Final Portfolio / Reflection

[benmiller314]

The final portfolio will consist of a single post containing:

1. a prose reflection of at least 800-1200 words (1200-1800 recommended), reflecting on the course and framing the portfolio’s contents in terms of your learning and goals;
   • NB: please refer to the linked file for guidelines and prompts
2. representative thumbnails, hyperlinked to final versions of your four unit projects, i.e. Soundscape Narrative, Visual Argument, Website, and Collaboration;
3. links to your repositories (on either GitHub or Box) for each of those pieces; and
4. a thumbnail of at least one specific prior draft, hyperlinked to that file in the revision history, allowing you to talk about your revision skills.

In addition to the portfolio, or as preparation for it, please do take the Tech Comfort Survey – among other things, it will give you a space to officially let me know whether and how I can use your work as an example for students in future semesters.

[racheljfu]

At the beginning of this course, I already had a modest amount of experience creating digital media — using Photoshop and other image / art software, mostly, and a little bit of HTML that I learned when I was much younger and wanted to help my friends edit the appearance of their Wordpress blogs—so I was interested in what I would ultimately take out of this class since I was already pretty comfortable with learning new technology software (and writing, since I do a lot of writing for my courses). It turns out that just as has the curriculum of this course has emphasized, I think the main concepts I’ve best learned about are the idea of “affordances” of different types of media and the “principles of new media,” both of which I previously hadn’t considered but nonetheless have notably informed my ability to compose projects digitally and learn new software.

SOUNDSCAPE Click here for the MP3 file

Looking back on this project, I’m pretty satisfied with how the final product turned out, since I was able to replicate the relatively complex emotional atmosphere that I desired using just my limited knowledge of Audacity and the handful of sounds that I had recorded myself (for the most part, they were my own). As someone who enjoys more text-based entertainment like books and novels and tends to avoid podcasts and TV and media that generally relies more on sound, I was pleasantly surprised by the emotional range that’s possible with only sound, which led me to think more about the “affordances” of the medium.

For one, making my soundscape has helped to realize that one of the best “affordances” of sound as a medium is in its “transcoding” ability — to blend the digital world and the human world. Listening to other student soundscapes, I was captivated by those that used sounds that were simple but nonetheless evoked some sort of feeling—the pouring of coffee, the honking of cars which are often used to symbolize certain feelings (exhaustion, morning routines, frustration, etc) in movies and other cultural productions. So in making my soundscape, I tried to utilize a lot of emblematic / easily recognizable sounds, such as the bus announcements and elevator descending, without being too trite or cliche. I wanted listeners to easily be immersed not just in the environment of Pittsburgh, but in the sounds of dorm/apartment living (through microwave sounds, creaking doors, etc), which is in itself a type of “culture” that people are generally familiar with, while at the same time trying to convey the character’s unique experience and feelings. When layered with music, phone calls, and other noise, I felt like I could picture every step of the character’s journey, and from feedback I received from others, they seemed to feel the same way. The affordances of such sounds were really wonderful and broader than I expected.

In terms of my learning to use Audacity, I also think I progressed pretty far. I’d played around with Audacity before when trimming sound for high school projects, but I’d never worked with an extensive, multi-track .aup file, and organizing a large number of tracks was sometimes overwhelming, even when I named and collapsed all of them. Nonetheless, I tried to keep in mind the principles of digital media that Audacity, as a sound-editing software, was inevitably governed by. I explored the modularity of the software by moving layers around, muting tracks in isolation to better hear individual tracks and edit them accordingly so they sounded better in the whole, and spending probably excruciating lengths of time trying to match tracks up so they would overlap perfectly. I also found the automatic functions of Audacity to be useful — I was somewhat familiar with some before, like amplify and fade out, but I found the automatic phaser, distorter, and equalizer to be the most beneficial, they really changed the feel of my soundscape without too much extra hassle (I also played around with the automation a little, and adjusted some of the settings to my liking). Although the mere availability of some of these settings was overwhelming, I found that I was nonetheless able to navigate through them and select the ones that most benefited the atmosphere of my soundscape. I’m still not super knowledgeable about sound editing, but I’m sure I’ll keep the modularity in mind and the cultural iconicity of sounds in mind if I ever find the need to use Audacity or similar programs again.

VISUAL ARGUMENT Click here for the .xcf file

Visual digital media, out of all the different themes we covered in class, was the area I had the most prior experience in, so I felt fairly confident in this unit. I’d used image-manipulation programs like SAI and Photoshop before for drawing, so I was already familiar with visual modularity and how layers worked, plus the fact that I consider myself to have a good eye for what visually flows and doesn’t flow. That’s not to say I didn’t take anything new away from this unit, though — there were definitely a few things I learned that not only surprised me, but were helpful too. As most of my prior experience wasn’t related to actually editing images, I wasn’t super familiar with some of the tools such as masks, filters, and color manipulation. However, I experimented with the different options that were available to me and therefore got the idea to try out a grayscale image. I usually prefer drawings in color, but after creating a separate layer for a color filter, I played with the hue and saturation options when editing my background library picture and eventually settled on a setting that brought out the light and dark values of the shelves without being too overwhelming or low-contrast. This creative decision led me to use colorful figures to illustrate my visual argument, as it would contrast against the black and white background and show how the vibrancy and color of library patrons that bring life to the libraries themselves. I drew the figures on Photoshop and imported them to GIMP, but I initially faced some problems with the figures being too dull or transparent, which would be counter to my message. So just like I had done with the background photo, I played around with the hue and saturation settings, only this time with color, and after doing so to a certain extent, the figures popped against the background with the energy I had in mind. I also experimented with the placement of the figures in the background, remembering the modularity and variability principle and that elements of the piece weren’t ‘hardwired’ together, but that they were rather flexible in their positioning, so I could shift them around however I liked without the pretext of permanence. When I got to the text section, I tried to keep modularity in mind as well when I was struggling with finding a good slogan and font that looked balanced on the bottom half of the image, as well as effectively communicating my message. From the feedback that I had received that the previous block of text I had was too overwhelming, I decided that to better take advantage of the affordances of visuals to convey meaning, I could use bolder and larger fonts while still keeping the balance of my previous idea. I could hide certain layers as I tested out different options and fonts, as well as rearrange the text layers in their entirety across the image, which was helpful for seeing lots of different alternatives quickly. Previously, when I used similar software for drawing, I hadn’t thought of how much flexibility was allowed to me through layers, but I’ve definitely gained a higher appreciation for them as well as more knowledge of how to use them well. Besides, I’ve had more time to think of how the affordance of visuals extends beyond art — images have more benefits than just being immediately appealing, such as different aspects of the image being obvious and appreciable as a whole, rather than with soundscapes in which different aspects of the piece appear to the listener ‘one-by-one.’ In the future, when I continue to draw and manipulate images, I’ll therefore try to remember the affordances of images and think more about what my image will look like as a whole when someone looks at it for the first time, as well as take advantage of what I’ve learned about layers and variability.

WEB PORTFOLIO

Click here for the live website on Github Pages

Before this unit, I didn’t know much about HTML and CSS besides the fact that they were kind of the backbone of websites, and also what “” tags do. So I’m pleasantly surprised that I was able to build a whole website (one that plays to my visual skills!) and without the need to learn any Javascript or Ruby or any of the other web design programming languages I’ve heard about —- there’s so much that can be done with just HTML and CSS.

Variability really became apparent for me in this unit, as well as how I’ve further appreciated how websites utilize transcoding. Managing HTML files that were separate from CSS files demonstrated to me the true variability of web design. With HTML files pretty much being able to be linked to any CSS file and having the appearance change, I could see how the appearance of the website was so easily separable from the structure in the HTML when I was importing the CSS files into the HTML. It also helped to be able to completely separate visual layout from structural layout, so if I was making a mistake I could more easily tell where it was (it was usually in the CSS, since sometimes my media queries were wonky). In terms of transcoding, I wanted my website to be representative of how “computer and culture” are blended—to look like the Wordpress and Blogger sites that I liked to browse with my friends in where you could just endlessly scroll through someone’s content, and perhaps like Instagram in the 2010s where someone’s photos are neatly displayed to the viewer. “Scrolling” through a feed has somewhat become part of culture in my opinion, as it represents the acquisition of information about a certain person or works, and with social media / blog sites becoming more common, the way we find information about people is through scrolling through their profiles. So I tried to not just strive for a minimalist, clean aesthetic, but also replicate the affordances of the “scrolling” experience that websites allow. Since this is a portfolio webpage, I want visitors to be able to easily scroll through all my photos so they can get an idea of what my works and artistic skills are like. With the final result looking like the blog platforms I’m used to in the end, but with my own creative spin, I was really surprisingly pleased with the aesthetic and functional results. If I’m to create a website in the future, I definitely want to remember that the look of a website can recall a certain moment or period in pop culture in people’s minds, and to accordingly edit my website so it reflects the desired aesthetic. Similarly, I want to remember how much of web design is connected with visual skills, so I can use my visual intuition in positioning / flow of a web page when creating the CSS. Besides, considering how many wonky images and media queries I ran into when I was doing this project, I learned a great deal about troubleshooting code / markdown and paying close attention to miniscule details (like missing brackets) that I’m sure will reflect in not just my digital composition abilities, but other detail-oriented activities like writing. If I was inclined enough, I might also learn Javascript and learn how it adheres to the variability príncipe as well when I’m composing a more interactive website.

