Description: Choose an artifact/idea and represent it using Flash. Write a 1-2 page paper describing the representation and how the medium influences the representation compared to more static designs you have worked on.
Goal: To understand how the medium influences the message.
Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to understand how one might represent an artifact in within a medium that offers movement over time.
Audience and Context: Your instructor and peers at Michigan Tech in your Graphic and Information Design course.
Due Date: End of week 14-Friday at 11:59pm
12/08/2008 at 5:53 pm
Here is my project…
http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~igmaino/gi_flash/flash.html
So, I have chosen to develop an interface for displaying some images I have created using Flash. Now, I could have created a pdf with the images and a viewer could open that pdf and scroll up and down to view the images. Also, I could have created a gallery using HTML. Then the viewer would have a few more options. They would be able to use buttons to navigate around, or even a similar set up thumbnails to what I have created using flash.
In this case using flash to develop the interface does not allow any additional interactivity above and beyond other choices. What it does allow is for the animation of certain aspects of the presentation. I feel it is these animations that make this presentation stand out from your typical photo gallery.
Now if you view the project you will see a table of thumbnails. As you roll over the thumbnails they are highlighted to let you know that you have selected something. It’s just some feedback to let you know that things are working. When you click on a thumbnail you will see the thumbnails reposition and resize themselves, the logo changes, and you hear a camera shutter. Once the thumbnails are repositioned a polaroid will appear on the screen and the photograph you selected will “develop” in front of you. After the image “develops” you will hear the sound of writing and the caption will appear on the bottom of the polaroid. There is also a reset button that basically reverses the animation.
Why is this better? Well it provides an active viewing experience. A typical photo gallery changes images quite abruptly. You are left to regroup and then start exploring the new image. Maybe there’s a caption… maybe there isn’t. You are on your own to discover where it is.
With the interface that I’ve created I feel that the process of watching the image develop draws the viewer in, it makes you more interested and helps you start exploring the image. Also, when you hear the sound of writing you know that something else is happening and the movement created by the appearance of the writing, again, draws you to the caption. I’m not leaving you to explore the images on your own. I’ve tried to engineer a very specific pathway for the viewer to follow both through space and time (starting to sound very star trekky… I apologize).
What I’m getting at is the fact that the viewer doesn’t have to work as hard. They are provided with more guidance and therefore are less likely to miss something, and more likely to experience the images as the creator intended.
I think it turned out pretty well. I did have a few little problems. The biggest one was that I could not get the caption text to display using the proper font. It worked earlier when I couldn’t get the photos to display, but after I fixed the photo glitch the font switched on me. I have no idea why. It was supposed to have more of a handwritten look.
12/09/2008 at 11:38 pm
My project
http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~jrcrowe/plane%20fly%20by%20boom%20better.swf
For my project, I tried to develop a creative logo that also attracts a viewer’s attention. I decided that I would start with a fairly simple Flash animation because I had never used the program before. I started by developing different layers and learning the basics of the tweening process. I did not try to enhance my logo with buttons because I was having enough difficulty with the tweening aspects of the project.
While developing the animation, I decided that the best way to give a logo animation was to give the logo a movie storyline. I realized that the logo would be in a looping sequence, so I had to find a way to wrap the end of the movie with the beginning of the movie. After my first revision, I did not include the explosion/bomb. The major problem with this sequence was that the logo would abruptly end and start over. There was no flow. After adding the bomb and explosion, I gave the sequence a clean start.
I found that an animated logo can be a real attention grabber on a web-page. My logo would fit in with all of the advertisements seen in the columns. If my logo clicked to a website, it would be identical to most internet ads. That’s the major benefit of an animated design. The use of a particular design depends entirely on the medium. If a medium cannot support a movie, a movie is definitely a bad choice of design. Static designs are great for static mediums, like documents and posters, but when a medium offers more options, it’s best to exploit them. That’s why the internet has become a Flash breeding ground. The internet is an interactive interface that includes sounds, images, and interactivity. Flash includes all three of these interfaces. My logo was a decent start to creating an interactive logo, although it is not currently very interactive.
