Draft of Audio Story

First Draft of Audio Story

            Audition a word I once associated with theatre arts and my time spent in Daggy Hall, I now associate this word with the time I spent bent over my computer trying to create an audio masterpiece.  This assignment wasn’t as stressful as the past assignments but it took me a little longer to understand the basic pieces of the software.

            I started with the intention of just interviewing my friends with questions and piecing together their various answers.  After interviewing my little sister, Meagan Wilson, I decided this wasn’t the direction I really wanted to go.  The only question I want to ask is, “How do you know me (Heather Wilson)?”  My blog is about my life after graduation and I thought it would be fitting to interview the people who have shaped my life while studying at WSU.

            To interview my friends at WSU I’m just going throughout my day and asking influential people in my life how they know me.  By doing this I want to show through an audio story where and how I’m involved on campus through my friends.  I think it’s better for other people to speak of your involvement, rather than spouting out a long resume and losing your listener because it’s monotonous.

            For my draft, I interviewed Meagan and my friend/co-worker Samantha Hege.  For my final version I plan to include my supervisor from Residence Life, Matthew Jeffries, one of my co-workers from UREC Marketing and possibly someone from my club the Association of Women in Communication.  I think this would create a well-rounded audio story.  I want to also underlay the audio story with music through the whole interview.  I only placed a small section of music at the beginning and I don’t know if I like it.  What do you think?  Hopefully you’ll enjoy my draft and help me to make an even better final version.

Final Kaleidoscope Logo

Final Kaleidoscope Logo

            My design started as an idea from another class I’m in this semester, PR 412.  As I mentioned in my previous post the class is based on the creation of a PR campaign over the course of the entire semester.  In my group we named our agency Kaleidoscope.  I wanted to create a logo for our campaign materials.

            I started by creating rounded rectangle shapes and filling them with a solid color.  The colors I selected are primary colors to show simple elegance.  I added a layer on top of each rounded rectangle to create depth to the logo.  In my first draft I there were more colors but from the comment left by brettgleason509 I gained the confidence I need to change that aspect of my logo.  The other comments alluded to applying an effect to meld the rounded rectangles together for a more attractive logo.  I agreed with them but was stumped when it came to the execution.

            I began searching through all the effects and tried a lot of interesting effects that didn’t quite work.  Then I found the Zig Zag effect.  I selected all of the rounded rectangles and applied the effect, I loved it.  The effect made my logo feel even more like an actual toy kaleidoscope!  The finishing touch was to add a letter ‘k’, I wanted to use a lower-case letter to be less abrasive.  I also wanted to show that through the curvy font.

            The final touch was a light-grey drop shadow I sent to the front of the logo and gave a radial gradient.  I believe this helps to bring the logo together.

            The comments were really helpful and I enjoyed using Illustrator.  Photoshop was a lot harder for me but I’m still using it to help fine tune my skills.  All of these new skills will help me in my future career and more importantly in my life after graduation!

Draft of Kaleidoscope Logo

My First Logo

                Creating my first logo in Illustrator wasn’t as challenging as I anticipated, although it might just be cool to me.  Once I decided on a topic it became much easier because I was inspired.

                I chose to make a logo for a group project I’m working on in my PR 412 class.  The class project extends through the whole semester and as a group we come up with an agency name.  Our name is Kaleidoscope.  Our name inspired me to create a logo with round shapes to create a view similar to what you see when you look into a toy kaleidoscope.  I also wanted to use primary colors to evoke a simplistic, yet promising feeling upon looking at the logo.  I used a green, orange and purple as well because those are the colors created by primary colors.  I did this to show creation and the sense of building upon what you have to create wonderful pieces of work.  I put an ellipse shape over the whole logo and then added a radial fill to create a sense that all of the shapes belong together.   Without this last touch I felt there was something missing.

                One thing I can’t decide is if I should add the word ‘Kaleidoscope’ in the logo.  I don’t think that’s what a logo is used for though and I don’t want to overdo my logo, any thoughts?  I was also wondering if I should just use primary colors and cut out the green, orange and purple.  Other than that I’m happy with the logo I created for my group.  I just hope they like it too!

                As for how this applies to my life after graduation, well if I don’t graduate then I won’t receive a diploma.  So, the more effort I put into my classes the more likely I’ll graduate.  I also made this silly goal of getting a 4.0 GPA my last semester at WSU.  I don’t think this is too possible, but the higher the goal the more likely you’ll get a better GPA!  I’ll let you know if it happens…

Illustrator Tutorials

 

Finished Illustrator Tutorials

            Illustrator, man…those were harder than they looked.  I thought Photoshop was hard, but starting from scratch was painfully detailed work.  I’m looking forward to testing my newly developed knowledge when creating my own logo for our next homework assignment.  I’m just scared it’s going to keep me up way too late.  I could definitely see myself getting lost in my project, there are so many intricate parts to illustrator and now that I’m more practiced I’m having fun playing around with all of the different options.  I’m kind of a perfectionist though, which is something I’ve worked on since taking on two jobs and a full course load, but technical work doesn’t come so easily to me.  Through this class I’ve learned a lot about myself and how I should take more time to figure out these programs.

            So far, Photoshop and Illustrator proved they can be useful in a variety of different situations in my future.  For instance, if a photograph needs to be used for a PR campaign but is a little dull because of the angle or bad coloring Photoshop can fix it right up without taking away from the message of the original picture.  Whereas Illustrator can be used when it comes to projects straight from our imagination I might need to assist in creating a logo for a start-up company that’s come to our agency for help.  With their ideas and our expertise we need to find a logo to best represent their company and what better technology to help them than Illustrator, at least when it comes to a logo.

            After learning more about the applications of these programs I’m excited to use them more in my daily life, and inform future employers about the foundation I’ve set through this class when it comes to technologies!  Life after graduation seems less daunting every day; I just hope the next set of tutorials won’t keep me up too late.

Draft of my Graphic Collage

Vacation Station

Life Without my boyfriend…

Above is a collage depicting my summer vacation with my boyfriend, Reilly.  My family went to the Oregon Coast and Reilly came along.  It was Fourth of July weekend and I was excited to spend quality time with the wonderful people in my life.

Although, we both had a good time our short-lived relationship took a turn for the worst during the last day.  I proclaimed after three months I was getting a little nervous and wanted to take a break.  Big mistake.   My sister caught ‘the talk’ on camera; the picture that creates the bottom border is when we were discussing how things were going to go.

After being apart for a few months we decided to get back together, but this didn’t happen without arguing.  I regret the decision I made on the Oregon Coast but it did prepare me for decisions I have to make in the far-too-near future.

As you may remember I’m preparing for life after graduation and it’s not just a job I’m losing sleep over.  I’m worried my relationship isn’t going to last if we are separated geographically…

I’ve applied to an internship program in London and Reilly is staying in Pullman, Wash., for another semester.  Since we’ve been dating for almost a year now I’m more confident in our relationship than I was after three months.  But that doesn’t change the fact we broke up the only time we were apart.  Will this happen again?

For now, I know I just need to appreciate the last semester of my senior year at Washington State University.  Lately, I’ve actually started to get excited about life after graduation.