I'm talking about something I know very well. Being in a new classroom with people I barely knew didn't help my situation and in my opinion I did a pretty terrible job, not even being up there for 15 seconds before running back to my seat. But, least now I know what to expect of myself when presenting.

What is Graphic Design?

     During the past few days in e-communitcation, we were given the question 'what is graphic design?'. With that question in mind we were asked to create a picture that showed our vision for what we though graphic design was. So to start off I looked at some pictures that were created through graphic designing. I started to copy it down, only I added my own thoughts and design to it.

       I  did used the logo for Nike because graphic design goes into designing logos ad other things for companies. I also used Typography since some typography is made with graphic design, also it looks cool to me. I did use color, mainly on the right side. I didn't want to color the whole project with color since I've seen some very beautiful graphic designs using only black and white.

      

      One of my favorite things about the design I created was that I put paintbrushes into the drawing. But I didn't really like how I had been drawing the ribbons. I added someone dangling off of one of the ribbons since I know that a lot of graphic design goes into animation.
   
      So far this must be one of my favorite assignment that we done in e9. Though, my drawing skills definitely aren't the best, the project was still enjoyable. I can't help but wonder when our next sketch book project will be.

Color

      We all have a favorite color. Myself, I like the color black. I like the color because to me it's comforting. To most, black is the color of death and misery. I never really thought of it as that. The only reason I see black as a comforting color is because my room has a habit of turning pitch black when the sun goes down. Whilst most would be scared, I found it oddly comforting not being able to see my surroundings. I also like the color because it is said to represent mystery. I enjoy reading mystery novels and I like the idea of being mysterious.
     I also like the color because off how well it mixes with other colors. Putting black and silver, black and gold, black and blue, all look great together. I love the shading it creates with those colors as well with drawing. 
      

     I hate the color green. Not the bright green that we see outside in our daily lives, but the dark green. The more forest green. As much as I don't enjoy the outdoors, that's not the reason of why I detest the color. I hate it because it looks like the color of throw-up or 'barf'. I have a relatively strong stomach, but when someone throws up or the smell comes wafting through, next thing I know, I'm the one trying not to throw-up. 

   

Using Adobe Illustrator

      In e-communication we have started a new project involving Adobe Illustrator. To start things off we created shapes using different tools and sets of colors. The tool that we used was called the shaper tool. Basically you would draw a shape and then you would a bunch of different options of what to do with that shape. For example if you made a circle, you would have the option to cut it in half.  It was extremely easy to use, but also fun to do at the same time.

      Besides doing the shapes project we also had the project were we used the ability to up circles and we also learned how to group them. That project was probably my favorite. Last but not least we were given the chance to experiment with all the tools that we had been using. I really liked using the paintbrush and the color tool, since to me they bought life to the shapes.

      Overall this project was very fun ad I hope to continue using Adobe Illustrator.

Chalk on a Rainy Day

      I consider it a bit of an honor to be welcomed into the E-communication program. At first I thought I would not be welcomed but I thought wrong. For our first project we were put into groups and had to come up with our own symbol to put on a flag. The flag would be drawn on the sidewalk using chalk and colors of our choice. The color had to represent us in some way. For my symbol I chose a Treble Clef since I enjoy playing the piano. My team mates chose other objects such as a paint pallet, a quill, headphones, and drama masks. For my color I choose black since it is my favorite color and because the meaning of the color describes me quite well. Other colors that were also included were purple, blue and orange, which were chosen by my team mates.

      The plan was to make a sunset and have our symbols be the stars in the coming night sky. We created constellations and lined them together to create it. In the end my only regret was not making my own symbol very big. However, the project was truly enjoyable to do. Cooperation was a bit hard at first since we didn't know each know each other very well, but after a short while we managed started to work together quite wel. I wish we could have picked hour own group thought. Sadly, later that day rain came and washed away all our hard work. At least we took pictures!