I would like to further design this project, but I’m fine with not tackling another aspect of Flash yet. Some further improvements I would like to make would include clickability of the logo, a better shadow effect, and more impressive animations. My ideal design was to have the opening sequence of the movie (before the bomb drops) and have the animation stop there until the user clicks the logo. After the click, I would like the second half of the animation to occur. Finally, I would want the logo to go to a website after the animations were finished.
I would also like to refine the shadow effect and animations. I’m sure Flash has much better animations than the simple “PowerPoint” ones I used. I would like to look into motion blurs and gradient changes for the design.
I was a little bit surprised how friendly the program was with Illustrator files compared to InDesign. I expected Flash to be a pain when using Illustrator files, but the imports and placements were easy. I guessing this is because Flash is a web-based program similar to Illustrator.
Overall, the project was a good introduction to the craziness of Flash. I learned how to develop a logo that changed over time, thus expanding my software knowledge and extending my designs into a different medium.
12/11/2008 at 1:30 pm
http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~mafarrey/hu2645/1flag.swf
For this project, I decided to take the flag that I designed originally in Photoshop, then totally revamped it in Illustrator, but wanted to use it with Flash to show how the different medium puts a whole new spin on my design.
At first when I was working with Flash, my idea was to having a waving flag. I did that at first and it seemed very boring.
There was no emphasis on any part of the flag which was what I was looking for. After many tutorials and many changes, I came up with this design by accident. I did a tutorial regarding picture animation from http://www.smashingmagazine.com . By adding lines with a brush tool, I found this tutorial very easy to work with. When I first did this, I loved it, but realized that the brush tool followed the lines very distinctly and I could follow the lines fairly easily to see what I did. That is when I decided to use the brush tool to spell out “Farrey News” on the flag.
It worked.
I wanted to do this to emphasize the words because I plan to put this design on the ‘news’ page of my website so family members can click on it and find out the latest happenings in our family. It is written freehand with the brush tool which represents a casual design because that is what it is intended for. My website is used basically with my circle of family and friends to keep them updated on happenings within my family, which is a casual setting. I believe that using this design in this medium makes a strong representation of the casual atmosphere I am trying to portray.
In comparing this to other mediums that I have used this design in, obviously, it shows movement. The use of lines and shape with the brush tool bring the emphasis to the words a little more than the flag overall, yet the overall design brings a unified finish to my design because the logo from the beginning is a representation of my family.
I tried to offer a sense of balance in the design by keeping the words spelled out across the waves of the flag instead of using them in a straight line. This shows the representation of balance because if the words were in a straight line, it didn’t flow as nicely to balance out the wave of the design. It also portrays a sense of rhythm in the movement across the flag’s path before the actual flag is introduced.
Regarding color, I played with this for awhile. I wanted to set the background as a light blue, but the words blended in with the background which made it difficult to read. The black background offered the best contrast to put the emphasis on words more so than any other color.
Overall, I am very pleased with how far I have come from using all of the design concepts in different mediums this semester. I feel that this design has brought unity to incorporate my design into a new medium with Flash.
12/11/2008 at 5:27 pm
http://emergentfuture.com/misc_stuff/fushimiinari.html
When I set out to do this project, I had a very simple concept that I wanted to work with: I wanted to showcase my most favorite place in the world. That place happens to be Fushimi Inari-taisha – the Grand Shrine of Inari, located in Fushimi, a ward of Kyoto, Japan. I visited this shrine twice during my year in Japan and the second time I had visited, I brought a new digital camera with me, hoping to capture images that would help bring myself back to the time I spent within it.
For this project, I needed to do several things. I needed to use the images to show the Shrine, and I also needed to build the proper emotional response. Thus, along with the images, I made use of music. The song featured within the video was composed by the talented Todd Masten, who created the soundtrack for the online game, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. The song itself, while not just capturing an oriental feel, is also rather powerful as well. I believe that the feelings of wonderment, tranquility, and a certain awe and thrill of exploration is well conveyed by it. Combined with the images, I believe that this creates the feel that I wished to convey.
