Thursday, October 12, 2017

Shaping Your Personal Brand in the Digital World

Students will be giving attention to how they "look" online. They will begin to shape and monitor their personal brand by analyzing and evaluating their digital presence.

  1. They will read this blog and view the video in the blog: RESUMES, DIGITAL FOOTPRINTS, and ONLINE ETHOS!
  2. They will use the BRAND YOURSELF tool (free version) to monitor and improve their online presence.

    • They will begin by completing the Brand Yourself Profile set-up.
    • They will run a report card and a social scan.
    • They will work through the steps (following the guidelines provided) to boost each site - paying SPECIAL ATTENTION to writing a good solid profile that communicates their BRAND VOICE. 
  3.  They will discuss their work in our next class.

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Back to the Old Drawing Board

Students in CM410 have taken brand personality surveys, researched numerous approaches to website building, developed brand guidelines, built style sheets, and reflected on how their web presence can carry their personal "voices."

NOW, they will plan their websites by creating two pre-design tools:

First, a Site Map indicating all the components and content they want to publish on their websites.
https://speckyboy.com/collection-inspiring-sitemaps-user-flow-maps/

Secondly, a Wire Frame of their home page indicating the layout of elements on the page.
https://dcrazed.com/best-free-wireframe-tools/

They will also continue to experiment with 360 photography, and will click on links on the class website to check out just how much their iPhone knows about them...
http://limestonedigital.weebly.com/cm410-resources.html

Thursday, October 5, 2017

Weekend Web Warriors

Our students are laying the groundwork for the "style" of their websites, social media and promotional materials. Here is what they will be doing:

First, they will survey some student websites for ideas and inspiration as to what they want (and what they don't want) in their own websites. They will make a list of features, information, layout ideas, and organization approaches from other student sites like these:
They will also revise their own Style Sheet / Brand Guidelines and reflect how they can incorporate their brand voice into the website they will build.

PLUS - they will practice showing their brand voice by REVISING / REDESIGNING their BLOGS! 

Of course, they will also be experimenting further with 360-3D photography by re-shooting their photo re-creations for Tuesday! For example: I re-shot one on my photos with Google Cardboard Camera, downloaded the image, and posed it in the website https://sphcst.com/upload to make the embed code for viewing in my blog.



Tod Hido's Original Shot
My 2D re-creation

My 360 / 3D re-creation of the shot using cardboard camera.

Sunday, October 1, 2017

(Photographically) Channeling Hido and Baltz

Professor of Photography Brett Schenning visited our class to discuss photographic composition, and gave us this provocative exercise...

First assignment - appreciate and recreate Todd Hido's shot from "Excerpts from Silver Meadows"
Copyright Todd Hido
 Todd Hido discusses the "Excerpts from Silver Meadows" photos:


My attempt at recreating Hido's Photo:
without filter
with Instagram Filter
See also: https://photos.app.goo.gl/BzFt7W8uK9qW6Q2r1 

Like Todd Hido, I drove around in my car, waiting to see the right sun at the right angle for the composition. I took a couple that worked - one from my moving car through the dirty driver's side window - and then this one, from the parking lot of a closed business. This allowed me to "frame" the shot with the windshield of my car. I splashed water on the window and shot with different focal points to vary the bokeh effect. Then, to imitate Hido, I used Instagram's Mayfair filter.

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Next assignment: appreciate and recreate Lewis Baltz' shot from "The New Industrial Parks near Irvine, California 1974"
Copyright Lewis Baltz

Lewis Baltz talks about his work in a video interview produced by the Tate:

My attempt to recreate the Baltz photo:

I drove around to several industrial buildings before settling on this shot - the side entrance to the massive delivery area of Hamrick Outlets in Gaffney. The vent lines echo (perpendicularly) the lines of the blinds in the Blatz photo, and the shadow play from the awning imitates Baltz use of the plants' shadows.