Chrome Extensions Part 1

ColorZilla

          Our latest project in Web Design was to explore Google Chrome Extensions. In this first part of my Chrome Extension posts, I will tell you about the extension, ColorZilla.

Purpose/What is it?

          This extension acts as an eye dropper tool, if you see a color that you like on a certain website or image, just click the icon and it allows you to copy the color to your clipboard. It shows the hexadecimal codes and rgb numbers of the color so that you can use that exact color in a project. It has many other features to it as well. You can look at your color history, create a CSS gradient, and it also allows you to see all of the colors used on the page of the website you are currently on. 

My Opinion

          I think that this extension is very useful and super user-friendly. If you are a designer, or just like colors, this tool is perfect and I see myself using this a lot in the future for graphic design and maybe a little bit of web (unfortunately, I will not be continuing web design, I will be in graphic design full time next year).

Link 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/colorzilla/bhlhnicpbhignbdhedgjhgdocnmhomnp?hl=en

New Northwest Mascot?

ONW Ravens or ONW Tigers?

           In web design this week, we were asked to change our school's mascot. Our current mascot is a raven, I changed it to a tiger. I do not really have a specific reasoning behind choosing a tiger besides the fact that I thought it would be fun to vectorize one. 

Here is the current mascot and logo for the Olathe Northwest Ravens:

Here is the mascot and logo for the Olathe Northwest Tigers:

           For this project, I took an image of a tiger and vectored it using the pen tool and the brush tool. 

Past Present Future

All of the information in this blog is from my Past, Present, and Future website that I created in Web Design. The main page looks like the first image but the text was too small to see so I typed the information in the blog. This site was created with rollover images (created with the gifs seen in this blog) and just my own knowledge of myself. 

 I was born on April 8, 2001, in Overland Park, Kansas. For 8 years, I lived in a small town in Missouri, Neosho. It is very close to Joplin, Missouri for a reference. I had a boxer named Sally who shed on everything and had horrible breathe with a tongue that was too big for her mouth, but what more could you want from a dog.

My family decided to move closer to distant family during my 4th grade year, which brings me to my current home in Olathe, Kansas.

I am currently a sophomore and still have a loving family, but instead of a boxer (RIP Sally 200?-2015), I now have a cavachon puppy named Plato. I am in the e-Communications program, if you didn't know that already. I am involved in soccer and musical theatre as well.




As of right now, I have no idea what the future has in store for me. I am hoping to major in graphic design in college, maybe go to the School of Design at the University of Minnesota. But I still have 2 years and my mind might change. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Index Website

Previous Index Page

         This past few weeks in web design, we have been working on updating our index website to where we used one of Dreamweaver's templates. This is my previous index page:

          This page was very basic and it just had my elevator pitch from last year and links to websites that I had created. I had the background a repeating sky theme which I though personalized it and made it differ from others in the class. Looking back on this website, I'm definitely glad that I upgraded it. My new index shows how much I have advanced in web design, even if it is not as good as the professionals, I have improved this year.

The New Index 

           This is my new index website. It was made with a Dreamweaver template and is also responsive which means that it adapts to whatever device you are viewing it on. I created my own logo for it as well. I used light/pastel colors. I also rewrote the bio because the elevator pitch was too cheesy for me. This website doesn't only include my websites, but it also includes some of my graphic design projects. 

          

          The image to the left shows how my website is responsive when the size of the device is changed. 

Genius Hour

This blog is going to be different from my normal e-Comm blog. My chemistry class has been working on this "Genius Hour" project almost all year. The main objective of the project is to make something "better" in the world. My partner, Ariella, and I chose our subject to be how our cell phones impact our sleep.

 Research Plan

Sleep is an important aspect in living a healthy life, but cell phones and social media are preventing people from getting the sleep they need. Teens are known for being on their phone right before falling asleep and even though they lose sleep they continue to be on their devices. This causes many problems since the blue lights and sounds on their devices keep them awake. When on any electronic device that emits blue light, the light restrains the production of melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone that controls a person’s sleep cycle (Sleep Science). When your brain is focused on social media it makes it much harder to fall asleep (Sleep Science). Sleep is known to lower stress levels and make your immune system stronger (Nimalasuriya, Kshamica). Sleep is also known to help memory by allowing us to remember what’s important and forget what’s not (Max, D.T.). In this project we plan to create an app that will help people fall asleep faster while on their phone.

    In this project we are going to bring together science and animation/graphic design. First we will discover the sciences behind what causes a person to fall asleep. We will collect data on what elements allow people to fall asleep quicker and get a more sufficient sleep. We will use senses such as sight and hearing to help relax your body enough for a more adequate sleep. Using these methods we will then use graphic design and animation to form the app. The app will include games, sounds, pictures, and gifs to relax your senses enough for you to drift off. We will have 14-45 year olds testing this experiment. This experiment requires all ages who would have a smartphone or any electronic device.

