5 Former Presidents Team Up for Hurricane Relief

5 Former Presidents Team Up for Hurricane Relief

All five living former American presidents have joined together to launch "One America Appeal" which is an initiative that will raise funds to assist victims of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma. Both Hurricanes are obviously a big deal in America right now and each of these five men, at one time or another, had the job of taking care of this country. They feel as if it's their duty to help out in the big way that they can. 

These presidents join current president Donald Trump in the help. There is a growing debt of over 15 million dollars in repairs in the south and with the amount of money that these presidents and former presidents are offering, it will greatly improve the population of those affected.

Final Blog Post: Video

Video Final Reflection

Music Video

The assignment for this project was to create a music video to a song of your choosing. My group and I chose to recreate the video exactly rather than creating our own story to the song. This assignment took about a month because there was a lot of pre production and planning to get the filming days with good weather. Our pre-production started with watching the video over and over again and writing down every single shot that we would recreate on beat sheets. We also drew the shots on story boards. We wanted to be as prepared as possible. For the actual creation of the video we went to downtown kc and went around to many different locations so all the shots were different because in the video the two actors are walking the whole time in different places to find each other. It took about three hours to get all the shots downtown. Then we went to school and used a white background for the lip singing parts of the music video. We had to alter some aspects of the original to make them easier for us to recreate. Some challenges we faced was the weather. It was really cold the day we went downtown and filmed and our actress (me) was in a dress. Along the way I learned technical skills like how to edit the colors of clips on Premier Pro and how to add a black border on clips. I also learned about teamwork since there was four people in my group. I would't change anything, I think everything went great, except maybe the weather, it was freezing and I was in a dress. I liked how organized we were and how well we worked together, we hardly every disagreed. Overall I really enjoyed this project.

Clueless Trailer

For this assignment we had to choose a high school movie and recreate its trailer frame by frame. My group and I chose the movie Clueless. We tried our best to make it look authentic and recognizable. I think this project took less than a month. Pre production probably took the longest.  In the Pre-Production stage we watch the original trailer numerous times and took screenshots of some different settings of the trailer and put them on a story boar and wrote down their shot size and setting. This helped us when we got to the filming process. Also in this stage we typed out the script so we knew what to say. We also went to thrift stores to find costumes that resembled the cast's costumes in the movie. Then we moved on to the production stage. This is where we shot the video. We went to tons of different places to make the video look authentic. We incorporated props and lighting to make it more appealing. After we shot everything we moved on to post-production and started editing on Premier Pro. Editing now comes so naturally to me since we've done so many project this year. Along the way I learned a lot of things.  I learned how to be thrifty and search very hard for replicates.  I learned more about teamwork and how to rely on other people but also how to become a leader and take things into you own hands. I learned how to work with other people who aren't in eComm and their time schedules. Next time I would make a clear cut schedule and give it to all team members and make sure that everyone can attend the days that I have on the schedule. I will keep our costume search the same because searching those thrift stores really helped us make our video look authentic with a low price. That was probably the hardest part. I was given good feedback like how some shots were shaky and there were some jus cuts. I went back and reedited them as best as I could. Overall I think this was a great experience and it rally helped me dive into the entertainment film world. After this I have found a new appreciation for entertainment that I didn't have before.

Short Film: Running

 

For this assignment we were all told to write a film treatment that we later turned into a short film script. When we got assigned groups my group and I chose to turn my script into a film. I wrote this film 'Running' and, with the help of my group and our actors, brought it to life. This project took about 3 months and lasted for fourth quarter. Our group split the responsibilities of editor, cinematographer, story board creator, and location and wardrobe scout. I was mainly the editor. Some challenges we faced along the way were improvisation when someone forgot to do something that was critical to our video. We faced a challenge of focus and making sure our actors remained on task so we could finish this film to the best of our ability. I learned how to stay calm in these situations and improvise. This ending product was kind of split into two tones, comical and serious. I was given feedback to try to stay just to one tone so it has consistency. And also I went back and fixed some jump cuts that I noticed since that feedback was something I couldn't necessarily fix. This was not my favorite video or experience but I am happy I got to do it so I could see how to make a real short film.

