Week 4 in Digital Media: Freestyle

Computers are going to take over, it's only a matter of time. How is digital media significant you ask? Well, what if one day we digitally design a world so realistic, that we cannot distinguish it from the world we really live in. This is where concepts like The Matrix come into play. The machines we create could one day become so intelligent and good at creating false realities, that they realize the power they have, and design a false world to trap us in... call me crazy, but it could happen. Anything is possible.
Creating digital media is good and dandy but will we stop ourselves when the time comes. Humankind's biggest weakness is also its biggest strength. We are able to advance so far and invent so much, we can probably even invent our own destruction. Who would have guessed that one tiny paintbrush could lead to so much. It hasn't happened yet, but it could. Imagine the day where we wake up and pick the world we want to see from a selection screen. You wake up one morning and say: "I want a pale coloured sky, I want to the the roads to have 45 degree gradients with contrasting colours and i want the design on my shirt to jump off the fabric and come to school with me."
I've always wanted a computer interface like the one Tony Stark has in Iron Man. Also his computer butler Jarvis who can do anything. I basically want to be Tony Stark, but that's another blog post.

Anyways, as I was saying, it might not be long before we create our own digital prison made up of bitmaps, vectors, and a whole mess of other things. Like a mime, we won't see the invisible box we're creating until its too late.
But who knows, maybe this is all just kooky talk.

Week 3 in Digital Media: Crap

CRAP seems like an easy way to help categorize the way images are presented to us. Here are some examples I've found on my dad-to-day travels around the city, they we're all found while I was commuting on the TTC.

C - Contrast:

This is the Ad for the provincial elections here in Ontario. I believe this Ad uses contrast by using two most contrasting shades, of black and white. Also, by adding the yellow "x" with the black text, it too contrasts in terms of colour. By using the these opposites together it helps draw attention to the ad and more importantly the message. Getting people to vote in any election is an important issue due to the lack of actual voters turning out to vote. Also, by adding the yellow "x" with the black text, it too contrasts in terms of colour.

R - Repetition:

This is an Ad for the breath mints, "Mentos". This ad uses repetition by using a picture of the actual tube of mints, many times. I suppose they use this technique to make sure you know what kind of breath mints you should use to freshen your breath. Also, maybe since they are giving away ten thousands dollars/a years supply of Mentos, they should compliment that by trying to make the mass amounts into a visual. I think this also uses contrast by using the white of the mint itself to contrast with the blue font on the packaging.

A - Alignment:

This poster, and more just like it, are usually found in subway stations on the train platforms. This poster, for the T.V. station Global, uses alignment to help advertise their fall line up, this one is specifically for the show Prime Suspect ( There are also ones for the shows House, Family Guy, and others as well). The way they align the picture of the character from the show with the yellow "I" in the middle of the big "BIG".  I guess this another way of making the character the focal point of the Ad. I think this is a good way to advertise their shows because they use the "Greyscale-ish" picture of the character in conjunction with colourful lettering.

P - Proximity:

This final ad, found on the TTC is actually for the TTC. This bus ad is for the consumer-corporation interaction between TTC users and the company itself. This ad uses proximity to advertise the various ways consumers can stay connected with the TTC. They've grouped together all the various ways people can connect, this includes e-mail, mobile capabilities, and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. By using proximity, people who want to stay connect get all their questions answered in one ad. 

These elements in design are a good way to keep track of how design can be manipulated. This is not only useful when being in the audience of a piece of design, but it is also useful when trying to create our own design works. Knowing techniques and the results they can achieve are important.

Week 2 in Digital Media: Digital Footprints

In this week's lecture we found out that traces of ourselves on the internet run deeper than maybe we first thought. It seems that everything that has ever been on the net, no matter how big or small, has left a permanent mark in the digital fabric of the world. Even if something is made "private" or even if something has been deleted, the web remembers. So if at anytime someone really wanted to find something about you, they probably could. Even the most security conscious people can't help having something about them uploaded to the world wide digital miracle, as some have called it.

I myself usually do my best to stay as off the radar as possible, when it comes the digital world. I have resisted many social networking sites such as facebook, twitter (until this course deemed otherwise), and multiple others. Not only because I do not wish to share every little detail about myself, but also because I not believe them to be of any use whatsoever. Call me old fashioned or sentimental, but I stand by those ideas. My band and my Karate organization are both on the web, which just about it when it comes to my exposure in the digital world. Pictures and videos of performances and a little info on our own website.

When it comes to anyone's digital identity, I think that people should be free to share as much about themselves as they like, it's their funeral. People lose jobs, friends, and scarily a lot more than that due to altercations that occur over the many digital interfaces we have at our disposal. When we are given the opportunity to share and explore with each other, we are encouraged to do so. This modern age has granted us the tools to connect with people all over. Now we can be as close to people from another country as we can to neighbors who may live right beside us. This being said, some people can go a bit overboard. Some people may call it outgoing or emotionally generous, but I call it really annoying. In my opinion there's an unwritten code of conduct online that many people either don't know or just choose to ignore. How we present ourselves online is of our own doing but we must always be cautious. Decisions made in the heat of the moment online... shouldn't be made.  One click in the wrong place can turn a persons life upside down in the blink of an eye.

Also, who keeps track of all this anyways? Is there a digital Mantracker who can pick a scent and track us down?     Who knows...    someone does...

My Vegas Postcard

This was surprisingly fun to make. Week two and already we've got some magic going on.

Week 1 in Digital Media

Well, here we are in a Digital Media course. With everything "going digital" these days it makes sense that media is one of the first and most important things to be analyzed in our modern lifestyles. I actually had a pretty good idea of what digital media was before our first class. This isn't hard when I'm exposed to so much of it on a daily basis. Most of the images I see and most of the sounds I hear, whether it's at home or downtown, are presented to me through various digital media. After the first lecture, my ideas on digital media had been confirmed. Basically anything on a screen could be considered digital media but the good examples are those that target a specific audience and deliver a message to them. What I learned that I found most important was that learning how we are affected by it is a very useful asset, especially when it comes creating our own pieces of work through digital media. Being in RTA, I think this course can do nothing but benefit me. As the RTA program is preparing us for the future of media and communication techniques, learning about digital media is one of the crucial foundations for such preparation. As we progress in all our courses, I think we'll find that everything we are learning about is much more connected to one another than we first thought.

I do believe McLuhan was right when it comes to the media and the message, and unfortunately so in my opinion. What I find distressing is our dependency on our media. You can't swing a cat without hitting some form of it and I think people these days are too focused on the medium and have forgotten that there are messages, which I believe, are the most important part.