This week was all about design. The assignments were fun, the design safari was a bit of a challenge for me, but I learned a lot along the way and my radio show group and I began working on our show. So lets get into the details.

Design Safari

This safari was an interesting one. It challenged me, which is good, and it made me learn a lot, which is very good! Going into design I knew nothing and now I feel confident that I at least now know the basics of the different aspects of design! Which is awesome! Prior to going on the Safari, I looked through the google doc extensively at other’s pictures to get a better understanding and ideas. Most were pretty easy to find a pictures to represent them, but for dominance I went back in time (about a month ago) and for minimalism (the most difficult for me) I created my own design. In the end, I’m really happy with how my design safari turned out. I uploaded my pictures to flickr, tagged them (designblitz) , created a set for them and edited the google doc.

Design Assignments

This week we had to complete 15 stars worth of assignments. I really enjoyed these and they were a fun way to practice my new design skills.

We are to do two required ones. There were 4 options and these are the two I chose.

• 1 story/4 icons (**). I failed to read the full assignment (my bad) and I used pictures as the icons, instead of icons as icons. So I went pack again and made a new one, this time with real icons! To me this assignment is all about minimalism, using the least amount possible to describe a movie. I’ve looked a many examples and they are tough!
• Minimalist movie/tv poster (***). Clearly this assignment is about minimalism as well. I decided to pick my favorite tv show- Chicago Fire. I used a state outline of Illinois and a color from Chicago’s flag as the background color. I added a little fire flame to represent Chicago.

After finishing the required assignments, I moved on to complete 10 more stars and I just used the random generator to find what I wanted to do.

• Pause [Four] a moment (*) Allows you to play with the color of a picture and represent it 4 different ways in a collage. This assignments allows people to see how using different color effects can give a completely new and different look. 
• Greeting Card (**) I created a Disney World greeting card as I felt it was appropriate for my impending trip down to the “Happiest Place on earth!!” This design used typography and proportion aspects to create an adorable card!
• One this day (**) This is by far my favorite assignment for the week! I was thrilled to use the “Aristocats” them to make this adorable “Google Name.” This design involves color and balance.
• DS106 Bumper Sticker (**) Since we are #ds106ers for life and, at least, the online UMW students live in Virginia, I thought this was an appropriate bumper sticker that many people would appreciate. The design includes color, balance, and typography. So would you sport this on your car?
• A place I’ve never been (**) This assignment was a great way to use color, proportions, dominance, symbols and unity. I chose Jordan and included some key pieces of the country: it’s flag, camels, and petra.
• The Big Caption (*) This fast one star assignment finished off my 15 stars! In this design I used typography and color. I don’t believe in Aliens, but if I didn’t realize this was just a picture of the Northern Lights, I might change my mind!

DONE!

Daily Creates

All my daily creates this week used pictures, but they all involved different aspects of design, such as: color, proportions, messages, balance. be sure to check out my full post on this weeks daily creates!

Radio Show

The Fab 5 is fabulous! We met this past Thursday to come up with our theme, logo and plan for the show. It was a long, but productive meeting and I’m glad I get the opportunity to work with these girls! I think we will all be able to add something special to this group experience.

Here is our logo for the show! This was Brittany’s Idea and I LOVE IT!! Didn’t she do a great job?

For the show, we plan on interviewing the ex-boyfriends of Taylor Swift. The story behind this that that Taylor is releasing a new song soon and we want to interview her past flames and see if they thing it will be about them. To do the interviews, each of us has a real ex-boyfriend of Taylor’s and we will be asking them questions. For their responses, we plan on reviewing past (real) interviews they have had and mashing our questions and their answers together.

I think it’s going to take time, hard work and effort, but in the end I think it’s going to be a great show and I’m excited to see how it all turns out!