Rita’s final project Continue reading
A Rocky Journey
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Author Archives: ritalin
slideshow comments
For my slide show, I chose to use different pictures found on the internet related to illustrations. Most of them were colorful and were filled with different characters and objects. I chose this theme because I like cartoon like illustration a lot, especially those that are created from illustrator. I think they look very clean and crisp with bright colors. Since I chose the illustrated images, I thought it would be nice to have an illustrated background so I made some figures from illustrator. I added a spinning wheel on the top to create more movement to the background. I also included a button allowing viewers to click and change the layout. I think what worked well is the animated slideshow that plays automatically when the play button is hit. I don’t really think there are parts that needed more attention, but there are parts that I should have left it as it is (so with less attention). I think most of the time when I try to do many different things at once I tend lose focus and confuse myself, and that usually leads me to making a bigger mess out of what’s already there. In this slideshow, I think I was trying to add too many things on it that some of the functions just stopped working right.
As for the goal, I think I have partially achieved it because at least to me I thought the slideshow looks pretty interesting. I learned how to make an automated slideshow with a button to activate it and I also learned how to jump between different frames to make the layout change. I would probably have achieved the other part of my goal if maybe I left some parts alone as it was first created. So that would make the slideshow look simple and nice.
I like Tiffany’s slideshow on Taiwanese food and dishes, I thought it was cool seeing all the delicious Taiwanese style foods and her layout looked very different from mine. She had more focus on her images, where as in mine, many things are happening throughout the show. I think from her I can learn to keep my focus in one place and try not to do so many different things at once. Similar to Tiffany’s style, Joseph’s slide show was also very focused on one interesting theme. I really like his idea of using a dark image/background to create more focus on to the picture being presented. I think I’ll try to incorporate that idea to my final project.
KRAZY! exhibit essay
Defining the meaning of art can be a quite difficult task. People over the past and today have identified art as different and abstract forms of communication, whether it’s done through paintings, colors, or other visual techniques. However, there was never a set of guidelines developed to say something is or is not a piece of art. Art could be something made of crafted wood, a sculpture made out of plastics or clay, random pictures drawn on a sidewalk, as well as words shaped and distorted in unique ways. It doesn’t have to follow a certain structure nor does it have to be in a certain shape. From those reasons, suppose the true definition of art lies behind the ideas of the creator(s) that crafted the piece. Everything can be art in one person’s eyes while being something meaning less in another person’s mind. I personally think that since art can take any form, it certainly can be used to describe an anime. Seeing that so many different things are involved in creating an anime, I must disagree with the statement “Amine is not a serious art form”. Continue reading
Rita’s final project proposal
For my final project, I plan to do a short animation on the rock character I created from my previous class’s final project. I will be drawing out different scenes as backgrounds. In the beginning, the character will be lost in a white space. He will then move on to different places and began the journey to find its way home. Along the way he will meet two other rock characters and they will join him on his journey to go home. I will include scenes from different seasons and maybe I’ll do a short maze thing in the middle so viewers can interact and click on which path they should take. In the very end, the three characters will successfully find their way home. It will be a place where all the other rocks live in. They will have some celebration and that will be the end of the story. The whole animation/story will probably be about 2 minutes. I will try to make the animation fun and interesting to watch.
Rita’s slideshow
Rita’s Slide Show Continue reading
Interactive Slideshow
I found this website http://www.testemale-photos.com/. It’s like a photo gallery and you can click on images to enlarge them. I think the overall layout is really nicely done. The colors used are not too bright and give a warm feeling. They’re pretty consistent throughout the whole website. The pictures are all organized based on categories and are randomly placed on different locations. It actually took me some time to figure out how to use and navigate across the picture slideshow. Sometimes picture’s navigation bar gets hidden under the bottom panel when their height is longer than the screen/browser window’s height. The bottom panel shows different categories of the pictures. I would say this website is very interactive because you need to click on something to go to different pages or enlarge the pictures. In the beginning of each page, lots of photos icons appear randomly at different places. After all the pictures get into place you can choose and click on a specific one. That mini icon will then enlarge and move to the center of the page, and in the mean time, the background fades into a darker color. This brings focus to only the image at the center. On the bottom of the image you can control and click on to the next or previous images. When you click on to the next category, the screen quickly shifts across the background onto another section. I really like this technique because my eyes actually followed the movement of the background and I can feel that the setting has changed. It’s interesting because I can easily picture the whole thing being together as one large image with pieces and bits scattered across different parts. Each of those parts is individually zoomed in as different categories. So even though all the images seem to be separated, they are in fact still connected to one another on the same background.
