All About the Wire: Design Week 6
This design week was about reaching down and finding your inner artist. I struggled with Photoshop but after a few days and reeducating myself through YouTube tutorials I managed to hash out a few good assignments:
Designs:
- First design that I did was the Wire Human_Animal Hybrid Design All. This required some thinking as I had to think about the reality of this design since I was chopping someone’s head off of their picture and posting it on an animal. For this particular design I used Omar from The Wire on a wolf. During this process I learned a lot about the lasso tool which I found was better if you wanted to be close up on an object. I also found the way which layers are applicable when trying to merge two separate photos onto one large picture. Worth 3 1/2 stars.
- The next assignment which I did was the the Wired magazine assignment suggestion by one of our classmates. This assignment required you to write about the “contents,” of a person which I think was also a creative way of looking at it. You are thinking about the characteristics of someone as a recipe for their personality/habits/and overall character.
- This was worth 3 1/2 stars as well. I enjoyed this because it looked really raw once I was done. McNulty was positioned in the middle and you could clearly see some of his characteristics and flaws.
The next assignment I really enjoyed as well was the Let Me See I.D. assignment.
This assignment was important to this weeks episodes as we slowly saw the demise of Frank Sobotka.
I looked at this assignment as a collage of sorts as I had to have several pieces cropped and in place before I copied and pasted them onto one another. In addition, this helped reinforce the plot lines and themes for which we saw in this weeks episodes.
The Walk Through the Garden music poster was meant to be a montage to the lyrics in the opening credits of The Wire.
For me the design options really came into play this week. It was important to use aspects of the Episode 9 of Season Two and apply it correctly to the actual assignment itself. I choose a striking image of three men who are obviously going to do something that is shady to another party. Looking back on this , if this wasn’t a guessing type of game that I would have added lyrics to help my audience make sense of what they are looking at.
Last design assignment which I completed was worth 3 stars. http://www.digitalbarrage.com/assignments/the-wire-survey/
This was meant to be a more of an analysis/design experimentation with a survey format for me.
Thoughts & Ideas:
The Vignelli Cannon reading was informative when I went to create my design pieces.
http://www.digitalbarrage.com/assignments/whats-the-point/. The point which I received from this was to make sure you create art which people understand. You shouldn’t have someone walking away thinking what did I just spend my time viewing?
Daily Creates & Photo Blitz:
The daily creates were very spontaneous and full filling. I created a video, a trio collage in celebration of the 1000th TDC and finally a self reflection of how I felt this week.
Lastly my blog to my Water Dancing video
Photo Blitz
The photo blitz I felt as if I could have taken more time however the spontaneous nature of it along with the daily creates helped to keep me going to finish it right to the end.
The design blitz although quick taught me that we often don’t stop and look at what we have taken a picture of to see the functionality of it. In addition, what I also received from the Design blitz was the ability to ask myself questions when considering a design such as what is this picture trying to tell me or what has it told me already.
Other Wise I just made it down to “The Wire,” yes there is a pun in tended. Despite my difficulties with Photoshop and me worried about not being able to download it in time, I really enjoyed the design aspect. This was the thinking with your noggin type of work that I knew would have to be considered with respect to digital story telling. If you don’t have your design down for your art, then what story are you really telling?