In a sense, the audience for this piece is myself. I want to keep the memory of this place within my mind. Yet, at the same time, it also serves to convey the shrine to other people who may be interested in it, or my time spent in Japan. For that, I believe the project works quite wonderfully. I have already shown this to several people who were interested in my trip to Japan, who have expressed that they greatly enjoyed this presentation and that it enhanced their understanding of my trip.
Of course, there is the question of how this represents movement through time. In all reality there is very little movement that happens in this presentation. It is a series of still images that fade in and out, with music playing. Yet, I still feel that this shows the principle well, all the same. Instead of literal movement, I am showing change. The image never remains the same, but continues to change as the pictures fade out, then in with another location as I continued to progress up the mountain. Of course, just to take advantage of the literal meaning of ‘movement’, I did add a motion tween in the beginning of this presentation, where the Kanji for the shrine scrolls along the side.
There is no real interaction in this project, but I did provide a button to click on to begin the presentation. Given that it comes with sound, I wanted to ensure it wouldn’t begin loudly playing when someone opened the page.
I also included a loading screen. I wanted to create a more interesting one that showed a constantly increasing percentage, but the changes in Flash 10 have made that challenging and beyond my current skill level. Instead, I noticed how Flash handled frame buffering – it will play one frame, stop on the second frame, then load the rest of the project. Thus, on the second frame I provided a small moving clip with an animated text version of ‘Loading…’ on it. This way, you do not see the actual project begin until you have loaded the entire thing. This way, the flow is not interrupted when someone has a slower connection. Given the size of the file, this was also necessary over all as well.
I believe that this project does exactly what I want it to do and I am very pleased with it. I believe it, at least begins to, capture the fel of the shrine and conveys it to the viewer.
12/11/2008 at 7:27 pm
http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~skkoehle/Beltz_photo_albumGOOD.swf
Here is my movement through time project. I’ll write my essay in another comment.
12/11/2008 at 9:48 pm
My movement was basic with little animation. I created a platform for a photo gallery. I turned a photo thumbnail into a movie clip to make it grow bigger. The platform was designed to be clean and not distracting. I also didn’t want to created a lot of tricky movement in case someone is using a slow connection. My project was designed for easy navigation.
The purpose of making the photo grow bigger was to give attention to it. When someone want to look at a group of photos in a computer file, they want to see it in a reasonable size and resolution. The image will stay that size until you click it again and it will go back to the thumbnail size.
This is only a fraction of my portfolio so it doesn’t show everything I created in Flash. I also had to start half of my project over due to the Server crashing. I am very pleased with the work I have created in flash and how I am creating room and ease for updating this project in the future.
12/12/2008 at 10:45 am
http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~steander/Stephen_Kelsey.swf
Most of my work this semester has been more career oriented, but I could not think of anything that I could feasibly do that would further my career pursuits through the Flash program yet.
As a result, I took a little bit different approach: I created a brief Flash file that could serve as a digital save-the-date for my fiancé and I as we prepare for our wedding next August 15. I would like to tweak it a little bit more, but for my first-ever Flash project, I am quite pleased.
I always used to look at Flash projects in amazement, thinking it was much harder than it was to make something animated (don’t get me wrong; it was still plenty hard). I think my example of movement over time is pretty impressive. It is certainly unique compared to anything similar that I would make in a static program, which, until this assignment, is all I have ever used.
In terms of using something digital for a save-the-date, I don’t entirely know how useful it could be, in that the entire point of one is that it can serve as a constant concrete reminder about the date. A Flash project is something that almost demands a beginning and an end and is not great for long-term needs. However, it will grab someone’s attention. I used several animations syncing together to make the final product, and I think the movement certainly invites the eye into it. I tried to not make it too busy. I wanted to do something with the background, but since there is so much movement going on, I figured a white background would be perfectly appropriate in that the information itself is featured and there are no further distractions.
