I did the 20 minute Photoblitz last night, here were my prompts:
Find a grid pattern somewhere: I struggled to find something interesting, so here are the tiles on the ground of the common area in my dorm.
Make a photograph of a smile, either literal or symbolic: I hoped to get a photo of my cat that looked like she was smiling, but it didn’t work out. Make your reflection on the screen will show you the smile I was looking for?
Make an artistic photo that involves one of your toes: I like to call it “Reflecting on one’s atoenement” It doesn’t really mean anything, but the play on words was too good for me to not use.
Giraffes are brilliant. Show us what it would be like if they lived in human society: I didn’t have a good way to demonstrate this, so I drew it, it was probably the thing that took the most time, maybe 7-8 minutes.
No ocean, surely you can find some water around you to take a photo of: This is my cat’s water filter, she stays well hydrated thanks to it so I am very grateful for it.
How do ants see the world? Change your viewpoint: Cute, right?
Doors can have a lot of character, be it in the hinges, knob, or style: This is a door in my dorm building, it’s been painted over a few times and this building is long overdue for a renovation, but I like it better than my door to my dorm.
I can’t say that this was my favorite activity, but I did really enjoy the creative exercise, I felt like I gained from it!
This week was a bit better than the last. I missed the daily creates this week, but I got pretty much everything else. Time and balance have been the issues for me. Figuring out how to get everything done for this class while also staying on top of my psych and English classes and vice vice versa. I felt the amount of assignments for this week was more manageable than last week for sure.
This week, a running theme for me was color. My design thoughts and Corpse Bride color analysis especially focused on how color is used and the impact it can have; the Corpse Bride analysis was my favorite assignment I’ve done so far. I also introduced my course character, Lenore Glaphyra by creating a business card and showcasing her favorite song lyric; I felt decent about these creations. Similar to last week, if I had more time in my schedule, they would’ve been much more intricate.
My photoblitz was the last thing I completed, mainly because I was hoping my flareup would ease by the end of the week, but it didn’t. Nevertheless, I powered through. It took me longer than 20 minutes as a result, but I felt happy with the results.
I was a bit concerned about the Photoblitz challenge at first because while I thought the creative aspect sounded intriguing, the time limit was my worry due to the fact that to find everything I needed for my prompts, I had to walk around campus and move quite a bit. I have some physical disabilities that have been flaring up this week, so I did end up taking longer than 20 minutes because I had to take breaks to regulate my heartrate and stabilize my joints. However, I was very pleased with my prompts and think the final product turned out well.
Something RustedUnique Texture and PatternStone, Water, and CloudsForced PerspectiveConstruction1:1 RatioContrast (Life and Death)
I felt like all of these prompts were a perfect opportunity to highlight some of my favorite natural spots on campus like the amphitheatre and the bridge to Seacobeck. I loved getting to walk around, hang out, and really analyze what was around me. It did take me longer than 20 minutes, but I needed to make sure I was accommodating myself and not stressing my POTS flareup too much. I think this is definitely something I would do again, though!
After reading the article and watching the videos linked it was interesting to see the change in perspective and development that I was able to have. It took me while to understand what was wrong with the photo of the lady, I thought that it was normal for a mirror to show different angles. I think that highlighted just how much previous experiences impact the way we view life today. In addition to this learning about how movie posters are constructed was interesting. Unlike a book, movie posters are meant to be judged. Being able to learn how colors are chosen was interesting because everything is calculated even if you think something as color is quite fickle. In addition to this, learning about the color trends like white backgrounds being used for marketing strategy because the photo can be recreated easily, or action movies having a man running in them made me want to pay more attention to the posters I see.Ā
First off, what-in-the-h-e-double-hockey-stick-is-a-photoblitz?! I’d never heard of that before, and this was the first time I got to experience something like this. I can only imagine what this would look like in an in-person classroom setting. I had fun with it and my inner child came out while I was running around trying to find things to take pictures of to match with the tasks in the time frame of 20 minutes. 10/10 for this assignment activity.
I found 3 assignments that I wanted to complete in the Design Assignment bank this week.
Before completing any assignments, I had gone through almost all of the assignments in both the Visual and Design Assignment Bank. I resonated with 3 assignments in the design bank the most.
The first one I completed was the tattoo designs assignment, which is based on āTattoos that Describe youā. Instead of describing myself I wanted to build the image of my Technoir character, Sapphria Mae. In my post, Don’t Say the Word Destiny While Reading This Post, you can feel the femme fatale vibes through the description of the tattoos. It isn’t the actual tattoos by itself that will lead you to think “femme fatale”. But I also thought that it was perfect for this type of character because it’s a little manipulative. The tattoos look sweet and innocent or cute, but they can be fatal if you look Sapphria in the eyes while she’s pointing her finger at you, or if she can get you to say the word “Destiny”. Read my post for more details on this.
