My favorite website is Popjustice.com. It is a website for news, music, and culture all surrounding the UK music scene. I primarily visit this site for new music recommendations and reviews. The layout features a pink header at the top which bears the logo for the site. The main feature of the site is their weekly "New Music Friday" article which is positioned as the largest image and blog post. These "New Music Friday" articles most likely get the most hits because they contain a short review of all of the British pop songs that have come out over the course of that week and gives them a short review. Above the feature article and just below the logo, there is a menu bar that shows all of the different types of articles included on the site, The Briefing, News, Music, Vids, Interviews etc, and Forum. This website serves many purposes besides news, but only really hardcore music fans will want to participate in the forum. The articles begin on the left side of the site with a substantial border and continue toward the middle. There is always a right hand side bar on every page of the website reminding visitors of their list of the best albums of the year and other options like a mailing list. The contrast on this website is primarily achieved by the black text on a white background, but the site also includes elements of pink for further visual interest. Some of the text in the headlines and paragraph headers appears in pink for further emphasis. The site is aligned along the space used for the major article space, with every other link seemingly optional. Popjustice does a good job of grouping the interests of readers together. Similar songs and articles of interest appear along the sidebar to entice readers to visit different pages on the site. The padding and the margin of the site make it more easily readable. Overall, I think this website is well presented in terms of formatting. It presents its information in a concise manner and maintains enough white space so that it is not overwhelming.
Category: projects
Audio Reflection (auf Deutsch! :D Actually in English)
This project was less of a doozey than the last. I managed the baseline criteria: make the audio of appropriate length; use three audio tracks; adjusted the bass and treble mix of the audio tracks and went splice-happy. No licenses were used, since I generated all the audio. I used a script of two original texts: a poem from high school, and a reflection paper for my German drama class. Those (along with a ‘translation’ of both pieces to be used for the audio revision) are my source texts which I manipulated for this audio project. I recorded some strumming and chord progressions modelled around “I’d Like to Walk Around in Your Mind Someday” by Vashti Bunyan. (I justify here fair use because firstly, the song is used in an educational context; and secondly, the song was not copied in its exact original form without modification.) Altogether, I think the project well-met the baseline criteria, as I have just outlined. I will later approach aspirational criteria.
Writer Designer Reflection
The Notorious Entertainment website emphasizes the name of the company front and center as well as the logo in the top left corner. The organization of the home page involves a scroll downwards, which is ushered by the downward facing arrow. As you scroll, it is revealed what the entertainment company offers as its main 4 features: DJ, Lighting, Entertainment, and Company. These features are not just listed, but appear one after another through a smooth transition, over a darkened picture representing that aspect of the company. The picture gives a shadow-like feel indicating a sense of depth and curiosity to learn more about these key features. The order in which the features are listed (in order above), is pretty accurate in terms of what is usually in highest demand and what is most popular for Notorious to offer. Contrast is offered through the use of white, Sans Sarif, crisp text on a solid black base background. This really emphasizes the bright text and vibrant images beneath the titled features. The feeling that is evoked is a sense of modern, edgy, forward-thinking vibe that would be wanted for an entertainment company. In terms of alignment, there is the scroll down on the first page of the key features as well as the menu bar which includes Home, Music, Live, Media, About and Booking pages. When the window is made more narrow, the menu bar disappears on the page and one must click a drop down menu in the top right corner to access the other pages. Because the page contains a lot of black blank negative space, the little text that appears on the home page is inviting enough to allow users to easily read and navigate the webpage. In other words, there is not a lot of clutter on the home page, which makes it easier for viewers to find their way around the website without being overwhelmed or confused.
Webslinger – Reflection
I chose to review one of the most commonly visited websites from my computer; ESPN. Going behind the scenes of the code, I quickly realized how organized this HTML/CSS can really be. We discussed in class this idea of adding code as you go that will override the most recent command, and this code looks like all of these revisions were made ahead of time, due to the lack of redundancy across commands. They also made use of a color coordination system that made navigation must more fluid, and allowed me to recognize some of the commands we covered in class on Tuesday. Overall though, reviewing this code terrified me. The simplicity of the website layout made me feel like the coding would be totally approachable, and I found it to be the exact opposite. Even with a simple layout design, the large number of Links that ESPN relies on made the code three times as long as I anticipate. At least now when I begin to do my own website design I will have some sense of the workload going into it.
Audio – Project 2 Reflection
This was one of the more difficult projects I have been presented with thus far in my compositional career. As an architectural studies student, I am combated with obstacles within the physical realm every day. With that, I must develop new ideas and approaches in order to make that problem unidentifiable to the masses. This idea is very similar when considering audible composition. The problems are very clear to most, but very few people possess the skills to present refined versions of those problems as successes.
Audio Unit Relfection
For this project, I chose to read a poem that I’ve recently written titled “Consuming Agriculture.” The three audio tracks that I used are the spoken track, a track of white noise, and the experimental music I found on the Free Music Archives website (http://freemusicarchive.org/genre/piano/?sort=track_date_published&d=1&page=9). The name of the artist I used is Dora’li, and the song is titled “1” on the album Unreleased Tracks. The song is in the public domain, presumably with a CC0 license, as the bottom of the page says, “The Free Music Archive offers free downloads under Creative Commons and other licenses.”
Bresland, Bresland, Glass Reflection
That was creepy.
intro to audio reflection
Future Ex Buys Pajamas was an interesting enough short story. I didn't know, at first, what to expect from Bresland, as I've never encountered his work before. His trip, however morbid it begins, does not seem like it will be bad. He just seems very American.
Audio Intro – Reflection
The one thing that I found to be very apparent in translation between the two media was the obvious loss of meaning between certain aspects in each, respectively. From the text to the audio, there was an entire atmosphere created for the piece. I imagined a black and white effect over the world and imagined that the visit was taking place some odd decades in the past. A certain eeriness took control of the tone and what I originally considered to be a mildly romantic piece became creepy, comparative to a Shia Laboeuf - Disturbia. The final video described the making of a successful suspense scene, and numerous of those characteristics became more apparent when I listened to the audio piece again. Even just listening to the audio version had my attention, fully invested from the start to end. The text piece I merely scanned over in a quick 5 minute read. Audio adds a dimension of experience that is hard to compete with when black font on a white background is the opposition. A level of involvement is introduced, and with that comes attentiveness.
process reflection
I really enjoyed the visual project, even though I found it frustrating at times when my ideas weren't working out the way I thought they would. But ultimately, I'm happy that I ended up making an event poster because I think it was a good way to practice design elements, and I can see myself having to make one again in the future.
Project One: Reflection
I found this project to be significantly more difficult than I anticipated. Though I feel that I fully fulfilled the requirements for the project, I certainly could have done more in terms of overall exploration of the software. I manipulated elements of the piece that I possessed general comprehension of, and missed out on a few opportunities to compose a more collectively dynamic piece.
Reflection on Guiding Attention with Visuals
This paragraph is an excerpt from my prose reflection:
Project 1 Reflection
I decided to turn in my project when I realized that it fit the baseline criteria. My only goal for this project was to become more familiar with GIMP, and I think I've succeeded in that regard. I feel more confident in manipulating images and quickly accessing the tools to change things.