I designed it by creating each object as a separate layer and having them all use motion tweens that ended at the same keyframe. Synchronizing the timing was no sweat in that respect, but I used several different speeds to keep it more interesting. For example, the names start to scroll through first and then the “&” sign comes flying in quickly followed quickly by the wedding date. Lastly, I had the “Save It” line come in last, presumably after the rest of the info had been read. This makes the purpose easily apparent and does not flood the reader with the content all at the exact same time.
I struggled for a while to find a smooth transition at the end of the animation into the beginning again, so I brought in the theatre curtains. It might be a little cheesy, and I’ll try to think of something different, maybe a little more wedding related, but I am pleased with the smooth transition with the curtain now.
I faced a lot of frustration getting over the hump with the program, but now that I have gotten over the hump, I think I will use Flash often in the future. Its functionality is truly unique and all in all, it was a great experience for me. I am excited to see others’ feedback on it.
12/12/2008 at 11:02 am
http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~tmsotiri/done.swf
I have been trying to work on different representations that I could use for my portfolio. Using flash to represent some part of my portfolio was difficult for me to think of at first. I want to use, as my main theme, pictures of places that I have been for study abroad. Because the graphic representation that I originally created for myself was a snowflake I used a picture that incorporated snow as well. This picture is from Valle Nevado, Chile. The snowflake is the one I used for my animated logo as well and I liked the way that it looked.
The medium of flash and the use of movement in the design allows you to use design features that are not a permanent part of the design. I can flash the mountain scene in the background and then introduce the text later rather than in a static design where the text and graphic are seen as one element. Also the movement of the snowflake is more illustrative than just the image.
I think that if I had more time to spend on the flash project then it would be better. One thing I considered doing was incorperateing buttons. Perhaps the snowflake could be a button. Overall, flash is a difficult program to work with but if it is used properly there are some definite benefits to it. I think that knowing the basic features and abilities of flash will help if I have to use it in later projects. My animation used color changes, size changes, tweening, guided motion, and text and graphics. There are many other projects that I can complete with these basic tools.
12/12/2008 at 11:10 am
http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~dmbodrie/silence/silence.swf
For my last project I worked on a poster advertising an advent for Keweenaw Pride. In keeping with that same basic theme I decided to do my Flash project on another GLBT even that Keweenaw Pride hosts every year, The National Day of Silence. Unlike my last project though which had more of a fun attitude behind it, I had to make sure and keep the tone of my project serious. The Day itself is a time to reflect and consider on the past, the hard times that people of GLBT status have had to go through in order to achieve what we have today. It is also a time to think ahead on how much is left to be done before the GLBT community is viewed as ‘normal’, in comparison to everyone else.
By using Flash I was able to convey more information and set a certain tone that would not have been possible on a static design. With page size no longer a consideration I was free to allow the words to morph into one another, taking as long as needed to let one part of the message get across and then move onto the next.
The element of motion also allowed me to share the story of not one but three people who had been victims of GLBT violence in the recent past, including one just down state in Detroit. By using a plain black background, and then the color red for all text, I hoped to impart to the viewer in just a few words that things not all has been fixed, people are still in danger, and until it is as just as safe to have one’s first boyfriend or girlfriend as it is to announce that you are gay, that violence towards this group of people will still continue.
One thing, that given more time after having worked out the basics of flash I would like to do is to incorporate some sort of music into the background. Since sounds can effects one’s emotions just as much as images, adding a soft, slightly melancholy piece would do that much more in transferring the ethos from the program to the viewer.
To the casual viewer of the world, many think that the hard times of the GLBT community are in the past, and that the need for such things as The National Day of Silence is gone. It was my hope to show that while the hope for such things is high, we have not yet reached that point.
12/12/2008 at 11:36 am
http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~caaschau/giflash/
This is a small section of the project that I hope to do in the future with flash. I wanted to start off by learning flash and seeing what I could do with it so this is what I have done so far.
I wanted to make this project so that when you scrolled over different parts of the original logo that you could see how I had edited them to make them in to a different project, like what I did to emphasize a logo, or how I made the logo have a line that you would follow. What I have so far is the different logos that are available that I worked with.
I had never worked with Flash before so this was a very hard assignment for me to complete and I am amazed that I could get even as much as I did. If I had more time then I would label each of the circles to indicate what they represent so you could see what symbol would be displayed before you rolled over the button with your mouse.
