One of the biggest concerns in this “Web 2.51″ world is SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and for good reason. Your online identity needs to be easily accessible and prevalent across a wide range of categories for your business to thrive. A simple search of “SEO Salary” brings up an article that outlines the ranges of pay for someone who’s sole job is SEO optimization. The salary could range from $35,000 for simply building links between sites and up to $350,000 for a “Director of Search Marketing”. Obviously, the market feels the position is needed and worth a substantial income.
I really fell in love with After Effects during the last quarter of my sophomore year at DAAP. I wanted to continue working with the program and pushing myself to learn new techniques. I knew that if I did not set goals for myself during this Co-op quarter, I would get distracted and put my endeavors on the back burner, so I decided to create a new video project every week. Each week, I will try to learn a new technique, be it recreating an effect from television or film, or re-imagining effects from a tutorial.
For my first assignment, I chose to recreate the “title cards” seen at the end of commercials on A&E. I really enjoy the way they arrange the information they present. Color is used to highlight specific pieces of information, be it a title of a show or a time it airs. The motions are concise, but hierarchy is displayed throughout. It is a simple animation, but there is beauty and elegance in the simplicity.
Please refer to this video if you are not familiar with the way these A&E title cards look.
Here is my attempt to recreate that look. [media id=1]
If you don’t remember, I had made mention to Justin.tv a while ago, and in bringing up that site I started remembering one of my favorite “lifecasters” (the cute term Justin.tv uses to describe people that sit infront of their webcam). Sadly, when I went back to check up on this person’s activities, I found that they seemed to have been banned from the site. This was suprising to me, seeing as the topics of conversation rarely strayed from that of Geekdom.
It seems like every time I sit down at my computer, I have to keep telling myself that I need to finish updating the content on my portfolio. Not only am I lacking in motivation with the portfolio side of things, but I keep failing to fill out the blog side of things. I will have these great trains of thought, and when I sit down to write, it all seems rather trite. » Continue Reading…
