B00025957's Blog

Mid-term, The aftermath.

Hail To The Thief — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 14:50:46 +0000

Well as we all try to recover from what was supposed to be relaxing time off college, but what ended up being one night out after the other, we are faced with the start of our group project. We are still in the discovery and planning stage at the moment and so i can only tell you our idea so far. The project that Peter,Eric and I shall be embarking upon is going to involve designing a multimedia website, which will incorporate interviews, etc. in both video and audio formats. Our aim is that it will hopefully inform the public of the Rock ‘N’ Stroll tour that goes around Dublin city, while also enhancing the experience for those that have been on the tour and would simply like to know more about the artists featured on the tour. Also if someone would like to go on the tour but is unable to this could work as a convenient alternative. Well I think that’s about all I can divulge so far on the project, but I’ll right more throughout the year to document our progress with the project.

The Home Stretch

Hail To The Thief — Tue, 04 May 2010 14:41:48 +0000

As the end of the year draws close and the assignments thin out we come to reflect on the year and our work so far. We’ve completed tasks such as designing and actually making websites,designing interfaces in flash along with an awful lot more and learned numerous practical skills in relation to computers, macs and their programs. We’ve also all made new friends and acquired new interests. On the whole I feel this year was great fun, possibly better than the first time round (haha).On a more serious note tests are coming up and we got another taster of what the HCI test will be like when we completed another multiple choice quiz in class.Also this week in our multimedia authoring lab we finished off our Wizard of Oz flash interfaces and get ready to submit our own flash interfaces this Friday. This week we are submitting our photo restoration assignments aswell,which were tedious but a bit of fun to do. Anyway this will most likely be my last post until at least August but to sign off I would like to say that it has been a pleasure to attend the creative digital media course at ITB and hopefully I will see you all next year for the same again.

Fiona Harte, The second last week of college

Hail To The Thief — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:11:08 +0000

This week Fiona Harte came in to talk to us. She spoke about her experience in the field, as she worked on Palm’s Web-store.She spoke of her duties eg. creating loyal and satisfied customers and providing market intelligence to the Palm organisation. It’s also extremely important to keep up to date on data-protection & privacy Law. Accessibility is also key when managing an online store, you must make it usable for visually impaired, etc.

She told us about the biggest problems she encountered while running the online store, namely fraud, which is quite common as people try to “rip-off” businesses. The tell-tale signs of a fraudster is when the billing address and shipping address are different, or if the contact information is merely an email address.

Fiona spoke of marketing techniques also, search marketing is a good out there, while advertising social networking sites can be good to raise awareness but is not proven to generate sales. Marketing on sites such as YouTube has also proven effective recently, one case in particular is a perfect example as Blendtech a company that sells blenders made a series of short videos on YouTube that showed them blending various unusual objects such as iPods, etc. This quickly gained a following and resulted in the company launching a full-blown ad campaign.

Ok that’s enough about the guest lecturer, in other news this week we submitted the web dev assignment in which we created a form, also we are close to finishing the last multimedia assignment where we’re creating an interface in flash. We did the interviews in working in digital media this week too, they lasted 15 mins and we were interviewed by members of HR. A portion of the marks went for appearance and this resulted in suiting up in some cases but for the majority of us a shirt and tie did the job, we scrub up well if I do say so myself.

Ah that’s it for now I think will be back with more next week.

Hail To The Thief — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 09:23:50 +0000

No guest lecturer this week so no news there. On another note getting close to the end of the year and the work is piling up, Assignments left, right and centre. Kinetic typography is due next friday which is proving to be a lot more work than I anticipated but its enjoyable most of the time,a web dev project and the photo story deadline is the week after that.Also there are interviews in working digital media this monday, we are given a choice of a variety of jobs and we must research the job, company etc. Which could turn out to be a bit of fun.

On the upside the summer holidays are fast approaching, and the great weather seems here to stay hopefully.

Fiona Kelly,Glimmer Digital Design

Hail To The Thief — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:35:46 +0000

Our guest speaker for this week was Fiona Kelly, she works in Glimmer digital designs company. She came in to talk to us on monday about her portfolio and experience in the business.