The second assignment was a missing person flyer. I also created this in honor of Sapphria Mae because it’s in her nature to go missing or disappear! My post talks about the circumstance for her disappearance being unknown. With added information about her appearance, what she was wearing before she went missing, and an image of her on a flyer with contact information if you see her. I had fun with this one and put the most effort into this assignment because I had to make many edits to the flyer template. So worth it though.
My third post is called, Let’s Get Some Dinner. Inspired by the menu design assignment in the design assignment bank. Instead of designing my own menu, I wanted to design a menu that I felt like my Greek Femme Fatal character would have liked, and with a story behind it! The storyline was of a local restaurant owner who fell in love with Sapphria in Greece (Her hometown) and let her make an inspiring menu for his restaurant for the weekend. I chose classic Greek dishes and beverages to put on the menu to go with my character’s theme. In my post I talk more about why I designed the menu the way I did. Go check it out.
I posted 3 daily creates this week on Mastodon. Each post being very different from the others. For all three of these Daily Creates I used Canva to create them or edit them. To see each of these you can click on the header of this paragraph, or you can click on the links below for quicker access.
Design Our Header Image ; This one I felt I was most creative with and put the most thought into.
Obviously Photoshopped ; This one I find the most humorous and I had the most fun with it.
I also did my best to comment more and make replies to my peers this week! You can also see my replies in my post.
Design Thoughts Reflection
My reflection post was mainly about Chipp Kidd. I found him to be humorous, intellectual, and creative. Overall, an awesome human being from what I could see in the materials I looked through this week. I loved learning more about graphic design, what goes into making a book jacket, and how 2 people can align to make an awesome creation together.
I also learned more about our DS106 Cyberpunk and Technoir themes. I look forward to implementing this material into my work in the weeks to come.
Voting
One of the last things I did was vote on my favorite post for the week. I thought this was fun and I can’t wait to see everyone’s top rated favorites (Hopefully we will see this) next week. I loved looking at my classmates’ characters, blog pages, and creativity!
Thank you all for taking the time to read up on Your Weekly Adrenaline Rush.
This week commenced somewhat intimidating, but I felt more self-assured when finishing up the tasks as I advanced. The preliminary action involved setting my blog in order to confirm everything was correctly arranged prior to getting started on the assignments. My first focus was on Assignment Bank due to finding those tasks most gratifying. In this week, I picked three tasks related to visual/design: Creating a Tattoo For my Course Character, Creating a monocrome image for my course character and also making a gif. There was particular enjoyment in working on creating a tattoo for my course character. Since it gave a personal touch, allowed creative freedom or presented an amusing challenge. The Photoblitz challenge that lasted for twenty minutes proved to be engaging as well as quick-paced activity. I was given tasks like take a photo of a toy in action, or take a photo of a building. They all were completed by me very swiftly. It was a good exercise that made my brain work in creative ways while I performed efficiently. For the Daily Creates, this week observed me finishing three of them: such as ,my favorite sandwich, and second being an anti word cloud, and a technology post from past to present. My most liked one was anti word cloud because it was very unique, and also quite challenging. It pushed me to be more creative. Additionally, I put effort in interacting with my classmates on a larger scale through commentaries on their posts which formed part of my personal objectives for that week. I liked to get comments on my work and it happy for me to be involved in our class group. Also, I voted for the posts that were nice as one more approach of connecting with others’ jobs, finding many ideas from creativity of my classmates. When writing about what reflected in design was a learning moment because articles and videos showed me new ways of creating visuals. Even though not seeing myself as designer, looking at how design elements are divided interested me deeply. This gave-completely different view towards designing something important within business marketing i never deeply-thought about. This week was nice and I think I used my time in a good manner, arranging my work so that there is enough time to complete everything. Each week, my confidence grows more -both in finishing tasks and handling my blog. With greater knowledge of what should be done now, I’m eager for next week and intend to start even sooner.
This week felt super long me. It dragged on for a while and felt never-ending, but that also helped me keep up with all of my work as I really get back into the swing of school after the long break. The 3 daily creates this week were fun, and I also enjoyed doing the 3 visual/design assignments for the week. This week I ended up choosing the Favorite Movie Quote, Destress & Color, and Shadow of A Doubt assignments. The Photoblitz was another really good way to look at my surrounding in a way I wouldn’t normally, and to also think quickly to fit in the 20 minute window (I got back to my computer after 23 minutes but those extra 3 minutes were traveling time). Furthermore, reviewing, commenting on, and voting for pieces I found well put together and cohesive was a great way to reflect on others’ work while also gaining some inspiration for the weeks ahead. Overall, the week felt a bit sluggish, but completing everything and taking time to reflect was very rewarding.
If I were to be completely honest, at the beginning of the week, I had little to no motivation. But, I saw that some of the tasks was just increasing our participation, as well as voting for our favorite creations in the class so far, so I decided to start working on that. This is one of my favorite things to do, because I like to see what my peers are doing and creating. It is also interesting to see how they interpret the assignments and the daily creates, and how they are all so different and unique. It was hard to pick my favorites for the voting form, since they were so many awesome digital creations to choose from.
