Week 6

http://www.honda.co.jp/internavi-dots/#/now

For my logo, I chose the iconic Mortal Kombat dragon logo. Anyone that is familiar with the franchise will immediately recognize this graphic. One reason is due to its longevity. The same graphic has been used since the first iteration of the game, up to the present with the introduction of "Mortal Kombat 2011". The logo is very simple, yet visually pleasing, and because it has such a good deign, many iterations of it have been created over they years; and every time, you can still recognize it as the same graphic that was used in 1992 (when the first Mortal Kombat game came out). Although the graphic doesn't really say much about the product at first glance, when one becomes immersed with the game's story, it makes sense. I feel that the colours work well with the franchise, as it gives a hellish atmosphere; very fitting of Mortal Kombat.

The website I chose was a marketing site for Honda, and it displays various statistics in Japan using simple shapes and colours. What struck me most about this site was that it was extremely visually pleasing, despite the fact that the only shapes used were coloured lines and circles. The animation were smooth and expressive, and the music helped to create a fun atmosphere. As with most good websites, there was also a great deal of interactivity. One notable, but very small example would be on the home page, where we are presented with the title, "DOTS". As you hover your mouse across the text, you are rewarded with a cool little animation. Little things like this make user experiences that much better.

Week 5

http://music.google.com/about/tour/

I really like Portal 2 logo because it, like the other logo's I've chosen, is simple and to the point. I'm a fan of super clean titles because I feel that it allows you to throw in subtle things that make the graphic stand out, rather than having something that is in you face. The text by itself is nothing really that special, but it's the blue little man on the right that does it for me. I think because the title is so simple, the blue man, even though that itself is quite plain, becomes very interesting and eye catching. For people that know the series, the graphic makes sense, and it also picks up a little bit on the quirky nature of the game.

For this week's website, I chose the google music website. I'm actually not quite sure what the site is about (which I suppose is a flaw), but I feel the graphic design and experience makes up for it. The colours are simple and true to the google logo. When you hover over the coloured lines on the site, they play sounds which, as simple as it sounds, is quite entertaining. When you click them, you are treated with a very cool animation and a video explaining more about what google music is. I will say that even though I don't know what the site is about, I did find that the instructions were quite simple and clear (I just didn't really pay attention). While there isn't really anything innovative here, everything was executed very well.

Week 4

For this week's logo, I chose the title for the "Final Fantasy" series; Extremely simply, timeless and beautiful. The example given here was specifically for the first in the series, but the base of the logo has been used over and over again. Each Final Fantasy graphic uses the same text, and then in the background there is a nice portrait of the main character or sometimes villain. What makes these logos nice is that it is very clean and you know exactly what it is, and for some, you can figure out what the story is about by looking at the portrait. I also love how detailed the portraits are, yet they do not detract you from the seeing the title.

The website I chose is for Ubisoft's 25th anniversary. They created a site which is based off of a very common internet game; however, they put their own little spin to it. First off, the web design is very well done and quite fun. Everything stylistically makes sense, and is reflective of the Rabid Rabbit character. It was also fun to see modified versions of iconic Ubisoft characters. The main attraction to this site is the game, however. It's a simple "shoot the animal out of a canon" type game, but their spin is that they have you shooting the Rabid Rabbit across the world. The map appears to be from Google Earth, although I'm not sure. Either way, it's an interesting spin, and I found it particularly clever that they placed landmarks on all of the Ubisoft studios around the world. http://25years.ubi.com/minigame/flash/en/

Inspiration Collection 3

http://www.soul-reaper.com/

Logo: For this weeks logo, I chose the iTunes graphic. It is very simple, iconic and pleasing to the eye. When you look at it, you can immediately tell, or at least get a good sense, of what the icon represents; a good example of how simplicity can help get your message across better than something that's over complicated. The blue gradient looks very nice, and helps to keep it eye catching. Had it been a static blue, I feel that the logo would be boring and less effective. Also, the grey border helps to accent the blue colour, and perhaps I'm looking too far into this, but also ties it in with Apple (the grey/silver colour scheme they use).

