Media & Writing Assignments

Lauren, Alyssa, Jillian and I all got together today at the HCC to talk about our radio show!

We spent tons of time thinking about what we wanted our show to be. After creating a google doc and scratching out many ideas, we finally became the Sunrise Survivors! Our idea was to have a morning breakfast radio show where we can not only talk as our characters and interact on the show, but ALSO have a show where we interact with other characters in our class so it will be fun for everyone to listen. We broke our show down with segments and each decided on something cute and quirky for our show. We didn’t want to do anything boring, but we also wanted to do the best we could to include apocalypse themed within the show.

We also had a plan to break off and look around the HCC for more evidence. We’ve all been keeping a lookout for things we might think will have to do with our class! Hopefully we find more evidence so we can work on finding on what is going on with our apocalypse.

I whipped up a quick poster for our group, but I will mainly be focusing on creating the bumpers using Logic Pro X and audio editing our show since that is what I enjoy the most.

I can’t wait to tell you guys more of what we do 🙂

You’ve looked at two videos from different designers (who engage in very different kinds of design) as well as some basic resources to learn the elements of design .How do these three resources influence your own approach to tackling design work this week?  Which resonated with you the most any why? Did any of them seem to contradict each other? If so, what do you make of that?

I waited until the end of the week after all my assignments were done so I could take some time away from the creating, and focus on reflecting the work I had done this week. The videos that were shown for sure helped me when thinking about graphic design, however, I got the most inspiration from the DesignBlitz, and I truly learned the most from the Adobe article we had to read. It was so clear and concise, but had me wanting to learn more. I found myself renting an old outdated design book that was actually meant for people to who designed yearbooks, but I didn’t care. I wanted to know so much more about graphic designing, types of font, and elements of design, that I dove right into Yearbook nerding.

I learned a lot this week, but mostly it was learning about how to do assignments I was not confident about doing. The book cover assignment was not my best, but I was shocked with how so many of our classmates went full force into it. I felt like I had such a roadblock, but after seeing what other people had created it got me more enthusiastic.

I have decided that I want to spend more time learning about elements of design, so I can work on creating better assignments in the future. I want to eventually re-do my book cover, and gain more knowledge about the creating of graphics from Adobe.

via GIPHY

Okayyy let me be real for a second- I thought this assignment was going to be a piece of cake but BOY WAS I WRONG. I really enjoyed this assignment because it literally challenged me to look at things and signs and posters in a different light. I loved running around the office and snapping pics and trying to figure out what technique was used! Here are my 8 pictures that I came up with for this designblitz!

1. Hierarchy

2. Repetition 

3. Balance 

4. Proximity

5. Color 

6. Allignment 

7. Contrast 

8. Space 

I really enjoyed spending time on the Frequency radio website and listening to a bunch of different audio that people in the past have created. I got the idea for my recording due to a conspiracy theory my friends and I talk about all the time that was mentioned by theorist and YouTube star Shane Dawson. In my recording, Shane talks about how some people have a theory that Jesus was an alien. Super weird and probably not true- I know- but whats interesting about this theory is that it sounds so fake which is why I wanted to edit him discussing alien Jesus and create effects on it to make it sound like he’s almost trying to convince people in the future that Jesus was an alien. It’s all fun and games and I think it’s such a dumb conspiracy and obviously not true, but its so out there that it’s hilarious.

Here is the link to my audio clip!

https://frequency2156.com/signal/498/

After spending time on the Frequency website, I think it does a great job at creating stories through audio. I think that because it is audio based, it forces you to use your imagination and make a slight disconnect more than video does. Video is easier to interpret, and I think the site being fully audio gives you space to create and imagine something that others talk about which enhances the overall experience. i think the creator chose audio mainly because audio is a medium that forces the listener to use their thoughts and emotions to understand a piece of art. Audio is such an incredible form of communication, and I think this was the perfect medium for the site and activity. What I would do differently is maybe not group them in such large regions, for example it was kind of hard to navigate the site and I would get frustrated trying to go by places in the world. I think there should be more of a category feature too so when searching for audio it can be a bit easier.

As well as Communication and Digital studies major, I am also Music technology major which means my focus is on recording and production arts. For the past four years I have spent my time learning audio production and learning how to edit sound. I love being able to use the recording studio, sound board, and production equipment at Pollard, as well as using different DAW (digital audio workspaces) including logic pro x and ableton live. I spend a lot of my time as a student constantly recording audio. I enjoy writing songs and producing them myself- last year I even released my first album which was fully produced, recorded and written by me! Songwriting and production is my passion- so I love everything audio.

I enjoyed listening to the RadioLab’s YouTube videos because I’ve worked at a radio station and everything he said is so true and relatable to the field. In my personal opinion, I don’t believe radio will ever die, but the popularity of streaming services is keeping audio alive beyond what CD’s and records ever could. I am an NPR fanatic and I love listening to podcasts on my way to work- my life revolves around audio and I don’t think any of us could fully function in a world where recorded audio did not exist.

I also spent time looking about the audio resources page. I’ve been using my soundcloud account for the past 6 years, and I am excited to keep using it for this class. I also love Audacity and have spent a lot of time creating projects with the program for professional work and in internships. I am currently enrolled in an audio techniques class with Dr. Bratt in the music department, and my senior project is all about learning how to record the best song using expensive ass equipment. I have some really helpful textbooks regarding audio works, microphones, and techniques if anyone would like to borrow them!

All in all, as a music major I am all about audio and spend literally my life learning how to create the best sound, so I am excited about further learning through this class.