Website: Adopting A Dog?? What You Need To Know

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Adopting a Dog?? What You Need To Know...

When the website assignment was announced I was excited to see what we were going to do. As the class was being taught how to run the Adobe Dreamweaver I realized that everything seemed really familiar and that's when it struck me. In Maine when I was in middle school our state gave every middle school student a Mac Book computer. In our computer class we had to do numerous assignments using Dreamweaver. Although this was over seven years ago it was very ironic to me how much the Adobe Dreamweaver software had not changed. It was almost exactly the same and in seven years I feel that the software should have changed dramatically. Therefore, creating a website was not a terribly challenging task. However, I really wanted to devote more time to this project and really create a strong website with a easy to use interface but we did not have time. I know it was extra credit to make the website more colorful and creative, something that I would have liked to do but I just do not have the time. Creating the links and making the headers were interesting but I would have liked to have been able to put more time into the project. I am now beginning to work on the final and with only a week left before finals I am extremely anxious to finish it in time but because of the circumstances I have only met the guidelines given for this assignment, and although I really would like to go above and beyond with this assignment to create a website there is just not enough time. I am satisfied with my work and look forward to applying my skills I have learned thus far from Dreamweaver in the future.

QuarkXPress BiBi Card

The BiBi card was not really challenging just time consuming, I spent about twelve hours working on it. This project challenged me to figure out how to use the tools in QuarkXPress. I had a rough idea and could use specific tools that we had learned how to use in previous classes but this project really forced me to try other tools and play around a little more. I really did not enjoy this project at all and was really focused on just getting through it to the best of my ability. It was really hard because I feel like we did not really have a lot of class time to go over things, although, everyone's BiBi card was different so I feel like there would be too little time to go over questions in just one class alone. I got through it and I really pushed myself to the best of my ability. I am very proud of my work and I feel like although it was a frustrating process I learned a lot by the end of the project. I feel like my BiBi card is pretty similar to that of the original. It was really hard because there were some specific fonts that were not on the computer so after searching for an hour or so and trying different idea's I think I found the right one. It is as close to the original I could get. Other than that I really did not have any more hardships throughout this assignment I just felt like it was very tedious. All and all, I learned a lot by taking this class and learned my way around QuarkXPress even more by doing this project.

InDesign BiBi Card

Using the InDesign program was much easier than QuarkXPress. I was not too excited about having to do both BiBi cards again in a different program however, when I began using the tools in InDesign I realized that they are much easier to use once you understand the program. Before I knew how to use the program I was trying to look for similar tools that were in QuarkXPress that were familiar to me in order to re-create the assignment but everything was different. I was very confused but as I began to pick the BiBi card apart I found out that there were ruler tools that we much different that QuarkXPress. This ruler tool was a neon green line that appeared when moving text boxes. This tool was much more helpful then that on QuarkXPress because you could see where your text boxes were lining up in relation to the surrounding fonts and their text boxes. After I completed matching up the texts I began to add the corresponding colors on the newly created BiBi card. I had to look up how to do these colors but once I figured it out I found a color pallet and that was it, the card was finished. InDesign was a much faster program to use than QuarkXPress and although QuarkXPress maybe more user friendly InDesign was much more efficient. After this project was completed I'm glad I had the opportunity to recreate the BiBi card in a different program because it helped me learn how to use another program as well as apply what I learned in QuarkXPress to help me figure out the most efficient tools to use when recreating the BiBi card in a different program.

Brochure: "Adopting a Dog??"

I enjoyed making this brochure. I choose to do a brochure on how to adopt a dog. In my brochure I included topics such has what supplies you will need to antiquity take care of your newly adopted dog, the medical care and cost that monthly and yearly checkups cost, training tips and adjustments/homecoming for a newly adopted dog. This assignment really let me open the doors of my imagination. Since we could pick any topic we wanted I enjoyed trying to find a variety of different topics that interest me, but at the end of the day I am a dog person and since I would love to adopt or buy a dog right out of college I thought it would be informative for me to do some research on the topic. Using Quark Express was much easier for me this time around. Now that we have done other projects in the program I am becoming much more comfortable with the program. After making by boarders and rulers to create an appropriate space for the information for my brochure I went to work. I searched the information all of which I retrieved from the following websites: http://www.paw-rescue.org/before.html and http://www.parl.org/ . The information was pretty self explanatory. I then searched Google Images for some fun pictures and thoughtfully placed them in the most aesthetically pleasuring places. After it was a simple print and I was done. Although the project was relatively easy once I got going on it, the brochure took a lot of time and effort. This week was a busy one for me and although I enjoyed this project it definitely put my Quark Express knowledge and time management skills to the test.

