[Original Post Date: 12/6/22]

Well, this will be my final post of the semester. So I wanted to take this time and reflect on how much I’ve grown as a person over the last couple of months.

I originally set out when making this blog site to become more confident when sharing my art pieces out to the public, outside of my immediate circle of friends or family. Looking back now, I never really understood why I was so scared to share my art pieces in the first place. Maybe the process was something unfamiliar to me. Maybe I was afraid that people would judge too harshly. Or maybe it was simply that I didn’t want to. Whatever the case may be, making this blog site and posting my art pieces was definitely something out of my comfort zone and has helped me grown as a person and as an artist. And, miracoulsly, made me realize that sharing my art wasn’t as scary as I intially thought it would be.

So I wanted to give a huge shout out to Suzanne Norman and Lauren Jeanneau, the teaching team behind this course. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to step outside of my comfort zone and explore something entirely new to me. I’ve always been meaning to share my art pieces out into the world but I’ve been hesitant for unknown reasons. Thinking back at the start of the semester, it’s kinda silly to me that I was so hesitant and unwilling to share my art. But it’s also quite incredible how much I’ve grown in confidence within the span of a couple of months. The people that conducted a peer review on my blog site commented on how all of the art pieces were all really well done. Those small comments gave me a huge confidence boost in my abilities as an artist.

To everyone reading this post, thank you. Even if you stopped by just to view one post, that small act means a lot to me. If I ever make it as a successful illustrator (let’s be honest, probably not. But maybe? Unless?), I will remember this as being a huge stepping stone for me. Perhaps I will continue to post here throughout the coming months. Or perhaps I will just look at this site to remind myself how much I’ve grown during these couple of months, or how much I’ve grown by the time I’m revisitng this site.

And so, a new chapter begins for everyone. And I wish you all good luck on your next ventures, whatever they may be.

Thank you to everyone. Exist in peace.

Goodbye. Now, leave.

[Original Post Date: 11/29/22]

I believe community guidelines are important to establish what type of content is or is not allowed on a site. An example of community guidelines that I have taken inspiration from is YouTube’s set. (link: https://www.youtube.com/intl/ALL_ca/howyoutubeworks/policies/community-guidelines/).

I took inspiration from this site as it had a similar type of content and the main source of interaction between the creator and the viewer was through the commenting system. I took a look through the different sets of community guidelines that YouTube has currently in place. There are three umbrella terms that I would consider adding to my own set of community guidelines; posts that include violent or dangerous content, sensitive topics, and spam.

To me, spam is more likely to occur than comments that contain sensitive topics or violent content as my blog site has not amassed a big enough audience that would lead to someone posting comments. Therefore targeting spam with my own set of community guidelines would make the most sense. I would tackle this by installing plugins that stop bots from commenting on spam in my posts. I would consider using the ‘Block Spam WordPress’ plugin

In terms of tackling comments that include sensitive or violent topics, I would consider the following. If there were to be one or two comments that have been made that include violent and/or sensitive topics, I would manually remove these comments. In the case of there being multiple comments being made throughout multiple posts, I would just disable my comment system.

[Original Post Date: 11/22/22]

Transmedia: where elements of fiction are told through different forms of media (i.e., T.V. shows, movies, books, microsites).

Transmedia can be seen in multiple types of established IPs. Take “The Dark Knight” for example. The Dark Knight utilized transmedia during its marketing schemes leading up to the release of the film. Microsites, which are smaller websites dedicated to advertising a specific product, were created to clue in on key story elements of the film. One of the microsites created was for an electoral campaign for one of the characters within the film named “Harvey Dent” who was running for the position of DA. The microsite showcased a poster with the text “HARVEY DENT FOR DISTRICT ATTORNEY – I BELIEVE IN HARVEY DENT”. This campaign poster was showcased throughout the first act of the film.

As the release date of the film was drawing closer, the microsite updated the poster to include a more vandalized version. The left half of Harvey Dent’s face was scribbled with a red marker. A black marker was used to form a crude ‘x’ over Harvey Dent’s left eye, symbolizing that he was half-dead.

This poster foreshadowed what would happen to Harvey Dent and who would cause the harm to turn him into the infamous villain. Two-Face.

How I plan to incorporate transmedia into my blog site is simple. One of the main reasons I created this blog site (outside of the fact that it was required of me to make one for a PUB course) was that it was to be used in a way where I would be comfortable sharing my art pieces with people I don’t really know. Now, I have become a lot more comfortable showcasing my art to the public. Therefore, in the near future, I would create a dedicated account on social media platforms such as Instagram, ArtStation, and Twitter to place all of my art pieces. On these social media pages, I would post pieces that are either ‘work-in-progress’ or fully finished. Within these posts, I would place a link to my blog which would then detail more so of my process for each piece for those that are interested. On my about page on my blog site, I would place links to each of these accounts. I plan to also host exclusive content that would only be available on this blog site in order to incentivize visitors to come to visit.