Time Management

In class I try to maximize my time as much as possible because being in e-Comm in general has really improved my time management. I try to get all of my videos done by the deadline because I actually do it in the time that Mrs. Smith gives us, I do not mess around. If, for some reason, I get finished editing early, I immediately try to find a way to try and improve my video in some way before I turn it in. Or I just experiment with Premier Pro since I am still getting used to it. I am very much more confident with it than last semester which I am happy about. Then I double check everything so that there are no mistakes or jump cuts and once I am sure I've done all I can do for the video and it is the best I can make it, thats when I turn it in. Sometimes, if I feel like I need more time to edit my video to the best it can be I stay after school to work on it. I don't just rush and turn it in during class, I come back after school or before school with a fresh mind and work on it until I am fully satisfied with it. I feel like this really helps me because than I also might get some one on one time with Mrs. Smith if she is there before or after school and she can help me more than in class. 

Strengths and Weaknesses

Some areas of my strengths are editing fast. I know the tactics and shortcuts of Premier Pro now and that helps me edit. I can edit a whole video in less than one day which helps me with time management as well. Another thing I am good at is time management. As I mentioned before, e-Comm has really helped improve my time management not only for video production and editing but for all of my classes. One thing that I can improve on is my knowledge of the different accessories that Premier Pro has to offer. I am for sure more confident with it than I was last semester but I am still not to where I would like to be. This sumer I plan on experimenting more with Premier Pro so when I come back as a junior I will be even more knowledgable in the program. Another thing that I need to improve on is filming entertainment videos. This semester was only focussed on Entertainment and I realized that I am really not confident in it. I am definitely a Convergence Journalism girl which is what I will be focussing on next year. 

Overview

The thing I loved the most about this semester was attempting making entertainment videos. I am glad I had people in my groups that enjoyed entertainment filming, they really helped me during our filming days. I also loved editing. I love editing no matter what I am editing. It has always been something fun I liked to do and it calms me down if I have had a stressful day. One thing I would change about this semester is I would add more time to film in the future because if the thing that I want to film only meets once a week than I can fall behind if I don't get enough time for the project and then it won't be my best work. One overall take away from this semester is my knowledge of the camera and tripod and knowledge of the entertainment side of film making. 

Final Blog Post

11x17 Poster

This is a poster I created to advertise an imaginary art show about Armin Hofmann. Hofmann is a graphic designer that I have been researching since early December. I picked him because his art spoke to me and I loved his use of black and white with little dashes of bright primary colors; especially red, as seen in his "Graphic Design Manuel". I researched his early life, his college experience, how he got into the arts, and his big impact on students everywhere. He was very influential to his students and in a book that he wrote, "Graphic Design Manuel", he talked about different ways to make posters appealing. For this project I first created 20 rough sketches in my sketch book so I could gather my ideas and be organized. Than I chose some of my favorites and tried to recreate them in Adobe Illustrator. I ended up with this as my final project where I incorporated some of his main colors, black, white, grey, and red. Some challenges were trying to make this all look visually appealing with all the information I needed to include. I was given good feedback like I changed the M's to make them more identifiable so people knew that this was a show for Armin Hofmann. Overall I'm happy with this poster and excited to learn more about one of my now favorite designers.

Typography 5x5 Artboards

I chose my quotes by thinking about myself and my values. They talk about dance and tea which I love. The others talk about going from an amateur to an artist. This project took about a month from the beginning sketches to these final products. All these quotes are near and dear to my heart which is why I chose them. At first they were in black and white and then when I added color they came to life. I used various color schemes like complementary and triads and shades. My personal favorite is shades because I like seeing how many varieties one color can have and I think they also look very good and structured well together. When I presented the art boards

 to my class they gave me great feedback like tips on alignment and color choice that I really took to heart. Some other feedback I got was to make sure everything was centered and even. Those were some challenges I faced along the way but I was glad I got the critics I did. Overall I loved creating this project because I've always loved typography and was very happy to finally get to pursue it in Exploring Graphic Design in depth. It was interested to dive even deeper into the typography world and learn it's rules and regulations to make it even better than it was before. We watched a lot of videos over typography and how to use it and make it look visually appealing. They really helped me understand typefaces and the do's and don't's.

