WE LOVE PROPAGANDA WEEK!!! For both my propaganda poster and my PSA I focused on Aggressive Technologies and the role it is taking in the world that is basically being controlled by them at this point. It was a little rough coming up with ideas though since last week I did my own sort of propaganda week, but after looking up some inspiration online and the other posts from our class I made a sort of plan for what I wanted to do.

My post-reaction was an unexpected fun activity from this week since I was able to get into the mind of Andrea and create more layers to her personality. It was also fun as always to see what the rest of the class is working on with such broad assignment prompts.

Also in my free time, I added some small customizations to my website theme. I already knew how to code before but I learned a lot about CSS so that I could add small things. Like the effect that highlights the post when you hover over it and some slight adjustments to change the spacing of the header and its elements which isn’t a customizable option through the theme’s usual settings.

Daily creates below!

Day 1: #tdc4429 Convey something pure

When I think of the word pure one of the first things that comes to mind is pure love that can come in all sorts of forms

Day 2: #tdc4430 Net Art? or Not Art?

I put in “Solitude in the Cityscape” and I would say it captured it pretty well if the watermarks weren’t so in your face.

Day 3: #tdc4431 What are the oscillators crooning?

They’re a traveling quartet of singers displaying their full range for all to hear! They perform many different styles from opera to beatboxing and between the 4 of them they can pull off whatever you throw at them.

This week was pretty fine! I had a lot of assignments in other classes with midterms and jazz, so I was so grateful to have a simpler week this week. I did leave all my work for Friday, but that was mostly because I had to so I could focus on my other work. It’s okay, though, because I do think I did pretty fine this week!

In the last few weeks, I was trying a new style for organizing these summaries, and I think I like that way better, so here it is!

Daily Creates

The Daily Creates this week were pretty simple and easy! They still prepared me to get to actual work and get a little inspired! I talked about it a lot more in the post so I’ll save you the yapping, but these were nice. I especially liked the Net Art one, I think it was fun to come up with a prompt and see how it would scan the internet to give you a new image with a crazy amalgamation of images.

Propaganda

This might be one of the assignments I’m most proud of. After stepping away and going to work and coming back, I’m looking at my propaganda poster, and I’m like, “wow, I did that!” I think it looks really good! I think I have an advantage with experience with graphic design from high school, but I do think this was really good.

Now that I am looking at it again, I do see things that I missed or could have tweaked, but I’m stil happy!

One last thing, creating a Pinterest board for inspiration really helped me, I think. I actually had a good time getting inspired looking at these, so I think for other design-related assignments like this, I want to make boards for them to see what I can find and get inspired.

Public Service Announcement

I lost all of my inspiration by this post and spat out a not very fun PSA. I really liked other people’s PSAs, I don’t know why I lost all my inspiration and couldn’t make a similar one. I think I feel bored and dull about my PSA because I used ChatGPT to write it instead of me . . . that’s not really my type of thing, but I thought maybe it could write something more intelligent! Which, it did, but I just don’t feel happy because it didn’t come from me . . . I don’t know.

Reaction

Looking at all the posts for this week was really fun! I loved seeing where people’s brains went for these assignments. Everyone is really creative!

One problem I’m having is that I can’t quite figure out what personality I want Sol to have. Every time I’m writing, I feel like I might be writing as myself and not as Sol. I’m having a rough time getting in their head, and part of me regrets making a character that’s similar to me, but it wasn’t super intentional. I hope as I keep doing these assignments related to them that I find their voice.

This week was fun! It’s also interesting to me because we just recently talked about propaganda in my Social Psychology class, so designing propaganda was fun because I could understand just what people are looking for in propaganda and just what influences them.

Very excited for break next week though . . . everyone have a good spring break!!

It’s video week part 2! This week’s assignment choices had a lot of options and it was hard to choose at first. While I may have overdone the worldbuilding a little bit for my character Andrea, I simply enjoyed the process too much to stop.

For my first assignment, I did one where we had to tell our course character’s story. I ended up telling the story of how Andrea and Georgia’s rivalry began. And of course, being Andrea, the story is ridiculously dramatic as she laments her struggle with Georgia in her journal and so the title needed to be theatrical as well The Rivalry Redefined: Andrea’s Story.

