Crowded Wisdom

The world has changed a lot in the last few years, but some teachers seem not to have noticed. A guy I know (another teacher) made this video to show his teaching colleagues, who he thinks are not really “getting it”.

video
Take a look at the video and leave me a comment on your reaction to it. Do you think he has a valid point? Do you agree or disagree with his point of view? What do you think about his video?

Well your Internet advertisements for Prince Edward Island’s hypothetical tourism campaign are coming along nicely!  Plenty of good original ideas there, and considering you had some fairly tight restrictions, you’ve all been quite clever about developing these graphics.

BUT…

The hypothetical tourism office just rang and said they’ve been so impressed with your work that they’d like you to develop an extra piece for them.  Here’s the brief…

Tourism PEI want you to also create a fullpage magazine advertisement for the next issue of Maritimes Monthly.  The purpose of the ad will again be to promote tourism on the island.  Like the banner ads, the magazine advert also needs to include the text “Prince Edward Island” and your slogan in readable text somewhere in the ad.  This time, because you have more space to work with, you can add extra text of your own if you think it will help deliver your message.

You can resuse the photos provided to you in the original web banner brief, or acquire more images if you wish.  They must however be of high quality.

The size of the print advert will be 210mm x 297mm (A4).  Because you are creating a design prototype for print you must work at 150dpi resolution.  Please check you use the correct settings for these files!

It is suggested that you use a combination of photographs, imagery, text and also “whitespace” to design an eyecatching and creative advertisement.

Save the finished image as a full size TIFF file in your H: drive.  Also, save a reduced size JPG copy of the file at 450 pixels high, 75dpi and upload it to your blog in a new post, along with a personal evaluation of the image outlining it’s main design features.

You’ve been working on your banners for a couple of days now. Most of you have realised that this exercise is a little trickier than it maybe first appeared - the size of the banners is quite restrictive, the information to be communicated can be challenging, etc.

In the comments below, please leave your thoughts so far about the design issues you have been facing, and tell us how you have (or plan to) resolve them. Give the rest of us an insight into the creative processes going through your head…

You might get a few ideas from looking at these banners from a company that specializes in web banner design… Browse through their sample gallery for ideas…

http://www.bannersonline.com/portfolio/portfolio.phtml

It’s true that many web ad banners use animation, like the one below… Photoshop can do that too. Ask if you want help with it.

Here is a link to that Principles of Graphic Design presentation I showed you in class…

http://www.mundidesign.com/

It may take a few moments to fully load, so if bits seem to be missing, just be patient.

Task 1

You’ve all seen those advertising banners on the Internet… they can be found on most webpages and they advertise all manner of products. What you may not have realised is that these banners are standardised to a handful of recommended sizes. These sizes - measured in pixels - are specified by the Internet Advertising Bureau, who publish the official size list.
The most common sizes for Internet advertising banners can be seen in the graphic below (click to enlarge).

• You have been asked to design a series of internet advertisements to promote general tourism to Prince Edward Island. The client has provided you with a series of photographs taken around the island, which you will use as a basis of the artwork for your advertisements. You may change, modify, adapt, blend, mix, slice, layer, or use these photographs in any way you see fit. These images will be available on the school Y: drive.

• You will also need to come up with a slogan or catchphrase to promote the Island, and this slogan, along with the words “Prince Edward Island” must be included somewhere in your advertisement. You may add any other text you wish, so long as the above minimum criteria is met.

• You must create at least 10 different graphics, using at least 3 different standard banner sizes. Your graphics need to be visually related to each other (ie, so they form a “set”, with common identifiable features that tie them together as part of the same advertising campaign.) You may create more than one “set” of graphics providing that you meet the above criteria. (ie, you might have two sets of 5 graphics, or three sets made of 3+ graphics, etc)

• The advertisements should be designed to encourage general tourism. Both the island name and your slogan should be clearly communicated in each advertisement. The client is looking for creativity in design, strong communication of the island as a tourism destination, and a consistent visual look and feel for each ad set.

• Finished images are to be created at 75 pixels/inch and saved as jpg or gif files. Upload the finished images to your blogspace, combining each set into a different post.

• The finished work must be posted by midnight on Friday September 29.

Any questions, please ask in the comment section below. Good luck.

Mr B

Just chasing a couple of missing locker numbers…

I still need your locker numbers from Mac, Alex J, Alex K, Serg, Caitlyn S, Lauren T…

Could you guys and girls please leave your locker number as a comment in this post please. Thanks.

Hi everyone.

I forgot to mention to your yesterday that I wouldn’t be here this morning… I have to attend a workshop for one of the other business classes I teach, so I won’t be in all day.

I’ve left a note for your substitute teacher, asking you to check this blog post (oh, and here you are! The system works!) Read on, I have a few suggestions for you to work on this lesson.

