Week 5 Notes – Tu

Visual Design

“Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated.” —Paul Rand, 1997 (tip)

• Discussion Leaders – Group 2
  • Chloe (article, ppt, youtube)
  • Luke (article, ppt)
  • Vaun (article, ppt)
• Lecture/Workshop
• Your Drafts
• Feedback on story drafts
• Group work
• NEXT WEEK: WE START AT 6 PM! (our guest speaker has to catch a 6.50 bus)
• Group 3 leads discussion next week – remember reading assignments&questions

An infographical movie about Google’s “Master Plan.” See website for textual presentation of information; credits. (tip)

Group Project Links

1. http://noodlereview.wordpress.com/
Barrie, Chloe, Kai-Chen, and Vaun
– Suggest you categorize posts
– Suggest you do not publicize phone numbers (you can create a pswd-protected page)
– Delete the “about” page (http://noodlereview.wordpress.com/about/) and rename the 4-2-4 page “About”
– Customize the design & the tagline

2. http://mediaownership.wordpress.com/group-proposal/
Kevin, Kristina, Stephanie
– Remember to set up categories for blog posts
– Customize the design & the tagline

3. http://www.extralocal.wordpress.com
Magnus, Luke, Tony

Content to consider including:

• Bios of team members
• Meeting notes (blog posts, tagged appropriately)
• Research found (blog posts, tagged appropriately)
• Competitive websites (blog posts, just like last quarter)

Notes from Dan Lamont

• The big picture of digital asset management
• Essential color management
• Logical work flow and practice

resources

• Adobe Photoshop
  • Main
  • Tutorials
  • Forums
  • Adobe Studio – new dimensions in optimization (example resource – requires free login)
• Color management
  • Chromix.com – color management and image fidelity products
  • Colorvision.com – color management tools
  • DigitalOutput.net – magazine, Digital Output
  • Monaco Systems – profiling products
• Image/asset management
  • CameraBits.com – software for digital cameras
  • extensis.com – font and asset management plus creativity tools
  • Graphics @ about.com – image management links
  • iView-Multimedia.com – software for media file management
• Lessons and tips
  • Designer-Info.com – understanding scanners (don’t click the ‘remove this frame’ link – you’ll lose the article)
  • DigitalTruth.com – camera and darkroom resources
  • Graphics @ about.com – JPEG Myths
  • Hamrick.com – scanning utility software
  • Lexjet.com – digital color education
  • Scantips.com – basic scanning information – supports a book by the same author
  • Shortcourses.com – how do I do that with my digital camera and digital images?
  • Shortcourses.com – guides to equipment and techniques
  • VisualEdge.org – poynter-sponsored forum/workshop for print and broadcast journalists; this link is to tips and lessons page
• Organizations
  • ASMP.org – American Society of Media Photographers
  • Color.org – International Color Consortium
  • DigitalOutput.net – List of Industry Associations
  • Disc-Info.org – IDEAlliance committee, Digital Image Submission Criteria
  • IDEAlliance.org – International Digital Enterprise Alliance

Week 4 Notes – Tu

Digital Asset Management
Guest, Dan Lamont (handouts)

• DigitalRailroad.Net
• VII Photo Agency
• Magnum Photos
• Soundslide.com
• Mediastorm.org

Featured reading post: Luke

48 Tips in 48 Hours

From the National Writers Workshop in Hartford CT and Poynter. Examples:

• Be a reader. Friedman quoted from “Reading Like a Writer,” by Francine Prose. “Writers learn from reading the work of their predecessors.”
• Be curious, no matter what you’re writing. “Writing is having an innate curiosity about life. Even if you write fiction. You’re writing more than fiction, you’re writing about life.”
• “Why do my readers care about this story now?”
• Team up.  Everyone has different strengths.
• “I look for stories about the human condition, the small stories that say something about who we are and where we are.”
• “Read the damn clips.” Newspapers are losing their institutional memory. Report the story that’s happening now, and tell the readers about the story that happened a decade ago.

Week 3 Notes

Hypertext Theory:

• Read Barrie & Kristina … and comment
• Lecture/discussion
• See ACM, Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia, What Hypertext Is (2004)
• See Hypertext Gardens (a more approachable Bernstein)
• See The Garden of Forking Paths
• Bernstein’s website

Readability Assignment

Using Word’s built-in Flesch-Kincaid tool:
Fiction. Chapter 1, Huckleberry Finn. Grade level: 5.8

Seth Goodin’s Blog Post. Take a risk? Grade level: 6.0

Kathy’s blog post (political news): Copyright Proposal Dooms Online Radio. Grade level: 8.2

Book Review (USA Today): Mass collaboration could change way companies operate. Grade level: 9.6

Book Review (Connie Crosby Blog): Wikinomics: Mass Collaboration Coming Your Way. Grade level: 12.1

Book Review (EducationPR Blog): Book review: Wikinomics. Grade level: 13.1

Book Review (Newsday): Businesses beginning to see the benefits of wikis. Grade level: 13.2

Apple’s iPhone (first two screens) promo copy: Overview and iPod. Grade level: 13.9

Week 2 Notes

• Tonight’s Agenda
  • Readability & Meaning
    • Readability v Legibility
    • Tools, Gunning
    • What kind of story is this? (a new genre?)