My personal definition: Design is the engineering of a product or service that best addresses a need.
If I had to define design with one world, I would have to say “Apple”.
Apple certainly understands the importance of design in their products. Their visually appealing devices are not necessarily superior to others, but their design appeal has catapult them into one of the most innovative companies nowadays, with earning in the billions.
When I think of [design] I imagine a process of exploring and experimenting with an open mind, guided by a specific purpose; problem solving and artistic expression intertwine to create a product that is useful and aesthetically pleasing.
Click on the image to see a brief “Slate Presentation” on the roles of 3D printing in the design process of wind instruments that I create.
Created with Tagul.comFor this weekly create I used tagul.com to make a word cloud with words that relate to design. I got to choose the individual fonts and colors of each of the words that I add it and even add small animations when you hover over the words. My personal definition of design would be an idea or plan that exists to create a final project. This design could consist of a blueprint or outline and include few to many specific details that attempt to explain the final idea. A design does not need to be a physical, written plan but can exist in the mind of a creator.
I am finding my modular method of working with the iPad to be quite successful. Some of the interesting features I have discovered in explain everything is the ability to record actions on each slide and publish it on YouTube. I am also able to drop videos directly into the presentation, write and draw over them and include all of the interactions that I have on the screen in the recording creating a completely customizable presentation. I also found the app cute cut to have some greate features including the ability to layer videos and change their transparency. The only downside to this app is that the free version leaves a watermark on the video and has a limit to the length of the video that can be made. An easy fix for this is to place these clips in iMovie for final arrangement and to add music.
Aside from these tools, I have been using my iPad for most of the lectures that I do and have been finding it to be an overall enjoyable and smooth experience. I still needed the ipad for photoshop instruction and to play DVDs.
Test, testing new apps for animating. Making this iPad work for me and not influence my work negatively #cdt450 http://t.co/xBRwa5Ggmy
— Microbioscapes (@microbioscapes) March 29, 2015
I tweeted a little experiment with making abstract animations today. It’s really important to me that when I work in different apps that it doesnt call attention to the app that was used so that it remains consistent with my artistic identity and adds positive qualities to my work. In choosing what aspects of my identity to put on Twitter, I would like it to be about my experimentations with different media (including apps) as well as ideas. Twitter is a powerful tool for shaping identity and I think it’s important to take that into consideration at all times. I find it interesting that when I google my name it is one of the top three sites that appear along with this blog despite how infrequently I tweet, which shows how important it is to make sure that these are the aspects of my identity that I want to be public.
https://twitter.com/jaymloomis/status/579678349502607360
For #CDT450 I tweeted this article about Martese Johnson – he was brutally beaten up by police in front of a bar near the campus of the University of Virginia, where he is an honor student.
Part of the title to the article in the Daily Beast asks: HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? The article addresses issues of prejudice, racism, and the unproportionately high levels of violence that are unleashed on African Americans by police officers. Hopefully, we are becomeing more aware of this systemic injustice thanks to people using social media to get the word out and create an infuriated buzz about it.
What does this have to do with how Twitter can shape my identity? The first thing that comes to mind is that my choice of tweets says something about who I am. Why do I want people to know this story? Why is it important to me? I tweeted this article after reading Cole’s post about how UVA students reacted to this act of brutality, and it reminded me that we need more dialogue about race relations on college campuses in America. We have an excellent opportunity at Stony Brook to open up discussions about race because we have such a diverse community here. Hopefully Twitter, FB, Yammer, blogs, and other social media tools can be useful to help start conversations and to create opportunities for people from different ethnicities and backgrounds to get together and get to know each other and improve race relations through social interaction – online and face to face. #Integreat
About two weeks ago Apple came to visit our humble class. Here is a short summary of what I learned.
