Digital Media & Music Culture

Digital media has definitely had an impact on the music culture. Before there was graphic arts and designed album covers, people didn't purchase as much music. Records were packaged in boring brown paper with string to tie them together. Once Alex Steinweiss designed the first cover in 1948, sales of records skyrocketed. They increased 800%!This completely changed things because music culture became a huge part of the media and affected everything in it. The cover art became a representation of the artists, especially once they began to have a say in their cover art. Cover art became imperative to the music culture because it represented different genres of music, different bands, fashion, & it even went so far as to represent politics. Without digital media, the music culture would not be even close to where it is today and wouldn't be such a huge part of everyone's lives.
I definitely would say the way that I have enjoyed music has changed over the past five years. If you look back less than ten years ago, the iPod hadn't even been invented yet. People still purchased CD's to play in their portable disc players and bigger CD players at home. When the iPod was created in 2001, it turned into a music revolution. From that point on, the iPod began to become more and more technologically advanced. I went from playing CD's in a portable player to uploading music from my computer onto my iPod instead of buying the actual, tangible discs. I then upgraded to what I now have, which is an iPod touch. It's incredible how advanced technology can become in such a short time. The original iPod, although thought to be incrdibly small at the time, is now "chunky" in comparison to the newer iPods such as the mini, or the touch. I now have a touch screen device that is as thin as a pencil and can store games, music videos, movies, internet access, etc. It's really quite amazing to think how far music has changed over the past 5-10 years! I now can get on my computer and download any song that I want with just the click of a button instead of having to go out and buy the whole CD.
I think that the design aspect and how it affects the music culture today has definitely declined over the past decade. People now don't care as much about buying the CD's since they can purchase one song at a time. Therefore, the cover art isn't such a huge factor. It's not as common for people to even see the cover art of the song that they're purchasing or the artist. iTunes makes it possible to turn on your computer, and download a song without having to see anything about the artist picture-wise. Compared to the 40's when the digital media was first incorporated into the music scene, the significance of design has definitely dropped. Although it made a huge impact at the time, people aren't as appreciative of the cover art as they were before.


-Alex Steinweiss, cover art for Frankie Carle.

-Alicia Keys cover art.

I definitely think that many artists have found their inspiration from some of Steinweiss' original designs, such as Alicia Keys.

Animation/Interactivity assignment

For my animation assignment, I was hoping to animate a poem and thought of "Where the Sidewalk Ends" by Shel Silverstein. The reason I chose this was because it was one of my favorite poems when I was younger and I've always enjoyed Shel Silverstein's work. If I am unable to do this poem, I was also considering doing an animation on the 7 wonders of the world. I think both of these projects would be really unique and interesting while working with Flash. I was really inspired by the stutter step project that was an example in lecture. I'm hoping to maybe make my flash project (if I do the poem) similar to this one. If I do the seven wonders of the world, I'm hoping to model mine after the seven deadly sins project shown in lecture. I liked both of those projects and am hoping to be able to create something just as unique. I will definitely need to practice working with Flash before I can create my animation. So far I've done okay with the tutorials in class, but I've never worked with the program before this class so I still have lots to learn. I think this will be my biggest obstacle. Once I figure out all the techniques that I want to incorporate into my project, I think it will be pretty successful. I'm going to be incorporating a voice over into Flash as well as adding lots of pictures. I'm a little anxious about this project, but I'm still excited to learn more about Flash and create another Digital Media project that (hopefully) I can be proud of!

