Archive for the ‘ds106’ Category

 

ds106 Design Assignments

Sunday, June 17th, 2012

My goal with participating in ds106 (in whatever way that played out) was to learn something. I’ve only scratched the surface but I’ve learned quite a bit about GIMP and Photoshop today. In addition, without putting in much effort (as I probably should have done) I am looking at design differently, more aware of choices made and how those decisions impact the overall view of an item. Again, lots more to learn but I’ve gotten started.

I had to make some lame workarounds to create my CC poster because I’m not yet proficient enough in GIMP or Photoshop. That said, I’m fairly pleased with how it turned out. Here’s the original picture from Mean and Pinchy on flickr:

Here’s my take on Creative Commons:

The next assignment I attempted was If Movie Posters Told the Truth. I’m less pleased with this work because I know if I had more patience I could fix the ‘bad script’ part to look more a part of the poster. Unfortunately it’s late (for me) and I’m not a patient person in general. 
I picked a movie I can’t stand because that seemed more fun. It required inventing a new word but it captures my sentiment pretty accurately.
Finally, I tackled Iconic You. As simple as this looks, it took me a while because I kept trying to make it do too much. I could not come up with one thing to illustrate me and I wanted to create something that included a lot of the ways I define myself. This design came pretty quickly but I spent a lot of time trying to add more to it. I thought about using the top of the music note to be waves and add something to symbolize biking and running in order to show my participation in triathlons. I thought about adding some little faces to the apple to symbolize my children and husband. After trying some of these out and not liking anything, I got back to the simple. It may not show everything that matters to me, but I like it.

Hey me, Hey mama

Sunday, June 17th, 2012

Dearest Fam,

I’ve concluded my fourth week here at Camp Magic MacGuffin. So far, so good. I got some feedback from my esteemed directors early in the week, and I really took it to heart. I started working on my design assignments a lot earlier and posting them throughout the week instead of all in a clump. I also got more active and remembered to check Google reader for updates from my fellow campers.

On another note, I’ve started my first week at a new camp as a staff member! It’s a 7 week camp at UVa for academics, tennis, and golf. I’m an RA, but really I’m a camp counselor who is in charge of making sure nobody sneaks out at night. Or sneaks in… It’ll probably get difficult to split time between the two camps I’m simultaneously participating in, but being able to take breaks at the one I’m at physically to attend the one I’m at virtually will be a great help. I have lots of down time, and luckily I enjoy doing ds106 activities.

This week, I focused on design. I used both Photoshop and GIMP for my assignments. I had two really really favorite assignments I did, which all turned out in the same style-esque.

To Oz

The above photo is the most recent assignment. It’s a Minimalist Travel Poster and it looks so inviting! I think? It was a definite favorite and you should read my blog post about it! Definitely a favorite.

And also, I’m very proud of this assignment I did for Minimalize your Philosophy.

Dumbledore

I’m going to give myself a pat on the back for these, because not only did I greatly enjoy doing it, I’m very pleased with the final product, and also another pat on the back for bragging to all my fellow staff members about how much better my online summer class is than their boring history, econ, etc., classes.

Also, on another note, I did some stuff with CreativeCommons this week, including changing my flickr account to BY-NC!!

Until then,

KG

Daily Create 160 Make a video that tells us something no one…

Sunday, June 17th, 2012



Daily Create 160

Make a video that tells us something no one ever says.

“Turn to the right.” Behold, my first animated gif! …

Sunday, June 17th, 2012



“Turn to the right.”

Behold, my first animated gif!  This is from the opening scene of Raising Arizona when H.I. is getting booked by Ed.  I love the Cohen brothers’ films, and this is one of their best.  This is my entry in the DS106 visual assignment “Say It Like Peanut Butter.”  Click the image to see a slightly larger version.

I followed various tutorials to get to this done.  Jim Groom wrote a good one that gave me the overall process:  http://ds106.us/wiki/index.php?title=Creating_Animated_GIFs_with_MPEG_Streamclip_and_GIMP

The first steps were to capture the video from a DVD – I used Handbrake version 0.9.6 to grab the section of the movie I wanted.  Then I followed Jim’s instructions for using MPEG Streamclip to trim and export the image sequence that you then import into GIMP.