Using Flash as the only medium to display a portfolio is really hard to do especially when working with print documents that I have quite a few of. If I had more time to learn flash then I believe that this project would turn out really well as a final medium for my portfolio.
I hope that the basic tools that I have learned from this project will help me to get further in to Flash and better understand how I am able to change projects that I am working on.
12/12/2008 at 12:31 pm
http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~gtholmst/flashport.html
Flash was a scary thing to me a few weeks ago. Its a strange program that I haven’t bothered to touch since the realms of high school. There was a certain fear in my heart whenever I explored the befuddling program and its capabilities. In the past few weeks, these fears have settled and I’ve become more comfortable with the program, better suited, and able to spread my creative wings. Sorta. Perhaps I exaggerate.
For this Flash project I associated my portfolio to mix animation and information about my skills in college. It started with my Palm Pilot, a device I couldn’t have done without in my past three years of college. I use the Palm to write everything from college assignments to creative writing projects. It only made sense to associate the interface of the Flash design around the Palm Pilot screen and buttons. It starts off with the regular sized Palm and when clicked a tween effect makes a gray square expand to transition to a larger version of the Palm that acts as a stage to the content. I was hoping that this would bring in the effect that the audience using the site would feel as if they were exploring a Palm Pilot, with the text changing color when scrolled over. The flaw with this particular incarnation of the design is that I was unable to find any large pictures of my kind of Palm Pilot and therefore, when expanded the picture framing the content became pixilated.
One of the main aspects of this design is how the viewer is drawn in by the piece by use of perspective, they are drawn forward into the Palm, and are compelled to look around. A Palm Pilot in real life is meant to have it buttons pressed and this design makes use of that expectation. I separated the layout into five different pages. The menu, which leads to four other pages. The Video Production pager which shows a video I made for Intro to Multimedia this semester (The video to this does not work at this time due to a simple linking issue which cannot be fixed at this time, but the video can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdu7ctA1C2k ). An audio page that shall potentially be able to play audio clips what I have produced in the past years. A Technical Writing page where I shall be able to place examples of my writing in a PDF forms. Also I shall have a Graphic Design page which made display the designs that I have made earlier in this course. No matter which page that is went to, a person going through the site can always access any page by use of the lower buttons that lead to each of the five pages including the main menu page. When using the Palm it also gives a sense of my organization and my connect with using technical devices to work on projects and keep ideas together in one place. All the projects that I do come in contact with the Palm at one point or another and it was nice to use it in a portfolio format.
I like this design so far, but I think it can be tweaked for the future. For instance, I might consider reproducing a graphic of the Palm in Illustrator so that it looks stylized and still uses the same interface. Also that would make the size of the Flash more open to interpetation.
12/12/2008 at 3:00 pm
http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~mydube/folder/Portproject.swf
Creating this moving graphic representation was a major project for me. Inexperience with the software presented many obstacles. However, from the beginning of this class, one goal that I set for myself was to represent my son graphically by utilizing 2008 season video highlights that I filmed myself. After countless hours, with stubborn persistence and the assistance of several caring classmates and a devoted instructor, I accomplished the goal that I had set for myself. Though the outcome was not what I had originally imagined, I am pleased with the results of my moving graphic representation. The project represents my son effectively and accomplishes more than what I had originally aspired.
The artifact is a flash representation linked to video footage of my son, an accomplished football player. The intent of the graphic representation is to represent my son via emails to coaches of college football teams. The four sided shape represents a solid figure like the offensive lineman that my son is. The colors, which are negotiable, represent the current colors of my son’s high school team. These colors are eye catching and significant because they represent the team colors that my son wears in the video footage. These colors could be altered to match the team colors of the prospective college. Altering the colors to that of the prospective college team could perhaps further entice coaches to favorably consider my son as future team player. The football, obviously, indicates the game that my son excels in. James Dube, my son’s name, dominates a good portion of the flash project and is represented by solid, bold, easily recognizable dark blue letters. The name is accented by recent accomplishments that my son has achieved. After a brief pause to reflect on James’ accomplishments, the flash project is followed by actual footage of this past season’s game highlights.