My favorite one of my typography art boards was probably this once. I felt it really spot to who I am on the inside and dancing career to remember that you can't be god at everything but you are definitely special at something.

Combination Mark Logo

Our next project was to rebrand a company in Kansas City that needed a logo adjustment. I chose the KC Pastry Company in downtown KC. I first sketched a lot of sketches and found 6 that I liked than took those and did specific color schemes and I chose my final favorite with the color scheme complimentary shown above. Than we actually rebranding on an Envelope, Business Card, and a Letterhead. I really like my combination mark, I am glad I chose something simple but easily recognizable. My actual combination mark logo is broken up in the branding shown above. It is 'kc' written in a sky blue and 'Pastry Company' in a faded brown. The darker brown whisk next to these words really show that this is a pastry. They only sell donuts so when I originally made my 30 sketches I tried to only incorporate donuts and no other pastries. I ended up with no donut because I thought the whisk was enough. I incorporated the logo in some way shape or form in all three brandings I did. My favorite part about this project was redoing a logo from scratch and putting my own personal flare to the rebranding. My least favorite part was probably just picking one in the end because I loved all of my combination marks and felt they were all really strong. This project took about a month since we started sketching first before actually ouching the computer. I liked that because it helped me keep my thoughts in order.

Letterhead

In the Letterhead I tried to use a lot of the brown color and on the back I turned the opacity dow to give it a faded look. On the front I wanted it to be minimal enough where you had a lot of room to type but still recognizable. I put all the important information on the bottom and morphed the original combination mark on the top to make the weight of the front, top to bottom ratio, equal.

Envelope

I used the whisk again in the Envelope to give it a uniform look. I made sure to leave room formal the information and stamp the user would add. I made the back flap a toned down town color that I have used in this project a lot. Again, my original combination mark is prominent but in a newfound way than the very first one.

Business Card

I used homemade looking brackets in my Business Card to give the sense of home cooking and baking. The overall look is homemade and not 'strict'. I didn't add a background color I left it white because I didn't want to make it overcrowded since it has a simplistic theme in all three creations.

Time Management

In class I try to maximize my time as much as possible. If, for some reason, I get finished early, I immediately try to find a way to try and improve my project in some way before I turn it in. I double check everything so that there are no mistakes and once I am sure I've done all I can do for the project and it is the best I can make it, thats when I turn it in. Being in e-Comm in general has really improved my time management. I get all my work done by the deadline because I actually do it in the time that Mrs. Smith gives us.  Sometimes, if I feel like I need more time to get my project to the best it can be I stay after school to work on it. I don't just rush and turn it in during class when I know I need more time to get it to its full potential, I come back after school or before school with a fresh mind and work on it until its to my liking. If I end up with an extra couple of minutes or so in class I try to take that time and use it to the fullest to make my project the best it can be. 

Strengths and Weaknesses

Some areas of my strengths are time management. As I mentioned before, e-Comm has really helped improve my time management not only for graphic design but for all of my classes. Another strength of mine are my technical skills. I can follow a tutorial with little to no help. I understand the editing softwares and help many classmates if they get stuck. One area that I can improve on is my creativity. I love following step by step tutorials but have a hard time making it my own. I struggle when I am given a project with no instructions and have a hard time. I know that I have improved on this since last semester and know I will improve on this more throughout the years, I just need more practice,  and more projects that allow me to be free in my editing. 

Overview

What I loved most about this semester was the typography quotes project because I felt like I really got to know myself and find quotes that truly show who I am and I actually felt pretty good about making the art boards without a tutorial. There isn't anything that I would really want to change about this semester in graphic design, I had a very positive experience in this class. One overall take-away form this semester is don't second guess yourself. If you like your work but someone else thinks you should change something that you don't really want to change, don't change it. Go with your gut. But on the opposite side of that make sure you listen to your peers' critics for you because you are all on the same level and critics are always good when it its constructive. One goal I want to set for junior year is to organize my thoughts more by sketching. I used to hate sketching and just want to jump on the computer and start creating before actually thinking through what I want to create. This semester has opened my eyes more and shown me that sketching your thoughts is necessary to make a spectacular final product. 