COLLABORATIVE ESCAPE ROOM

Click here for the HTML file to play the game (you have to download the files for it to work, though)

I tend to be independent and want to do everything myself because I always envision a very specific final product, but I tried to let go of that for this unit (it was still hard, I tried to engineer the script tightly so it had the exact feel I wanted) and it really paid off (especially since I’m still largely Harlowe-incapable). Working with Natasha and Fatema was really great and our responsibilities in making the game all played decently to each of our respective strengths. The two of them devoted more time to working on the programming and CSS of the game, while I focused my attention on narrative and sound. Just as I had in the sound unit, I tried to remember the “iconicity” of many sounds, so I looked for sound effects online that would best capture the atmosphere of the house in the game — a comfortable fireplace, a whirring blender, the pattering of rain. I also learned a great deal about fair use and licensing in this unit that supplemented some of my measly knowledge from prior units, since I tend to stubbornly use materials that are all my own instead of finding ones that are open-source. I was managing a larger collection of about 10-15 sounds from freesound, so I had to be more conscientiousness in making sure I gave the right credit to the creators and found legal material — if I’m to look for similar material in the future I’m definitely going to keep that in mind. Besides that, most of my work in this project was narration-based, which I did in a Google Doc totally isolated from Twine (it was Natasha and Fatema who transferred and programmed everything I wrote). However, instead of just writing essays or normal prose like I normally would, I kept in mind how the writing would have to adapt to the format of a Twine game, and tried to use brackets, meticulous bullet lists, and
notation where I wanted the narrative to pause to signify different choices and alternate paths to make it easier to understand (I guess this goes back to considering variability again, since the content of the game might change depending on the choices made by the player). Seeing the text and sounds come alive in the game was really rewarding, knowing that my specially-formatted script appeared just how I pictured it, and that my efforts communicating the atmosphere I wanted with Fatema and Natasha were considered. I definitely think this experience has helped me learn to become more open with working in groups and delegating tasks not just based on who has the most time or experience, but based on each group member’s skills. In future group projects and if I decide to ever try to make a game again, I will try to keep the communication skills, writing-for-games formatting skills, and variability of games in mind to produce a more effective digital media object. The affordances of interactive text-based online media I hadn’t really considered before, but now I know that it not only plays to my strengths as a writer but also the ways it can work in conjunction with visuals, sounds, web design, etc.

Overall, I think I'll definitely keep the ideas of affordances and the principles of new media in mind as I continue to navigate the Internet and compose digital objects, as well as be more open to working with groups and exploring my strengths as a creator.

[kevinikea]

Coming into Composing Digital Media, I had little experience with the kinds of things we were going to touch on in class. However, I was fairly familiar with audacity as I have used adobe audition before. The way we took things in stride in class was a ton of fun as learning the technical aspects was a challenge for me personally as I am not this tech savvy; I like writing and being more creative through those kinds of outlets. With the crafting of audacity, learning of GIMP, coding of html, and collaboration on the website with a fantastic group, I learned that I can really do a lot more than I thought.

Soundscape link to soundscape For the soundscape unit, I reached my peak comfortability of the class for the entire semester. Talk about peaking too early. When using audacity, I knew was going to be doing something sports related. Never a doubt. I knew I could have done a lot more for this project, but it was the start of the semester and I really just wanted to take it easy. I think the final result of the project is terrific if I’m being honest, but I know that I can do a lot better when it comes to something that I already knew a lot about. Speaking of knowing stuff, having prior knowledge of a sound system really helped a lot for me. Using audition before audacity really makes me appreciate the detail of audition even more. I got really frustrated with audacity at some points because it was never as simple as audition. The tools were also different, in many ways, but I always managed to find what I needed to use. This unit was truly a lot of fun for me as I really progressed and managed myself at a different pace. As we can see in the picture below, I was just finding my way at the start of the project.

Managing the audacity files were simple enough, however, I really like the audition system better. I further plan on using audio editing programs in the future. The simple yet frustrating nature of audacity will likely come back to haunt me and I’ll definitely be using it in the future. I plan on using it for a hockey podcast that a friend and I will be recording starting next semester.

Visual Argument link to .xcf file For my visual argument, I was kind of clueless at first. However, I went back to my go to, sports. I made my G.O.A.T debate bracket visual argument because that is what sports are all about. Debating. People love having their own opinions and that’s what this piece really feeds off of. When it comes to the technical side of things, I found gimp a bit more challenging than audacity. With the tools in gimp, I was really frustrated with how I would try and do something and then end up doing the wrong thing. Layers make it difficult for things get placed properly and its just a whole process. Whenever I was in doubt of something, I knew I could just always look it up. Helpful things on the internet are great for small projects just like this. I don’t necessarily think I’ll be using GIMP anytime in the future however, I may use things like Photoshop, or any more complex versions that are easier to use once you fully realize how to use the application. In this project I definitely could have done a bit more, I was just kind of challenged by the unit as a whole though. Really put in a lot of effort to make sure the bracket looked like something remotely close that ESPN or SportsNation might post on their Twitters or Instagrams. Overall this quite fun to learn but I hope I really don’t have to deal with a program like this in my future.

Website link to site Working on a website by myself was easily the hardest thing I had to do in this class. With no basic html or CSS background, I was so clueless when I came into this unit. I don’t know why, but this unit felt like it went by really really quick. Almost felt like I never got a real feel for what I was doing and I was just copy-pasting my way to make the website. The CSS stylesheet was definitely the weirdest thing/most challenging thing. I didn’t really need to make my site that aesthetically pleasing as it is all about the content. Overall, the skills I will take from the website are priceless. The ability to code is truly one of the most important things for any person going into the job market today. Having it as a basic skill always looks good on a resume. However, the way we just jumped in made me almost uncomfortable, as I had to track my own progress and learn a lot of material just to do the assignment at hand. This project might continue to update as it serves a personal portfolio all itself. I really enjoyed it in the end.

Collaboration https://south-o-treasures.herokuapp.com/

The collaboration was definitely one of the most fun times I’ve had in this class all semester. Just walking through the basics of our website were actually quite simple since I was not the one to manage it. I had my job as a photographer for the site and that just made everything ten times easier for me. As everyone had their duties, we really grew as a group for the two weeks that we had together. It was quite fun and taught me some interesting lessons. You have to communicate well if you’re rocking a group, if you don’t then the group will likely be in trouble and will sink. The overall design of the website is great, and I really appreciate everyone in my group who put in the time on this project. A team effort really pushes us to be great.

[ajs1102]

Exploring new mediums for composition has taught me valuable skills, for composition withing any medium or tool.

One way of thinking that I've learned from both the audio and visual units is thinking of composing in layers. Layers clearly play a large part in audio and visual composition, since the tools we used explicitly enable layering as a practice. However, adding layers to any work is essential for good composition. If a novel is purely superficial, then it may as well be a children's book. Conversely, if a novel is entirely abstract, then most readers probably wouldn't enjoy reading it. It's important to layer the two together to balance the work.

One thing that I realized from feedback I got is that terminology and backgrounds that seem simple and like common sense for me, may be completely foreign, and confusing to a viewer. Everyone kind of knows this, but they often don't think about just how much they might know about a subject, that others know nothing about. This was my situation during the visual composition unit, when I got feedback that expressed how confused people were about my visual composition. It had not occurred to me that people who were never exposed to Dungeons and Dragons at all would be confused by much of my design choices and wording. This was an important reminder for me going forward, that knowledge that seems obvious to me may be niche to the outside observers.

https://github.com/ajs1102/visual-argument-2019Fall-Redo/commit/1e2de5785091e9fc8b11479ebdf95497f1dae851

Upon this realization for my visual rhetoric composition, I thought about how I would need to revise my image to make the message clearer to the audience. The most obvious thing to do first was to directly mention Dungeons and Dragons. This would give people who know nothing about the game to try and learn about it, rather than just being confused about what the image was trying to say. I also decided to clear up the rhetoric in other parts of the image. I added treasure underneath the dragon, to tap into the familiar trope of dragons hoarding treasure, which could serve as a McGuffin for the adventure. I also, added a blood moon behind the castle in my image, because one comment said that while my poster advertised adventure and danger, the images did not reflect that danger.

I'm proud of how my visual unit project turned out. I felt that I was successfully able to incorporate advice and critiques from my classmates in order to make my argument stronger. I also incorporated feedback on my final draft from Ben, as he said that the sources link at the bottom of the image was too large in my final draft. I shrank it down considerably, while making sure to keep it legible.

Here is a link to my visual unit repository:

https://github.com/ajs1102/visual-argument-2019Fall-Redo

For me, the most difficult unit was the audio unit. This felt like the closest to composing text, since I had to think of dialog for the characters in my soundscape, as well as ways to build the setting of a bus naturally.

https://github.com/ajs1102/PittCDM-soundscape/commit/e24d397bb20f4fd2f364b28e8073cdfd6ecc17c4

When my classmates listened to this rough draft of my soundscape, a couple of them expressed that they were unsure of the setting for part of my soundscape. I was struggling to express being on a bus without saying "I am on the bus now." However, I had the idea of recording the 75 outside of my apartment, so that I could have a more identifiable cue of where the soundscape took place.

https://github.com/ajs1102/PittCDM-soundscape/commit/7565cbc8e28d2afe26bacd88f506a3cd2e0cb0fe

In addition to the identifiable audio specifying the 75, I included dialog about me worrying when the bus was going to arrive. This added more variety to what I was doing, and provided motivation for a stressed out tone in parts.

