Opening Wednesday: Paged, Staged and Engaged

This Wednesday at 5PM marks the opening of an exhibit I am lucky enough to be a part of. Kevin Stein, poet laureate for the state of Illinois will be featured in an innovative collection of digital poetry, design and installation work done by a variety of other Peoria area artists and Bradley faculty. The pieces I have seen thus far are fantastic. The work is just great. The event is going to be held at the Hartmann Center Gallery on Bradley’s campus from 5-7PM on Wednesday. More info is available here.

My piece is a Quartz Composition that combines curated television clips, dynamic generated static and test patterns, and an interactive camera all composited with the poem and a waving star spangled banner. I hope you can make it! This was a fun project to put together, something that introduced me to a new tool and opened a world of possibilities to me creatively as far as how I could envision building an interactive experience.

I recently designed and created the graphics for a music video that was shot for the local musical talent Bob Krouse. He is a cowboy balladeer music star that is trying to break it big into the music business. The talented Jim Conover of Sand Prairie Productions from Peoria, Illinois directed the video. The video was filmed and edited here in the local Peoria area by Reality’s End Films. The video was shot on a set that was built by Sand Prairie Productions. I used Motion to create the title sequence graphics. The visual effects within the video used stop motion techniques along with ghostly fading edits.

On the left is a picture of the set along with some of the stunt men, actors and Bob singing in the background. In addition, there is a sample of the DVD case cover design that I created for Sand Prairie Productions.

To hear some of Bob’s music you can go to http://alonetone.com/bobkrouse10/tracks.

Recently, the music video was created on a DVD that was delivered by hand to Brad Paisley so we’ll see what happens. Pretty cool to think he saw some of my work:)

(photo and graphics © Sand Prairie Productions and Bob Krouse)

links for 2009-12-03

• Flash: Passing Variables to Flash from HTML via FlashVars
  A very thorough set of examples on using FlashVars with your AS3 movies.
  (tags: as3 flashvars tutorial)

The last weekend was quite a rush of activity as we worked to complete our installation of Audimeter-001 in the show. Brock, Katy and I worked to complete a piece that addressed the themes of surveillance and a fictional piece of Nielsen company technology. The following is the text from a didactic panel that accompanied our work.

“Interactive Media 413 class is a project-oriented course that allows students to participate in the creation of interactive performances and exhibits. The class has worked on four distinct projects over the course of the semester. This exhibit titled, Paged, Staged, Engaged was curated by class members Brock Norman and Katy Otto in conjunction with Professors Jim Ferolo (Interactive Media Program) and Kevin Stein (English Department), the students also created a piece, Audimeter-001 with Jim Ferolo for the exhibition The concept for this project grew from Jim talking with Kevin, who is the Poet Laureate for the State of Illinois. They became very interested in exploring the intersection of poetry and new media and came up with the idea of producing an exhibition. They decided to center on the production of a series of new media and traditional media works that explore a single poem. The piece they decided to use is titled “On Being a Nielsen Family.” The two students involved in this project, Brock Norman and Katy Otto, were given the task of not only creating the media and physical aspects needed for this piece with Professor Ferolo, but also were in charge of coordinating the show with the other artists involved as well as Liz Kaufmann, the gallery director. Focusing on the concept of surveillance, the idea started out simple enough, but quickly changed and grew as equipment changed and ideas for media evolved. Brock took on the task of building the physical aspects of the project, while Katy worked to organize the gallery so that all of the artists could set up their pieces. The students worked together with Jim to shoot the video content on a green screen along with support from the Iona Group and technical consulting by Dave Lennie. The Audimeter Model-001 installation is the result of this semester’s hard work. Thank you to everyone who supported this installation effort: Slane College of Communications and Fine Arts, George Brown, Dean Jeff Huberman, Elizabeth Kauffman, Paul Krainik, Carrie Kroenke, Dave Lennie, Mark Lohman, Cory Rabe, Trudy Ruch, and Joan Wilhelm.