Her talk proved quite interesting and informative. Her portfolio was a glance into the industry today and contained banner ads, websites and other various examples of how what we’re learning now will aid us greatly in our future exploits in the digital media world. She showed examples of projects she’s done for numerous companies and organisations including PUCA and the international gay Dublin festival. The words of advice she dealt out to us were of inspiration and how not everything has to be original, and a lot of great pieces of work out there are inspired or root from someone else’s work. ”Nothing Is Original”.

Overall Fiona’s talk was worth the early morning start and I feel I will take something from these words in the future.

Ian Cudmore

Hail To The Thief — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:32:14 +0000

This week our guest speaker was Ian Cudmore a free lance editor/jack of all trades.

His talk to us on Thursday was very interesting, he spoke of how he got into being a freelancer.He spoke of the advantages and disadvantages of being your own boss, which was interesting as people often look past the disadvantages because its the dream of almost everyone with a job. He gave us an insight to how he personally got involved in creating and editing films ,documentaries, etc. He spoke of the courses he did in ncad and trinity and how they lead him to working with videos. To hear how Ian went from college like us to working with RTE and figures such as Lisa Hannigan, P.J Gallagher and Maeve Higgins. I found this weeks guest lecture extremely interesting and I will remember his words of advice to us first years.

This week we also were handed our first assignment in multimedia authoring, which involves making a banner and island advert using flash. Sounds like it could be a bit of fun. Also handed in web design assignment for human computer interaction.

Edward Melvin, Project Manager, ICAN

Hail To The Thief — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:19:27 +0000

Our guest speaker for this week couldn’t make it unfortunately, but we watched the video recorded from his talk last year and got the message. He talked about the company he works for, ICAN, their role in the industry and his role within the company as project manager.

He explained that ICAN are an advertising and communications agency. They help their clients to define a vision and then ultimately realise that vision with their help. They provide numerous services including Web Design, Online PR, Search Marketing, Search Optimisation, Multimedia Design, Advertising campaigns, Project & Campaign Management.

They help clients decide what they want with visual aids of simialr projects or examples of what competitors are doing.

Their main focus is to engage people with their designs and then to more importantly convert which can mean a download, a visit, an open, a click, a new member, a cross-sell, etc. depending on the nature of the project.

More and more people are starting to advertise online because there is a clear return on investment, Audiences are moving online, More engagement is possible online, Online campaigns are much more flexible.

As a project manager edwards primary role is to deliver a profitable project for the agency on time within budget and to client expectations.

The difficulties that can arise from this are as follows :

Estimating
Planning
Communication
Difficult Clients
Risks
Time Management
Assumptions
Constraints
External threats

Thats about it for this weeks guest lecture so I’ll write back next week with more.

A return to Blogging

Hail To The Thief — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:47:08 +0000

Last week we had a visiting lecture from Geraldine Gray.She came in to speak to us about the various learning styles that might suit us differently. There are three different ways of taking in information that people prefer : Visual, Kinaesthetic and auditory. She helped us all work out what kind of learner we are, then she gave us tips on the best ways to learn keeping that in mind. She also told us that our personality can have an influence on how we learn.

I found the lecture both interesting and quite informative.

In other news we are motoring ahead in multimedia authoring and were given the task of creating the hello-kitty icon this week. Although mine probably wouldn’t go down in history as creative genius but I think she/he has definitely got some character.

Puppet mastery

Hail To The Thief — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:58:20 +0000

Hey another great week at Itb come to an end.What a week lectures,labs and puppets all in a days work for a digital medias student .The puppets were part of an excercise in our visual language lab, we had 30 minutes to create a story and represent it using the puppets. My group’s story consisted of Chris bear and grizzlianna (this was a completely original story obviously) and their violent relationship. The others story’s were far superior as they acted out Godzilla using the puppets and some hand-made props,in a word…tasty. Went to ultimate frisbee this week too was good old fashioned fun.That’s about it for this week then i think.

….

Hail To The Thief — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:24:22 +0000

Hey,submitted first assignments this week.Did personal developement presentation on modern day cinema.Also submitted visual language assignment,which entailed making 60 visual representations of dandelions.Left it a little last minute to finish it but got it done in the end,yay.Were told today that next Friday we will be taking a trip to an art gallery, looking forward to that.Anyway that’s about it for this week.