FSU? Shoe Company--Poster

Artist Statement

The inspiration for this poster came to me when I was watching my friend skateboard. My idea came from watching his different tricks and seeing the angles that the board could make in contrast to the ground and his body. I photographed him with the intention of creating a skateboarding poster and focusing more on the board. After going back over my photos, I began to edit the photo I used of his legs and the board for my skateboarding advertisement. While playing around with Photoshop, I realized that his front shoe was going to be my main focus of the poster, not the board like I had originally intended.
After I realized that my project was going to focus on the shoe, I quickly began to redo the edits I had previously made that isolated the board in contrast to the background. Although Photoshop was difficult, and sometimes very frustrating, to work with, I slowly began to find different ways to incorporate the things we had learned in Digital Media. For example, I felt that I represented the CRAP principles well through the variety of elements I added to my poster.
My main element, contrast, is shown through the shoes, first and foremost. They draw the viewer’s attention right away, which was the whole idea behind having the bright blue. There is also contrast in the background due to the layering of the city versus the brick wall along with the water and the concrete. I felt this element was a unique way of showing different aspects that make Toronto the great city that it is. Not only is it a city of many skyscrapers, but it also has a beauty to it that is shown through this poster. I wanted to have the body and the board overtop of the city to show the focus of the advertisement as well. Through the person and the skateboard, I felt that a viewer might be inspired to buy these shoes to achieve their goals as well. Another important element included in my poster was alignment. The city background was put on a slant in order to align with the brick wall that was behind my subject. I felt that the waterline being connected to the concrete at an angle was a cool way to add a different type of alignment.
By doing a poster for FSU? Shoe Company, I had a chance to work with Photoshop, which lead me to find a more creative side of myself. I really enjoyed not only taking the photographs, but also making decisions when it came to incorporating different colors, pictures, fonts, etc. Even though I faced many challenges when it came to the actual editing, I was able to produce a poster that I proudly can call my own original design. Before this project, I was not very excited to working with Photoshop since I had such little experience with it and felt inadequate. Now I am anticipating working with Photoshop in the future and creating even more intricate and exciting projects.

Comments

1. I learned a wide variety of information when dealing with this digital media project. I found out how to navigate more successfully in photoshop. Through working extensively with this program, I now am able to isolate objects, such as the shoes in my poster, and change their color or the background around them. I can also incorporate various images with one another and blend them together in a more professional way.I also discovered different techniques that deal with typography and design elements. Through the hours spent in the lab working on my poster, I realized that I'm going to have to be more patient when learning how to navigate new resources such as photoshop or protools. If I work on being patient, there is still an infinite amount of new things I look forward to learning.

2. I found the in-class critique of my work very helpful. It was good to get an outside opinion on the work I had done and to also receive some constructive criticism. For the most part, my classmates and professor found my poster interesting and thought I had done a good job working with the different elements of design. One of the critiques was on the font I used for the FSU? Shoe Company label. Professor Warwick told me he felt that it was an inappropriate typography for the message that I was trying to send to the viewer. I agreed, but I had been unable to find a more appealing font when working with Photoshop. He also critiqued the angle at which I had incorporated the background image of the city behind the skateboarder. Although I wanted to add the element of alignment, I can definitely understand where some people would prefer a straight line. I was complimented on my use of color as well as the isolation of the shoes. I felt I did a pretty good job and my classmates seemed to agree with me. I was proud of my first finished Photoshop project & I can't wait to complete more!

Typography

In this image, words are making up the picture of a hand signal typical associated with "rock on" or "rock 'n roll". Not only are they creating a world renowned hand gesture, it is the words themselves that make this image unique. I feel that this typography is very effective for the message the artist is trying to send. The image contains sayings typically associated with rock music such as "rock on", "rocker", and "stick it to the man". The hand symbol also contains other sayings such as "heavy metal", "attitude', and "classic rock". The words that make up this imagery are all sayings that are associated with "rock 'n roll". This typography is definitely supporting the central message and the theme of the overall design. I'm not one hundred percent positive of the font used, but it looks pretty similar to Rockwell bold or a similar script.



The above advertisement for Special K demonstrates a great deal of typography. It incorporates a variety of fonts as well as images to go along with the words to give the viewer a visual idea of their message. I think they did a good job of getting their message across to the consumers. They creatively incorporated their product into an interesting image for the viewer. This advertisement promotes Special K and appeals to the reader by saying it will help one "manage your weight". It's a clever way to entice a consumer into buying their product. For this reason, I feel the typography was very effective for this advertisement. It grabs the reader's attention because of how unique of an advertisement it is. There are a variety of fonts included as well as various bold, italic, and regular texts.



I really liked the idea of the above image. It's title is "death by typography" which was a pretty clever idea. I think it promotes the idea that words can hurt much more than physical pain. Although there are not legible words that form the imagery of the gun, it is still a very effective use of typography. The viewer can still clearly see the various letters that make up the gun. I like the fact that you can still distinctly see the letters such as the 'r' that makes up the trigger or the 's' that is found at the butt of the gun. The artist included the word 'bang' coming out of gun which further promotes the idea of "words can kill". If this was the message the author was trying to send, I think they promote it quite well. I think they used the font "courier" in a bold type or something very similar to that style of script.

Sources:
http://fc05.deviantart.com/fs13/f/2007/018/6/7/Death_by_Typography

http://www.pics24h.com/img/artwork/minimalist-typography

GLOW magazine; September issue