Category Archives: Assignment Bank

I’m DS106 and You’re Watching Radio Bumper

For the radio bumper assignment, I based my bumper on the iconic “You’re watching Disney Channel’ ads that would air when I was younger. I thought the idea was creative and nostalgic, but mainly because of Defunctland on YouTube. When I looked into what a radio bumper was, the assignment description explained that it is a “short recording that identifies the radio station with signature music or an expression that makes sure the listeners know what they are tuned into.” It reminded me of Defunctland’s “Disney Channel’s Theme: A History Mystery” where the host, Kevin, talks about Network Identifiers. Kevin goes on to explain that bumpers are a fascinating liminal space that is able to tell viewers, “Here is where you are, here is what you’ve been watching, and here’s what’s next.” The video is all-around amazing, so I encourage anyone reading this to watch it. That being said, because this video taught me what bumpers were when I first watched that video, I wanted to reference it by using the Disney Channel theme for my bumper.

To make this bumper, I recorded myself saying my name and saying, “You’re listening to DS106 radio.” From there, I uploaded my recording and the audio clip of the Disney Channel theme to Adobe Audition to start editing. Because the audio was so short, editing was easy but I did run into one challenge. I wanted some music to play first and then for me to talk, but to do that, I had to set the clips at different audio levels and then have them fade into each other. The frustrating thing about Adobe Audition is that I couldn’t figure out how to do a fade transition for the audio. What kept happening was the first audio clip would fade into zero, and the next audio clip would fade from zero, but it was jarring and didn’t sound good. The solution I found told me to set the two clips to different volumes and then overlap each other. That is what I ended up doing, but I am keeping my eye out for a better way to do this.

I like how my radio bumper came out, and I’ve enjoyed listening to everyone else’s. I’m excited to maybe one day hear it on DS106 radio!

POV: You’re Charlie Brown – Sound Effect Story

The prompt for this assignment excited me because it’s a clever idea and a good way to get creative. Once I started editing this story together, I had an easy time, but coming up with an idea was really tough for me. The problem I kept running into was I would think of the story I wanted to tell but couldn’t find any sounds for it. However, if I tried to do the reverse, downloading sounds and then coming up with a story, I became overwhelmed with options and didn’t know where to begin. Another challenge was that I could not find inspiration for a prompt online. I thought because this assignment was fun and easy, multiple people would have their own takes on it, but I couldn’t find anything. Eventually, I decided to do the sounds of a class period. It wasn’t groundbreaking, but I was stumped. I started downloading the sounds I wanted, and when I went to download the teacher’s voice, it only gave me Charlie Brown Teacher voices, but I figured that would be a much more interesting take, so I went with it. The process of editing the story together was fairly quick. I took the downloaded sounds and compiled them in the order I wanted. I used the cutting tool to end some clips early or split them up. After that, I exported the story and uploaded it to SoundCloud. Again, it’s a simple story, but I hope the Charlie Brown aspect makes it a little less mundane.

Radio Show Idea

When I was brainstorming radio show ideas, I was inspired by WTOP’s radio show which is short for Washington’s Top News. WTOP is a staple for anyone who lives in Northern Virginia. Their slogan “traffic and weather on the 8s and when it breaks” is so nostalgic to me because my parents would always put it on before a long car trip. I thought it would be cool to do a cyberpunk take on WTOP. This would show all the top news happening where the cyberpunk characters are. This would tell listeners how the traffic and weather is, what the current events are, and how the politicians are dealing with those events. I think this a great way to build the world and set the scene for my group’s characters! Each segment would need to be at least five minutes to meet the minimum time limit, but I think we will probably have more that twenty minutes worth of content. I’m excited about this idea and I look forward to see if my group will end up using this.

Soundtrack to Krissy’s Life

I think this assignment was a really good exercise for developing my character’s personality. I was inspired by Live it Up With Liv’s version of this assignment and I thought it looked fun so I wanted to give it a try. For this playlist there were a few elements I wanted to apply: country, independent woman, and wanting more. For the country element, you can see that in songs like “Fancy” by Reba, “The Other Side of the Door” by Taylor Swift, and “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma”. I think she would like these songs because she works on a farm in a small town so country music is in her roots. The independent woman part can be seen in “Woman” by Kesha and “You’re Just a Boy (and I’m Kind of the Man)” by Maisie Peters. Krissy is a confident woman and that confidence will be important to have on her mission. The last factor of songs that give off the feeling of wanting more can be seen in the song “Belle” from Beauty and the Beast as well as “1985” by Bowling for Soup. I think the sense of yearning for more is a relatable feeling in the Innocent Bystander Archetype. In the beginnning of her story, she feels that she is meant for more but by the end, after all the action, she will be changed for better or for worse. Some songs have overlapping themes. For example, “Girl in a Country Song” by Maddie & Tae and “girl i’ve always been” by Olivia Rodrigo shows both elements of country and independent woman. Additionally, I made Krissy with very similar interests to mine, she is a strong, independent woman, so of course I want to feel represented by her. While reflecting on this assignment, I realized that Krissy has very similar music taste to me. I think in Live it Up With Liv’s assignment, Liv went out of her way to find a healthy mix of music that she regularly listened to and music that fit the vibe of her character. In constrast, this assignment went very fast for me because I would think “Oh! This song I like fits, and this one too!” so I see a lot of myself in this playlist. As I mentioned earlier, this assignment was a great way for me to develop my character’s personality, and in turn I hope anyone who reads this has a better understanding of who Krissy is.

My Logo

I’ve been developing an online portfolio to showcase my work for internship applications, so I knew this logo project would be an excellent opportunity for my website and me. I added the logo to the navigation bar to serve as a link back to the home screen and to use as the website’s favicon. My hope for this logo is that it demonstrates my skills to potential hiring managers.

