Project 1 Supporting Material

I've really been struggling for ideas for this first project that's a composite image of "an imaginary event, place, person, thing, etc." My original proposal was to do something with album art maybe scattered across a desk, but now that really doesn't sound too interesting. I also had an idea of having someone walk down a hall that's covered with album covers sort of like the iTunes screensaver on mac.

Then just a minute ago I reread the 'imaginary' part and thought about a 'Thugz Mansion' composite based on 2Pac's line:

Tell the homies I'm in heaven and they ain't got hoods
Seen a show with Marvin Gaye last night, it had me shook
Drippin peppermint Schnapps, with Jackie Wilson, and Sam Cooke
Then some lady named Billie Holiday
Sang sittin there kickin it with Malcolm, 'til the day came

Maybe I'll make a composite of those artists' faces or album covers in a way you might think 'Thugz Mansion' like the 2Pac Resurrection album cover.

Tomorrow in lab I'll have to narrow it down to one of these ideas. I'm still unsure how I'm going to spend 12hrs a week working in Photoshop on one image like the guide said to, especially when the images are just 800 x 600 most times.

Although I'm sure this violates some sort of copyright law, I was planning on using album art ripped from Last.fm and my iTunes library with tools like Gijsco's Last.fm Desktop Generator. If I plan on going with something with a little more setting like a real desktop or hallway, I'll probably look through free stock photo sites.

I'm a little nervous about how this first project is going to turn out. I'm not much of an artist and already having a creative block so hopefully everyone else in the class won't show me up too badly.

Making It Easier to Follow My Digital Art Classmates

Last week I started blogging for my digital art class along with the rest of my classmates. Our teacher put together a page of links to everyone’s blog, but I didn’t find that very helpful so I took it a step further by creating an OPML file I could easily import into Google Reader.

I’m lazy so the first thing I did was google for an OPML generator. Bingo! The Feed Show had a nice little goodie to create an OPML file full of RSS feeds. It allowed me to enter the URL to the blog list and returned a list of everyone’s blog. I went ahead and created the OPML file filled with just the URLs, and then manually edited the XML file to add on “feeds/posts/default” to the end of each xmlUrl. It imported perfectly into Google Reader and now I can read everyone else’s entries for digital art.

I wonder if the professor thought about doing this so it would be easier to read and grade our entries. I’m offering up the OPML file for everyone to download so anyone can follow along. If you need help importing it to your reader of choice, leave a comment and I can try to help!

Digital Art: Introduction

I'm excited to be blogging about digital art this semester for Fine Arts D210. Little does my professor know that I already try to maintain a regular blog on my personal website. Unfortunately, she won't let me use that for this class so I'll be crossposting entries here and there. I guess if anything I'll get more exposure and even drive my own link juice :)

For my classmates, I'm a senior Informatics major focusing on cyber security and telecommunications. I have no formal art background. In fact, the last art class I took I failed (in 8th grade). Since then I've fallen in love with web design and consider myself well read on the subject. As most of my studies have been on what's under the hood, I've spent my own time researching web trends that encourage intuitive interaction.

Last year, I headed the GameZombie.tv web team that won a Webby award, and also had my logo selected for the 2009 Little 500 races. 

When I think of digital art, I don't think of just a plain image that could be printed and hung on the wall. It should be "hands-on" and responsive since the digital platform allows for that added depth. I'm most inspired by very interactive websites usually powered by Flash and websites that are effectively simplistic. These are usually produced by marketing companies, design studios, and individual designers. I tend to like very clean designs but also very grungy, dirty, graffitied looks. I also love typography and logos!

When I find the time, I love to read through the couple hundred design blogs on Google Reader. Here's where I got started and they have a download link to an OPML to directly import them all. Until next time-

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Design is knowing which ones to keep"

Scott Adams