Working In Digital Media – Geraldine Gray

We had our first guest lecturer today for Working In Digital Media. Geraldine Grey came in to talk to us about learning style and helped us determine what type of leaner we are.

We learnt last semester how there are three different ways people learn – auditory, visual and kinaesthetic.

Auditory learners find it easier to learn by;
- Talking with others.
- Putting notes on tape.
- Reading Aloud.
Auditory learners may find it difficult to learn if there is background noise.

Visual learners find it easier to learn by;
- Using mapping techniques.
- Converting their notes to pictures/graphs/diagrams.
- Using colour.

Kinaesthetic learners usually find it easy to remember only “real” things, so they find it easier to lean by;
- Using lots of detail and case study.
- Using pictures and photos.

We took a quick test to find which type of learner we are. We had to chose one sentence out of a number of choices. Each sentence was colour-coded and the colour of the sentence we choice represented a type of learner. I chose the sentence “Doing exercises in class” which was blue. This indicated that I was a visual learner.

in this lecture we also had a look at “Myers Briggs-Personality type”. Myers-Briggs states that any person can be fitted in with any 1 of 60 different personality types. Your personality can be determined by answering just 4 optional questions.

The four questions are:
Extraversion or Introversion?
Sensing or Intuition?
Judging or Perceptive?
Thinking or Feeling?

After the test, you are left with a four letter code which can then describe your personality. For example, a person with the code ESPF (i.e ME)  is said to be

“Outgoing, friendly, and accepting. Exuberant lovers of life, people, and material comforts. Enjoy working with others to make things happen. Bring common sense and a realistic approach to their work, and make work fun. Flexible and spontaneous, adapt readily to new people and environments. Learn best by trying a new skill with other people.”

Back. Blog. Better.

So, back in college. Semester 2 is a go-go! After the slight stress of exams, I’m really looking forward to getting started into the new lectures, and learning more new and exciting stuff.

Oh and as it’s a new year, a new semester – I’ve ditched the old Blog layout for this new neater appearance

Visual Language – So long, farewell….

…aufedersein goodbye (for now!).

So semester one is coming to a end, and it’s flown by! I can’t believe I’ve been here for 4 months already :O I’ve really enjoyed Visual Language this semester, and I looking forward to learning more in 2010. I will still update my blog between now and after Christmas, but as far as college work for Visual Language is concerned, it’s all over.

So until next year, ta’ra.

Visual Language Week 13 – Typography Portrait

This is my finished Typography Portrait

I started first of all by looking at some of the amazing portraits the 2nd year students did, and they are amazing! Hoping for a bit of inspiration before I sat down to tackle the portrait myself.

I used an image of me (with Naomi + Emma) as the source of my sketch. My original plan, as you can see below, was to use words to spell out the different part of my face in the shape of them parts. However, I didn’t quite do that in the end and I changed my idea. I opted to do a college, again. Mainly because I feel a lot of comfortable working with my hands than with a Mac. I did however print off words and used them in my collage. I used the words “thisisme” for my entire face, the word “eyes” for my eyes and the word “kiss” for my lips. My brown hair is made up of the letters ‘H’ ‘A’ ‘I’ and ‘R’. I also tried to make the letters stick out a bit to give that 3D effect, it doesn’t quite come through on a scanner though. Finally I did an outline of the eyes and mouth just to make them stand out a bit more.

Original PhotoPlanning

Planning

Sketch.

Finished Portrait

It looks slightly better when it’s bigger , but I’m happy with how it turned out.  Looking around at everyone else’s – they are all great! XD ./

Also – I GOT SNOW ON MY BLOG! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Extra: Digital Photography Portfolio

For our final Digital Photography assignment we have to put together a portfolio. We all had to chose a theme and select 10 photos to put into our portfolio.

My theme is “Dublin @ Night”, and now I’ve got some photos taken I thought I’d share them with you all. I’ve edited some of the photos originally on Windows, but I hope to improve them later on in iPhoto.

Photo 1

Photo 2

Photo 3

I’ve customized my blog header and made it one of my photos – photo 2. Just wanted to brighton the place up a tad.

Extra: ITB Promo

So for our 2nd digital media assignment we were put into pairs and given camera to record some footage of the college so we could put together a promo video for ITB using iMovie. After what felt like weeks and weeks of editing, I it finished and I’m really happy with how it turned out (Let’s just hope Daniel is happy as well ha).

I’ve added the promo onto youtube so you can watch it below or a link to the promo can be see in my widgets at side of the page Thanks to everyone else for help with footage

ITB Promo Video from Aaron Smullen on Vimeo.

Visual Language Week 12

In this week’s lecture we started typography.

We started off by learning a definition of typography (“a complete alphabet in a single design”) and about the origins of typeface, and we spent time going though numerous old typefaces such as Roman and, my personal favourite, Gothic. I love Gothic script, it’s more of an art that I typeface to me. We also learnt about differences between serif and sans-serif and why and how these came about.

