Blog Assignment #4

Podcasts

I have zero experience with Podcasts and as you can imagine I was very nervous to be making one of my own. The introduction to Auduacity was a negatively anticipated experience, however, I was pleasantly surprised! The program relatively simple and the operating system, in  my opinion is similar to photoshop or any adobe program. In that you can apply "effects" like you would to a photograph. The source I visited broke making a podcast into four groups. 

1. Creating and Planning the Content 
2. Recording the Podcast 
3. Editing Your Podcast
4. Host and Publish Your Podcast

The reason I liked this particular site is because they emphasized planning the Podcast. I assumed that most Podcasts were natural conversations and not planned scripts. This blog emphasized planning to reduce repetition and disorganization and inevitably it helps save time because it limits mistakes. 

"How to Make a Podcast: 4 Simple Steps." VoAudio Blog. N.p., 27 Mar. 2012. Web. 25 Oct. 2012. <http://blog.voaudio.com/how-to-make-a-podcast/>.

Podcast Tutorial 

The introduction we had in class to Audacity was a very basic tutorial of the beginning tools. I choose this video because it discusses all of the different effects you can apply to a voice in a Podcast. I personally liked this video because he showed how to add duplicates of one track and layer them on top of each other to create a unique sound. 

Mercer, Andrew. "Audacity Tutorial How to Add Vocal Effects to Voice Track Recording."YouTube. YouTube, 14 Jan. 2012. Web. 25 Oct. 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z-WmVPzG2M>.

Communication 350 Blog Assignment #3

For my individual website I will be designing a website for the club Campus Christian Fellowship at Western. The following three site helped me with the development of a basic design layout. 

The 1st...

This website helped me with deciding ideas for my website because the website I am creating has a very specific purpose. The first source I used had great components on identifying your purpose, who the clients will be and how to serve their needs. However the design element I find most challenging is the actual use of C.R.A.P. and how to apply it to my design ideas. This source did a fantastic job of highlighting the strengths of CSS or Cascading Style Sheets compared to tables or Dream Weaver. 

Source: 

Lipera, Roger. "Introduction." To Web Layout and Design from the Interactive Media Center. Interactive Media Center, n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2012. <http://library.albany.edu/imc/webdesign/>.

The 2nd... 

The second source I found to help me with my website design was an article entitled "Web Design Ideas". This article gave bullet points in developing the best web site including; 

1. Use single page design - keep it simple
2. Create unusual icons – let your imagination come into play
3. Use attractive navigation – try out something different
4. Draw on circular elements to attract the viewer - soften hard lines and angles
5. Use good-looking textures
6. Use CSS3 to create animations, transforms and transitions –  a great alternative to Flash
7. Try out unusual designs for forms

These principles add unusual techniques like the use of circular elements rather than overly hard lines and angles. 

Source:

"Web Design Ideas." Web Design Ideas. Entheos, n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. <http://www.entheosweb.com/website_design/design_ideas.asp>.

The 3rd... 

This source was one of my favorites because it allowed me to see the design principles in action by showing examples of each webpage and the correlating principle. This source argues that photoshop enables you to have much more creative capabilities than CSS or dreamweaver. 

"45 Step-by-Step Tutorials on Web Design with Photoshop." Adobe Photoshop Tutorials from Beginner to Advanced. Tuts+, n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. <http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/web/45-step-by-step-tutorials-on-web-design-with-photoshop/>.

C.R.A.P 

Photoshop is a program I feel comfortable with, but when it comes to design I have always wondered how great graphic designers avoid making major visual mistakes. This week the principles that I found most helpful were C.R.A.P. or Contrast, Repition, Alignment and Proximity. These guidlines gave me a sense of freedomin my design asthetic because they act as a reference point, in which I can look over my design elements and compare them to the principles in C.R.A.P and determine if they will be visually pleasing to my audience. A video that helped me is "Four Principles of Design, It's all CRAP". This particular video helped becuase the way they discussed the four concepts was as a tool to develop a great layout. Which is integral to developing any form of graphic design.  

Sources:

2GeeksThinking, Greg, and Mark 2GeeksThinking. "Four Principles of Design, It's All CRAP - 2GeeksThinking." YouTube. YouTube, 17 Oct. 2011. Web. 13 Oct. 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfasvsJ2mbU.

 

Rundle, Mike. "How C.R.A.P Is Your Site Design? - Treehouse Blog." Treehouse Blog. Treehouse Blog, 10 Apr. 2006. Web. 13 Oct. 2012. http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/how-crap-is-your-site-design.