[Original Post Date: 11/22/22]

The Deep Web vs the Dark Web. I never really knew that there was a difference between the two. All I knew about them was that they were a part of the internet that cannot be surfaced by regular search engines like Google or Bing. You would have to download a specialized browser that allows you to browse the dark or deep web anonymously.

In the article titled “Clearing Up Confusion – Deep Web vs. Dark Web“, the stated difference between the two different types of the web is that the dark web is a smaller portion of the deep web. The dark web is intentionally hidden due to it containing illicit content that ranges from strange to outright disturbing.

I think what really piqued my interest in the concept of the dark and deep web was from a video game titled “Welcome To The Game” parts one and two. I first heard of this game when one of my favorite YouTubers, Markiplier, did a playthrough of the game. The game revolves around you taking control of your character who is a detective tasked with discovering the location of a woman who has been kidnapped. The goal of the game is to collect these keys that are hidden throughout different websites within the dark web. Welcome to the Game has been described as a very challenging game due to how it mimics realistic scenarios. Your character must ensure that they hide their identity when using the dark web as others can track your location and kill you; game over.

Now, that’s not to say that I would go around snooping the dark web. While I understand that utilizing a specialized browser would help mask my identity and information thus making it relatively safe, if I am not careful, malicious people can track my location or find information about me easily which may lead to dangerous consequences.

[Original Post Date: 11/1/22]

In one of the readings titled ‘Here’s How Worried You Should Be About Those Tom Cruise Deepfakes’, Vice News author David Gilbert writes about a viral video on Twitter of a guy imitating Tom Cruise. However this video doesn’t just showcase some guy doing some half-assed impression of Tom Cruise by exuding his mannerisms and voice. The guy doing the impression is using AI technology to place Tom Cruise’s face on his. This type of process is called a ‘deep fake’. What the AI is essentially doing is mapping out Tom Cruise’s face using either the images that are given to it by the user or scanning the internet (cause there’s a lot of pictures of Tom Cruise’s face on the internet) while simultaneously scanning the face that its going to place Tom Cruise face on. The images that are being scanned look for details involved whenever one person is expressing a certain emotion (think of wrinkles around the eyes when one is genuinely smiling) and banking that information. Therefore, when the original face is expressing an emotion, the AI knows what details to place and for the most part, it does a pretty good job.

I think this type of technology is interesting but certainly terrifying. In this day in age where misinformation and disinformation spreads quickly across social media platforms, this type of technology can cause chaos and panic. Anyone with the knowledge and capacity to use deepfakes can essentially imitate anyone, especially people with power such as politicians. Furthermore, if that person has the same body type and hairstyle as the person they are imitating, deep fakes would be even harder to spot. With deep fakes now, people would know what is a deep fake if they know what they are looking for but with average viewers, they may not be able to tell. With AI getting better with each day that passes, it is going to be difficulty for both average and knowledgeable viewers to determine what is real or fake.

[Original Post Date: 10/25/22]

Link to Website: https://www.youtube.com/

After learning about best design practices from our guest presenter, Mauvé Page, I decided to take her lessons and conduct a small design evaluation on a website.

Therefore, I decided to do a quick basic design evaluation on YouTube’s user interface as it is a website I frequent.

I first took a look at the contrast and saw that YouTube uses a dark grey background with light grey for all of the text elements. The contrast between the background and the text makes it so that viewers will have an easier time reading the necessary information related to the video at a quick glance.

An example would be as shown within the video underneath where the text elements denote the information of the video such as the title, the uploader, the number of views, and when it was uploaded. Viewers would be able to quickly glance at the text and discern the information being conveyed easily.

Furthermore, the font weight chosen helps establish a hierarchical order. Thicker font weights call for more attention than thinner font weights as they take up more space and are wider, creating more contrast with the background than thinner font weights. Therefore, using thicker weights for the title elements I think was a smart choice by the design team at YouTube. It also helps me discern which text element I should read first, which was the title of the video. For the rest of the test elements, a thinner font weight was used throughout, thus establishing the order to be read from top to bottom.

To add to that, close proximity was used effectively with all of the elements of the video including the images. Due to how all of the elements could be defined in one square, the images and the text elements are associated as one item on YouTube’s homepage. None of the text elements or images overflowed into other video items, thereby eliminating potential confusion as to what text elements belong to what video item.