Composing Digital Media was by far the most practical course in the Public and Professional certificate program, in terms of its future job application and uniqueness as compared to other courses. Considering digital media is such a popular and effective means to send a message to your audience, I appreciated being able to take this course and to discover different modes in a structured environment, while also moving at my own pace. Throughout the semester, I could explore various media that I had no or limited prior experience with. The organization of the class, class discussion, peer collaboration, and instructor feedback was extremely beneficial in my learning and growth.
The most important thing I learned throughout the course is the power of revision and that nothing is truly ever done. Adapting and reproducing work is a continuous process impacted by changes in audience, genre, medium, and purpose. The best advice I have received is to accept the unfinished state of work, that is, being content that things may continue to be a work in process even after you submit them to be seen or used.
I believe that I have been most successful throughout the course in taking this advice, and in being humble about my potential. Looking back at the visual unit, I was very caught up in making my work final, and making that work perfect. It caused me a considerable amount of stress not being able to find the components that made my work feel complete. Yet, that is the beauty of this kind of work; that it can be changed and adapted for your liking. The html+css markup unit was where I felt most challenged in the regard of this idea of things being incomplete because I was unsure how to do everything to start, and believe I only really struck the surface of the potential of this media. I believe time constraints held me back in this regard because there was a lot I wanted to learn in this unit and only so much time. My goal to master this element may have been unreasonable, but again believe that accepting that I could not do everything, as I stated before, was my biggest strength.
Tracing back again to the html+css markup unit, I was most surprised at how much I enjoyed this challenge and want to pursue it further. I was terrified of the prospect of what I thought of as coding, as witnessed in my unit reflection. It seems even more silly that I chose to pursue something even harder for the collaborative unit. However, my willingness to try and fail could also be listed as my greatest strength. To ease the burden, especially going into the webslinging unit, I would recommend providing a deeper introduction than the provided tutorial as a revision to the course. The lack of exposure to this type of digital media is sometimes overseen and although we are a very digitally focused culture, the behind the scenes is very new to most of us.
As I mentioned, I was surprised that I am interested in pursuing we design further, but this is where I foresee myself further developing my digital media skills. I have always wanted to have a blog platform, so there is potential there. Also, in my future job in marketing, I foresee myself integrating some of the elements of the class into my work. At the least, the perspective I have gained on viewing digital media will be greatly beneficial to me in many of my endeavors.
I did decide to pursue minor revisions of the visual, audio, and html+css markup unit projects. I believe these revisions address the comments that were made in my assessments, and also furthered my skills. Although none of them are grand, each served the purpose of making the works more digestible.
In my midterm reflection, I stated that I thought my piece would fare well to reproduction to the variable elements in the digital text on the scale. To demonstrate this, I added the text stunning to a second version of the piece. In both versions, I also followed Ben’s recommendation to ease the reading of the tagline by adding a layer mask which created a translucent gray background against the floor. There was also a lack of detailed attributions for the components of my work, so I included updated attributions below.
Updated Attributions:
DS Digital font from dafont.com by Dusit Supasawat (https://www.dafont.com/ds-digital.font) Legs image from Pixabay, no attribution required CC0 license
Scale from Pixabay by JJuni (https://pixabay.com/en/scale-weigh-in-mass-weight-scales-1133910/)
Flooring from Pixabay, no attribution required CC0 license
Sintony font from Google Fonts by Eduardo Rodriguez Tunni (https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Sintony)
Anton font from Google Fonts by Vernon Adams (https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Anton)
Relevant Links:
Link to GitHub Repository: https://github.com/gjpoillucci/CDM-Project-1
Link to one previous draft: https://github.com/gjpoillucci/CDM-Project-1/blob/master/Project 1 Draft 2.png
Link to previous final version: https://github.com/gjpoillucci/CDM-Project-1/blob/master/Project 1 FINAL.png
Link to previous artist statement: https://github.com/gjpoillucci/CDM-Project-1/commit/5337a2566d406f289b6018de038cf8ccf288f7eb
Link to new final versions: https://github.com/gjpoillucci/CDM-Project-1/commit/e7cfde2d3fb454fc3a9e6328159c1078eb7eaf66
I went back and forth during the visual unit with what background noise should accompany the reading of my blog post. At the midterm, it was kitchen noises. But, after speaking with Ben, the idea of a restaurant atmosphere seemed more fitting to address the “cheat meal”. So I replaced the kitchen noises with those of a diner, and also added spoken attributions at the end of my podcast to give credit properly. My final change was to create a smoother ending of the piece by using the end of the original tuba track rather than a snippet from the middle and fading out. This combined with the spoken credits created a nice closure and invited listeners to return to my fictional podcast. The original blog article, which I failed to include in my GitHub repository at the midterm, is also now available.
New Attributions:
N2fgc Various Sounds 1-Lively Lunch Hour at Nautilus Diner, Madison, NJ
Public Domain Dedication
Relevant Links:
Link to GitHub Repository: https://github.com/gjpoillucci/Ben
Link to one previous draft: https://github.com/gjpoillucci/Ben/blob/master/Audio Project with 4 tracks.mp3
Link to previous final version: https://github.com/gjpoillucci/Ben/blob/master/Final Audio.mp3
Link to previous artist statement: https://github.com/gjpoillucci/Ben/blob/1e8603e4438f53adbd67c16125950d9636395337/Audio Artist Reflection.docx
Link to new final version: https://github.com/gjpoillucci/Ben/blob/master/Final Revision.mp3
Visually I think I made the most progress in this revision, but the same is not to be said for text editing. I was unable to fix the number of containers and br tags for paragraph breaks, but I gave it a solid attempt. However, I was able to improve the readability of the page, in my opinion. I reduced header text where my pitch lived to a portion of the page to ease reading. Next to it, I moved the infographic image so that the look if someone were not to scroll on the browser would be appealing.
Relevant Links:
Link to GitHub Repository: https://github.com/gjpoillucci/Unit-4
Link to previous artist statement: https://github.com/gjpoillucci/Unit-4/commit/eeb3169c735275df631478aa32b0372ec3e09b48
Link to final version: https://gjpoillucci.github.io/Unit-4/
I did not chose to make any revisions in the collaborative unit mostly because I wasn’t sure where I would want the work to go next. Additionally, as I mentioned in the reflection linked below, I would not have been able to complete this work without the help of my awesome teammates, and that attitude continues over to now.
Relevant Links
Link to GitHub Repository: https://github.com/gabikeane/interactivedataviz
Link to final version: http://wp.majoringinmeta.net/cdm2017-datavis
Link to artist statement: https://github.com/gabikeane/interactivedataviz/commit/1df6e3b05a02802edcbdba6889aba07cfe662d7e
And, with this final portfolio submission, I am officially done with my undergraduate career!