e9 Semester 1 Reflection

Some of my areas of strength this semester were my video skills, like using all six shots, and the ability to tell a complete story. I'm also pretty good at sketching original ideas, and color theory.

However, I do have areas where I need to improve, I'm defiantly not perfect by any means. In video, I sometimes forget to use the rule of thirds, and often times my shots go over a few seconds. In graphic design, I need to improve in using adobe illustrator and time management.

I loved exploring my different abilities in these fields, and I especially loved the different classmates and teachers I met along the way. I met great, long lasting friends through this program who I am extremely thankful for.

If I had to change something, I would make sure that I use my time more wisely, and make sure all of my assignments get turned in on time. Other than that, I wouldn't change a thing.

Overall, I learned to put myself out there, gain friendships and be as creative as possible. These classes have no restrictions when it comes to creative possibility, which I find great.

My goal for next semester is to use my time wisely, and to improve my skills and develop more connections and friendships. This program is about more than just using your creative skills to make videos, animations, and graphics. It's also about important interpersonal skills that I will learn and carry with me for the rest of my life.

e9 Web Design

Our latest project in e9 was to design our own website using Adobe dreamweaver. We first started by downloading the template for our website from our teacher, which had lots of technical difficulties but we persevered. We then brought the template into Dreamweaver and did a few of our own edits, like adding our name and picture. We added our elevator pitch into the home page, and on the side bar we added a few links to the e-Comm website, the school website, and our blogs. We then created a seperate page for our projects, which would contain, you guessed it, our best projects from quarter 1 & 2. I added my dandelion design, and my six shot film from first quarter. After that, we added the text to the side of the projects, explaining what they were and what we learned from them. We linked the project page to the home page. We then personalized them by adding our own choice of color and fonts.

This project took about three days. We watched videos from one of our instructors on how to do it all, and some times there were issues that would slow us down, such as the problems with downloading the template zip file. I used my time pretty productively though, and still got everything done with my website that needed to be done.

Again, I faced the challenge of downloading the zip file, as the file wasn't on the file where it was supposed to be because another student accidentally took the file for themselves instead of just copying and pasting it. Another challenge I faced was getting the exact colors I wanted, and the font as well.

From designing the web page, I learned the basic principals of coding and a little of how to use Adobe Dreamweaver. I also learned a bit about Adobe Photoshop, as we used that program to size our pictures.

Overall, I find web design fascinating and would like to learn more about coding and how to do different things involving Dreamweaver. I'm considering going into the web design branch later in my e-Comm years. Im also pretty proud of my Website's fail outcome and I feel that I did a pretty good job.

Presentation

     In class, we learned about the importance of presentation skills. There are many important aspects to a good presentation, including eye contact, professional appearance, vocal and facial expression, a loud voice, and posture. All of these components make the difference between a presentation that is completely terrible, and a presentation that is completely fantastic, no matter the information that is being presented.

     As a class, we watched three Ted Talks presentations: one of Bill Gates, Bjorn Lomberg and Jaime Oliver. We then had to rate them based on the afformentioned components listed above. Gates scored high on eye contact, voice, and posture, but fell just a bit short with facial expression. Lomberg was great with eye contact, and loud voice. but lower on professional appearance and posture as he moved around just a bit too much. Oliver was amazing with expression, and great with eye contact, but was dressed very casually and moved across the stage WAY too much.

     Then the time came when we were to present our personal logos to the class. Overall, I feel that I did a pretty good job. I had a loud, clear voice, and made eye contact. However, I sometimes turned my back to look at the screen, and felt I could use more expression and a better posture. These are things I know I can improve on to make any presentations I give in the future much better.

Logo Sketching and Illustrator

For the past week, my e-Comm class has been working on creating our own personal logos. We started by sketching three different logos, and then chose one of the logos to draw again. After our drawings were complete, we recreated the drawings in Adobe Illustrator. This was kind of hard for me, considering I'm not very good at working in illustrator.

For my logo, I started with a pinkish-beige background. I then made the outline of the glasses. i chose this as my logo because I have huge glasses that cover like half of my face that I literally cant see without. I consider them a huge part of who I am so it just made sense to make my logo about them. After I finished the glasses, i made sort of an abstract version of my initials to the side. While i know it's not the best logo ever made, I'm overall satisfied with the final result considering how bad i am at the program.