The web medium presents this graphic design most efficiently. Though the static design represents the coming together of player, game, and natural talent, the animated representation effectively shows that the three elements come together to produce the awarded accomplishments, as well as the concrete visual proof of ability shown in the videos. The visual aspect of the project is of utmost importance because interested coaches request highlights of the most recent season. Providing a web link to actual game footage is the most efficient, economical, and practical way to provide coaches with the medium that they need to determine a player’s value to their team. The video footage allows the coaches to evaluate a player’s talents. This medium is easily accessible and sharable. Coaches do not have to pass along a DVD or gather peers together to view the game highlights. All a coach has to do is pick up his cell phone, call his colleagues, and provide the url location to get an almost immediate opinion of the recruit’s abilities. It cannot get much more convenient than that. The logo representation of James further implants the memory of his abilities in the coaches heads. We live in a visual society and visual representation carries much weight in determining human viewpoint. By providing easily accessible, essential information in the visually stimulating and thought provoking manner of graphically represented web linked videos, James Dube gains an edge over other players who just send in a DVD of video footage.
12/12/2008 at 4:10 pm
http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~edherren/A%20Whole%20New%20World.html .
I’m really excited about what I have created. I decided to continue working on my logo for Global City and originally wanted to create a spinning world, but one thing led to another and bam!
It’s not anywhere near perfect and I’m not sure whether the group will even like it, but it’s a beginning. Just like the previous logos I designed for Global City, I am trying to convey what the group stands for and why we believe what we do.
I believe I have captured the image of Global City even more by creating an animated story. The colors are simple, but I believe they are really effective, with the land represented something lush, the red words representing the earth “bleeding” from what have been consequences from human decisions, the yellow words showing that “good” things are happening, but there is so much more to accomplish. The shaking world is meant to show that everything we do has a consequence. The white circles with “concepts” are meant to emphasize the fact that we only have one world and we can’t just buy a new one.
The static designs of the previous logo were effective, but the movement of this logo captures the viewer’s eye and they are almost forced to keep looking. I didn’t spend as much time creating the background image of the world since it was going to be filled with other colors and objects, but I think the message is clear.
I’ve learned a lot from this project, although I’ll have to put more time into creating something more sophisticated looking if we actually use this idea to convey what Global City is all about. It’s likely that the group will accept my design, so I’ll need to create a 3-D version of the world background and figure out what to use to portray the world “bleeding” instead of little dots everywhere.
12/12/2008 at 4:23 pm
Calvin Larson
http://www.geocities.com/calvinl11/final.swf
I used the logo I created with Illustrator to create my flash representation. I created my flash so that the basketball would bounce. I also wanted to incorporate my name into the animation so I added the CAL text from the logo.
What I like about my animation is the zoom feature of the basketball and the zooming in and out of the text. I think the logo is better represented with the movement of the ball than a still image of the logo. I tried rotating the ball as it bounced like a real ball would but I couldn’t figure it out. I’m sure it probably can be done but my experience with flash isn’t that great. When you think of a sport like basketball, there is plenty of movement involved. There are tutorials online that make the ball look 3 dimensional. I couldn’t make the ball look 3d. I think this would’ve added to the animation but if the ball won’t spin the animation wouldn’t be as effective. I used the white border so that the ball had walls to bounce off of. I opened the animation with the basketball bouncing and concluded the animation with CAL. This leaves the audience with the image of my name in their head. There are a lot of people that know me first from basketball and then know who I am as a person. I think this animation is a good representative of me.
This animation seems pretty elementary and not too professional. An audience could be for a personal website. I am pretty happy with my final product. I feel that I don’t know enough about Flash to do things at the professional level. I’m learning Flash in another class which is helping. The program is so powerful and there are so many resources I don’t know how to use. My final project is simple and clean. A lot of times you see animations going overboard but I like my simplicity.
