Digital Media Essentials – ART 1800

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Assignments

Reading Vocab Sheets

Assignments

Assignment #1

Throughout this class you will be creating a promotional website for either yourself or a company or product/service. Before we begin this project however, you must first understand the direction you are heading. We could compare multimedia planning to climbing Everest. If a climber knows how to get to the mountain and what to bring, that climber will have much more success than a person who wakes up in the morning, puts on his shoes, and decides to conquer the worlds tallest mountain that day. For multimedia this means figuring out who your audience is and what message you want to convey to them. During the planning stage you should also figure out what graphic style and content will best communicate that specific message to that specific audience.

So . . . for this assignment you write a 1.5 to 2 page paper (12 point Times font, double-spaced) addressing in detail the following:

  • Describe IN DETAIL you, your company, or your product and what you do. What is it that makes you unique and why?
  • Describe IN DETAIL your style. Are you neat, clean, professional, scatterbrained, cluttered, gothic, retro, old-school, classic, simple, etc.? Then describe, for example, what "cluttered" or "classic" or "retro" means. Describe also, how would you display that visually. Some people have a hard time with this. Try looking and graphic designs you like (on posters, websites, cd covers, magazines, etc), and that you think match your style, and describe them.
  • Describe IN DETAIL who you want to impress (your target audience) in detail. Remember you can't impress everyone and there are variations in genre's in just about everything. For example, if you say I want to impress people who play video games. Well, what kind of video games? Someone who is into fantasy games isn't going to want to go to a site designed for sports games.
  • In a single, catchy statement define yourself or company or product/service. ("John Smith is an energetic gamer with a secret passion for cooking tai food", or "Jane Smith is a quiet person who likes to keep to herself while decorating her Victorian style scrapbook" or "Company X is a dynamic fitness center that caters to a younger generation".

As you research your graphic style surf the web for sites that these people would visit, or go to the music store and look at CD covers for music you and your audience would listen to, or look at ad designs and magazine designs in publications that your or your audience would subscribe to. Include at least 3 examples with your report.

When you are done save the paper as a .pdf or .doc or .rtf and email it to brandon.kowallis@slcc.edu

Assignment #2

Over the next couple of weeks we will be using Photoshop and Illustrator to create a CD or DVD cover for your multimedia project package, as well as rollover buttons for your website. The design should match what you’ve defined in Assignment #1.

At the end of this semester you will burn all of your assignments on a CD and package it with the cover you will design in this assignment.

CD COVER REQUIREMENTS

  1. Everything must be on its own layer, with layers named and sorted in folders in both Photoshop and Illustrator.
  2. Use Illustrator to design a logo for yourself. The Logo must include manipulated text and shapes where you have adjusted the vector control points.
  3. Design your CD or DVD cover in Photoshop and include:
    1. an object with a blending mode applied to it,
    2. a manipulated image using levels, curves, or hue/saturation adjustment layers,
    3. masks that have been used to hide or reveal portions of a layer,
    4. a layer effect applied to one of your layers (label your layer so I know where you applied the filter),
    5. a filtered layer,
    6. and text generated in photoshop.

BUTTONS REQUIREMENTS

  1. Design at least 4 buttons (for example; ”Home”, “Contact”, “Bio”, and “Creative Work” or “Resume”) in Photoshop, each one should be a separate file.
  2. Layers should be neatly organized and labeled so that I can identify elements for the normal state and for the over state.
  3. All buttons should have the same general appearance or style.
  4. Save each button as a Photoshop .psd file. Then use the "Save for Web and Devices" tool with each .psd file to save out a single JPEG or GIF for each state of each button. Be sure to name them intuitively. In the end you should have 4 PSD files and 8 JPEG or GIF files.

WHAT WILL YOU TURN IN

Place all electronic files, neatly organized, in the class inbox in your folder. Turn in a printed and cut copy of the of the CD/DVD cover in its CD or DVD case.

Assignment #3

For this assignment you will be using Flash to create an animated banner for your website. The design should be consistent with the rest of your materials. Your banner must incorporate the following:

  1. Your stage size should probably be no larger than 200 pixels high x 1000 pixels wide, but you will need to consider your button size before you determine the best size,
  2. Every object must be on its own labeled layer,
  3. You must incorporate a motion & shape tween,
  4. You must do a short frame by frame animation,
  5. Use at least one basic action script,
  6. Save the master Flash file and then export it as a SWF file,
  7. The design should be consistant with what you proposed in Assignment #1.

Place the Flash .fla file and the .swf file, in the class inbox in your Assignment 3 folder

Assignment #4

For this assignment you will be using Adobe Premiere to edit a class video that we will produce during the next couple of weeks. Everyone must participate in its production and serve as either camera operator, location scout, director’s assistant, production manager, sound operator, talent, gaffer/grip, or continuity advisor. Once the project has been shot everyone will edit their own version of the final film using Premiere and must incorporate the following in their cut:

  1. Clips must be neatly organized in bins
  2. Your video must incorporate transitions and effects
  3. Include a title that is within the title safe zone

Place the Premiere file in your assignment 4 folder in the class inbox.

Assignment #5

For this assignment you will be using Adobe Premiere to edit a sound mix for the class video. Your sound mix should incorporate the following:

  1. Sort each sound type on it’s own track and label the track,
  2. Use keyframes to control both volume and panning,
  3. Your mix must incorporate at least one audio effect,
  4. Your mix cannot jump into the red at any time and the sound peaks should not dip below -15dB.

Once you've finished your final cut and your sound mix is done compress your final video using the Adobe Media Encoder into a sharable format. Place the Premiere file and the compressed file in the class inbox in your folder.

Assignment #6

For this assignment you will be using Dreamweaver to a create a website with the materials you have produced up to this point in class. Be sure that the design matches the style you outlined in your first assignment. Include the following:

  1. Your site must have at least 4 pages,
  2. Each page should incorporate the rules for good web design,
  3. Use tables for your page layout making sure to define the height and width values for each table, row, column, and cel,
  4. Create rollover effects with your buttons from Assignment 2,
  5. Insert your flash banner,
  6. Link all of your pages together,
  7. Create a link to your video, or post your video to YouTube, Vimeo, or another video sharing site and embed it in your site,
  8. Burn all of your files on a CD (make sure they are organized and intuitive so the user knows where to click when they open the CD),
  9. Package the final CD in the CD/DVD cover you designed in assignment #2.

Test your CD before you turn it in. If file organization is sloppy, links are broken, or the site doesn’t open, it won’t help your grade. Turn in the completed package once your are finished, AND place the same folder you burned to the CD in the class inbox in the Assignment 6 folder.