I think that I met and exceeded all of the requirements for this weeks assignments. Although it wasn’t without a ton of work! Not to say that the work wasn’t rewarding, because it certainly was. Looking back at my assignments for the week I think the thing I need the most work on is creating the “story behind the story” for each assignment. This was my biggest struggle last week as well. There is just something very challenging (at least to me) about constructing a back story for ever piece I do. I wonder if this is an indication that my work is lacking in meaning, but I don’t think this is the case, because when I do create the work It does mean something to me, in fact it means quite a lot. I just think that piecing the narrative together is the tricky part. The next thing I wished I had preformed better on was leaving comments on other peoples blogs. I had left a few, however I found it hard to really come up with constructive feedback on other peoples posts. Next week though I am going to really focus on being involved in our little community.

Out of all of the assignments, the ones that required me to draw something presented the most challenging to me. I think it’s because I haven’t had any real formal training in drawing, which I think is unfortunate. I really wished I had drawn more. When I was a kid I demanded my parents buy me this book. It is an awesome read, and very interesting learning about all of the old techniques used in the construction of animations. Just looking back if i had more drawing skill I would have been able to capitalize on the book more. So looking into next week I want to focus on improving my drawing more.

I learned a ton of new things this week! I especially liked learning about the key principals of design. It reminded me of the idea of how “good photography has a grammar”. This makes a great deal of sense to me as all art is interconnected (as is mathematics/almost all sciences). The next thing I learned about was Photoshop, especially using Photoshop to construct animated GIFS. The I think the most interesting thing I learned about in Photohshop was the actions panel. It allows one to automate certain tasks. This is very useful when you find yourself doing the same thing over and over again. I must say that I spent a great deal of time tinkering around with that part of the program. I think I will have to chalk that up to me being a student of computer science. Anything that has to do with doing something more efficiently (especially when it has to do with a computer) will always fascinate me..

I must say that I really enjoyed creating the GIFS, there was something just so fun about seeing the final animations. Out of all the assignments I think that creating GIFS is the most time consuming, but in the end (at least in my opinion) they prove to be the most rewarding. I think my favorite out of the ones I created was this one. There was just something so awesome about having the idea and then implementing it, and having it match exactly my idea! Was a very awesome feeling!

Out of everything that I did this week the one thing that I would like to do differently was get things done earlier. This week my time management skills were certainly subpar. On last Sunday I looked over all the assignments and I resolved my self to do two assignments a day everyday and everything would go smoothly. However that did not happen at all. Wednesday rolled around and I had only done a few assignments (I think mostly daily creates, because those are very much time sensitive). I told myself that I would get a ton of work done Wednesday night, but I instead ended up going rock climbing. I thought I would be back by eight, however I ended up home at like 1:00am… The next day I got serious and kept attacking the assignments. I ended up getting everything completed with time to spare, however it proved to be a little more stressful than I would have liked it to have been. Next week that will not happen! I repeat that will not happen.

As far as questions, I don’t really think I have any. At first I was confused about the wording of the DesignBlitz, I wasn’t sure if each photo required all of the principals to be captured, however I took the sentence that said one concept per photo to clear that confusion up. Other than that everything (at least in my opinion) was very cldar.

The largest theme present in my work is that of mathematics. I try to include it in every piece in at least someway. I do this because at this point I believe that mathematics is something that is central to me personally. Mathematics also has such a rich history (check out the mathematics genealogy project) which can be drawn upon again and again. I think as far as cultural implications in my work, I really wish that it wasn’t socially acceptable to be bad at math. Out of all of the majors math is the only one I know of when you tell some one “I’m a math major”, its socially acceptable to reply “I hate math”… Imagine if illiteracy was socially acceptable…. That’s what is like in terms of math! It’s CRAZY. I try to incorporate a degree of fun in my math posts that would hopefully garner someones interest. Too many people equate math = arithmetic. Which is so far from the truth! So in short overall my work tries to advocate not being afraid of math!

1. My reflection on The Vignelli Canon.
2. Wow that DesignBlitz was challenging.
3. Four daily creates..? That’s like one everyday: 1 2 3 4
4. Wow five design assignments? That’s a ton of fun… 1 + 2  + 3  + 4  + 5 > 12
5. Two gifs? They say a pictures worth a 1000s word, so this must be like 2 million! 1 2
Some of my comments: 1 2 3