Article of the Month:  (Top)

The Wavelength article this month, "Interactive Media and the Interactive Media Designer" discusses interactive media and its characteristics. This article tries to outline the responsibilities of an interactive media designer. It thus helps the media designers review their current skill-set and determine what new additions would prepare them for a career in the area of interactive media.

Click “Interactive Media and the Interactive Media Designer” to read this article.

Art Styles:  (Top)

After Kangra and Mughal art, we now turn our attention to Mithila. This month we discuss Mithila painting also known as Madhubani painting.

Madhubani Art:
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Madhubani is a present day city in Bihar, and the Madhubani art evolved over the past centuries, in the villages situated around Madhubani.
The women of these villages painted the mud walls of their huts. Due to limited exposure to the outside world, their style of painting has remained unchanged over the centuries. The subjects for these drawings are usually the Hindu deities such as Durga, Shiva, Rama, Lakshmi, and Saraswati.

The following information will help you recognize Madhubani art when you see it:

• The characters are drawn with their faces in the side-view and the bodies in the front view.
• The eyes are quite large as compared to the rest of the features.
• The characters are filled with solid colors and the background with lines.
  Bright colors (Blues, Reds, and Yellows) are used.
• The drawings are enclosed with stylized borders.
  

A gallery of Madhubani paintings, is available at: http://www.southasianist.info/india/mithila/catalog.html
Learn more about Madhubani art at:
http://www.beacy.wa.edu.au/art/tribal/madhubani.html

The Technological Front:  (Top)

Adobe Premier CS3
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The requirement of editing, cutting, cropping videos and adding sound to videos is growing day by day. Different software applications for video & sound editing such as Adobe Premier, Final Cut Pro, Avid Pro, iClone, etc., are available for the media designer to choose from. Most of us use Adobe Premier, which is one of the common most software used in video editing. Many of us are already using Adobe Premier 6.5 or Adobe Premier Pro 2.0. Now we have Adobe Premier CS3 with some existing features enhanced further and some new ones that we can try out.

With Adobe Encore CS3 (which is a part of Adobe Premier CS3), Adobe Premier CS3 enables us to create .swfs, that helps make the videos compatible with Flash and web. It also enables us to create interactive DVD Menus.

With Adobe OnLocation™ CS3 software, Adobe Premier CS3 facilitates video recording directly to Hard Disk, which saves our production time, and also allows us to review each shot instantaneously. The enhanced video editing efficiency lets us play the video with nested audio loops without rendering and helps us save our time.

In Adobe Premier CS3 we can also replace any clip in the timeline with the new clip, while preserving the attributes and effects of the old one.

Through Adobe Premier CS3 we can also encode our video for mobile platforms. It also simulates the playback to check the video quality. (For simulations the profiles for the specific mobiles have to be downloaded.)

While exporting .flv files from Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, the timeline markers are embedded as cue points. This streamlines the process of creating interactive and navigational triggers.

Through Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, we can also create high-quality slow-motion and fast-motion effects with precise keyframe control and excellent quality using the Advanced Frame Blending option.

We can find files faster with Multiple Project Panels and Smart File Search that update the results as the user types. This makes project management easier and more efficient.

With Adobe Encore CS3 we can create DVDs, Blu-ray Discs and interactive versions of our videos for the web.

To know more detail about Adobe Premier CS3 and to compare it with its older version Click the link http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/upgrade/

The Great Masters:  (Top)

Claude Oscar Monet
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This month let's allow us to be impressed by one of greatest impressionists of all times - Claude Oscar Monet (1840-1926.) He was born in Paris on November 14, 1840; it was in 1843, that he first discovered colors. To understand Monet and his art better visit the following links:

http://www.intermonet.com/colors/ informs us about Monet's color preferences, his partial blindness due to cataract, and how it impacted his style as well as choice of colors.

http://www.intermonet.com/oeuvre/ is a gallery of Monet's painting, which takes us along on Monet's artistic journey through life. Remember to view the Water-lily series paintings. They are awe-inspiring.

If you want to get a comprehensive view of Claude Monet’s life and works, click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monet

Site of the Month:  (Top)

The site of the month for August is a riot of colors, it is a work of art, and it is also a website. Click http://www.communicatorworld.com/home.aspx to visit the site of Communicator world.