While the audio unit was difficult for me, I'm proud of the improvements I made in my work. I went from a vague soundscape, and made it more specific, and added more variety to the content.

Here is a link to the full soundscape repository: https://github.com/ajs1102/PittCDM-soundscape

https://github.com/ajs1102/PittCDM-website-portfolio/commit/1e4917a5a9b3152ab252bee09dd93c6deb45a87e

I was excited for the web-development unit, since I had previous experience with HTML, CSS, and Javascript. I was looking forward to trying new things, and refreshing old website creation skills that had gotten rusty. It had been a while since I tried making any website, since I always struggled with designing something that looked good. For the web development unit, I struggled with finding a look for my portfolio that I liked. The strategy that I eventually decided on to fix this, was to find a good background image on unsplash.com, and to base my color scheme around that. I decided that I liked the black and purple color scheme of the background image I used in this rough draft. That gave me a good starting point for styling the rest of the homepage, as well as the subpages.

After I committed my final draft for my website portfolio, I realized that one of my images was broken. So after my final feedback for that unit, I made sure to go back and fix it.

Here is a link to the full website repository: https://github.com/ajs1102/PittCDM-website-portfolio

I was really worried going into the group composition unit, since group work is always a gamble, and has not gone well for me in the past. Thankfully, we were able to decide on a goal to work towards very quickly. We also very quickly decided on an efficient division of labor: Jade would be the project manager, making decisions to direct our project towards our unified vision, Ellie would help with the visual design, and Richard and I would code. This division, in addition to everyone contributing to script writing, made the project the smoothest group work I have ever done.

Here is a link to the full repository of the group project: https://github.com/jadenash21/Final-Project

One thing that surprised me about this course, was how much I was able to get done in each two week unit. At the beginning of the semester, I saw that each unit was two weeks long, and thought that that sounded too short to learn to compose in all of these different mediums, and make a meaningful end-result out of what we learned. However, the time frame worked out so much better than I expected. Each unit was short, but at the same time I never felt rushed to complete my composition, and was always able to create something in the timeframe of the unit.

As I go forward in my coursework and my life, I want to keep practicing my skills in composing with web development, as well as using visual composition. I've already used my knowledge of visual composition outside of this class in several practical ways in my life. I plan on continuing to develop and improve my skills in these media so that I can use it in more creative ways.

[brittanybenson8]

I am not tech-savvy at all. Sure, I know more about computers than my grandmother, but really, she is the only one I am beating. I came into this course very last minute (the last day of add/drop to be specific) with the goal of changing my lack of knowledge into at least some knowledge. Computers and I do not get along very well for a few reasons. The main one is that I usually know what I want to do, and I know it is possible to do it, but different software has so many elements to them with absolutely no explanations on what is what. I’ll struggle with simple things like moving something over for an hour. Things that take others 10 minutes takes me ten times as long. My brain does not comprehend technology very well, and it is something that frustrates me more than anything else.

This class has been very challenging for me this semester. With that being said, I still do feel like I learned a lot, even if it is a very basic understanding. Furthermore, I am proud of the projects I have created.

Soundscape

Commute-Final.zip

The Soundscape Narrative project was, by far, the most difficult one for me. Recording the sounds wasn’t the issue, but everything else was. I struggled to even come up with an idea for this project. Working Audacity wasn’t impossible but also wasn’t easy for me. I condensed my files unintentionally. I couldn’t figure out how to move a file because every time I selected the move option, my curser would turn into a circle with a line through it. I began pasting clips onto other ones where they fit in with the narrative. It wasn’t until I was almost done with the project I realized the sound had to be done playing in order for you to have access to the move tool. In some ways, this was easier to look at because all my sounds were visible at once.

This project has recently proven to be yet again the most challenging for me because all of my files from it are gone! I was able to recover one of my later drafts and reedit in sounds that I added towards the end, but I still am struggling with Audacity and Git/Github/GitDesktop. Sometime I will push a folder through Desktop, and it is on Desktop, but then it isn’t on Git. Other times the file is too big. Other times the file is corrupt. I am starting to believe that Audacity and Git have a vendetta out for me.

With all of that being said, I really hope that these files chose to open for you because sometimes it works for me and other times it does not. I have tried everything I can think of and watched endless Youtube tutorials, but it still is only working sometimes for me.

I have gone back and edited my credits so that there are links to the pieces of work I have used. I have also used Audacity to attempt to adjust the volume on the clips I re-added in. Even though this project is definitely my ‘failure’ in the class, I still feel that I learned from it. With all my problems through figuring out the files, I have learned the importance of keeping your files organized and having a known location for them—even if it is a lesson I learned too late. I also have learned the possibility of telling a story only through sound. I have learned basic skills in Audacities despite my struggles.

While I may be too honest in admitting this project may be all wrong, I think there is a learning curve when it comes to acknowledging your mistakes and failures. Also, I promise my next projects are a thousand times better.

Visual Argument

Click here for the .xcf file and download the file

The Visual Argument assignment is the one I feel was the most successful for me. I immediately thought of an idea that reflected an issue I care about. Also, while I never used GIMP or a legit photoshop software, I have used photo editing apps on my phone, so I was at least somewhat familiar with some tools. Working with the hot air balloon pictures in class was very helpful to me later when I worked on my own. That tutorial exposed me to tools that I found to be the most useful.

This next screenshot is when I originally thought I was done with my project.

Click here to open the image on GitHub

My goal with this project was to show a future reality where every beach is a polluted one. I wanted to make it seem normal to be vacationing next to trash. When I reached this part in my project, I felt I needed something else to make the danger of pollution stand out. I wanted the water to look dirty, but it was difficult to photoshop images of trash into the picture for a few reasons. First, since the water is far away, it was hard to make the trash a realistic size and make it noticeable. Second, it was difficult to find pictures of trash that would have fit into that water. The angles were awkward, or the coloring was different. It made the picture look more fake than anything. Therefore, I decided to add a danger sign. I felt it conveyed the message without make the picture look tacky. Also, since people are near the water, it shows their longing to enter or their continuous neglect on pollution.

While I think every project we worked on can be turned into transferable skills, I really only see myself continuing to use GIMP. There aren't many reasons I can think of where I would need to create a project only using sound or a game through Twine. It is possible I’d have to use html again, but for the most part, I have already seen the skills I used through GIMP come into play. For one of my organizations on campus, I have been using GIMP and other photoshop software to create flyers and a design for t-shirts. I had never done anything like this before, so it is nice to see this skill used in parts of my daily life and outside of class.

Website

Click here for the website on GitHub Pages

Before this unit, I didn’t even know what html or css was. I had absolutely no knowledge of the programming that goes behind websites. I figured if I ever needed to create a website, I’d just find another website that easily lets me make one.

While understanding html can be confusing, once you get the hang of it, it becomes easy. I was very surprised to see how much you could do just by typing in some phrases. Moreover, I know there is a ton more that is possible to do through html just by looking at other students' websites. I barely scratched the surface on all html has to offer, but I feel like I know a decent amount on how it works.

I think this unit is one that I improved the most with as we learned it. I found the tutorials to be very helpful and continued to use them as a resource while making my website. I hope to continue to show people this website in the future and possibly add more information to it as I think of it.

For the final version, I took your advice and added the responsive design that you suggested. I also added a disclaimer on each page to contribute to fair use.

Collaborative Project

Click here to play Searching for Sanctuary

This group project was a lot of fun for me. The premise of our game was you are in the zombie apocalypse, and you must make decisions that will impact your chance for survival.

I served mostly as the researcher for the group. I looked into classic zombie movie tropes and picked elements to use in our game. I hate admitting that I relied on stereotypes, but I relied on stereotypes. I created the characters based on people that seem to be in every single zombie movie. I also did a lot of the writing for the game. It was fun to figure out different paths the characters could go on. It was also fun turning the logical solution into the wrong choice just to trip up players. Furthermore, I contributed ideas to how the game should be styled. We all agreed it should have an old fashion arcade style to it with pixelized images.

Overall, I am very happy with how the game turned out. I think it has the ability to be a different experience each time, and the difficulty level changes based on the decisions you make.

In conclusion, this class has definitely been a challenge for me. It took me out of my pen and paper comfort zone and forced me to try something new. I am grateful for what I learned in this class, and I hope I get a chance to use some of these skills again in the future.

[jlatiniii]

Before taking this course, I had absolutely no prior knowledge or experience in composing digital media. However, I was very eager to learn about this kind of material and it even exceeded my expectations of how much I would enjoy it. I can genuinely say that, although this class has nothing to do with my major, I can see myself using the techniques and ideas I've learned. I generally have become more aware of the world of technology and how important it is and will continue to be in any career. Referring to the article we read on the last day of class, Paul Ford discussed an interesting topic about how you can physically observe every change that takes place when it comes to technology. This is a result of not just one person but a huge collaboration, which made me think of my own future career in biomedical research. The main idea I took away from this is the importance of collaborating with others to discover a way to progress, whether it be in computer science or biomedical science.

To begin with my Soundscape, I found this to be my most successful project all semester. I had never used Audacity before but found it very easy to work with and I found my topic of a comatose patient easy to get creative with. It did take some time to write out the scripts and get the recordings of the voices to sound how I wanted them to, but once I had all of the main components it was easy to put together. This was definitely my favorite piece and the one I'm most proud of.