Company Rebrand

Assignment

For this project we were assigned to pick a company in the Kansas City area to rebrand. I chose KC Pastry Company because I thought I could add a modern bakery feel to their logo. Their current logo is a red rectangle with a serif font that states the name of the company. I focused more on the shades of brown and the complimentary blues in my creations. I incorporated whisks and fun lines to add a sense of home made and playfulness. 

Combination Mark Logo

My actual combination mark logo is broken up in the branding shown above. It is 'kc' written in a sky blue and 'Pastry Company' in a faded brown. The darker brown whisk next to these words really show that this is a pastry. They only sell donuts so when I marginally made my 30 sketches I tried to only incorporate donuts and no other pastries. I ended up with no donut because I thought the whisk was enough. I incorporated the logo in some way shape or form in all three brandings I did. In the Letterhead I tried to use a lot of the brown color and turned the opacity dow to give it a faded look. I used the whisk again in the Envelope to give it a uniform look. I used homemade looking brackets in my Business Card to give the sense of home cooking and baking.

Conclusion

My favorite part about this project was redoing a logo from scratch and putting my own personal flare to the rebranding. I didn't have a least favorite part I thoroughly enjoyed this project and am happy with my final product. 

Movie Trailer Blog

Assignment

For this assignment we had to choose a high school movie and recreate its trailer frame by frame. My group and I chose the movie Clueless. We tried our best to make it look authentic and recognizable.

Process of Creation

We started with pre-production. In this stage we watch the original trailer numerous times and took screenshots of some different settings of the trailer and put them on a story boar and wrote down their shot size and setting. This helped us when we got to the filming process. Also in this stage we typed out the script so we knew what to say. We also went to thrift stores to find costumes that resembled the cast's costumes in the movie. Then we moved on to the production stage. This is where we shot the video. We went to tons of different places to make the video look authentic. We incorporated props and lighting to make it more appealing. After we shot everything we moved on to post-production and started editing on Premier Pro. Editing now comes so naturally to me since we've done so many project this year.

What Did I Learn

Along the way I learned a lot of things. I learned how to use warp stabler on Premier Pro. I learned how to be thrifty and search very hard for replicates. I learned how to improvise when you don't have a rolling tripod. I learned more about teamwork and how to rely on other people but also how to become a leader and take things into you own hands. I learned how to work with other people who aren't in eComm and their time schedules. Next time I would make a clear cut schedule and give it to all team members and make sure that everyone can attend the days that I have on the schedule. I will keep our costume search the same because searching those thrift stores really helped us make our video loo authentic with a low price. 

Conclusion

Overall I think this was a great experience and it rally helped me dive into the entertainment film world. After this I have found a new appreciation for entertainment that I didn't have before. 

Symbols and Marks Blog

After reading an article about symbols and marks, I realized there was a lot I hadn't known about logos. I didn't know that a logo was an example of a mark. I learned the difference between symbols and marks, and also learned how logos and colors and typefaces play into the world of symbols and marks. I learned that marks were more incorporated with the logo overall and how it looks but symbols are the things that make the logo as good as it is.

The difference between  symbol and a logo is that logos are the word or words in type and they identify a company or a brand but symbols are used for developing the creation farther and making it more complex but still understandable with good balance. When these things are used together it is called signature or combination marks which are a constant and balanced relationship.

Three key factors I learned were abstraction level and how a logo must hit a certain sustainable level to be appealing and complex at the same time. I also learned about the logo's virtual weight called symbol weight which shouldn't be too heavy with heavy marks but instead should have a combination of both heavy and light marks and strokes. Another thing I learned was that pictographs are everywhere around us and change our lives so much. I didn't know what they were before I read this article.

My favorite part was just expanding my knowledge on logos and marks.

