Budgeting Beast (sort of)

           For the final project in ENGL 308, my group is working on redesigning the interior a personal local favorite. When discussing in class the components of this project, I was very interested in working on the budget. This project allows a creative outlet to work with visual design which is a nice break from being a wordsmith. I knew I wanted to look at the various options that could furnish our redesign. As an engineering technology student, I welcome any artistic outlets. I love chances to work with something besides numbers and scientific concepts. Even though there's the financial aspect and there are numbers there, they are fun numbers. 

          In planning my part of the project, I laid out 5 retailers which are accessible in relation to the area this place is located. I figured Amazon, Walmart, Lowe's, Target, and Ikea were all reasonable depending on the budget of the establishment. The exact numbers will be in a spreadsheet in our presentation. I had fun looking up all the options and playing the role of interior designer! While this project may not have made me a budgeting beast as far as my saving skills, the numbers themselves are beastly... Target is expensive! For our local business of choice, you'll have to stay tuned for our presentation next week! 

I voted.

A couple weeks ago I voted early on my college campus. As someone who has never voted before, I voted for the first time on accident. I am part of a sorority that meets the same night every week, and this particular night our meeting room was locked. On my way to let the building staff know that the door was locked, I happened upon an on campus early voting room. I walked in to ask them what I needed to vote, and it turns out because I registered to vote earlier that month on some website I saw on social media, I didn't even need to show them my ID! So I took my ballot and exercise my right to vote. It was so simple, it took a few minutes, and I was able to get my group's room unlocked in time for the meeting. Voting is important. Even if you don't know the candidates, vote with the party that most aligns with your views. Even if you don't know what your views are, take a few minutes to educate yourself if a few minutes is all you have. Make sure those representing us are as accurate a representation of the ideals of this country as is possible. Go vote!

Reflecting on my Campus Signage Project - Part 2

     In thinking about where I wanted to do with this project, and how I could use story telling as a tool, I struggled. I do not think of myself as much of a storyteller. I do think of myself as a genuine person, and I didn't want to come up with some story for this project, I wanted my story to be natural and reflect what I do on a daily basis. I do not pay much attention to signs on campus. If I do, it is a very passive thing for me and I do not care about the elements of design, but I do care about the information conveyed. I could have  made an effort to care about the signs I saw on campus, but I thought using a sign from something I paid attention to and cared about would be more worthwhile. I also knew that doing so would energize my storytelling abilities. I chose to redesign my sorority's fall recruitment flyer. Choosing to redesign this flyer was not an easy decision for me to make, because there are a lot of different signs on campus that could benefit from a redesign. In my attempts to keep the project fun for myself and to keep the storytelling genuine, I thought this flyer was the best choice for my redesigning efforts. My sorority, Alpha Omega Epsilon, is a group that does a lot for women in STEM at NIU. I am currently the chapter president, so this is something that takes up a decent chunk of my time and I give a lot to this group. I did consider the awful "applying for scholarships just got easier" screensaver that is all over campus computers, and a couple other random flyers I saw in the library, but I wanted to do my sorority flyer because I wanted to work on something I cared about.

Original flyer design

     My sorority flyer is not at all a bad one. It's okay, it's very okay. I think the recruitment chair definitely considered our theme and what was important to communicate on a flyer. Our theme is fall, we're a professional group for women in STEM, pretty simple. What I do like is that I look at the flyer and I think "fall." What I dislike is how everything is so centered, and how everything is broken up into lines of text. I think the layout could be revamped. I also think that our name is a little washed out at the top in the leaves. I can clearly see "Fall in Love with," but I think I should more clearly be able to read the name of the group I am supposed to fall in love with!     

Design concept - I was going for a vibe

     In considering what elements I wanted to use to more clearly bring my vision to life, I considered the theme, the layout, who we are, what the events are, and contact info. I have been a part of AOE for 3 years now and I know that while our flyers are important, that many people find out about us from word of mouth, followed by social media, followed by flyers. We have also collected data from potential new members which includes the "how did you hear about us" question. Flyers are important, but maybe knowing when our events are isn't always the most important thing to communicate. I thought maybe a simply informational flyer with contact info would be beneficial. What I created with this in mind is not a complete flyer. It was more of a concept for a flyer that keeps our theme and says who we are. I do like the theme of what I created, though it is incomplete. It keeps the centralized text which I am iffy on normally, but I feel like it works in this flyer. I had blank space and I wasn't sure what to put here. But, again, it's simply a concept.

Final redesign

     I played around with piktochart and I liked this so I thought, keep it, but start over with another redesign and see where it goes. So, from there, I settled on a final redesign which retains all elements of the original in a new format. In my final redesign, I used the pumpkins to break up the blocked lines of text. I thought, describing the events we had was not a bad idea. Someone hooked on to a flyer might take more than 10 seconds to read it over if something interests them. I used the simple, black clipart of science-y images to try and make it clear who we are as a group. I attempted to avoid have all the text being centrally located on the page because I thought it was more visually appealing to do so. I also chose fonts I thought looked good with the recruitment theme. Their names also made it easier, they were cabin, cabin condensed, love ya like a sister, and cabin sketch. I think these fonts work together and add a touch of whimsy.
     Overall, had I actually made this flyer to be hung around campus, I would have cleaned up a couple things, such as the pumpkin sizes. But, I am happy with the result. I look at this and I am drawn to the bold words and the little black images make it clear that this is some sort of science group. Creativity blocks aside, I had fun with this project!

