Monthly Archives: March 2019

Design Process

For this project I decided to create a narrative piece detailing why I think my media company, All Around New*s, could be successful. I begin talking about how newspapers and radio played an important part in people’s lives early in the 20th century. I then begin to talk about how smartphones changed the everyday lives of people as the internet became an open forum and everyone that has a smart phone has an opportunity to contribute to the conversation. I think this is a good way to explain why my company will be successful because it shows the changes that have occurred within the media space. Also if a company does not adapt to the trends such as internet and smartphones they will not survive long. I researched statistics on smart phone usage around the world and when the iPhone was invented to show how fast the technology has changed in only a matter of years. The audio in the background of the first segment represents old time jazz for ambiance as i picture in almost a noir film. The other music is more modern but still gives the feel of almost a news room or some sort of media production.

Technical Detail

I collected my background music from two royalty free sites (see sources and materials) and sorted through the sites to find the songs I thought would fit my story the best. I recorded my raw audio through my laptop’s recording software and then converted the .mp4a files to .mp3 files. When I started listening to my audio there was some space at the beginning and end of the clips. I cropped these so that there was as little dead air as possible during the beginning and end. I also turned the volume down on the music tracks and placed them both on track two line so that they would not change pitch during the switch between music. I honestly had little to no problems with compiling these audio files. I find audition to be a very simple and well thought out program. One tip I would have is to make sure that your raw audio does not have too much background noise (fans, air conditioning, ect.) as it can make the tracks harder to sound good.

Sources and Materials

https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music?download=thelounge

https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=usuan1600033

Facts for script:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartphone-users-worldwide/

iPhone History: Every Generation in Timeline Order 2007 – 2023

For this project I decided to create a logo that would represent my new media company called All Around NEW*s. The company aims to promote new media platforms through the internet such as podcasting, blogging, and streaming. I made a compass as a play on words of the “All Around” part of the title. The ‘*s’ is supposed to represent that this is a new media company and not just the classic form of news.

For my research I looked at other broadcasting companies such as CNN, FOX, and NBC. All of these companies have very simple logos with large text and little graphical design. This is because there logo is almost always displayed on a small scale on television so it has to be easily readable and identifiable. I tried to make my logo a very large text and the outline can be easily seen as a compass. The ‘all around’ text may be too small to see if scaled down but could ultimately be removed due to the compass outline anyway. In my final draft I changed my font to be in black and white as to not distract from my message with a myriad of colors and gradients.

For my design process I started off with the NEW*s text and then found fill and stroke that I liked. I tried to use a gradient for the text but you can’t use gradient in a stroke. Then I made the ‘all around’ text and found a good fill and stroke. Then I made two concentric circles around the text and used a yellow to gold gradient, trying to emulate a gold compass. Then I put in the north, south, east, and west letters and rotated them as they would appear on a real compass. The compass star was added to give a sense that it was a real compass as well as to fill empty space in the circle.

The feedback that I took to heart was changing colors, empty space, and fonts. I changed the background color to an orange-yellow so that the letters would pop more off the logo. For filling empty space I changed my spacing of the letters and North, South, East, and West letters. I also added a compass star to emphasize the compass aspect of my logo. For my fonts I changed a couple of them to look more clear. I also changed the size of the asterisk and S so that the S was more prominent and the asterisk was smaller.

For all the elements in my logo I used only illustrator tools. Such tools included, ellipse tool, polygon tool, text tool, rotation tool, gradient, and made swatches to try and find the right colors. In the beginning I had some problems with grouping and making sure that the colors were coordinated and looked good. Overall though the process went fairly smooth. I am very happy with how the final design turned out and I hope to use it for my company in the future!

Star source: https://svgsilh.com/image/311277.html