12/12/2008 at 4:54 pm
http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~arzimmer/FinalStarShowdown.swf
For this assignment, I focused on making my logo move and dance in a patterned sequence, something I’ve been trying to do with poetry and simple drawings. With words, I can usually imitate motion and movement, as I can with drawing, even if my drawing skills are sub par at best.
Flash allows me to put the simple concept of motion into action, such as with my jumping, dancing, spinning crazy things. This has freed me from trying to select individual words on their own merits, flows, alternative meanings, and letter pattern, and focus on how my project looks, as opposed to how it feels and sounds.
As opposed to poetry, motion is easier to portray, but I feel it is less elegant than the written word, or not as persuasive as using explicit, concise, emotional language. This medium shift caught me a bit off guard, even though I have worked on my own music videos using FMVs from video games, as Flash provides far more freedom than splicing together predefined scenes and sounds.
Flash has also proven itself to be vastly different than drawing, if not only in that I can actually design something beyond a stick figure, but I can grab objects and manipulate them without having to start from scratch repeatedly. This freed me from my usual art qualm of almost finishing a project, then noticing a small detail that prompts me to start over, even if no one else would notice it.
By using Flash for this project, I was able to project some of my more chaotic ideas without forcing the viewer to slog through text, Asperger induced language or alternative interpretations, instead focusing on the idea of semi-structured movement that ultimately does not make sense.
Although I still don’t like working in Flash, my feeling is that I have a better command of Flash, along with it’s idiosyncrasies, flaws, advantages and disadvantages.
12/12/2008 at 5:02 pm
http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~etrosenb/portpro.swf
And here’s my prototype/concept test for the portfolio in action. All in all, I think I like this even more than my portfolio, with a few exceptions.
For one, Flash is a surprisingly difficult tool to utilize. This has been made exceptionally clear in class, and I probably don’t have to make note of it, but it continually surprises me. This small portion alone took 20 layers, one for each line, piece of text, and image. I can see how these files get so ridiculously huge.
I used the same design as my portfolio, because that’s how I had envisioned the project. It has it’s print component, but I had always figured that the Flash would be the main facet of my portfolio. And after I’ve completed the proof of concept, I do feel that flash really helps to get the motion across better.
12/12/2008 at 5:45 pm
http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~ewthomas/Webpage.html
With this final design I made the medium is the essential part of a message. After looking at some examples and speaking to you in class initially I had thought about setting up a basic photo display board for a few of my photos that I have shown you. I scratched that after I put some more thought into what I wanted the four photos I selected to say.
With a simple photo board that allows the user to click on whatever photo they want to look at, I do not get to control exactly what the viewer is seeing. With the way I set it up, the content on the screen is dictated by me. That’s because I’m telling a story here centered around the idea “Step Through The Doorway.” This story starts with the viewer ideally coming upon the building of focus in these photographs. This first photo fades and the second photo appears with a different view of the building. This is where the doorway is noticed and comes into play. This is also the first time the piano may be noticed by the viewer. This photo fades and the third photo fades in. This time it is the doorway framing the piano which is clearly the center of attention. With the fade out and fade in of the last photo the viewer has now entered the building. They have stepped through my doorway to a view of the piano itself up close and personal. You can see all the detail, the broken keys, the grain in the wood and the debris on the floor. You are there and you’ve made that journey through my doorway. I left this series to repeat over and over so the viewer can sit and look at each photo more than once, hopefully catching more detail a second or third time through.
I do not have captions or text on this beyond the central theme for the main reason that I want the viewer to interpret what they are seeing for themselves. Giving titles or information blurbs would leave a lot less open for interpretation. Unfortunately I was a bit limited with the scanners in the CCLI so the quality of the photos isn’t what they are in print, but the overall message does stay the same. What it comes down to is that this is a journey or an exploration. I wanted the viewer to feel the way I felt when I first came upon this building and eventually circled around to where I saw that doorway. The feeling of excitement and knowing I had some good photos coming out of the experience are something I remember clearly and I wanted that to be showcased here. I think that comes across the best it can visually. I did not want the transitions to be slower because when I went to this place I was ecstatic, ran through everything and checked it out and then I went back and slowly observed what exactly was there. I want the viewer to do the same thing and slower transitions would take that effect away.