Since I have version 2.8 of the GIMP for the Mac I needed to look at another tutorial to get some of the finer details down – mainly, that when exporting the file to create the gif, you need to manually enter the .gif extension for the file name to get to the animated gif settings boxes to open.  This tutorial on YouTube helped:  http://youtu.be/HYrzt4hJNJs

TIP! – I found that if I optimize for .gif before I export, the file size shrunk by about half.  It is good practice to conserve the bandwidth necessary for others to download or view your images if you can.  To do this yourself in GIMP, once you are done and ready to export, click the Filters menu, then Animation/Optimize for GIF.  Then go through the regular export process with the optimized images that open in a new window.

Maybe I need to create another now that I know how – just to reinforce the process.  Or, a hundred more, to really reinforce the process?

DS106 Week 4 – Design: A Sansing Sprint

Sunday, June 17th, 2012

Inspired by my Slaughterhouse IV bunkmate Chad Sansing, I composed a Design Assignment Sprint. I spent a lot of time in tinkering in Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop, which always leaves me wishing I could do more than I actually … Continue reading

Alternative Book Covers – Cat’s Cradle

Sunday, June 17th, 2012

For me, DS106 seems to be revolving around Kurt Vonnegut. First, there was that task in Week 2. Then, my bunkhouse was named Slaughterhouse 4. So, I just had to do Design Assignment 366, which was to create an alternative book cover suggesting that the book is about something entirely different. I know I am being mean, but I just couldn’t help it.

Here it is:

Cat's Cradle
Original image used: cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo by Sergiu Bacioiu: http://flickr.com/photos/sergiu_bacioiu/4327564714/

By the way, since this is primarily a TEFL blog, I believe there is a great lesson plan here, especially if the students are all reading the same book. Then they could compare the cover story to the original, or even develop the story from the cover further. Or they could create their own book covers. It would be fun to create the cover and leave out the title. Then they could try to guess what book the cover creator had in mind.





Apocalypse Anyone?

Saturday, June 16th, 2012

Design Assignments 473—Otherworldly Distortion (1 star). Take a picture of a geographical location on earth and try to alter or distort it to make it seem like its from a foreign dimension.

Apocalypse Anyone?

This was a fun and easy assignment. I started with another photo I took yesterday in the mountains of Virginia. With Picasa, I played with different filter effects until I found one with a “foreign dimension” impact. The winner was the “heat map” filter. Cool colors. I think it creates an interesting, colorful image of a post-apocalyptic world!

Getting my ds106 Game On (Maybe)

Saturday, June 16th, 2012

School’s out for the summer.* I’ve dedicated at least part of today to ds106 work, finally. I’m working on a Creative Commons poster, but I’m stuck trying to put the CC icon on there. I haven’t given up yet but I did decide to take a break.

Instead I did the One Story/Four Icons assignment. I’ve enjoyed seeing the work of others on this assignment and it seemed doable. I may try some other movies soon as well. The Noun Project made this pretty simple.



*The kids are done but I still have three days next week of meetings and packing up.

Mother Nature’s Mountain Rhythm

Saturday, June 16th, 2012

Mountain Valley

This is a photo I took yesterday on our way back from Lexington. This beautiful mountain valley scenic overlook off of I-64, showcases Mother Nature’s design rhythm. The majestic, tree covered mountain range has a fluid movement about it, with it curves, evaluations, and spacing. It tempts your eyes to flow the curves, texture of the trees, and shapes of the mountain, with color variance aiding in the guidance of the viewers vision. You are so engrossed in taking in the rhythm of the view, that the white house in the foreground is almost an afterthought!

Memorial Minimalism in Design

Saturday, June 16th, 2012

Yesterday, Dave & I took a drive from Fredericksburg to Lexington, Va. It was a beautiful day for that scenic drive. On the way back, near sunset, we stopped at one of the established “scenic overlooks” along I-64 near Afton Mountain, outside of Charlottesville. Here we found the VDOT Workers’ Memorial.

VDOT Workers Memorial

This monument, built solely with donations, serves to honor state highway transportation workers who died performing their jobs, many in work-zone accidents. The design of this memorial is an uncomplicated and dignified. Carved in black, white, and gray granite, it depicts three profiles or silhouettes of workers, symbolizing the diversity of the VDOT workforce. A simple, minimalist design, chosen from 41 entries, was submitted by Fredericksburg District Location and Design Engineer Harry Lee and his daughter, Stephanie, a studio arts senior at Mary Washington College at the time. Standing against the majestic scenery of the mountains and valley below, and beautifully landscaped with colorful flowers, this commemorative shrine is a perfect example of the power of minimalist design.