Gotta Believe.mp3

In regards to my Visual Argument, I found this to be significantly harder than the soundscape project. Compared to my ease of coming up with a topic for the first unit, it took me awhile to come up with my argument an even when I did it took me multiple tries to achieve the aesthetic I was hoping for. Overall, I definitely struggled with this unit the most because I found GIMP to be confusing and difficult to maneuver for no reason. I would constantly be trying to use a tool or move an image and it would not do wha I wanted it to. However, I believe I saw the most progress in this project. As you can see in my first two attempts, they looked terrible and although they may have met the baseline criteria I knew that I was capable of doing better.

Attempt 1

Attempt 2

My final draft came a long way from my first and once I realized how much more I liked this version I found it easier to reach more aspirational goals and enjoy editing it. I wouldn't say this was phenomenal work compared to others' projects in the class but considering I had no experience in using this kind of editing application I am proud of what I finished with.

Herd Immunity Saves Lives.xcf

The Website Portfolio was by far the hardest project I completed this semester. I was excited that we were going to be creating our own websites but once I realized how complicated writing html and css from scratch would be this immediately turned to stress. The only way I got through this project was watching tons of tutorials. There were many times where I felt hopeless because this was way out of my expertise (I may be able to tell you how DNA replicates but telling html and css how to position my images is actually a lot harder). However, when I did successfully get the code to do what I wanted it to, it was very rewarding. I decided to keep my website very minimalistic rather than challenging myself too much but it turned out looking better than I thought. This project especially showed me that I was capable of accomplishing things that I didn't think I was capable of. Although my soundscape was the project I was most proud of, this website is a close second because of how much progress I made in such a short period of time.

https://jlatiniii.github.io/website-portfolio-2019fall/

The Group Collaborative Project was definitely the most fun project I've done in this class. Our topic was very unique and the ability to split up the work to satisfy everyone's strengths made this easy and enjoyable. I knew that I did not have a strength in the coding aspect so I assisted with taking some pictures and mainly coming up with captions and descriptions for the pictures. The group you work with always makes a difference in how successful the product will be, and luckily the group I was in worked really well together. Communication is key, and we had no issues with that so I'm really happy with how everything turned out. I will definitely be showing my friends and family this website even after this class is over.

https://south-o-treasures.herokuapp.com/

Unlike Organic Chemistry, I have learned so much in this class and these skills and ideas will actually be valuable in my future endeavors. I may not necessarily use Audacity, GIMP, and Atom in my everyday life, but they are definitely important applications to know how to use. Furthermore, the bigger themes I took away from this course will have the greatest impact on my future. These include the importance of technology in our world as discussed earlier, working together as a group, and always continuing to improve no matter the obstacles you face. Group work will be inevitable in any career, so knowing how to make group collaborations successful is an important skill to have. Additionally, everyone will face obstacles in their life and future careers so being able to overcome that frustration and work to improve not only your task at hand but yourself is an extremely valuable characteristic.

[cjc162]

Starting the semester, I had some experience with the tools we'd be working with, but most of them were brand new to me. I was excited to take a writing class that was digital media based rather than based off essays, as I am a lot more comfortable working with projects than writing essays. Reading the planned units at the beginning of the semester, I was nervous for units 1 and 2, as I had no prior experience with Audacity or GIMP. I was excited for unit 3, as I have a lot of prior web apps experience. For the group project unit, I was also nervous, as they can go either very smooth or they can be a disaster. Luckily my group project experience was the former. Across all 4 units, I noticed a recurring theme: I was really bad at coming up with ideas. For me, this was half the challenge of each unit. After coming up with ideas, I was very comfortable with learning the various tools, but thinking of ideas was always tough.

The soundscape is where my first trouble sprouted when brainstorming ideas. I really wanted to tell a story with my piece, but I had no story to tell. My idea came to me while I was watching my favorite show, Prison Break. I wanted to create a soundscape that told a story of a prison break starting from initial escape, through the chase, and ending with the inevitable capture/escape. After listening to previous soundscapes and discussing them in class, two main pieces of advice stood out to me. The first was depth perception. Changing the volume of various sounds in a piece really helped me paint an image in my head to accompany the soundscape. The second bit of advice that stood out to me was the importance of background noise/sound effects. As with the first point, using subtle noises is something that helps a scene take form. Keeping these two main ideas in mind, I came with my final soundscape:

Repo

After looking back at the soundscape project, I felt pretty successful in learning the new digital media that was Audacity. Although I am far from an expert, I felt as though I learned the basics fairly quick and was able to use these new skills to create my project. I felt most challenged when trying to create a story. I had an idea in my head for what I wanted to do, but creating it was challenging. Audacity's tools however made it fairly easy to accomplish this.

The visual argument unit peaked my interest from the time I read about it on the syllabus. I have never used tools like Photoshop, but I've always wanted to learn. Although we used GIMP, I would assume that many of the skills I learned would be transferable to Photoshop. Again, I had issues with coming up with an idea. The idea I ran with finally came to me after looking over example visual arguments. I saw an image of a computer mouse acting as a wrecking ball, destroying newspaper dispensers. This gave me the idea of having new technology items destroying older, more traditional items. I took a lot of advice from the reading of these sections. I never considered things such as negative space, giving an image flow, adding layers to an image, etc. However, I really tried to incorporate these ideas not only into my visual argument, but also my future website. Keeping these ideas in mind, I came with a rough draft for my visual argument:

From what I read about adding extra layers to photos, I tried to do this with the hidden word "TECH" in the new technologies. However, after reading feedback from my peers, it seemed the coloring I had chosen matched the background too closely making it difficult to read. I also received feedback that I could change the font of my words in the meteors to make it a bit more exciting. I decided ti make the TECH letters green and also increase their size a bit. This made them pop a little more and made it not clash with the background as much. I also tried to give each word its own font that represent that word. I tried to make the video games font arcadey and the others more techish and robotic. After implementing these changes, I came up with my final visual argument:

Repo

For the visual argument unit, I felt I was successful in keeping a consistent clip art style image. All the images I used were cartoony or clip arty. One area where I felt challenged in this unit was finding the images I used with an appropriate licence. I found it difficult find exactly what I was looking for that was free. However, I did learn about the usage rights tool on google images that helped this process a bit. I will definitely keep that in mind for future image hunting.

As for the website unit, I was quite excited. I've made many websites before, so I thought this unit was going to be a breeze. However, I decided I wanted to challenge myself and try some things I didn't have a ton of experience in. I decided to give my website a flask back end with a PostgreSQL database. I had some experience previously with both of these, but I wanted to expand and try to learn some more. I also decided to deploy my website to Heroku which was a huge learning experience for me. This proved to be rather difficult and I put a lot of time researching and learning how to do it. I was very happen when I got it to work as I believe deploying live sites will be a valuable tool in the future. I also wanted to incorporate the lessons I learn in the visual unit to make my site appealing. To do this, I tried to stick to a consistent color theme. I tried to use only cool colors such as blue, green, and black. After receiving feedback on this project, I went back and made my navbar more responsive and friendly for mobile. After implementing these changes, I came with my final website:

Repo

I felt I was successful in creating a useful, professional, aesthetically pleasing website. I am very happy that I created something functional that I will probably use in the future. Although this unit I had the most prior experience compared to the others, I feel as though I was challenged the most in this unit. As previously mentioned, deploying using Heroku was very challenging as well as brushing up on my database and back end skills. I am happy I decided to challenge myself this unit instead of sticking to what I was comfortable with.

When the final group project rolled around, I was fairly nervous. Group projects could get ugly if everyone is not on the same page. Luckily, the group I worked with was great. I had a ton of fun working on this project. One of my least favorite part of other projects had been researching and finding assets. Since everyone took on a role, I didn't have to worry about this. I was able to stick to what I enjoy which was programming. I used the same flask back end and PostgreSQL database as the previous unit and also deployed using Heroku again. This was nice to see my progress as tasks that took me a long time figure out previously went a lot smoother the second time around. After coming up with our website idea of things found in South Oakland, gathering images, creating titles and descriptions, we came up with the following website:

Repo

I believe as a group, we were successful in creating a comedic, interesting website. Our communication was solid and I never felt like things weren't going smoothly. For me, I felt challenged in this unit creating a website that displayed images that contained titles and description in a nice manner that allowed for easy expansion with new images. However with the use of Jinja templating, Bootstrap, PostgreSQL, Flask, and JQuery, I feel as though I was able to achieve this.

Moving forward, I will definitely continue to develop my digital media skills. This will most likely be in the form of coding, however I could definitely see myself using GIMP or Audacity if the opportunity presents itself. As I plan to use my school organizer in the future, I will most likely continue working on it outside of class, whether that be regular maintenance or adding new features I think of. I will also keep the South O Treasures running, because I see no reason to take it down. If people even wanted to add to it, I would have no problem doing so as well. Overall, I feel as my experience with digital media has grown far outside my comfort zone and even added to skills that were in my comfort zone.

[ram716]

I mostly chose this course because it fulfills two gen-eds at once for me. Plus the title "digital media composition" sounds cool. Working with videos, images, and websites should be fun, right? Well... not really. At least, it wasn't fun for me. I knew coming into the class I'd have a rough time since I blank out on projects that require creativity and drag my feet on writing anything. The experience was definitely more enjoyable than taking a writing-only course, but it wasn't exactly as helpful as I thought it'd be. I came into the course with basic knowledge of audacity, gimp & photoshop, and HTML & CSS. For the most part I coasted by on what I knew instead of learning much of anything new. There wasn't much reason to go above and beyond when there was work to do for other courses & other life responsibilities to take of. The main take away I got from this course is that you can do practically anything you can imagine in digital media, but you have to be able to imagine it first...

