I think I have articulated my resentment and disdain for my graphics class before-- I understand these are useful skills, but I would much rather be doing "real" work than designing something on Adobe. Since I would rather remove my eyeballs with a rusty spoon than ever take a job that involves graphic design on a daily basis, I feel this class is not a practical use of my time. However, the end results of the projects are often pretty cool, as was the case today. The assignment was to make a poster or advertisement for some sort of non-profit organization. I chose the Shakespeare in the Park festival they have in Buffalo every summer. I have never actually gone to the festival, but I've been meaning to for the last few years. As my poster points out, shows run through August 17th this year, and my summer term ends August 8th, so maybe this will be the year. Anyway, I thought the poster came out pretty well, and my professor seemed to like it, so that's a bonus. It's clearly not perfect, and there are some things I would like to fix about it, but I only had so much time to work on it, and since graphics are not a high priority of mine, I am not nearly as concerned about imperfections in a design as I would be about problems in a news article, for example, or any kind of writing.
Anyway, if you're interested, here's the poster:
Click on it for a closer look. I kind of made up this design on the fly after my professor told me my original design wasn't working. I just thought it over while on a smoke break and decided that a big picture of Shakespeare's face, mostly transparent, would be a cool design, especially if it were surrounded by even more transparent pictures of Shakespeare. I think it works very well, but I regret that I didn't find a better picture to use. This one looked great when it was small, but when I blew it up you can see it's not a very high-quality image. Also, I didn't do the best job of tracing and cutting out the image in Photoshop, so the images are a little rough. In my defense, I used Photoshop for the first time in my life yesterday.
Right now, I'm just looking forward to next Wednesday. That's when the cigarette tax story is due, so I won't have that to worry about anymore, and I have a group multimedia presentation due the same day. It would take quite a while to explain exactly what we're doing, but it involves taking photographs and recording an audio interview, then putting the sound and images together for an online presentation. The parameters of the assignment were pretty vague; we were just supposed to interview someone with an "unusual job." The two girls I'm working with and I are interviewing a psychic medium who says she helps people communicate with the dead. I'm not saying I believe in this kind of thing, but I'm not saying I don't believe in it, either. I'm kind of open to anything. I'm hoping I see something that absolutely blows me away. Like Mulder, I want to believe.
Speaking of which, only a week until the new X-Files flick. I'm pumped. Too bad it's gonna get trampled by The Dark Knight (even though Batman will be in its second week of release and X-Files will be the big debut. Mulder and Scully still have no chance, sadly). I'm also interested in seeing Stepbrothers, which comes out the same day as X-Files, and Midnight Meat Train on August 1st. I have actually never seen a trailer for this movie, and I don't know that much about it, but my anticipation comes from Eric's hilarious description of a trailer he saw for it one time. So if i see it and it sucks, it's all on you, buddy.
And what about that new Kiefer Sutherland horror flick? Sutherland is one of the most badass human beings on the planet, and it's got an R-rating, so you know it won't be completely lame, but the trailer still isn't doing much for me. It kind of feels like a PG-13 horror movie, then maybe they just inserted a few "fucks" into the script to boost it to an R and give it horror movie street cred. Although that seems unlikely, considering PG-13 movies generally make way more than R. I'll probably give it a shot. Maybe not in theaters, but definitely on video when it comes out. "Mirrors," I believe it's called.
Okay, I did not mean to take a hard left turn into a movie discussion. I think I'm really tired and my synapses are firing in unpredictable patterns. Back to the original topic of the post: Today marked the end of the third week of my summer term, meaning I am exactly halfway through it. Whoo-hoo! I think there will technically be more work in the second half, but I expect it to be less stressful because A-- now I know what to anticipate and B-- the two things I'm worried about most, the cigarette tax story and the multimedia presentation, will both be over on Wednesday. After that I think it should be smooth sailing. At least that's what I keep telling myself. Okay, I'm out. I'm gonna sleep like a dead man on a log. You heard me.
-Nick
PS-- I would be remiss if I didn't give a plug to the blog written by my cousin Eric and his buddy Dan. It's called Masturblog (great title, right?) and there aren't very many posts so far, but its quality absolutely makes up for its slight numbers. Read the Masturblog and you'll never look at turtles the same way again.