Poster: Carrie Underwood

At first I was really confused at how to work this program. But after continuing to see how it worked in class and listening to the lecture we had both days I began to understand how it worked. I really liked creating a poster because it brought everything that I had been working on in the slide show and sound slides to life. Carrie Underwood is my favortie country singer. I just saw her live in Maine over spring break and it was unbelievable. I really wanted to do this project to the best of my abilities and for my first time working with this program I think I did just that. I used a combination of colors from Underwood's third album "Play On" such as green and the attention grabbing yellow. I also used other colors that I thought would really grab someones eye but make the poster aesthetically pleasing at the same time. I did not really need much help with this project like I did others and once I got going on it I finished it rather quickly. Making a draft of what we wanted the poster to look like helped too because it helped me bring my ideas to life and know exactly what I wanted on the poster. I used my mock-up as a guide to help me create the poster but my poster did turn out differently then I originally planned. My poster was going to have a green background with yellow font but as I began creating the poster I realized that it was not as aesthetically appealing as I would have liked so I changed it up, played with colors and fonts and the result was this piece. I added a picture to the bottom left side of Underwood playing the piano that I took myself at her show a few weeks back. I enjoyed this piece of the project very much.

Powerpoint: Carrie Underwood

I have always known how to use the Power Point program, but I have never used it without using the common themes. This part of our project really allowed me to stretch out my power point capabilities and learn different ways of using the program. I really liked this part of the project more than the sound slide and poster. It was easy for me to bring up knowledge about Carrie and show some interesting facts about her career. I really like her music so most of the information I found for the slide show was no surprise to me but how to add sounds, transitions, times and effects were a complete learning experience. In my abnormal psychology class we focus on creating projects for our class and I actually have recently made a project using the Mac Lab and earned the highest grade in the class on my presentation. What I learned during the power point lectures I am actually already using outside of class. This is a really exciting part of this project for me because finding all the information about Underwood took such little time that I had more time to learn more about the program and now am applying what I learned in my everyday life. I think my actual power point came out very well. I really liked it and found myself desiring to put extra work and hours on it because it really interested me. Each slide I did applies to the next and every picture and effect that is on a particular slide matches what is on the same pertaining to that information exactly. For example, my second slide is information about Carrie Underwood, a short bio if you will. The picture I put of Underwood is of her in a simple pose facing the information. This really draws the reader into paying attention to what the art is referring to, Underwood's bio. My overall slide show is a minute long and the song ends perfectly after the chorus. This was really important to me as well because without listening to atleast the first minute of a song the listener can never judge weather they like the song or not. I am a public relations major in communications and this project really represented similar projects that I may be doing after college, this project helped me to remember why I am working toward my communications degree and reinforced my confidence that PR is really what I want to do.

Soundslide: Carrie Underwood

This part of the project was the easiest in my opinion. We took two days to do less than we usually do and in doing so it let me move fast enough to keep up with what is being taught as well as taking notes. As our class was taught I followed along with each step with my own project then helped people around me. By repeating the steps over and over again I began to understand how to create a sound slide better and the information stuck with me. I also began to grasp the importance of the sound slide much better because I was not worried about the deadline, timing, how to work the program etc.. Sound slides are created for the soul purpose to catch peoples attention for their full attention span, about two minutes. Sound slides are an informative and interesting way to teach, explain and make pictures come to life with sounds and pictures. Since I did not create the song I could only legally use thirty seconds of the song. I took the beginning of the song and used the chords up until the songs beginning then looped the under 30 second cut three times to create a pleasant repeated sound throughout the slides.