This year, as our company Christmas gift, we thought we would continue our charitable history but bring it a little closer to home.  The economic challenges are great this year and each of us are aware of many families who are struggling to provide for their basic needs.  In keeping with the importance of both family and community, Iona decided to Adopt-a-Family this Christmas.

Realizing that the need is great, employees contributed personal funds to the company allowance knowing that joining together, we would make this Christmas a little brighter for a local family.  Working with Peoria Friendship House, employees divided into teams that had the responsibility to shop for one family member.  This program targets families with children in 8^th grade and younger to provide a new outfit and one of the toys on the child’s wish list.

It was a great effort as everyone pitched in – from shopping for their person, to donating additional monies to go to the family shopping, to helping wrap the gifts.  Our front hallway was lined with 11 very large, very filled bags.  They contained toys, electronics, clothing, coats, boots, hats, scarves, gloves, cleaning supplies, games and hot cocoa.  They are filled with our Iona family helping out another family that needs help.

We are all blessed in so many ways.  What a great way to share those blessings with others and a nice way to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas.

BJ Aberle, Jeremy LeBeau, Mark Tovey, Matt Forcum and Jeff Idleman wrapping gifts

Kevin Stein Read’s “On Being a Nielsen Family”

Kevin Stein – On Being a Nielsen Family

A video of Kevin Stein giving background information on his poem, “On Being a Nielsen Family”. Recorded at the show opening at the Hartmann Center for the Arts, Bradley University.

What a great night. Lots of people came out to show their support and my piece didn’t even crash. Win win!

links for 2009-12-14

• Scalable Design :: UXmatters
  Creating UI components that can scale as content depth and word length grows is a challenge for many UI designers. Something to consider as you design widgets for use in a web design are covered here.
  (tags: UI design scale)

links for 2009-12-16

• Albert Exergian – Portfolio
  If you look at this stuff and you aren't awed or inspired, I'm sorry friend… but you are dead inside.
  (tags: inspiration design art)

This year I taught Introduction to Interactive Media at Bradley University. As each year progresses, I always have some driven students who exceed expectations on all of the projects. I have a few examples from some of my exemplary students below:

One of the project’s criteria was to create a composition using Adobe Photoshop to design a CD cover (just the front cover). The cover could be for an existing recording, or make one up. The design had to include text effects created in Adobe Photoshop, scanned objects and artwork.

Another project’s criteria was to create a self-portrait using Adobe Illustrator. Starting with a photograph, the students had to use vector-based graphic and text elements to recreate the image, giving the viewer a little more insight into the person they are and who they portray themselves to be.

The final project of the semester was for students to create their own personal website. Many of the students used a combination of web techniques. The students had to use Dreamweaver and CSS. Here are some examples of the websites that the student’s created:

http://justinrestaino.com/
http://www.silvernewedge.com/

In addition, Bradley University recently launched a new Curriculum program. The program specializes in three different program areas. These three areas will be available as different concentration for Interactive Media majors.

Animation and Visual Effects – the production of digital character animation and visual effects for film, television, animation and game cinematics.

Game Design – the design and media elements of console, computer and mobile games and the production of games.

Web and Application Design – the creation of rich Internet rich Internet and mobile applications, experience design and web development.

http://slane.bradley.edu/interactive-media

I look forward to the next semester, knowing that the students will continue to exceed my expectations.

links for 2009-12-23

• Design View / Andy Rutledge – Dog and Pony Show Design
  FTA: "…on a mutually agreed upon date, AGENCY will present one or more (AT DESIGNER DISCRETION) 2-page visual design mockup(s) for review with CLIENT…" – Damn, that's some sexy contractual text. Makes me all weak in the knees. If you need some help finding your designer backbone and end the idea that you need to provide the magic number of 3 mockups for client reviews, this article is perfect for you!
  (tags: process productivity mockups)
• Design View / Andy Rutledge – Where Wireframes Are Concerned
  Hmmm… Seems sacriligeous, I know, but sometimes wireframes may not be the best deliverable for every project or client. Read on for an insightful explanation on this.
  (tags: wireframe process prototyping)