Watch the video below of my reflective presentation on the profile project. This includes some background on Val and the process of the profile unit, along with challenges I faced during the project and how I’ve grown.
RESEARCH: One issue I researched during this project was Fair trade through social justice. The opposing viewpoints database on the Mountain View Library’s website was very helpful in finding informative and interesting sources. I also read several other profile articles to get an idea of how to write a successful profile and what elements create an engaging article.
PHOTOGRAPHY: I used a DSLR camera in manual to shoot all of the photos for this project. This was my first time shooting with a dslr camera and also shooting in manual mode, so I learned how to adjust the ISO, shutter speed and fstop to create the proper exposure for a photo. I also learned how to pose someone for a portrait photo through shooting photos of Val and my interviewees.
PHOTOSHOP: Photoshop played an important role in the design and creation process of this website, and also in my profile portrait and the images for my magazine article. I used Photoshop to create the homepage image and buttons on this website. I also used it to edit the photos I took of Val that were incorporated into the photogallery and my magazine article. The main adjustments I made were to the brightness, exposure, clarity and color balance to give the photos a more lively look.INDESIGN: I used InDesign to create my magazine article. I really liked working with InDesign as it made it easy to incorporate multiple elements into a layout for print. I used to pen tool with a pink gradient fill to draw the swishes and shapes that are present on each page of the article. This design element tied the article together, and the pink color conveys Val’s bubbly and fun-loving personality. I tried to mimic a professional article closely by adding a drop cap, pull quote, end mark and bibliography.
DREAMWEAVER: I used DreamWeaver to build the structure of this website in html. I used css to edit the design elements of this website and jQuery to animate this website when the user clicks or hovers over a button. I also used DreamWeaver to upload my website to the Freestyle web server.
AFTER EFFECTS: After Effects is an extremely powerful program that is difficult to master. I was intimidated by it at first as it is not a very intuitive program. I used After Effects to create the Media Feature for this project.