    There are really no safety precautions or risks that come with creating this app. The point of this project is to make the world healthier by making less people sleep deprived. The app will turn off the blue lights in the device that cause the restraint of melatonin production, ultimately helping people fall asleep faster. We will analyze the data by testing it out ourselves and seeing if the app causes us to become more tired. We will test it multiple nights, then collect any data afterwards to see if our results can make a difference.

Graphic/Icon

Bibliography

Max, D.T.. Secrets of Sleep (2007). National Geographic.

Nimalasuriya, Kshamica. Is your smartphone keeping you awake at night? (2013). Natural News.

Scary Ways Technology Affects Your Sleep. National Sleep Foundation.

Marks and Symbols

What I learned...

Symbols and logos are also known as marks (or trademarks). Both symbols and logos need to be simple and easily recognized. They are representing a company so the symbol or logo needs to show that it is connected to that certain company through a memorable, simple, and timeless design. 

A Logo

A logo is a word (or words) in type that identify a brand, company, group, or project. It can be a unique way to promote and it also makes it easier to recognize the company, brand, etc. 

A Symbol

A symbol is a mark that has no type in it. It is used to identify an agency, corporation, or institution. It is also another unique and simple way to give a quick impact. There are many key factors in creating an effective symbol. It should be clean and have a good flow. To make your symbol memorable, it needs to be simple and have heavy marks, that way it stands out.

Typography

For the past few weeks, my graphic design class has been working with typography. We had to find quotes or lyrics that somehow connected to us and meant something to us. I chose all of my lyrics from my favorite band, Twenty One Pilots. The band Twenty One Pilots is made up of two artists, Tyler Joseph (the lead singer, plays multiple different instruments, and raps) and Josh Dun (the drummer). Their lyrics are very inspirational and meaningful. I felt that their lyrics would fit perfectly for what my "vision" was. I chose song lyrics that would make sense in a certain format that I wanted. These are the four designs that I created and how I personally view each song. 

Lyrics from Kitchen Sink

          These lyrics are from the song, Kitchen Sink. The song is about helping you to defeat your "demons" that are inside your head. The very first lyric of the song is "Nobody thinks what I think" and in the second verse, the first lyric is "Nobody thinks what you think, No one, Empathy might be on the brink of extinction." I chose this lyric because it is, sadly, becoming true in this day and age. People are judging others before they even know each other. The empathy for technology is greater than the empathy for each other. For thefts, I wanted "EMPATHY" and "EXTINCTION" to look as is they were deteriorating. For the background, I used an image that had smoke on it and I thought that it fit with the lyric and style. 

Lyrics from Forest 

          This design was inspired by the song Forest. It is about living off of emotions and how they effect life, how we are afraid of what will come next. We live in fear and are restricting ourselves from living our lives to the fullest because of it. In the chorus of the song it says "Down in the forest, We'll sing a chorus, One that everybody knows. Hands held higher, We'll be on fire, Singing songs that nobody wrote," what this is saying is that we need to live in the moment and forget about our fears together. I chose the lyric "I don't want to be heard, I want to be listed to," because there is a big difference between being heard and being listened to. For example, if you multitask and work on homework while playing music in the background, you are only hearing the music, you are not paying much attention to it. When you listen to a song by itself and really understand the lyrics and what they are saying, I would call that listening. I chose this specific lyric because I think that every single person can relate to it in some way. 

Lyrics from Screen 

          This lyric is from the song Screen. It is about hiding who you truly are behind this metaphorical "screen." A lyric in the song that really sticks out is "We're broken people," and that is repeated multiple times, it means exactly what it says, there are people who try to act like everything is fine in their life when they're actually trying to hide the fact that they're "broken." I would have chosen that lyric, but I had an image in my head about the specific lyric that I chose. The lyric by itself may not make sense exactly, but if you know that song, the line right before it is "While you're doing fine, There's some people and I, Who have a really tough time getting through this life, So excuse us while we sing to the sky." What this is saying is, you might be enjoying life and you're okay, but that does not mean that every one is like that. There are people out there who are struggling but hide it behind their "screen" so that no one can see their pain. I wanted my graphic to look as if you were looking up at the sky so I made the font a cloud shape with a sun in the center. 

Lyrics from Lovey 

          The final lyric is from the song Lovely. The song is sort of like a message to whoever is listening. The chorus is "Won't you stay alive, I'll take you on a ride, I will make you believe you are lovely." Tyler (the lead singer) is saying that he believes that you are worth it and wants you to believe it too. He tries to stress "Stay Alive" is a lot of his songs, he wants to show that he cares and knows what people can go through. The song is about trying to make you believe that you are worth it and to stay alive because it will get better. I wanted to make the font give off a "lovely" tone so I chose a flowery font and a cursive font. I chose this lyric because I think that everyone should feel lovely and if they don't, I want to make them see just how beautiful they really are.