Reflecting on my Campus Signage Project - Part 1

     As I work on this project, I am faced with a dilemma. I am a creative person, I always have been a creative person, or I've at least always associated myself with that identity. This project makes me rethink that. I recall being in high school English classes. I was not a procrastinator, but when it came to assignments where I had to write essays, I was THE procrastinator. I cold not use words in the confines the assignment required, it felt impossible, and I dreaded writing. I was a creative person who could do a lot of creative things, I was good at art, I liked to paint, I thought I had a good eye for things that were conventionally visually appealing. But, I was not a writer and I was okay with this.
     When I started college, I attended DePaul University for a rather creative major - music performance. I still had to take general education classes, which included two English courses. I didn't know what to expect other than I'd probably be writing a lot more than I had to in high school, which turned out to be true, but this time writing was different. It was easier for me. It wasn't necessarily better, but I could put words together and answer questions on paper. I think somewhere between getting better at organizing thoughts within the box of a given topic and being able to crate something visually appealing, there was a bit of a trade off for me.
     While walking around campus, I don't generally pay attention to many flyers, or signs. I notice them, but they are more of a passive thing in my field of vision. I've narrowed my work down to two different signs I think could use improvement. One is a little more appealing - it was my sorority's recruitment flyer which I thought was too wordy and could have had a better organization and flow to it. The other is an awful scholarships screen that pops up on NIU computers prior to login. The visual is boring and it's overall a pretty lazy sign. As I continue to work on redesigning this sign, I think I'll get a better feel of whether my imagination is dwindling or Microsoft Publisher is too limiting.

Radiant Ramyn vs. Roger Ebert

       There is not much comparison between me a Roger Ebert in regards to writing a review, a summary, a reflection. I guess a similarity is we both use words, but I think his make him a bit more money. His style is fairly straight forward. He touches on, what I imagine, are the personally important parts of the documentary which have stuck with him. Per the guided reflection questions, I did the same. There are a couple moments in review where it seems he is being cheeky, ("does the bathtub fill up with water when you turn on the tap?"). I think my sass to be of a more mild flavor, perhaps it may sharpen with age. I think the content of my reflection covered a similar amount of content, focusing on major plot points of the story and aspects of Balog's dedication to his project. I think his review is more in a style that might convince someone to watch Chasing Ice, whereas mine is more following a form given to me. Perhaps there'd be more similarities if I was writing without guidelines? I am not sure. To sum it up, there are some vague similarities in style and content, I don't think there are similarities in form. His review showed not only his opinions of the documentary but also which side of the matter he is on, I think I also am clearly on one side of the matter.

Chapter 1 Exercise 1

NIU's home page, I believe, embodies the 3 measures of excellence in technical communication that are to be focused on in this exercise. On the website, there is a clean design, the universities colors are used, there a well organized sections, and labels to help direct people to where they might want to go. The website is fairly clear to navigate. The website is accessible because of the clear labeling, there's tabs at the top to help navigate the site. There are also sections to select for requesting more info, for applying, and so on. For someone who is able to read, I imagine the website would be fairly easy to navigate making it accessible. Lastly, the site does have a professional appearance. It is clean looking, modern, and as university websites go, it looks nice. I think with the slideshow images of happy students across the top, the site looks pleasant.

Chasing Ice Guided Reflection

       In watching Chasing Ice I was mesmerized by all the beautiful ice-scapes shown, and it's all just ice. I was seeing, for the first time in video and not just pictures, how beautiful ice is. And it seeing these massive ice sheets, this man's passion to capture what's happening to them, and seeing the culmination of his work over a few years time was just mesmerizing. What he set out to do was show us something is happening and we don't have to agree why it's happening to take steps towards stopping it. Before watching this film, I had never heard of calving as it pertains to the splitting of ice from a larger glacier or ice sheet, and still, to see what was caught on video, I was enthralled. If I wasn't concerned about climate change before seeing this beautiful yet tragic human caused phenomenon, I was now.
       As much as this film opened my eyes to something I knew I already cared about, it was something James Balog said that really solidified it for me. At one point, when he was standing near a glacier which he had seen the massive changes that had taken place, he referred to the pictures saved onto the memory card. Those pictures captured a landscape that once existed on this Earth, and this landscape no longer exists. Those images capture the only time in our history where that landscape existed. It's all ice, ice melts. It's not the same as the landscape we're used to here in Illinois. This is a landscape which has existed for a long time. We don't cry when the snow here in Illinois melts at the end of the winter - quite the opposite, in fact. The thought that what I do everyday, along with 7.5 billion other members of this planet, can destroy something so beautiful and natural is tragic.
       What really surprised me in watching Chasing Ice was Balog's perseverance. He was so dedicated to this project, and all it took was when he saw the change that occurred to a glacier in 6 month's time. Once he saw this, he was determined to show the public these changes. Through all the camera malfunctions and through his complications with a knee injury, he still managed to complete this project. Once he had received his knee operation, the project seemed to be at an acceptable point which would have shown the public the difference in glacier size. It would have sufficed. But, to Balog, this was not enough. The Extreme Ice Survey team kept going.
       After finishing Chasing Ice, I wonder, why isn't this news more mainstream? Why isn't the work of Balog and his EIS team more in the news? There must be so many other researchers who have come to these conclusions, who have witnessed what Balog himself captured, and yet this isn't plastered all over media outlets. This is our planet, the place we live and call home, and because these glaciers are melting thousands of miles away from us and we can carry on without seeing the effects of our actions, can we just ignore it until it's right in front of our eyes? In my home, I believe I am safe, warm, I have things that make my life easier, and I can exist comfortably. Except... I can't. I am conscious of the impacts my existence has on the environment, and this film reiterates that. I can continue to exist without thought for what my actions do to the home I share with 7.5 billion other people, but I do not want to. In my personal life, I do things that I know to lessen my footprint on this planet, and I do these things not for myself, but for everyone. This film reminds me that more people need to care because 1 person can only care enough to lessen the impact of so many. At some point, someone else has to carry that burden with them.