Example of Gothic typeface

In this lecture we also covered readability, and why typeface is an important in this. While gothic typeface may be beautiful, it’s difficult to read. We went about saccadic movement – when a person doesn’t read all of the words in a sentence when “skimming”. We learnt that line-spacing is also important because if the lines are too close together, it’s too difficult to read and the reader will just move on. Letter spacing is also important for clarity, and we learnt the difference between tracking (space between multiple letters) and kerning (the space between just two letters).

In the labs this week we all presented our semiotics assignments to the class. It was actually really good, as it gave me a chance to explain my collage rather than just show it off. I was really pleased with how my collages turned out  in the end, and I hope the class liked them too.

We got our next assignment today as well. It’s a typography portrait. We have to sketch ourselves and then using that sketch, use typeface to create our portrait.

Extra: PhotoSoc Exhibition

This is a society I couldn’t wait to get into, Photography Society.

They held an exhibition this week and members were asked to submit some photos. I chose 5 photos to submit, so just thought I’d post them here to show them off

Bright Sun In Big City

Electricty

Hidden History

Montserrat

Taken In A Flash

Didn’t win any of the prizes, but the standard was amazing, so I’m not disappointed. It’s not the winning – it’s the taking part that counts, and I was so happy to take part They are planning another exhibition next semester, so I’m already looking forward to it and using some of the techniques I’ve learnt in Digital Photography.

Visual Language Week 11 – Semiotics Collage

I’ll start off by talking about this weeks lecture. We continued on with Design Principals, and discussed the rule of thirds – or the golden mean. This is something we covered in Digital Photography also. The rule of thirds means that a image is broken down into 9 equal squares. Instead of placing an image in the centre of the frame, you place it on one of the 4 joints.

An example of The Golden Rule

We also covered Gestalt Principles, which are: Figure and Ground, Similarity, Continuation, Closure and Proximity. We were split up into groups of 4/5 and each group was given one of the 5 principals to portray suing only ourselves. I was with Daire, Peter and Dan and we were given Continuation. We decided we would portray this through evolution of man – a good example of continuity.

Evolution = Continuity.

And now for the assignment….

For this assignment we were asked to compose three celebrty portraits, using the same celebrity image each time, and associte them with 3 of 6 different statements. We could do this in anyway – I chose to do this by collage.

The celebrity I chose was John & Edward (Jedward), and the statements I chose were “I am masculine”, “I am wealthy” and “I am popular”.

“I Am Popular”

This was the first collage I did. My aim was to create a collage that resembled a popular magazine cover, similer to ‘Heat’ or ‘OK!’. To dot his I got my hand on a lot of old magazines and seached through them all to find images I felt would help me portray the image that I wanted. I used popular people to help make John & Edward (Obama, Cheryl Cole) look more popular by association, and I also used images of screaming fans in the background. The image of John & Edward also resemles the famous photo of Barrack Obama. I’ve also included a screenshot of a youtube video which shows John & Edward as having over 1 million views – which again, helps portray a popular image.

“I Am Masculine”

For this collage I tried again to get images of as many things I could think of that could be associated with a stryotypical man. I’ve included cars, football, rugby, motorbike, a razor (Gilette – “the best a man can get”), Uncle Sam (the army). I’ve included people such as David Beckham, Irish Rugby team, Popeye and The Stig because I felt these are all men who appeal to other men. I’ve also included some women, a bond girl and Jodie Marsh (although with Jeremy Clarkson’s head).

I’ve tried to portray John & Edward as famous masculine charcters – James Bond and Indiana Jones and I’ve given them rippling bodies.

“I Am Wealthy”

For the final collage I tried to make Jedward appear wealthy. I put them in front of an image of a giant yacht, and included images of fellow wealthy people – P Diddy and Paris Hilton. I’ve also added a few wealthy accsessories – a tiny dog, a handbag, and some Gucci. Also, of course, they are suuronded by money.

I’ve given John & Edward some plastic surgary. John now sports a rugged jaw line, and Edward a new nose.

Extra: My workspace

Welcome to my very organized workspace! This is where the magic happens My tiny, play-school sized purple desk (stolen from my 2 year old nephew), complete with crayon and paint stains. Note the magazines, nope I’m not an avid reader of ‘Look!’ –  they were all used for my ‘Jedward’ collages.

Stuck for what to get me for Christmas – a nice big desk would be nice XD ha

my "desk"

Also, a photo of one my prized possessions – my posters, everyone “stolen” from a night out. These posters fill my room. Corner to corner.

Posters Posters Posters

Also – my little gallery. Photos of me and my friends in my room (mainly me!). Hopefully the drunken snaps will improve once I’ve introduced some techniques I’ve learnt in photography.

Photos

:p :p :p