Comic Life Project (Blog 5)

          I just completed my Comic Life project and I want to share a few thoughts I had on it. I aimed to make it something simple, fun and I really wanted to focus on imagery as much as possible, even it if it risked compromising an in-depth story line. Admittedly, a comic book story about hero cats and an evil dog is about as simple as you get, but again, I believe that it gave me the best opportunity to use simple, cute, clear cut images. I tried to apply the most basic principle of design (contrast, type, etc.) to the project. I found this difficult at times. One of the reasons that I believe I found it difficult is I never was a comic book reader, even as a kid. It's interesting because even though almost all of the projects I have worked on this semester brought to light new techniques, theories, software, etc., they were all bases on mediums that I had some familiarity with. Even if you do the research on a particular medium, if you haven't taken in the medium, or even utilized it in the most passing manner, trying to design it can prove quite difficult because because you don't have that mental portfolio in which to draw upon.

       There is no question that comics have had wide influence over creative culture; today, I believe that there is a comic renaissance occurring. The following video is one such example of that. Here are two visual artists discussing how comics have effected their art and now, how their other artistic training has effected their comic illustrations.

JOEY AND SIMON: ARTISTS AND THE INFLUENCE OF COMIC BOOKS from BLIND Films on Vimeo.

An Initial Impresson Via a Webpage

       Let me first say that no matter how far technology advances-even as it brings us into each others living room-Facebook, Twitter, Buzz, etc. paints an incomplete and somewhat shallow picture of a person. Irregardless, this doesn't change the fact that whether they are people in the corporate, educational or social realms they are going to investigate our online identities and by default that is going to be their first impression of us. 
       Ironically, the more social media expands the more guarded I become. In the Myspace days I posted some personal information without taking into account that someone might be judging me on the content of that page. It wasn't like I would just put anything on there, and much of what was personal between my friends and I stayed personal. Facebook; however, has changed much of that. I have always like remain at least slightly enigmatic-online and otherwise. Now it seems like literally everyone is on Facebook: schools, nonprofits, band pages, remembrance pages, fan pages and the list goes on. Taking all this into account, I make it a point to not only not to post anything that would hurt me professionally, but also not to post things that will hurt me personally. That's not to say that through my interactions with my contacts a lot of my personality doesn't shine through, but no longer do I go toward the risque. Especially with Faceook's questionable privacy laws. 
        Technology often times can move faster than our ability to adapt to it. That why we need to remember that yes, things have changed and it is now our responsibility to maintain control over our online persona. It also our obligation to keep real-time contact a part of our lives as this recent New York Times Op-Ed points out.  As far as social media has brought us, do we really want all our friends and co-workers to be a collection of Facebook pages?  
      The overall theme here is be aware that people are watching and that our online presence has a big-time impact on our real-time lives. This video is by a gentleman who claims to be social media samurai. He says a lot of important things about the social footprint that online lives make. Why he is talking about these things while driving a car I don't know


Social Media and the Impact of Your Online Profile from Michael Gannotti on Vimeo.

The Creative Self

I have always been a person that was interested in all things creative; my first real deep creative interest was music, but that quickly evolved into a fascination with all things aesthetic. There are two things that I have grown to realize about the world and this pertains to everything from book covers to album covers to architecture to food products: in order for anything to be truly legitimate it has to have an aesthetic identity, and in order for anything to be special for an individual it has to have a unique aesthetic identity. You could never sell a can of soup in just a tin can, and you could never identify your favorite soup without any packaging.

When I was young, one of the first images I remember having a real effect on me was was the cover of Radiohead's OK Computer. You'll see it is a simple, hazy sort of image, abstract, technological, industrial and human, but in a "simply put" kind of way.

The Internet, of course has given us access to all sorts of aesthetic mediums, but it has also spawned a medium within itself, website design. Website design interests me for a variety of reasons. First of all a simple Google search can yield page after page of results. Whether you are searching for Commerce, research or just enjoyment reasons the design of the landing page that you choose is essential to whether or not you stay on that page or return to Google. Website design I believe puts a lot of power in the Designer's hands, and gives design a level of functionality that other mediums lack. I was recently read a great article in Killer Sites magazine, it gave me a good idea of the must-know elements to be a successful web designer. After I finish school I would like to be working either independently or in with firm (or possibly both) and focused on web design. That is not to say that that is sole interest and aspiration. I am very much interested in Print design and my passion for music may very well take me in the direction of album design which is a medium that is in resurgence for two reason, first, ipods have included Album covers for years now, but since ipods (and iPhones and a few other MP3 players) are being introduced at higher resolutions, they make album art all the more desirable. Also, they are not only coming with album covers, but additional art, liner notes and lyrics. Secondly, the MP3 revolution has sacrificed sound quality due to its compression. While many of us will not notice the difference, this has been noticed by many people and consequently vinyl sales increased over 35% last year-this should open up opportunities for album cover production in the future.