Keynote
If you are anything like me you grew up using Microsoft Word and its cousins Excel and PowerPoint. While Keynote cannot replace word or Excel, it does a whole lot more for you than PowerPoint ever could. Adding links to your presentation and accessing links is both easy and smooth. Creating a dynamic and professional presentation is all at your finger tips. You can even use Keynote to design a UI for apps or make a mock Web page. You can do what you want but if there is ever an option between Keynote and PowerPoint, I’m picking Keynote.
Quip
Quip is an app our visitors asked us to use. I did not fall in love with it, but other people seemed to like. Quip made it easier for us to follow along with the lesson plan Apple had for us. Perhaps I need more experience with it to truly appreciate what the app can do.
GarageBand
GarageBand on the iPad is very easy to use. I can see myself spending countless hours making a song for a video using the drum pad interface. I also never realized how easy it was to include a song made on GarageBand in a movie or trailer made in iMovie. In my future YouTube videos I’ll be sure to check out GarageBand before searching the Web for royalty free music.
There were other great apps Apple showed us but these are the free that stood out to me. If you have an iOS device give Keynote a try, make a song in GarageBand, make use of Quip. There are so many tutorials online!
https://twitter.com/citingchris/status/580393674074386433
I’ve learned a whole lot about Apple’s native apps. I suggest you check them out. For more on my reaction to Apple’s visit to CDT 450 two weeks ago, check out my weekly iPad Reflection here.
Using the iPad to create this was an over all positive experience. I shot the footage using the native photo app as well as iMovie and a short segment using the “stop motion” app. I made slides using the Phoster app and compiled it in iMovie and added some of the stock music as well as voice recording done in the app. As someone who works with video editing and animation frequently I found several pros and con
pros-
-basic video capture and organization of the iMovie is good for general use. Cutting video was simple. When I think back to classes I’ve taken, I could see this being used to support assignments in most subjects.
-easy to import video and photos from other apps
-sound is decient and easy to record. I liked that I could have several tracks and though it took me a moment, they were simple to move around.
– being able to crop the image and videos
-uploading I will put under pros but at first it was not so simple. In order to up load to YouTube I had to Chang my settings in my YouTube account to allow interaction with “less secure” apps. Though this took some time to figure out and get past it constantly asking me to sign in I know I will not have this issue again and things will go smoothly.
cons
– as someone who works with video editing I wish there were more features such as better filters and lighting adjustments to make it look more professional. I would have liked more control over the text and title features since there was no ability to move them on the screen and change other aspects including the timing and duration of their appearance So I could have had a text overlay/captions. I would have liked more control over the transitions and audio transitions. I also wish it was possible to change how much a video is cropped over time- zoom in and out.
Over all though I think it’s a great app and it can be limited only by a lack of creativity however I would be even happier if those ther features existed.
Early on Wenger mentioned “We define who we are by the ways we experience ourselves through participation as well as by the ways we and others reify ourselves.” Far too often people say nobody affects who they are as a person. To which we would argue is not true. The way we define our identity has a lot to do with the world around us and how we react and respond to other people asserting their identity.
In the Wenger reading I got caught up in the way trajectory was defined. The world is more networked than it has ever been before, so it makes sense how we, as people identify become networked as well. Wenger suggests trajectory in not a fixed path nor is it a fixed destination but continuous motion. The former definition of trajectory falls more in line with past definitions of identity, static and rigid. Thinking about how you can have “multiple” identities thanks to the power of anonymity on the Internet a more fluid definition of identity works. A definition where you are not only identify with your physical characteristics, but also your interest, your thoughts, and the content you create.
An interesting part of Youth, Identity, and Digital Culture was the dichotomy between Giddens’s and Foucault’s views. The true nature of identity probably lies somewhere in between these two opposing philosophies. The individual is shaped by societal norms and constricted by society’s expectations, which can be both good and bad. Society deems what is acceptable behavior, which can act as a chilling effect on undesirable behavior but also any behavior at all that deviates from the norm. The Internet just accelerates this process by providing a more effective feedback loop.