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A nice tip for folks is that you don’t have to draw icons from scratch (although that’s great too). There are types of fonts called “Dingbat” fonts that you can download (Your computer probably has a few generic ones like Wingdings in your font list already). Check out http://www.dafont.com which is a great resource for fonts and they have a whole section of Dingbat fonts.
I had a lot of fun doing this assignment. I discovered that deep digging we can find, almost every time ,elements that can reduce the movie to a few anchors.
Here is mine . How I did it? I picked some elements in google image, put them in Fireworks , stripped the objects I wanted with the magic wand tool to extract the essence . For the elevator scene i distorted the rectangles and put some stick men inside . Then, obviously, I kicked them to a new white canvas.
I’ll be doing a number of the visual/design submitted assignments for ds106 in preparation for my talk with Martin Weller this coming week for our online film club bavathursdays. I’m working up to a 80s movie theme here, and I will be covering it from one too many angles in the coming posts—I apologize in advance for the onslaught of bad 80s movie visuals.
So, inspired by Tom, Megan, Alan, Lisa, and D’Arcy here is my attempt at the very fun four icon challenge assignment (thank you Timmmmyboy), keep in mind all my images were found through google search. I took the easy road with found art.
Image sources:
Flamethrower
http://www.roleplaygateway.com/inferi-decretum-t37484.html
Husky
http://www.spirit-teez.com/mascots.htm
Petri Dish
http://www.therpf.com/f9/my-thing-palmer-blood-monster-completed-77660/index2.html
Helicopter
http://www.baotranhuynh.com/vector1.html
Inspired by Alan Levine’s 2001 icons and in response to Tim Owen’s Four Icon Challenge, I put this together. I’m even more shy of drawing than Alan, so I did it with clipart, and unlike Tim I considered it more of a guessing game, so I didn’t put the title.
For ds106 Visual Assignment Four Icon Challenge
Reduce a movie, story, or event into it’s basic elements, then take those visuals and reduce them further to simple icons.
I am a horrible free drawer, so I set up a set of frames in PhotoShop, imported some images found (somewhere on the internet), and did some tracing and brushing.
Sot quite as elegant as the example, oh well. ds106= opportunity to break rules
Assignment: Reduce a movie, story, or event into its basic elements, then take those visuals and reduce them further to simple icons.
That’s my attempt above. I tried to stick to a three color scheme. The first image is supposed to be a parking meter. My wife was unable to ID it. It needs work. Hopefully the other three are at least identifiable.
I don’t use vector drawing tools very often. I clearly need to spend some more time with them to get some skills but that was half the reason I attempted this. My learning is now public, fairly messy, but most of all not really what I want. That is ok. It’s fun. It isn’t a contest. I’m enjoying it. I do not fear Jim Groom’s red pen.
You might also notice that I’m doing assignments in and around the #ds106 course but not necessarily all the ones that are assigned, nor am I necessarily doing them in the order they are given. I’m doing extra “work” with the interest and energy moves me1. I may go back and do some. I may not.
I like the MOOC idea. I find it valuable to have a group of people moving through the roughly same ideas at roughly the same time. I like the freedom I find in the structure. What worries me is how just calling something a course seems to bring a ton of baggage with it. People worry about not completing every assignment, being compared to others/graded and, most depressingly, being found wanting. I’ve seen this in the blog posts of participants and the comments of people I know in “real life” who’ve opted not to participate.
I see this mentality as a direct result of our educational system – adults, scared to try new things, as a learned response. I don’t blame the people. I think I see how this point is reached systemically. It’s just a pretty depressing legacy for a system that claims to produce life-long learners. It’s going to take an enormous amount of time and work to fix something buried this deep.
So, I’m inviting you to take part. If you’ve wanted to play along but haven’t because of lingering fears or doubts, come on in. The water is fine. The people couldn’t be nicer2. Jim couldn’t grade you if he wanted to3. Hey, there’s even a rather bizarre participant-run and -created streaming internet radio station.
Inspired by Colt Rane who ought to be making a huge number of English teachers happy with this image. He’s got one for the Great Gatsby as well but I don’t remember the book well enough to know if it’s good or not.