The audio unit was actually the easiest to piece together. I saw Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark the night before and immediately got stuck on a lame horror-story jump scare. The process of figuring out the story line and piecing together the various sounds was the best part of this unit. Telling a story with just sounds requires a unique way to initiate the story and follow subsequent events. Brainstorming ideas for sounds & dialogue that were sufficient but not too excessive to explain the setting, actions, and environment was difficult but rewarding. Trying to mix together sounds from different sources was the biggest pain of the project. Combining downloaded mp3 sounds and recordings from various places and times created small but noticeable dissonances when listened to next to each other. I attempted to create a feeling of spatial unity by overlaying a constant background white noise, messing with the echo & reverb of the clip, and trying to eliminate any excessive peaks or dips.

Audio Repository

Coming up with an idea for the visual unit was an awful experience. I couldn't think of anything that I visually wanted to argue. The only thing that came to my mind was the current political divide constantly regurgitated in news outlets. I could make some argument out of it and have an easy time of it since I could use exaggerate pre-defined ideas to separate the two main parties of the USA. I tried using images to create the word "America" with an obvious ideological divide in the middle. Turns out only using copy-right free images to try to create a word was a terrible idea and I ended up with this as my first draft:

Back to the drawing board. I figured I could use party color and only a couple images to get my visual argument across to the viewer. However, the product was incredibly underwhelming. I tried to fix my plain word of "America" by adding something in the background. Adding a bunch of partisan colored news headlines in the background seemed like a neat idea to signify the information overload of politics or the general disinterest of someone towards politics. Either A.) You try to keep up with the text but its too chaotic or B.) You skip right over the headlines and just consider the background text to be supplementary color. As you can see, tossing together this project hardly required technical skill, so I can't say I learned anything new in gimp to get it done. Though, it was actually fun trying to piece together a political message. Yet unsurprisingly, digging through all the politically-charged news was depressing and had me steering clear of any political news for a couple of weeks.

Visual Repository

I've fiddled with HTML & CSS before, so the website project wasn't too troubling. Still, I wanted to be efficient as possible while making it look as nice as I could. Working with a template seemed like the best way to accomplish that. I pulled a template from templated.co and began modifying it. I went with the idea of creating a relaxing, useless website of seasonal-themed dog & cat pictures. It was great. I'm not sure what I took away from this project though. I didn't know how to make a seamless collage of pictures that would scale with screen & window size, how to enlarge a picture when you click on it, and I had to search through an excessive amount of code to find and edit basic elements like background color, transition timing, box size, & other odds and ends. Perhaps the takeaway is that open source software and communities are the real heroes of the digital age?

Website Repository

I can't say much about the final project. My group could've done it as easily with or without me tagging along for the ride: Alex handled the programming, Jade kept us all on track, and Ellie worked on the visual design. Everyone worked on their own script & my script is the only thing I can say in good faith that I did any contributory work on. I'm to blame here since I was being strong-headed about working by myself and had to awkwardly squeeze myself into a group after they were already formed. My takeaway from the group project would be that people can great & groups can be incredibly efficient. I've been at Pitt for 4 years now and this group may have been the smoothest division of labor & communication I've ever seen.

Group Project

In the end, I'm not exactly sure what transferable skills I'll be taking away from my time in the course. The common lesson for all the projects is really that digital media is built piecemeal. No first time project is perfect. The ability to go back and update your project as time goes by is one of the unique advantages of digital media. The next biggest life lesson for me is that the pressure to create something inhibits creativity for me. Currently, I don't have any plans for developing my digital media skills after the class ends.

[fatemaquaid987]

Composing Digital media is one of those courses which gave me a chance to think outside the box. During these 15 weeks, not only was I generating ideas and implementing them but also improving them based on the feedback I got from my peers. I have learned a lot during the time I spent working on projects inside or outside the class. It is hard to list each and every skill or idea that I learned. However, I definitely have a few takeaways which are worth mentioning. My first and foremost takeaway from this class is saving and backing up. Even though I have a technical background and have worked on various technical projects, I did not have a lot of experience using version control software. Through this course, I really understood the importance of version control especially Git and Github. I lost my entire project because of a technical failure in audacity and I truly understand how important it is to keep saving changes to the project and pushing it on Github. In addition to saving and backing up my work, I have learned how coherency and consistency in work are important. Design techniques are essential to any digital composition we do. Every project that we worked on required the use of design thinking. Whether it is a soundscape, a visual argument, a website or simply a presentation, I have learned one thing for sure and that is; always use colors, shapes, and scale in such a way that the piece looks like one coherent piece and not just bits of various pieces put together. Coherency between every element in the project is what unifies it. A very surprising yet important takeaway from this class is that we can not use anything available on the internet. It is important to see whether it falls under fair use or not and give credits accordingly. I have also learned how important it is to organize the files and name them appropriately.

To talk about my strengths, I believe that one of my strengths which helped me get through the website unit is coding. I know that many people struggled a lot with HTML and CSS but because I had previous experience working with the two, I did not find it very difficult. Time was the only issue in that unit for me. For that project, I used HTML and CSS to create a portfolio website for myself. My website consists of 5-6 pages including the home screen. The user can use icons on the home screen or the menu bar in order to navigate to any of the categories and see projects in those categories. Click on the icon below to access the final version of my website: Getting around HTML was fairly easy but writing the CSS properties gave me a hard time too. At times, changes made to the CSS file would not show up and it was difficult to debug where the problem is. I created 2 CSS for my website. One for general properties for all the pages and one for pages except the home screen. It was quite interesting how every version of my website looked so different from the previous one. Click on the icon below to access the version that I created as my final for now submission at the end of the unit . For reference, this is how my website looked: and this is how it looks now: As you can see, the color scheme, background, and fonts in the final version are extremely different from the first one. I liked the last version but I wasn’t very happy with the pencils on a white background. My initial plan was just to replace the pencils with something else but I ended up changing the entire look. I think the final version looks better than the one before. Click Here to access my website repository.

One of my other strengths, which I basically discovered in this course is to efficiently merge together multiple elements to create a coherent piece. I mentioned above that coherency is one of the most important aspects of any digital composition and I believe I was pretty successful in doing that. Click on the icon below to access my visual argument project. For reference, I have also pasted the image below: For this project, I used GIMP to show two opposing sides of Earth. The left side shows a zoomed out healthy Earth while the right side shows a damaged, worn-out earth-the result of harmful human activities. I collected different images from various resources (mostly UNSPLASH) to create a coherent single piece. I believe that all the elements merge well together. There is a lot of negative space and the color palette is consistent as well. Click Here to access my visual argument repository.

I think my soundscape project exhibits coherency too. You may click on the icon below to access it: This audio project unfolds the story of a girl who faces an unexpected halt in the middle of her road trip to her parent's house. Seeking help, she walks towards a deserted house by the roadside but ends up having the most terrifying experience of her life. Like the visual project, I collected sound samples from various resources and also created the most by myself. I combined all the sounds together to create a coherent soundscape. I think that every audio piece in this project complements every other piece which I was able to achieve through layering and adjustment as you can see in the image below: When you hear the audio, it doesn’t sound like a random collection of sounds added on top of each other. Rather, it sounds like a coherent single audio piece. Click Here to access my soundscape repository. This course helped me a lot in discovering my strengths and expertise but I confronted a lot of challenges too. One of the biggest challenges in this class was saving and backing up files using GitHub. I did not face any problem using the GitHub software or website but I found it cumbersome to push my project every time I made any change. When I signed up for this course, I did not know that there would be so much writing involved, which was quite surprising for me. However, this is not something I would like to change as it helped me articulate my ideas and reasons for taking a specific approach clearly. Also, in the beginning, I was of the opinion that the workshop days would not be very helpful but I was wrong. Surprisingly, these were the days I started looking forward to the most as I really enjoyed looking at other people’s projects and getting a different lens to look at my project too. These workshop days allowed me to improve my project a lot and it is one of the best things about this course. I honestly liked how the classes were planned and the way the course was structured and wouldn’t want to change anything. However, I think having a set goal for the collaboration project would help in coming up with the idea faster and efficiently. Just like the first 3 units, I believe a set project type like video, etc. would help everyone to think in a certain direction and more time could be spent working on the project. For the collaboration unit, my team created a twine game called “Escape The Room” which can be accessed by clicking on the icon below: In this project. All of us had different ideas and it took us a while to come at a consensus. In the end, we decided to create a web-based game using Twine in which a hiker gets locked in a stone cottage seeking shelter from the rain. He has to use the articles he finds inside the house to find his way out. I enjoyed working in a team and managing tasks as the project manager. I had no experience using twine before so getting there was a bit of a challenge but in the end, everything worked out and I am very happy with how our game turned out. I liked the fact that even though twine has a very abstracted interface, I could still add HTML tags and edit the CSS and JavaScript. That helped me a lot in styling different passages within the game. For example, I used the "div" tags to style handwritten text different from the rest of the text in the game:

I really enjoyed working on this project as we were able to incorporate media from all the 3 units. We included sound and used audacity to edit it, we embedded digitally drawn images, and, used HTML and CSS. Click Here to access my collaboration project repository.