Overall I’m happy with the result. Flash was very difficult and importing the .swf file into a webpage was a success I was glad to have. It’s shown me how powerful of a tool this program really can be. Again, I am glad that I could use this program to tell my story. A simple photo album wouldn’t have done that, the transitions really take the user through my state of mind when I discovered this place. I’m still the only one that knows where it is.
12/12/2008 at 9:08 pm
Text and Animation:
http://x7chat.com/temp/Zompocalypse%20Promo.swf
http://x7chat.com/temp/zpan.docx
12/12/2008 at 10:04 pm
http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~kahautam/Flash%20Video/final%20flash%204.swf
For this project, I developed the design for my senior portfolio cover page as the beginnings of a digital version of my work.
I created a wave effect mask tween that reveals each of the textual components on my page—first, my name, and second, my major. After the animation stops, the text “click here” appears on the bar underneath my name when the audience mouses over the page. The button text changes in color, from blue to green, when clicked and opens a web page with my resume, which I published in my public_html folder for my web design class a few years ago. Please note: the background color of my resume, purple, wasn’t my best design decision back then. I tried changing it to a color that would unify my design better, such as blue or green, but I wasn’t able to set the permissions on the CSS document for some reason, so unfortunately it will have to wait until I can get an administrator to help me.
My Flash design provides several advantages over its InDesign counterpart. The Flash medium influences the message of my design in the following ways.
1. It’s more visually interesting and grabs the audience’s attention right away. Since my name is the first text the audience views, it receives precedence, which conveys my primary message: this is who I am and how I represent myself. The following tween reveals my major, which provides the basis for my professional identity: this is what I create. I had concerns about my name in the static designs at first because it seemed as though the text for my major challenged the text for my name as the starting point of the design. I wouldn’t have had that problem in Flash—it contrasts the two elements well and provides another sense of hierarchy by giving emphasis to my name, besides via proportion. In this way, the movement over time offers rhythm.
Also, the movement allows my professional identity (name and major) to emerge from its components (writing, editing and graphic design), which are represented by the strokes of blue and green, providing an analogy for my education—that my identity has been shaped by my education and experiences. After my name appears and the wave dissipates, it’s almost as if the top portion of my design solidifies and becomes tangible because when the next ripple rolls through for my major, it stops at the line beneath my name.
2. Inversely, the two ripples are intended to further create a sense of my professional identity through their movement—since my portfolio design isn’t stereotypically professional, because it’s very colorful and abstract, it creates the sense that I push the design boundaries by “creating waves” in the design genre and that I actively create and influence my identity through innovation in writing, editing and graphic design.
Also, the two ripples of movement represent the ebbs and flows of my professional identity, which is in constant flux and varied.
3. I was able to create a texture with Flash that I otherwise wouldn’t be able to do in a static design software program such as Photoshop or InDesign. The texture is created by the pixel movement in the wave animation. It gives my design depth, because the strokes of color look almost as if they’re liquid in composition—like someone poured three different colors of paint in one can. And paint is the actual physical medium that the Flash medium helped me to convey. I think it brings a quality of reality to my design and could help my audience comprehend my cover page before opening my portfolio—it’s difficult to give the impression that the cover page is supposed to be composed of paint strokes because, unlike the divider pages inside of my portfolio (see http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/7421/graphicdesignlettercopymq6.jpg), the colors don’t have the obvious quality of a paint stroke. Thus, movement ultimately unifies my design.
Overall, I was able to use Flash to strengthen the design principles and elements incorporated in my design through movement over time. Another benefit to having a digital portfolio that utilizes Flash is that the designer can demonstrate proficiency in this multimedia software program, which is almost like having an additional portfolio piece.
In the future, I think it might be more effective to replace the text “click here” with “enter” and transition to a page that offers the options of viewing my work in writing, editing and graphic design, as well as my resume. As it stands, however, I think it offers an interesting cover page for the digital version of my resume. And it was well worth the many hours of frustration.