PPS-- Without providing any context, here is a comment I made in class this week that drew quite a few confused laughs from the people around me: "I would totally go to a gentlemen's club outlet mall."
4 comments:
Hey! Thanks for the shoutout. Now first, I think your poster turned out pretty sweet... very professional. I think the larger version looks good too, I think the lower-quality Bill pic gives it a more historic feel. So, you did real well for a first timer (that's what she said), maybe you just have have a knack for something you hate, kind of like me and giving hand jobs.
Lastly, I was hoping I could toss you some advice as you're embarking on your journalism career. Now I'm sure you know how important research is while writing the news, so I was hoping to let you in on a little industry secret. There's a website out there, that basically has any information you'll ever need. It's completely free, constantly updated, and 100% accurate. It's called Wikipedia. Now I'm sure you haven't heard of it, like I said, it's still a big secret, but it's the truest most accurate reference tool you can get. So check out wikipedia.org... No need to thank me now, thank me when you graduate this journalism school without any F's.
If I were ranking the greatest web sites of all time, Wikipedia would undoubtedly be in the top 5. It is absolutely the single greatest thing in the world if you need immediate information about any subject, no matter how obscure.
That being said, Wikipedia's usefulness to a journalist or any kind of academic is currently limited. It is not recognized as a legitimate source, so any professor is going to give you a world of shit if you present something as a fact if Wikipedia was your only source for this information. I can only assume the same would be true of any kind of editor at a newspaper, magazine, etc. It's wonderful for finding information and verifying facts that you already have, but when you get info from the site, you still need to confirm it elsewhere.
The reason most often given for this prejudice against Wikipedia is that all the entries are written and edited by users, so theoretically anyone could just make up whatever bullshit they want about a given subject. However, in my opinion the operative word in the previous sentence is "theoretically." That's because, as soon as something inaccurate appears on Wikipedia, someone is going to notice the problem and report it, or simply correct the entry on their own. I also believe the site does have some sort of editorial staff that is responsible for checking facts and removing inaccuracies.
For that reason, I think Wikipedia will actually become a MORE reliable source of information in the future than a number of other, more "acceptable" sources. Think about it-- once a book is in print, that's it. If there's an inaccuracy, or new evidence prevents itself that significantly changes the way we look at a subject, a book is incapable of adapting to that (until the next edition comes out, obviously). Wikipedia, on the other hand, is infinitely and immediately malleable. If we ever conclusively find out that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone in the JFK assassination (just using this as a random example) and we find out who else was involved, that information will be on Wikipedia within hours. It would appear in new history textbooks in... what, a few months, at the fastest? Not to mention you would still have all those old, suddenly inaccurate history books floating around out there.
Anyway, did not mean to write that much. Suffice it to say that I love Wikipedia and I think that it should (eventually, if not immediately) be recognized as a legitimate source of information.
Hey dude....its Brian. Edwards. Do you know any other Brians? I feel awkwardly socially threatened via blog right now. Anyway while I understand Wikipedia's persecution on the written word front, how can it not be considered a source on the photographic front? Seriously.....their images. Its not like anyone is going to get away with captioning a photo as 'Johnny Depp' when you can clearly see the basset hound cheek structure of Abe Vigoda staring back at you. Whilst you can get away with some false truths through the avenue of print the one failsafe is the image source. People are going to realize which images are correct and which ones aren't.
Let's face it....if there is one thing Americans are good at it is not reading the articles and just looking at the pictures. We can spot fakes in all of the beautiful 256 rendered colors.
Anyway I'm on vacation in NC. I'll call you when I get back on Friday.
Laters
Wow, great response. I have to admit though, I'm very familiar with Wikipedia. I agree it's like one of the best websites of all time (along with menstruationsluts.com) but you're never ever allowed to use it in school. Haha, I think they'd sodomize you in front of your classmates before expulsion if you used it in journalism school. But good point about it eventually become the most reliable source.
Also, I just saw the Simpson's the other day and Bart quotes Wikipedia and Homer says something like "Don't worry about that, boy, we'll change that when we get home... We're gonna change a lot of things."
Post a Comment