5x5 Typography Quotes

I chose my quotes by thinking about myself and my values. They talk about dance and tea which I love. The others talk about going from an amateur to an artist. And the last one talks about getting up and doing your business no matter how you feel, because in the end it will be worth it. All these quotes are near and dear to my heart which is why I chose them. At first they were in black and white and then when I added color they came to life. I used various color schemes like complementary and triads and shades. My personal favorite is shades because I like seeing how many varieties one color can have and I think they also look very good and structured well together. When I presented the art boards to my class they gave me great feedback like tips on alignment and color choice that I really took to heart. Overall I loved creating this project because I've always loved typography and was very happy to finally get to pursue it in Exploring Graphic Design.

Music Video Blog Post

The assignment for this project was to create a music video to a song of your choosing. My group and I chose to recreate the video exactly rather than creating our own story to the song. Our pre-production started with watching the video over and over again and writing down every single shot that we would recreate on beat sheets. We also drew the shots on story boards. We wanted to be as prepared as possible. For the actual creation of the video we went to downtown kc and went around to many different locations so all the shots were different because in the video the two actors are walking the whole time in different places to find each other. It took about three hours to get all the shots downtown. Then we went to school and used a white background for the lip singing parts of the music video. We had to alter some aspects of the original to make them easier for us to recreate. Along the way I learned technical skills like how to edit the colors of clips on Premier Pro and how to add a black border on clips. I also learned about teamwork since there was four people in my group. I would't change anything, I think everything went great, except maybe the weather, it was freezing and I was in a dress. I liked how organized we were and how well we worked together, we hardly every disagreed. Overall I really enjoyed this project.

11x17 Armin Hofmann Poster

This is a poster I created to advertise an imaginary art show about Armin Hofmann. Hofmann is a graphic designer that I have been researching since early December. I picked him because his art spoke to me and I loved his use of black and white with little dashes of bright primary colors; especially red, as seen in his "Graphic Design Manuel". I researched his early life, his college experience, how he got into the arts, and his big impact on students everywhere. He was very influential to his students and in a book that he wrote, "Graphic Design Manuel", he talked about different ways to make posters appealing. For this project I first created 20 rough sketches in my sketch book so I could gather my ideas and be organized. Than I chose some of my favorites and tried to recreate them in Adobe Illustrator. I ended up with this as my final project where I incorporated some of his main colors, black, white, grey, and red. I am overall very happy with this poster and am excited to earn more about one of my now favorite designers.

Professional Project Review Blog Post

I chose the song "Make Me Cry" by Noah Cyrus to blog about. This song has a very interesting and appealing. The colors in this video are very aesthetically appealing and neutral which make it simple but intricate.
I depicted the story as a boy and a girl who secretly love each other but are already in relationships are singing about how they're sad that they can't be together. The whole video switches between Noah and Labyrinth (the male featured singer) in their opposite bedrooms with their significant others asleep in the bed as they sing to each other but they can't see each other. It is done very artistically since they are theoretically singing to each other but are no where near each other.
One element from this work that I definitely want to apply to my video is the fact that they used the rule of thirds very nicely. The subjects were never in the very center of the frame for more than one second.

Posters Blog

Summary of What I Read

I read two excerpts from 'The Character and Function of the Poster' and 'The Laws of Poster Designing' where I learned many new things about the creation of posters in the graphic design world. 

In the excerpts it talked about how posters want to bring a message to our notice, to publicize products, show off entertainments, or explain campaigns. A poster should seen by many people so it can fulfill these tasks. The first one talked about how posters do not only answer questions that people have but they also suggest things to question. They cause us to think and what we've seen and read by glorifying things using design. It has many functions according to its task. It can do many things for many people and how each person can relate to it differently based on their life experiences. The task of a poster should not be limited to just communication between the producer and viewer, it can stand as aesthetically pleasing to the eyes as well. It also explains how new knowledge and experiences  repeatedly question the worthiness of the poster and its ability to fully inform people. But the poster always prevails. Posters write the history of our joys, needs, griefs, and sorrows and will always be around as something appealing to the eyes and brain. 

Lettering

The lettering on a poster should help to show information quickly and clearly and is best done with a clean and clear typeface. A person should not need to stair at a poster for a long amount of time just to understand the meaning this poster is putting across so it also needs to be readable fro a distance.