Website: I felt this website was innovative and a breath of fresh air. I thought integrating simple animations with a comic was a brilliant idea; it's different from a motion graphic novel in that the animations are mainly used to set up the atmosphere. The artwork is left alone for the most part, and I find the juxtaposition of movement and static images very intriguing. Another example of how simplicity can be better than over-the-top gimics. The animations used here simply accent the artwork. Furthermore, information pertaining to the website is kept relatively minimalistic, but there's enough to find out everything you need to know. It's a small feature of the site, but I thought it was a nice touch; when you turn off the audio, rather than an immediate cut, they programmed it so that the sound fades out. The fade helps to keep you in the atmosphere of this comic.

Digital Media Course Reactions

Overall, I feel very satisfied with the course. What I enjoyed most about it was the fact that everything we learned was just so darn applicable. I mean, even when we moved onto learning how to use a new program, I continued to use my skills in the other programs to produce other stuff. The fact that I was able to do this and even learn more about the program kinda shows that the course was successful, in my opinion.

I felt that ample time was given to complete the projects; however, there was a point in time where everything from every other course was due during the same day/week, and that cut down the work time we had for some of the projects. It wasn't too much of an issue though.

I thought that while the tutorials were all very detailed and helpful, there were some things that could have been even more detailed. For example, I felt that there could have been a little more training in flash, explaining the most basic of basics. It took me a very long time to figure out about breaking apart and combining graphics which proved to be a very frustrating experience. Simple things like, I believe, should be touched on. Again, overall, I thought everything was taught quite well.

Although I was initially not even considering Digital Media in the future, I have completely re-vamped my thinking. Playing around with flash has become very fun for me, and I can't wait to get my hands on after-effects. I think that I may very well go further into this specialization, and more info on this can be found on my previous blog.

The greatest thing I learned from this course was just how simple it is to use all of these problems. Honestly, anybody could learn how to do it. In fact, for the most part, it's not using the program that's the most difficult; it's finding out what you want to do and how you're going to achieve it that's difficult. The programs themselves are just the tools used to let your ideas come to life.

Future in Digital Media?

Last lecture, we had an introduction to the intermediate Digital Media class, and I mus say, I'm fairly interested. While I am a writer at heart, I feel that I won't exactly be racking in the cash with just this skill. As a result, I think that having an outlet for my writing would be advantageous so I have a secondary skill as well as a backup to do my own independent work. Digital Media seems like a good course for this, as I'd be able tell my stories through a visual medium rather than through just words on a page. Two things that I'm looking forward to (assuming I get in the class) is using after effects as well the MTV station ID project. The style of the MTV station IDs are in my "style", and so I feel like I would have a ton of fun making it. With after effects, I think I will finally be able to create some of the stories that have been sitting around in my brain doing nothing. Learning how to use stop motion would also be fun; in fact, I'm notorious for keeping everything that I get and so I have a large box of childhood toys in my room. I think I can finally put them to some good use...

Overall, I'm just really excited to get started in my second year. I'm very eager to finally produce things of my own. While this year did allow us to produce a lot of things, I felt very restricted by what we could do in terms of copyright infringement.

Web 2.0 Characteristics

1) Dynamic Content: A good example of this would be any forum website. The content that you get from these sites are all generated by the user, and they can be easily changed, edited and replied to within seconds. These forums show how information on the web is no longer just static information, but rather, a gathering of information that can be added to by millions of other people.

2) User Contribution: On the website Newgrounds, people can upload their work and have it rated + critiqued. By allowing people to rate these things, people can begin to find out what works and what doesn't work in their piece.

3)Social Media: As of now, Facebook is one of the best examples for Social media. Through it, people can connect with each other all over the world. Your personal information can be sent to anybody with your permission, and links from other websites can be posted on Facebook, allowing even more connection.

4) Online Applications: Software like the Zoho Writer word processor is an application that downloads itself upon visiting the website. This allows the user to view the content of the page without having to download something beforehand, increasing it's availability to users.

5) Harnessing Collective intelligence: tagging is an extremely useful thing, as it allows websites such as youtube and newgrounds to use it's "recommended videos" feature. Not only does tagging allow people to find things they're interested in easily, it also allows the computer to "learn" what you like and dislike. If you tend to search "cheese" a lot, then in the recommended videos section, clips with the tag "cheese" in it will be provided.