Even though it is not a designing course, I see a lot of difference in my design thinking after taking this course. I enjoyed working on every project but I think the most fun was the website project as I worked on a website for my own self and updating it and improving it gives me immense satisfaction. I am definitely going to take it further by adding more projects and pages. In terms of tools and software, I had experience using Photoshop but now I can work with GIMP too. I used it to alter the background for my final portfolio website and I already see it as a handy tool. I would also be happy to publish our Escape the Room game online if my team agrees. All in all, this course has equipped me with tools and skills which I believe will be helpful in whatever field I chose moving forward.

Group icon, Visual icon, Sound icon: Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com Website icon: Icon made by PrettyCons from www.flaticon.com

[wsc9]

I have had a lot of experience using digital media software in the past. My high school had a large emphasis on digital media literacy, and we would often incorporate digital media elements into many of our English, History, or Science projects. So I am quite used to using software like Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Premiere. The problem with this is that those softwares cost lots of money, and Pitt does not give them to you for free. If you want to use them, you must go to a Pitt computer lab. So for any project at Pitt that required digital media elements, I would previously have to come to campus to do any work. This is difficult for me to do, since I live off campus, and am often traveling. This class has helped introduce me to free, open source software that I can use in place of these Adobe products.

Audio Repository

The Audio Repository Storyline project was a really fun time. I love audio and video editing, as well as interesting ways of story telling, so I had a lot of fun with this one. In the past I had only used Adobe Premiere for audio editing, which it might not be directly intended for, but I have found it really useful for. Obviously I couldn't use it for this project though, which had me a little nervous. Luckily, Audacity is a great sound editing software that is super intuitive and easy to use. It wasn't that much different than using Premiere, so I didn't have many problems with this project. I did have an issue where there was constant audio interference in the sound editor, but it would go away when I exported the sound. So that didn't end up being a problem. I also had problems with crashing, but luckily I didn't lose too much work that way. In the end I was really pleased with how my Audacity project turned out. I used lots of different free sounds, and layered and edited them to make the story really feel like a science fiction story. I also recorded my own audio in the form of dialogue. Since it was only me, I tried to change my voice up so that it would be easy to differentiate the characters.

Visual Repository

The Visual Argument was also pretty fun for me. Since I had a lot fo experience with Photoshop, and other projects similar to this one, I had a mental plan of everything I had to do to execute my idea in an organized way. I didn't really know the UI of GiMP, so that took some getting used to, however It was easy enough to pick up. I also had a pretty good idea of what I wanted the subject to be. I have been in combat sports for a while now, and played hockey for many many years before I got involved with Olympic Boxing, and mixed martial arts, so I have had a lot of experience with head injuries and concussions. I know how terrible they are, and wanted to draw attention to them. The hardest thing about this project was getting my images together. I couldn't find what I needed, so some creative fudging had to be done. In the end however, I believe I was able to change up the images enough to make them fair use.

Website

Now this is where I started to run into trouble. I have had a little bit of experience in coding languages like Python and Visual Basic. I have also used Dream Weaver and Twine in high school, but I don't remember anything about them. So using HTML, CSS, and Java was a completely new experience for me. I was doing fine at first. I knew exactly what I wanted to do: my little brother is an artist, and has a large portfolio of work that he wants to display, so I figured I would make him a website. He is an abstract artist who has done some street art type things in the past, so I wanted to model his website off of another very successful artist named Alec Monopoly. Luckily his website was quite simple, so I started researching the different methods that they may have used to make his site. I also started going through the HTML tutorials that were on the Git hub site. These were super helpful, and once I got through a few of them, and got the basic things down, I started putting the HTML together. This is when I started running into trouble. Once I got away from the tutorials, things kind of got off the rails. I had a lot of other work for different classes at the time, and I was also dealing with a lot of work projects after hours. So I got behind in the tutorials and it really hurt my performance. I had a lot of problems with the css, and couldn't get my style sheet to work right. In the end though, I am still pleased with the website, and how it turned out. I went from being completely illiterate in HTML to having a working website, with my own custom theme, that incorporates a little bit of Java in it.

Group Project

This group object was also a ton of fun. Again, I didn't have much experience with Twine, so I was worried about that. Luckily, Emma and Fathima knew how to use the software. Brittany and I worked on the narrative which was great. I worked on the ending screens as well, which I made in an online pixel art software called PixelArtMaker.com My work on this project was pretty much just writing and visual editing, which is exactly my wheel house, so that was cool. Emma and Fathima incorporated these elements into the Twine really well. In the end I am really pleased with how our group worked, and the final product that we created as well.

Overall

At the end of this course, I am really pleased with the work I have done, but more so, I am happy with the skills and knowledge I have acquired. Before this class, I was completely reliant on Adobe products, but I didn't actually have access to them. I have already used GiMP in other classes, and plan on using it more next semester. I also am now more aware of open source software now, and have broadened my horizons when it comes to digital media software.

[emaur]

Coming into this course, I had a general idea of the things we would be doing, such as creating visual images. However, after the first day, the course introduction and description turned out to be wildly different but very much so something that I expected -- and a tad overwhelming when the prospect of coding a website was mentioned. Yet after completing all of the projects from creating a soundscape narrative, to composing a visual argument, to coding a website, the most beneficial advice or takeaway that I find myself leaving this class with is to always have an open mind. I found that I reached the most success when I began with a general concept for a project but allowed myself the freedom to play around with changes, tools, and different options in order to yield the best result to me. Being solidified on an idea restricts your creativity, and by giving yourself the time to try out different tools in Gimp, or trying different sounds in Audacity to generate a certain feeling -- I was able to create something that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to if I didn’t keep an open mind and wasn’t consistently making new changes.

In my Soundscape Narrative, one of the last additions I made was incorporating the Edgar Allen Poe narration of “The Raven,” which ultimately turned out to be my favorite part of the whole piece. If I was not adamant on continuously trying out new sounds to depict certain situations, I would have ended up with a less creative piece that would not have reached its full potential -- in my opinion. In addition, I learned from the very first project that when it comes to composing digital media, time is a much needed factor. In order to play around with tools, sounds, etc. with the projects, a good amount of time is needed. I found myself in the best position when I worked on my project a little bit each day and tried out new creative prospects every day as well.

For my Visual Argument project -- the best and most significant changes were made during my first look back at the project on a new day. When I was working on it for extended periods of time, I wasn’t able to notice certain details that could be changed or whether the color scheme was working with my images. However, because I gave myself ample amounts of time to complete it, each new look at the image on a new day allowed me to see changes that need to be made and text that needed to be emphasized or made clearer that I wasn’t able to recognize the day before. While I initially wanted the colors in each image to be vibrant, I found that it took away attention from the text, causing me to decrease the saturation on most of the images.

Even so, however, the white text still was proving difficult to read. I fiddled around with multiple different colors but because there were so many contrasting background colors, the white text was the most legible. It wasn’t until Ben recommended I use drop shadows behind my text to make the text easier to see, where my project really leveled up. The time I provided myself allowed me to mess around with different colors and different strengths and placements of the drop shadows until I finally arrived at something that pleased me: a strong, red drop shadow, matching the color of my main argumentative claim.

Looking back at the unit goals and overall course outcomes, I feel that I was most successful in employing creativity throughout all of my projects, but specifically with my soundscape narrative and visual argument, as the website project was more straightforward and clear-cut. From the get-go I knew I wanted my soundscape to have a sudden, unexpected turn of events; when I came up with the idea of having my character wake up to hearing ghosts in their house, I ended up being a little stuck on how exactly I could express that through sounds that weren’t tacky or lame classic Halloween ghost sounds that you’d hear at a haunted house. It took me quite some time and research to find the sounds I ended up using, but because of the time and freedom I provided to myself, I was able to think outside of the box to use sounds that, I believe, effectively depicted my character falling into a dream, nightmare, and then awaking to ghosts.

When it comes to the challenges I faced, however, I knew from the very first day of class that the Website Project would be quite difficult for me. Once the unit was upon us, I felt extremely overwhelmed and unsure of how I would even create a website from scratch. Yet I pride myself on my persistence as I was ultimately able to create a pretty impressive, working website -- for someone with no coding experience whatsoever. The biggest challenge for me with the website project in specific was my mentality. For about half of the project I was overwhelmed and frequently discouraged myself, placing myself in a mentality that I wouldn’t be able to complete the project. However the more help I asked for and the more I read about coding, the more I was able to complete until I got the hang of it. If I allowed my mentality to take over me, I would have given up on the project. Yet persisting through is what ultimately allowed me to generate the finished product that I now have, and I’m proud of myself for persisting and learning basic HTML -- as it is a valuable skill to have across many professional fields.

Finally, ending off the semester with the Group Project was a fun and collaborative way to utilize all our digital media skills to collectively create a project. Deciding to build a website was a way to fit everyone’s needs in the group, and worked out perfectly for us. As the project manager, I made sure we were all in good communication to express our wants and ideas for the website, as well as making sure everyone was on the same page. This was such a collaborative effort since everyone was taking photos and writing captions and image titles, aside from Corey, and our effective communication really allowed for our success.

Overall, this course not only surpassed my expectations, but provided me with skills and knowledge that I didn’t even know I would gain coming into this course. I feel extremely proud of myself for everything that I accomplished within this course, and I am ecstatic that this course not only promoted, but encouraged creative thinking and creative expression throughout every project.

[epesetsky]

Coming into this class, I had expected to work on mostly visual media, which I soon learned was far from the truth. As we began our first project, I soon found myself a little lost in where to begin with the soundscape. I remember listening to examples of what past students had created and thought: How can I do this? But as I moved forward, I learned how many little sounds, when heard as one clip, sound so succinct. Apart the sounds made no sense, but in my final draft, you can hear and almost picture the story I am trying to tell.