Shapes

Like I mentioned in Lettering, in Shapes it also needs to be legible from a distance so there shouldn't be a ton of shares that overlap which can make the overall poster illegible. But shapes can also help get the topic of the poster across without type. 

Color

Color is also very big in posters.

Favorite thing that I read

My favorite thing that I read was how in the first except it said that posters live in our horizontal way of thinking not our vertical. That made me think a little to fully understand it. This is important to know because people need to understand that posters represent the perfect elegance of the surface and they totally correspond with the technical world. This proves that the design world and the technical worlds aren't that different and they fully relate to one another. They support and accelerate the perfecting of the artificial world to the point of exaggeration and attention to detail on posters. 

First Semester Video Production Final

Feature Stories

This semester in Video production I was given the opportunity to create three feature stories. With each one I learned more tricks on how to make it even better than the last. My first story was was about sophomore golfer Abby Rist and why she became a golfer and how much her dad has influenced her. This project took two days to plan and write the interview questions, one day to film, and two days to edit. Some challenges I faced were not using a tripod and getting enough footage in just one day. It turns out that i had more then enough footage and the shakiness of my camera was solved because now I use a tripod. I learned interesting shots I could do to make golf look interesting on video. Some of my favorite shots are when I get really low with the camera angle and the shot of her dad hitting the ball from the golf cart. I got great feedback on this project and it was mostly good. One thing my classmates mentioned was that some shots were shaky but I fixed that in my next videos. Overall I am very happy with this video and it won to be on ONW now out of all the sophomore videos so I am very proud of that.

One in 2000 Interview

This project was called One in 2000. I chose to interview Emily Mauk and talked about her summer memories. It took about as long as the feature story mentioned above took. Some challenges I faced were tying to get creative shots and incorporate the six shot system with just an interview. Since I had no footage of what she did over the summer I had to make it an appealing video with just shots of her sitting down. I used all the shots from the six shot system and spread them out evenly to make it appealing. I learned a lot about the actual camera with this project since I hadn't used it very much beforehand. I got the feedback that it was too long so I went back and took out any unnecessary footage and brought it down from 1:56 to 1:47. Overall I don't think this is one of my best edited videos but I am happy with it because now I am more skilled than I was during the making of this video. 

Time Management

In class I try to maximize my time as much as possible because being in e-Comm in general has really improved my time management. I get all my videos done by the deadline because I actually do it in the time that Mrs. Smith gives us. If, for some reason, I get finished editing early, I immediately try to find a way to try and improve my video in some way before I turn it in. Or I just experiment with Premier Pro since I am still kind of new to it. Then I double check everything so that there are no mistakes or jump cuts and once I am sure I've done all I can do for the video and it is the best I can make it, thats when I turn it in. Sometimes, if I feel like I need more time to edit my video to the best it can be I stay after school to work on it. I don't just rush and turn it in during class, I come back after school or before school with a fresh mind and work on it until I am fully satisfied with it. 

Strengths and Weaknesses

Some areas of my strengths are time management. As I mentioned before, e-Comm has really helped improve my time management not only for video production and editing but for all of my classes. Another thing I am good at is editing fast. I know the basics of Premier Pro and that helps me edit. I can edit a whole video in less than one day which helps me with time management as well. One thing that I can improve on is my knowledge of the different accessories that Premier Pro has to offer. I am just not that comfortable with it but I know that by summer I will be because I will have gotten so much more practice with editing and I will have gotten to know it better. Another thing that I need to prove on is filming entertainment videos. This will get better next semester since all we've focused on this semester is convergence, which I prefer. 

Overview

The thing I loved the most about this semester is making convergence videos. I am very much interested in the convergence journalism side to video production so I am very glad that we spent so much time on feature stories. I would add more time to film in the future because if the thing that I want to film only meets once a week than I can fall behind if I don't get enough time for the project and then it won't be my best work. One overall take away from this semester is my knowledge of the camera and tripod. One goal for next semester is to become more comfortable with the entertainment branch.