I feel like this week flew by! Before I knew it, it was the weekend and I still had assignments to do. I really enjoyed design assignments. They were different in just visual. You really had to focus on the content and the technique.

• The Design Safari really took some planning for me. However, once I got started ideas were constantly flowing. I’m assuming it was somewhat based off the photoblitz (or vice versa) and I loved both just the same! It really makes you think about what you are doing and how you are doing it. For example, you couldn’t just take a picture of something random and say that it was a certain color. Color draws your attention. It has a specific definition for design. You really had to think about what each element meant and how you could capture that element at it’s finest. I thought it was also really cool looking at examples that others posted in the assignment document. When I first looked at it there weren’t many examples to help guide me, but now there are so many! Some people added multiple examples too which I thought was really cool.

• Looking through the design assignment repository was a bit overwhelming at first. The concept of design was uncharted territory for me. I didn’t know much about the process and thought it was going to be complicated. However, like most things in this class, it surprised me! It was fun and challenging, but simple at the same time. Again, I really like the freedom of choosing our own assignments. It gives me the freedom to express myself in my own way. I successfully completed 15 stars this week using different tools and methods for each. I even took it up a notch completing 3 of the 3 star assignments.

Ds106 Radio bumper was 2 stars

Zombify yourself was 2 stars

What people think I do was 3 stars

If movie posters told the truth was 3 stars

One story/four icons was 3 stars

A place I’ve never been was 2 stars

• The Daily creates this week were very interesting. I actually took one of my favorite pictures for the first one. They were all quite simple to do and I found myself coming up with ideas quicker than normal.

The first one was was Vegetarian Day. Of course, I immediately thought fruits and vegetables. But, I wanted to make it interesting. I decided to take an up close picture of a few fruits and vegetables we have in our fridge (spinach, carrot, and lemon). This is a really cool picture. I think the three bold colors really catch your eye. I also think that the colors balance out the picture. They don’t draw your eye to one spot, but rather carry it across from one food to the next.

The second one was a font that you drew out and created. I remember when I was younger I used to always draw “curly”. I decided to re-create this font and make it much neater. I like the way the letters flow on the page. This is an example of typography. It was quite simple to come up with what the next letter was going to look like. I just went with the flow

The third daily create was to draw a floor plan of the house you grew up in by memory. I immediately got out pen and paper and started drawing. It actually took me a bit to get the right proportions of each room. I even almost forgot to put the bathroom in. I only drew the first floor because that is where my family spends most of our time together. My dad actually drew these plans himself. When he was designing it, I know he wanted to make the best of the space we had. He also wanted to balance out the house. With the downstairs, he did four main rooms that people can move from one to another easily.

The last daily create was take a picture encompassing nothing. I wasn’t sure what I wanted from this at first. I didn’t know if I wanted to take a picture of something empty or blank, but then I thought about it and that wasn’t really nothing. Then I looked up and realized how empty our ceiling was compared to everything else in our room. it was nothing compared to everything else. I don’t think this picture has any design elements in it. There is no color, or use of space, or balance etc.. It is simply nothing.

• Our radio show is coming together great! I detailed my group’s work this week in a separate post. We have been using a google doc to communicate, but I think that might have malfunctioned. I also noticed that some of my members were tweeting, but for some reason I didn’t see them. I am gong to have to be more diligent in checking my twitter account for updates on the project. I can’t wait to get started on the script and adding in effects.

• I really enjoyed the design assignments this week. I got more in depth with pixlr to really get the details. I think my favorite assignment was the one I did of Australia. It really fueled my desire to go there even more. I also really liked the end product. Even though it was only two stars, it took quite a while to cut and paste and work with pixlr to get it right. I really enjoyed the Design Safari. I liked thinking about what elements I encountered in every day life. I’m also glad that I got in 4 good daily creates. I’ve noticed that I stray away from the video or audio daily creates and stick to the drawing and picture ones. Those are my two favorite parts, but I think I am going to branch out and maybe do an audio one next week. But, we will see!