Soundscape Narrative (aup file) Soundscape Narrative (mp3 file)

Full repo

Audacity was pretty easy for me to learn, although I feel as though I only have a basic understanding of the application and other sound editing tools. I downloaded many different sound converters to transform my sounds into something Audacity could process, and I really struggled with moving my sounds to fit the timeline of my narrative. As the first project, it was also my first time with Git and I will admit that I struggled immensely with learning how to link my computer to the Desktop app, in addition to the pulling and pushing changes.

My improvement with Git in general is not at a stopping point whatsoever—I continue to learn new aspects and struggle with new confusion each day with Git but I am getting there. With the Soundscape unit, I will say that I wish I had spent more time brainstorming ideas on my narrative, planning out exactly the events of the sounds just for a better narrative overall. Specifically, I feel as though my own recordings and those I used from elsewhere did not mesh well together. My sounds were all on separate tracks, making it hard to find each one because there were so many, so if I could go back, I would place my separate sounds into one or two tracks. In terms of success, I learned how to use Audacity and imported, transformed, and uploaded many sounds to create a fulfilling soundscape narrative.

When we moved onto the visual argument unit I was very excited, knowing that my previous knowledge will provide to be quite helpful. I had used InDesign and Photoshop, but not GIMP, although this was easy to adjust due to my background. I will say it felt a bit clunky, but it was adaptable.

Visual Argument

Full repo

I learned how to use tools like the Layer tool, transparency, and adding an Alpha Channel in adding the plastic bag into the fish’s mouth on the left side. I also learned that in order to add another image adjacent to the image I am working on on my canvas, I must enlarge the canvas size itself because when you open an image to edit, it automatically zooms your view to the dimensions of that photo. I think my biggest step of success in the visual argument unit was learning to use the Paths Tool. This is a more difficult tool in GIMP (and other apps like Photoshop) that I hadn’t spent the time to learn before, but knew it would be helpful in the future. This allowed me to make my color palette more consistent by transforming the path over the green bucket on the right to match the ocean in the left. This not only improved my final project, but also taught me a valuable tool in photo editing. Although I think I learned some less than the first unit because I hadn’t edited sounds/tracks before, I think I am moving in the right direction for image editing and can now utilize a handful more tools in doing so.

As I thought with the end of the visual arguments unit that things were looking up for me, we began coding in class. This for me felt like a foreign language, it was very difficult! I will say had I spent more time working on the assigned tutorials (and a few extra in addition to those) that I think I would have had a better basic understanding of HTML. The fact that clicking the html file in my folder on my desktop brings me to my website in safari still blows my mind to today.

Website Portfolio

Full repo

When I look at my website I think: Wow, I did this? And when I look at my HTML for the site on Atom I still think: Huh??????? This unit was by far the most challenging for me, but I can truthfully say I am the most impressed and most proud of my work after this unit. Not only did I learn code for the first time ever (and not really by choice did I learn this), but I created a website that displays my work that I have done over the past years.

I resized my image on the “about” page in hopes that it would not take so long to load for the viewer. Ben mentioned scaling it to 72 dpi (which I googled and it is the same as ppi).

I found that the image in my files appeared to be at 72 ppi already, so I went even smaller in hopes that it would help with time.

Next in revising I linked my SOURCES.md on my site, as Ben suggested, which proved to be easy. Next was to do something about my ‘font-family: symbol;’ because Ben mentioned this was proving to have troubles, automatically loading to unstyled Times New Roman on his computer. I decided to change all that was symbol to another basic font, Verdana, that I hoped wouldn’t cause trouble.

For my lists on my “writing” and “design” pages, Ben noted that I went from h1 to h3 (describing this as what is called “nesting”), so I fixed this, also altering the aesthetic of my lists, which Ben pointed out was very simple. I changed these to make them centered, larger, and took away the numbers associated with it. I had to google how to make the list neither numbered or bulleted (ordered and unordered) so that there isn’t anything beside it. I did this by adding < ul style = "list-style-type: none" >, making it appear as so:

One of my biggest struggles with my site is very obvious to me: the three icons on my index page (you can only see two of them in the thumbnail above). In deciding to revise my website for the final portfolio, this was again a struggle. My form-as-link in my HTML was off on my index page. This is what I was using for my linked thumbnails on my index page, bringing the viewer to my other pages for about, writing, and design. To fix this, I wrapped my linked element in < a > … < /a >. Specifically, I had to use < a href > … < /a href > for the images to be linked.

I went from this:

To this:

In changing my HTML, I also had to alter my stylesheet.

I spent an hour or maybe more trying to get my site to look aesthetically as it had before using form-as-link, but this proved impossible. Even when Ben tried to help me to adjust my icons to be side by side and horizontal in class one day, we could not figure it out; display: inline-block was not working as it should with < a > … < /a > in place of form-as-link. So instead, I decided that in fixing my HTML to be correct, I can alter how I want my site to look.

I left the icons vertical, and styled them to be centered, adding padding and margin to make the icons and text equidistant, and I think it turned out to look pretty good. And in addition, (I think) my HTML is now correct, which is what Ben and I hoped for. Obviously, I learned so much in this unit, more than I could have imagined honestly. I keep (humbly) bragging to my friends and family, saying “Look at this website I created!”. I’m really happy this unit pushed me so much, because at the beginning I felt helpless, but now I am so proud.

Here is a draft commit from earlier in the project

In this draft of my website, here are just a small portion of the commits I made adjusting the HTML on my index page to format my icons correctly. It has come a far way since this, and my close to 50 commits in GitHub demonstrate the work I put into this project. My revision skills and strategies for this draft are detailed above.

Group Project

Full repo

For our final project, my group and I created a twine that takes the viewer around Pittsburgh to a few of our favorite places. Although I hadn’t used the software before, Alex seemed to pick it up very quickly, which was a lot of help to our group. My job was writing my route to Arsenal Bowling and I helped with visuals a bit, although we kept it pretty simple for time sake.

Overall, this course seemed like a lot of work up front, but everything we did worked toward the goal of becoming well versed in various forms of digital media, and I can say I have reached this goal fully. In addition to being able to create projects of our choice and use our own creativity, I learned new software and new skills that I can take with me into the future, applying them wherever I go.

[jadenash21]

I emailed it to your gmail! Thanks!

[emmaknaub]

Before joining this class, I had a small amount of knowledge/experience in composing digital media. I had a bit of experience with GitHub, coding, and photoshop from other classes, but that was the extent of my knowledge. As a Computer Science major, I'm destined to be working with technology for the rest of my life, so I thought it was important to learn more about the affordances of digital media. It also helped that the class and its objectives seemed incredibly interesting to me and that I genuinely wanted to learn all of the new skills that we'd be touching on in the class. I was specifically excited to learn HTML because web development is a very possible career choice for me. Looking back now, I think I didn't give myself enough credit for how much I knew coming into this class, but that doesn't negate the fact that I still had a lot to learn.

I came to realize that my biggest struggle with this class was putting myself out there. Not necessarily in the sense of being scared to take risks, because I am fine with that, but more so in the sense of being uncomfortable with my own skills and myself in general. The hardest part of composition classes for me is always the workshops. No matter how well I feel about my work, I struggle immensely with showing it to others, whether it be my art, writing, or a digital media project. I also had difficulty specifically with using my voice in my soundscape and making my website about myself.

Audio Unit

The sound unit was honestly the most challenging unit for me, not necessarily because it was difficult, but because it was all new and kind of intimidating to me. I had never in my life done anything with recording and layering sound besides occasionally recording myself singing to hear just how horrible I really am (as one does). I've always been interested in using audio software, but more with creating/mixing music, not for making a soundscape. Either way, I was excited to give Audacity a try. I kind of hated using Audacity, though, which I learned quickly. Layering sounds was a lot of fun to me, but the interface was so out-of-date looking and sort of difficult to use (although I don't know if you can expect much more from a free software). The worst part of all, was having to record and hear my own voice over and over again. I did that to myself, though, since I wasn't actually required to use my voice, or any voices at all. I wanted to use my voice because I liked the idea of getting inside someones head and following their thoughts around, so I sucked it up and used my voice for the whole thing. The workshop for that was rough for me, too, because that meant three separate people had to listen to my voice AND critique it on top of that. I think I don't like workshops because I'm scared of what people will think of me and my work, and I'm inclined to believe that criticism means they don't like what I did. This doesn't mean that I don't appreciate workshops, though. They scare me, but I really do see the value in them. It's important to take a step back and look a your work in different ways, but it's hard to do that on your own, especially when you've been staring at your work for hours. One of the most important parts of creating anything, which I've learned through this class and others, is thinking about your audience and how they'll experience your work. It's difficult to see your own work in more than one way, and that's why workshops are crucial.

Visual Argument Unit

Conversely, the visual argument unit was the easiest for me. I have some experience with Photoshop, so that helped me with GIMP, although GIMP was nearly impossible to use at first. Nothing is clear in GIMP and everything seems to be hidden, which poses quite the challenge when first learning to use it, even if you have prior experience with other picture editing softwares. I've also taken art classes before, and the biggest thing I took away from those classes is balance and eye flow. I was able to easily apply those concepts to my visual argument to create something that was visually pleasing and had some sort of a message. I really liked this unit because I felt that I had a lot of creative freedom, especially since I was already comfortable with this kind of work. I found myself spending hours and hours working on this project just for the fun of it, because I genuinely enjoy working on visual projects. Even though I felt pretty good about the work I did on the visual unit, I still didn't want to show it to anyone. Getting the feedback really helped me, though. A lot of the feedback was really positive, which helped give me confidence in my skills. One of the comments was that they didn't understand what my argument was, which, to my surprise, didn't make me upset, it just helped me to step back and think more about how other people experience my work, and how I can shape my work based on that.