I think in my slide show I have something similar to the fading effect used in this site. I would like to try that moving and shifting across the background technique in a future project since my layout this time doesn’t really work well with it.
Flash Banners
This website BuzzOffer has a very simple yet interesting banner that grabs the viewer’s attention. I thought the color was used very well because it was consistent with the rest of the website and was also bright and fun to look at. The texts along with the animated images were also used to catch reader’s attention while explaining a little about the benefits of the website. I liked the way some effects were used to introduce characters or objects into the scene. For instance, the money and falling pennies helped to make the messages more visual and promoted different free offers that the website provides.
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2007/11/apple_sign.php
This is also another eye-catching banner. I thought they used a very creative concept. In this case, Mac was speaking with PC/Vista and asking about the button PC is holding, and PC tried to make all the lights that spell out “Don’t Give Up on Vista” go on but it never worked. On the actual websites this banner was shown, the words were placed on the top of the site’s homepage while the PC and Mac guy were speaking on the lower right corner with no background. I liked this banner ad a lot because it was very different from what a banner usually look like. The design was very simple and straight to the point.
http://contentmanagementsoftwares.net/flash_banner_designing.htm
This banner is not as effective as the previous ones. Although the visual idea was simple and pretty it did not really deliver the content or the message of the ad. The color choice was good, red was very eye catching but somehow I didn’t think the gift box make sense. I thought the banner would work much better if there was an image of a globe or a phone to represent that’s it’s for international calls. The visuals used didn’t connect with the texts.
Second Lives Essay
The Second Lives exhibit presented a collection of unique artworks revolving around the theme of “remixing the ordinary.” Many different objects were being reused and restructured by various artists in creating new yet traditional items that we encounter daily. Ordinary little things that we use and see everyday are being modified into other forms, structures, or even different styles of existence. Through the transformation from various artists’ creativity, many objects such as spoons, tags, and plastic were given a second chance to be seen taking a different form. A form that is so unexpected of them that it was hard to believe they actually have another use or purpose to be kept and saved from being thrown away. The underlying meaning of everything coming together defines the relationship between the part and the whole. Part is a fraction or the foundation that by combining and putting together can support, build, and complete the whole. Continue reading
Rita’s interface design
BrainPop
This website teaches about various subjects ranging from science, math, art and music, to technology. The layout is very simple and easy to follow. As I clicked on the site, my attention was directed right away to the center of the page, the big box filled with many different small rectangles. The color used is very bright and eye catching. Green is the main color theme of the homepage but as you click onto different subjects the color of the whole page changes. Since this website is intended to educate children, the images used are fun to look at and the messages or the information provided are very consistent and easy to understand. I think having simple visuals attached to the ideas and information is a good way to really help students remember about the facts explained.
This website is also very interactive. Students can click on the subject they want to learn more about and once they select a subject, a list of sub categories will allow students to further explore the website and understand about the topics covered. One thing I found the website should do more is to have sounds or music accompanying different pages. It became a little boring when I was browsing though the website with no background music or any kind of sound effects. I think the website would be more engaging if some sound effects are added.
This website is very different from the past commercial websites I saw. The images used are different, and the way things are laid out are also different. In this educational site, the goal is probably to provide information to users where as when compared with commercial websites companies are always promoting for their products.
Got Milk?
This link is a website that contains a flash game created for “Got Milk?“ This site is listed by eBizMBA as number 1 in their list of the top 10 flash website designs for 2009. I thought the website was designed very well. It was fun and interactive and the images presented were also nicely crafted. I really liked how they made all the components of the game in a 3D style and I think the sound effects throughout the whole game made it even more interesting to play with. I also liked how the dice could be dragged and rolled with a mouse. However some parts of the game was a little confusing and I didn’t understand what should be done to move on to the next part of the game. There seemed to be a sense of mysteriousness when playing because you can’t see what’s ahead and what other little games you’ll come across until you actually go through the entire game. For example, the enter code and asking a question part at the end to me was a surprise. I didn’t expect that to happen at the end.
Overall I thought this website was very well done and it was an interesting experience to go through. The idea of using a flash game to help promote milk and to increase milk consumption was very creative. In addiion, the interactiveness of flash in this case made it more enjoyable to think about milk and made me realize that getting a cup of milk is very easy in real life but can instead become a challenge in a game.