Here are a few cool things about this site.

1. The Pre-loader shows an iconic Smiling Buddha with bulbs lighting around him as the site loads. Innovative? Well, wait till you see the site.
   
   
2. The site loads. The Smiling Buddha continues to smile and wiggle his ears. He seems happy, and why shouldn't he be. After all, he sits (or floats) in the center of a beautiful amusement park - the communicator world...right?
   
   
3. The media crazy people could spend a lot of time gazing at the finesse with which the graphics are executed. The graphics use a mixed approach - they depict perspective in some areas (check the train, the islands, the buildings, the kettle-house, etc.) but they also use a flat two-dimensional treatment in others (especially the trees.) However, the overall effect is interesting.
   
   
4. I don't know what those cute little people are up to. They can be seen relaxing at the pool-side, carrying bulbs (ideas) from one place to another, going into various buildings, watering the grass to grow bulbs (!), then charge the bulbs, and take the bulbs into the temple (the temple houses their portfolio, click the temple to view its interiors.
   
   
5. The temple belongs to Buddha. However, what is more important from our viewpoint is the portfolio. Did you find it? Click it for a closer view. The page-turning animation is cool - so is the graphic treatment given to the book-base.
   
   
6. My favorite section in this site is the Profiles section. Click the teapot (or the Tea-building) and click "View Profiles", to view the profiles of those who work at the Communicator World. Can you recognize them from the little figures that were busy charging the idea-bulbs in the homepage? The concept is integrated so well...it's amazing!

I hope you enjoy this vibrant site and learn from it. Have you visited the site yet? If not, click http://www.communicatorworld.com/home.aspx and immerse yourself in a delicate and colorful experience.

Designer Holmes at Work:  (Top)

Media Designer: I’m a freelance graphic designer. I have designed a brochure in Adobe Illustrator. I have tried creating a pdf file with the Save As command option. My original Illustrator file is of 63 MB and the generated pdf is of 4.3 MB. As my client wants to send the eBrochure through email but feels that the file size is high. Can I reduce the file size of the pdf significantly through some method?

Designer Holmes: Yes you can significantly reduce the file size. If you have Adobe Acrobat Writer you can simply open your pdf files and optimize them using the Reduce File Size option, which is available in the File menu. There will be some reduction in the quality of the graphics but it is acceptable in view of the significant reduction in the file size.

Another method of reducing the file size is that while creating the pdfs, you can modify do the following:

1. Turn off the “Preserve Editing” option.
2. Convert the fonts to Outline.
3. Turn off the “Embed font” option.

There is yet another method that you may find useful.

1. Instead of creating the pdf directly from Illustrator create eps of the file using Illustrator.
2. Then open Adobe Acrobat Distiller.
3. Select “Smallest File Size” profile in Acrobat Distiller.
4. Drag and Drop your .eps file in distiller or open your eps file in distiller.
   

Be Inspired:  (Top)

Whether you are a landscape artist, a portrait artist, a 3D artist, or a Photoshop professional…Jeffery Bedrick’s work should inspire you.
Click the following links to be inspired:

http://jeffreykbedrick.com/thumbnails/earthgarden.htm
http://jeffreykbedrick.com/thumbnails/memoriesofsubiaco.htm
http://jeffreykbedrick.com/thumbnails/thelastresort.htm
http://jeffreykbedrick.com/thumbnails/dwarf.htm

The Laughter Palette!  (Top)

Five signs that can prevent you from leading a life that was not meant for you…though the signs are listed by a teacher to help the learners decide whether or not they should be learning graphic design, they may help a person determine whether or not he or she should continue being a graphic designer.

Click http://vccgraphics.wordpress.com/2007/08/01/five-signs-you-should-not-major-in-graphic-design/ to read about the five signs.

Check out some graphic designer cartoons at: http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/g/graphic_design.asp

Media Quiz:  (Top)
Here’s your monthly media quiz. Every month, Wavelength brings you a media quiz that will help you hone your knowledge of graphic design concepts and technology.

Take Monthly Media Quiz - August 2007 (Episode - 5)