Basically I’d like you to continue to explore Photoshop and develop a feel for how to approach different image editing tasks. By now you’ve doctored up a few photos, and in that process learnt to work with layers, selected and cut images, resized using the transform tool, and you’ve worked with some of the other basic editing tools like eraser, magic wand and the move tool. Yesterday you looked at creating text, applying layer effects, rasterizing type into a graphic, applying filters and so on.

For today, take a look at this tutorial on making a tennis ball. You can try to make a ball like this yourself - it might seems a bit mundane, but it contains lots of useful Photoshop techniques! Don’t forget you can pause and rewind the video if you need to. Give it a go!

If you have any spare time, I recommend you take a look at the actual website for more free tutorials… http://www.good-tutorials.com/author/WatchAndLearnPhotoshop.com

It has a bunch of very interesting video lessons which show you step-by-step some of the “hidden secrets” of good Photoshop work. Worth watching, you’ll pick up lots of ideas, even if
some of them look a bit complicated just now.

Good luck. Have fun. Be good.

Guys and Girls,

I urgently need to know your locker numbers. There are some students looking for spare lockers in period 1, but we don’t know which ones are free at the moment. Can you let me know your locker numbers ASAP.

Thanks.

As you are hopefully discovering, Photoshop can make you doubt what you see… by adding, deleting, changing an image, it can fool us into seeing things as they really aren’t!

Check out this one… http://www.snopes.com/rumors/crash.htm
Also, these might be worth checking out.

• http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/lavey.asp
• http://www.snopes.com/photos/iceberg.asp
• http://www.snopes.com/photos/lili.asp

Too obvious? What about fashion magazines? Surely THEY wouldn’t lie to us? Better have a look at this site and make up your own mind…

Write a comment below responding to these websites. What do you think about the use of digital image editing tools like Photoshop to modify images? How much is too much?

Copy your response into your own blog as well if you like.

Click the image above to get a copy of the official Commtech Course Outline.  It explains the different topics we plan to cover, as well as the breakdown of marks, etc.  I’ll get you a paper copy of it as well, but you can come back here to get a spare when you lose the paper one. 

We spoke about this in class but I feel compelled to restate it here, just for the record. Your blogs are public. Your work can be seen by anyone on the web.

For this reason, it’s pretty important that we follow some sensible guidelines for putting ourselves “out there”…

1. Your blogs are really just online extensions of our classroom. Speech that is not appropriate for class is not appropriate for your blog either. While you are strongly encouraged to engage in debate and conversation with other bloggers, we also expect that you will conduct yourself in a manner representative of your school.
2. Never EVER EVER give out or record personal information on our blog. Your blog exists as a public space on the Internet. Don’t share anything that you don’t want the world to know. For your safety, be careful what you say, too. Don’t give out your last name, your phone number or your home address. This is particularly important to remember if you have a personal online journal or blog elsewhere.
3. Again, your blog is a public space. And if you put it on the Internet, odds are really good that it will stay on the Internet. Always. That means ten years from now when you are looking for a job, it might be possible for an employer to discover some really hateful or immature things you said when you were younger and more prone to foolish things. Be sure that anything you write you are proud of. It can come back to haunt you if you don’t.
4. Never link to something you haven’t read. While it isn’t your job to police the Internet, when you link to something, you should make sure it is something that you really want to be associated with. If a link contains material that might be creepy or make some people uncomfortable, you should probably try a different source.

All quite reasonable rules really… (adapted from these)

I know some of you probably also run other blogs or MySpace sites, and I can’t really tell you what to do on those.  For your school one though, it’d be great if you could stick to the guidelines above.  Thanks! 

First real inclass task!

Using Photoshop, create at least 3 collage images of yourself somewhere in the world. Use 600 pixels as the largest dimension. Use Google Images (or some other image finding tool) to collect some background images which you can place yourself in front of. To keep reasonable quality, make sure you use only large images.

Next, use a digital camera to take photos of yourself that can be edited, cut, resized, etc, into a new layer, and place them over the bacjground to make it look like you are actually in the picture. Take note of lighting, position, etc, to make it look as real as you can.

Post your best 3 images to your blog when you’re done. Remember to save them as a JPG image first before you post them… don’t upload a native Photoshop PSD file.

Have fun with it.

Hi everyone and welcome to the Communications Technology class for this year, rather cryptically named as TGJ201. I’m pleased that you have all been so willing to try the blog thing as a way of learning. Blogs in education are still a pretty new idea and many teachers are exploring ways that they might be used to make learning more relevant and interesting for you.

Feel free to blog whenever the mood strikes you. Jot down your thoughts and ideas, your responses to what you learn. Share your thoughts with others. Add links to website or articles you find that might be of interest to the group. Take time to read the other class blogs on the link list and please leave comments for each other. The two-way nature of this blogging medium is very powerful!

I hope you enjoy this semester!

PS, if you want the names of those books I mentioned in class, check this other post.