Readings
I loved the readings and videos for this week. As mentioned in my blog post about visual design, it was very interesting to hear the thought process behind such iconic movie posters and tv show intros. The color, font, spacing, layout, pretty much everything plays a role in conveying a message that the viewers will engage in. Getting to hear the backstory or reasoning behind movie posters such as Star Wars, as well as the intro for Stranger Things was definitely very cool, and it makes me want to look into more about visual design and how it is used to promote media.
Photoblitz
I found the photoblitz to be fun, as the prompts were pretty random and allowed me to think outside the box a little. The prompts ranged from pretty straight-forward to interpretive, such as “your favorite color” to “what does disappointment look like”. Ideas came to my head quickly, but executing them was the more difficult part, but overall this was a fun, quick activity.
Daily Creates
Daily Create #1
Wednesday’s daily create was to create an Anti-Word-Cloud with a random book, which I chose to do Anna Karenina since I have never read it, but I want to read it!
Daily Create #2
For the second daily create, we had to pick our favorite sandwich, and determine how “woke” it would be. I chose a classic grilled cheese with ham, as it is one of my dad’s favorites to make. If I were to give it a woke rating, it would be a 2 as it is a traditional, American food.
Daily Create #3
For the last daily create for the week, the prompt was to do a photo with bad photoshop. What immediately came to my mind was to badly photoshop two celebrities. So, I decided to do Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, who were the stars of the biggest, pinkest movie of 2023, Barbie!
Assignments
For the first assignment of the week, I decided to do the destress and color assignment, as it was a great way to wind down and take a quick break from all the busy work I have throughout the week. To take a peek at what I colored, as well as my reasoning and thought process behind it, read it here at Destress and Color. For the second assignment, I did a “What’s in my bag?” for my course character, Veronica Malone. This was probably my favorite assignment, as it allowed me to be creative with what Veronica likes or dislikes, as well as what items she would want to have on her at all times. To read more on what Veronica would have in her bag, read What’s in Veronica’s Bag?. Lastly, I wanted to make a graphic for one of my favorite sports teams, the Buffalo Bills. I follow the team page on social media, so it was fun to make my own graphic that looks like it would be on their social media page. To see my beautiful graphic, click here Go Bills! Overall, I enjoyed this round of assignments!
Overall
I enjoyed the lighter workload for this week, as it was easier to manage my time and when to complete each assignment. If I had to pick one of my favorite creations, it would probably be the Bills graphic, as it was so much fun to play with colors and fonts to see what looked good. Overall, this was a good week, and I am ready for next week’s workload as well!
For something that represents my childhood, I decided to do a coloring book and colored pencils. When I was a kid, I loved to color and draw, which is an activity that I still do to this day.
Your favorite color
I thought I would show my two favorite colors (since it switches every day), pink and green. Practically everything I own is in those two colors, so I decided to take a photo of my green tower and my pink scarf (which is very practical right now as it has been freezing outside recently).
Take a photo that includes objects near and far (deep depth of field)
This prompt was hard to decipher, but I thought it would be cool to show Ball Circle, and how the actual field is so close, yet the buildings surrounding it are so far.
Make a photograph with your camera at floor level
This a a photo from the floor of my dorm room, showing my roommate and I’s closet doors, as well as some of the decoration we have up in our dorm.
A photo with a square aspect ratio
For this prompt, I decided to take a 1:1 ratio photo of my perspective from up in my bed in my dorm room. My roommate and I have tried our best to make our dorm as cozy as possible, and it looks especially cozy throughout the rainy day. m
Represent 3 items
This one I had to think about a little, but then I decided to show my 3 favorite lip products that I use everyday.
What does disappointment look like?
This one doesn’t really need an explanation, but my first thought when it comes to disappointment was “being thrown away” or “trash”. Especially this one which is dirty and wet from the rain.
My reflection on this week’s reading, articles, and materials are mainly based on Chip Kidd. He’s a very intelligent and creative individual with a great sense of humor. I loved learning about his background and why he likes to make book jackets. I think he said something like “Idk, I’m just good at it” or something like that in the interview. I thought that was funny. One of the main parts of the conversation between Chip and Kelly that I found interesting was when they were talking about behind the scenes of what both the writer and the designer are going through. The writer and designer both have their own inspirations, visions, and missions for the book. Trying to align and build both of their ideas and creations together is an incredible process that takes a lot of analysis and effort.
I also loved Chipp Kidd’s Ted Talk video. His sense of humor, body language, the way he got the crowd engaged, pure talent! Not only is he great at what he does but he’s a wonderful public speaker/figure.
Deep diving a little more each week into our Cyber and Tech themes and graphic design is interesting. Learning more of the history, inspirations, and effects of the themes futuristic/neon/glitch style made me realize on what I can look forward to in the weeks ahead!