I’m not very good with graphic design software so for this assignment, I used Canva, which I don’t know if that’s classified as a graphic design software, but I wanted to show that I at least have an eye for aesthetics. Typically, I prefer bright colors and bubble letters, as those better reflect my personality. However, this logo is different because I want to convey a sense of professionalism and class. I incorporated my initials and intersected it with my first and last name, so that viewers can easily identify who I am. Adding my role title was a difficult decision because I didn’t want to limit myself. However, I realized that I currently manage social media to market events, and the internships I’m applying for are in social media marketing. So, I figured if the shoe fits, wear it. I’m pleased with how this design came out because I think it is versatile and I will be able to use it for years to come.

New Game! – Your story as a game!

I chose to do a design assignment for my character Krissy Ryan. I don’t know why, but I always pictured Krissy as a movie character and less of a video game character. However, I thought the prompt of making a video game home screen was really cool, and I have been inspired by other people doing this prompt so I wanted to take a swing at it. This prompt was challenging for me because I don’t play a lot of video games, and the ones I do don’t have that classic “Game Over, Play Again” screen, so I needed to look for inspiration. My goal for this assignment was to get a very basic sense of Krissy’s story (to really boil it down, she has a very dramatic change in scnery) from the home screen, while still keeping the video game look.

*****Flash Warning*****

I used Canva to create the screen, and I was messing around with the different elements they offered. I love Canva, but I often forget that you don’t have the most freedom when it comes to designing your image. If I had the skills, I would use Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, but I don’t so I have to settle for Canva and whatever it has. Like I said, my goal was to show the general sense of the story from the home page, so I did a split screen of Krissy in front of her normal life and Krissy in front of the future. The image I used for the Cyberpunk future was inspired by one of the readings we did from the first week where it says the vision for Cyberpunk is “Tokyo on a bad day.” I added some glitch effects to add to the cyberpunk theme. Other than coming up with an initial concept for my home screen, the hardest part was the play button. I wanted the A to be in the symbol of a triangle, but the spacing was really hard to get just right.

I like how my home screen came out and although I still picture Krissy as a movie character, maybe this can be a video game made to market the movie. I’m not a video game fan, other than the classic Dress to Impress, but I think I would play this game!

New Tattoo Who Dis?

In the assignment Tattoos that Describe you, I did a tattoo that my character Evelyn Calico would have.

The top right corner tattoo is what Evelyn would have and its a straight spine tattoo. Evelyn is a classy gal and whilst she is a writer she also loves to read books (her favorite are Agatha Christie novels). The roses are her favorite touch to this piece because roses mean so many things. She loves how dainty they are but that they can be thorny and prickly. The sword was added to the design last minute because while she was waiting to get the final design she was looking at the drafts and realized that she wanted something that not only can be straight on her spine but also strong and can show her independence, so she asked for a sword to be integrated into the design. She also wanted a pop of color so she made only the flowers be colored in.

To make this assignment I scrolled through Pinterest and looked for “writer tattoo ideas” and found this one. I then imported it into Procreate for Apple and decided that I wanted to color some part of this design so I decided on coloring the roses and thorns. The assignment also stated to “make multiple copies of that, and add different color effects to each copy. Each Color is unique, and can depict different mood.” So I made multiple layers of the finished product and put them into a grid. I “alpha locked” every layer so that when I made a edit to a layer it would only affect the one selected. I added a transparent color to each layer except the top right corner to make them different colors without hindering the roses. I then played around with canvas textures and hues, each square a different adjustment type. Once I was happy with how each layer looked I had the finished product!

Mickey’s Not So Scary Christmas Party

This assignment is the Color Changer. I chose this assignment because I think its really cool to alter photos with different hues and finding out how that changes the scene and the mood of the photo.

This is a photo of Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida during Christmas time. I knew that I wanted a photo of Disney but I wasn’t sure what I would do with it. As I was browsing different events that Disney has I remembered the classic “Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party” that they host every halloween where patrons are able to dress in costume for one night and trick or treat around the park. The idea is that I would like Disney during Christmastime and adjust the hues to make it look more halloween themed and name it “Mickey’s Not So Scary Christmas Party”!

I used Procreate for Apple for this assignment. I imported the original photo into procreate and only used the canvas editing tools (no coloring!). I started with the hues and made it more green and kinda ugly and make the saturation higher. I gave the canvas more noise and used the “Chromatic Aberration” adjustment and gave it a mild screen print look which made it more grainy. After 10 more minutes of messing with the hues and saturation I settled on this look that was bright so it gave the Disney aesthetic, but had completely different colors than the photo before! See below!

Happy Halloween I think?

Contact me – Or don’t I really don’t care

This assignment is the Create Your Own Business Card. I chose to make a business card for my character Evelyn Calico. She works at the New York Times as a journalist and doesn’t really care to move up in the world. She likes where she is and will continue to work her wage and no more.

Evelyn gives very few out but when she does, its because a story has really interested her and knows she can do well with it, or a supervisor is watching her and she needs to give them out like candy according to them. The stories that Lynn looks for are stories that tend to bring controversy to the public. She likes to listen to gossip and make news out of it, but professionally of course. Her business card consists only of work contact information, she will not tolerate those who go contact her personally (i.e her personal phone, email, and landline – yes she still has one).

I made this business card using this Canva template and I made up a phone number using the area code from Montana as that is where Evelyn is originally from. To make her email I used the classic first initial and full last name email that most professional companies use. I then went to a “contact us” page on the New York Times to see what kind of email url they typically use. I then make the address be the New York Times headquarters building. I imported the New York Times font into canva to make the header and the “T” logo in the corner. Overall, Im happy with how minimalist the card ended up looking and I feel like it fits my characters overall vibe!