Web Development Unit

Coming into this class, I really wasn't expecting to do any coding, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I would be learning to use HTML and CSS. Web development has been something that I've been interested in learning from the start of being a CS major. I really enjoy coding and creating visual pieces of work, so web development is honestly the perfect thing for me. I really wasn't expecting to struggle as much as I did with creating my website. I had a lot of fun with the Interneting is Hard tutorials, but once I was sent out on my own to create a website from scratch, I encountered a lot of difficulty. I felt like I was putting in a lot of work and seeing almost no progress. It was super frustrating for me, but I still enjoyed figuring it out because it was sort of like putting together a puzzle (like program coding is). It sounds cheesy, but the web development unit taught me to stay patient and persistent. Once I got the hang of it, I had a lot of fun making small fixes to my website to figure out what looked the best. I didn't go to the workshop for this unit, though, and one of the reasons was honestly because I felt like I was trying but I just wasn't making progress and I was embarrassed for people to see the work that I had. I ended up asking my friends for their advice, and this was when I started to really see the value in showing other people my work and asking for their input, no matter how scary it can be. After the fact, I wished I had just sucked it up and gone to class that day because getting my classmates input could've been super helpful. Making the website about myself was also a struggle because that's just uncomfortable to me, just like using my own voice for my soundscape.

Collaborative Unit

I was really excited to be able to take on the role of coder in the collaborative unit. I had a lot of fun putting Brittany and Weston's stories into Twine and making it really come to life. I also really enjoyed editing the stylesheet. It really helped me to learn and understand the "behind the scenes" of websites, specifically by inspecting the page in Chrome to see which tags where affecting which aspects of the display, and using that to change the stylesheet. This is where I figured out how to inspect the page to figure out how to edit the CSS. I figured out that the tw-passage tag was the one responsible for the text, so I edited that in the stylesheet.

Before this class, I didn't even realize that was something I could do, but i see it being very useful in the future for projects and just for independent learning of HTML and CSS. Working in a group really helped me to overcome my apprehension with showing others my work since I didn't really have a choice when the work I do can have an affect on other people's grades. I asked my group members a lot for their input on decisions I was making for our project, which helped me to become more comfortable with asking others for advice. They had a lot of good input, which also made it easier because I genuinely wanted to hear what they had to say.

Overall, the biggest thing I've learned from this class is to swallow my pride and ask other people to look at my work, and to see their criticism as helpful and a way of guiding me towards success, and not a way of telling me that they don't like what I've done. The reality is that no piece of work is going to be completely perfect. Everything has room for improvement and when people advise you on how to make those improvements, be grateful. The workshops really helped me to come to this realization, and I definitely see myself utilizing this technique for future projects. Another big thing is saving your work. Before this class, I never used any type of version control software like git. I am too trusting of a person, and so I never really expect anything bad to happen. In the collaborative unit, I had a scary experience where I thought I lost all of my work on our Twine project. Luckily Ben was there to show me how to recover it, but that really scared me into committing more frequently. I learned that frequently saving and pushing new versions of your work can only help. It may seem like a hassle, but it's definitely worth the little bit of extra work it takes. My problem with GitHub was always creating meaningful commit messages because I never knew what to write or saw a point in it. I never had to go back to older versions of my work, so I didn't really think it mattered. When we went through our version histories, though, I realized that if I ever did need to revert back to old versions of my work, it would have been very difficult to figure out how to get there because of my very few commits and practically meaningless commit messages. To be fair, I did get a lot better at pushing more frequently and writing explanations for what changes I made as I became more comfortable with using GitHub. As a Computer Science major, this will definitely not be my last time using git and GitHub, so I'm really glad I was able to learn and be comfortable with using it in this class. Even if I didn't need to use it for my classes or career, I could definitely still see myself using version control in the future.

[fathimashabnam]

Having no prior digital media coursework, this class introduced me to so many tools that I will continue exploring for professional and personal projects. At the start of this semester, I was a novice with many of the software we used (except for my basic HTML knowledge), and now I feel like I have begun to scratch the surface to many possibilities. With each project, we explored the “affordances” of the different medium, and learned how to utilize them accordingly. With each project, I really challenged myself and was able to incorporate and portray different ideas in a cohesive way. I think the most important lesson I have gained from this class is the confidence in my ability to learn and pick up new skills. At first, I was hesitant at the number of unfamiliar programs we were set out to use this semester, but through the semester I picked up so many skills I didn’t think possible. I ended up spending much more time than I initially thought for each of the projects, but it seems worth it as I reflect on all the knowledge I have gained. I am more willing to try an unknown software/medium and play around with it now, instead of shy away from it due to a lack of knowledge.

Soundscape—composing with audio This project was something completely new and exciting to me. To convey a story and emotions using only sound was a challenge I looked forward to, and so when I set out to write the plot, I wanted to take the listener through a place that he/she may not have visited, but is familiar with. I chose Disneyland and made the clip from the point of view of a doll. I had a lot of uncertainty through it (especially as I was unsure if the listener would understand the ending), but the peer feedback alleviated those concerns. I was also amazed (although I really shouldn’t have been) at what I could find on the Internet! I enjoyed this project and learned a lot—sound and picture usage licensing, picking up new skills through tutorials, and being confident with having a big goal to start with.

Visual Argument The details of this project evolved organically so much since its conception. At the brainstorming session in class, I drew out six images each illustrating a different idea and with the help of Dr. Miller, I chose to depict the extinction crisis. I had been watching a lot of documentaries around this time, and I am passionate about this topic, so it felt like this was the perfect platform to create powerful imagery.

By "organically evolved", I mean that I ended up adding so much more than I had initially planned. With the soundscape and website, I had a final image in my mind that I worked towards. I definitely changed parts as I worked through those too, but with this, my final image at the beginning did not have a strong foundation, so I found myself adding a lot as I worked on it. My sketch (that I unfortunately somehow threw before I took a picture of) had the heartbeat pattern and animals on it to depict endangered and extinct animals, but the plan was to have a very simplistic solid color background and some text as a heading. However, as I started googling pictures, I realized real-life images of animals would be comedic if I have them floating on a solid background. Plus, I realized the difficulty in including different animals as they live in different habitats. To partially solve this problem, I included water and land and used the heartbeat to separate the two (idea partly inspired by the finding Nemo poster I reviewed for the “visual arguments are everywhere” issue queue). This addition of background was only the first deviation from plan. Since then, I changed which animals I chose to feature, word choice, color and so much more (that I included in my project reflection). With this project, I trusted the creative process and was ready to make some big unplanned changes. At first, I thought I had not majorly challenged myself with this project (especially after the soundscape), but I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong.

Website Portfolio This project was challenging for a couple of reasons. I had little HTML knowledge starting out, but I thought it would be enough to build on for a website that gives advice to Engineering students based on my experience. This is something I have been wanting to do for a while, and as a senior Engineering student and a T.A., I felt like I may have some pearls of wisdom that may be useful.

My first big challenge was the main image in the index.html. I really wanted to make it interactive, but I did not know Javascript and it seemed to be a complicated challenge. I simplified it, and decided I was going to make them linked images… and it worked! I have a lot of ideas for this website, and while I was able to attain most of them for this assignment, this project is definitely not yet complete for me. I have additional pages I want to add and changes I want to make to make the website more accessible and easy to read/use. Since the last version, I made some edits including making rereading and editing the English, added page under construction for the Clubs and Organizations page (since I haven’t yet been able to complete this), adding a sources link to the main page, and changing some quotes and content I had.

Example of changes:

Link to Repo: https://github.com/fathimashabnam/website-portfolio-2019fall

Collaborative Unit With this, I learned that sometimes life happens, and things don’t go as planned. Unfortunately, due to me recovering from surgery, I was not able to attend class and collaborate for this as much as I wanted to. At first, I thought I would lead the team, and ensure we would stay on track. I had also taken the responsibility to code the project on twine with Emma. However, from the second studio class onward, I was absent and thus couldn't contribute as much. While I tried to be present through google docs and messages, it ended up being difficult to fluently communicate without being present in person. I was still able to make changes, and give suggestions for the project, but the majority of progress was done in class studio time and before thanksgiving break. I was involved in the storyboarding aspect at the beginning (limited communication) and then towards the end, I added images, changed the time lapse of the twine parts and added some links for transitions.

Link to Repo: https://github.com/emmaknaub/Searching-for-Sanctuary

Through this class, I have gained an appreciation of the learning process- the challenges of trying a new thing and the satisfaction of seeing a final project is unparalleled. I have also experienced being successful by following a well-detailed plan, as well as not having a well-detailed initial plan and it working out, and finally not having a project go according to plan. I relied a lot on my teammates (including for peer feedback) and I think this is typical of life.

Something I am working on improving is committing detailed messages on Github, and remembering to push when I make changes. Overall, I believe the class was well-planned and I enjoyed the freedom we had to choose our projects. I will definitely be exploring these tools (along with other tools I come across with this newfound "I can learn anything" attitude) to create more "stuff" for classes or as a hobby (Foley is an example of something I really want to try).

[serkeight]

the link to my final refection is here!