When I saw this post in the assignment bank I immediately heard Frank Costanza yelling “Serenity Now!’ and I knew I had to do it. While this assignment wasn’t me screaming the same way I did enjoy the simple serenity that my Serenity Now! But for real video produced.

The last assignment is actually the first one I started but took the longest. I made an Aggressive Technologies Propaganda ad where my character Andrea records a video campaign for the company. As a completely unrelated part of the assignment, I may have gotten carried away and made another subdomain to host some content for Aggressive Technologies.

Daily creates:

Day 1: #tdc4421 What prompted this man’s facial expression?

He’s listening to his favorite song I’m Blue da ba dee da ba daa

Day 2: #tdc4422 Make your own snow globe

I love the idea of virtual snow globes this was fun

It’s video week!!! We didn’t have as many assignments but instead one big one. Before doing that though we had to update our course goals which can be found here.

The reading and videos this week were really interesting and I definitely overdid it with the notes but I enjoyed the time I wasted so another win for me. I’m definitely gonna spend more time watching the rest of Tony Zhou’s videos in the future.

Finally my video essay. It was a task I enjoyed way too much and I hope someone enjoys listening to the nonsensical production opinions I summoned from the trashcan part of my brain.

Overall a really fun week! Daily creates below.

Create 1: #tdc4412 Poem Portrait

I used the word intrigued because I was feeling that when I was reading about today’s daily create. The results were definitely intriguing as well.

Create 2: #tdc4415 Why Does Captain Felix Look So Happy?

Captain Felix is annoyed with the “customer service” he is receiving

This week was audio week!!! We had a lot of stuff to go through but it was honestly still very fun. I enjoy editing a lot and while I hadn’t used Audacity before, I’ve used other audio software before. When I started our first task to experiment with Audacity it was a pretty smooth process. While I didn’t know where everything was and there were different names and processes, it was still just an audio editing platform so adjusting wasn’t too bad. Then I quickly made my SoundCloud account where my audio from this week is uploaded as well as on my blog.

To start off our exploration we had to think about audio storytelling. I enjoyed this assignment because it made me appreciate audio storytelling even more than I did before. His thoughts like how this form of storytelling is only possible because of the connection between the narrator and the listener were things I had never thought of before. The podcast was also just very interesting to listen to.

Then we had to create a radio bumper for the ds106 radio show. Since this was my first time creating a bumper it was very basic but I learned a bit more about its usage on the radio. We also had to listen to the radio show that we just made the bumper for and write our thoughts on audio production. I loved listening to the story that was on the night I was listening which almost made me forget the reason we were there in the first place.

The sound effect story was a fun mode of storytelling that had so much potential since there was no dialogue. It almost felt like I was the narrator of my own story and I’m subjecting my listeners to a tale of someone’s very boring walk to work.

We also 3 assignments this week that had to be from the audio section of the assignment bank and I had a lot of fun making these.

First I tried the TV Product Placement Radio Ad which used clips from one of my favorite shows, Arrested Development so it was pretty enjoyable completing that one since I could just watch funny episodes in the background while I was doing half of the work. I struggled a little bit more on this one than the others since it was the first time I had really sat down and tried to just edit audio instead of making something but overall it came out pretty well.

I then tried the Played From Another Room and while I was initially scared when I read the assignment description, the urge to learn how to do it won over, and here we are. It was cool seeing the little changes the effects had on the audio since I’ve never really edited whole songs before.

The last assignment I did was Breaking News! This one turned out to be the most fun to make. I could have never guessed the bizarre story the AI generator was going to make but it turned out to be the perfect story of another Florida Man.

Last on the list was to brainstorm radio show ideas for our course characters. I did struggle to make even a semi-solid list because I don’t really imagine her being on something like a radio show. Hopefully, inspiration will strike soon but for now, this is it.

And as always my daily creates are below!

Create 1: #tdc4407 Silk Threads

I tried making my roommate’s cat Moby and I think I captured his evil spirit quite well

Create 2: #tdc4408 Message in the Sky

I love silly banners so I had to go and make one

Create 3: #tdc4409 Secret entrance

Just your normal kitchen island entrance

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/733453489315446700/