Bridgette Goes to College

            I tend to not think things through before doing them. Which, if you’ve met me, sounds like an untrue statement, because I also think about things way too much, and I like planning. I don’t like planning so much as I like doing, apparently. Planning takes too long, and by the time I’m done planning I’ve changed my mind half a dozen times. Sometimes this is good. With writing and designing, the first ideas aren’t always the best, and you have to go through 8 or 10 drafts before you get to something that’s really solid. I clearly don’t have a problem planning out a story and editing it, and editing it, and editing it, and editing it, until it’s virtually unrecognizable from its original inception. At the same time, I tend to latch on to an idea too quickly and get myself in trouble (hence why I keep referencing the Great Crisis of Last Month when I couldn’t execute all the brilliant ideas I was having). This is the same me that went “It’s time to get an eyebrow piercing!”

I’m not quite sure what to blog about this week, so I think I’ll just ramble a bit about the current class I’m taking and see where it leads.               This class is Web Programming, and while it might not be “programming” or “coding” as one might think of it, we are working with HTML and CSS and building multi-page websites in text editors and Dreamweaver.               I think I’m neutral about it. I don’t have any strong feelings one way or another. I don’t have a whole lot of passion or excitement for the projects, but I’m not dreading them, or filled with anxiety, or going into a crisis every 5 minutes because I don’t have the skillset for my ambition. It also seems like a weird class to end on, as far as my Graphic Design degree goes, but I think I’ll get into that next week.               Overall, I don’t mind this class and I’m learning a lot – way more than I’ll ever retain! I actually enjoy the markup process of HTML. It must be the same part of my brain that enjoys

             I came across an article the other day, that was discussing a book written by type designer Marie Boulanger, called XX, XY: Sex, Letters and Stereotypes . It gives a brief overview of what’s in the book and some of Boulanger’s thought processes behind writing it. Here is a link so you can check it out for yourself: Marie Boulanger explores how typography perpetuates gender stereotypes.               I was absolutely going to get this book, but it’s apparently only in French at the moment. I can’t read French. Despite this, I wanted to talk about the book, and some of the ideas that are in it.               Essentially, it comes down to this: typefaces have been gendered (whether intentionally or unintentionally) and over time we’ve come to associate strong, bold typefaces with masculinity, and decorative, script typefaces with femininity. These are used, very often through marketing, to re-enforce stereotypes and the gender binary. Marie Boulanger says "Through as

  It’s time for another book cover analysis! I’ve already done two, but I like talking about book covers, ok? If I keep up with this blog this may be the only thing I blog about in the future. I may even transfer my blogs over to a different site and only keep these ones and leave the rest behind. Today’s choice is The Left Hand of Darkness, which I read last year at the start of the pandemic. It was a birthday gift from my friend. They had to read it in their gender studies class, and she was like “Oh, you know who would enjoy hot takes on gender with an extra helping of sci-fi worldbuilding? Bridgette!” And she was right. Can I tell you anything about the plot? No, but I came for the worldbuilding and I stayed for the worldbuilding. Doesn’t mean the plot wasn’t interesting! Let’s get on with it, shall we? This is the first cover we’re going to look at.                 I’ve seen a couple variations of this where the text is pink and the Hugo award sticker was bigger or transparen

                 You know how I said the last project almost kicked my butt?               Consider it kicked.               I have been defeated by a foe greater than any the world has ever seen.               Who or what is that foe?               It’s me.               My own ambition and ideas are stronger than my fragile human body and the short time I have to spend on this Earth. I have seen the dark end that lies in wait for all of us and felt the crushing burden of a great potential that will never be fulfilled. I have been slain by a despair so great humanity will sing of it for an age.               But then, in my time of need, a new idea emerged. An idea with the possibility to be entertaining, enjoyable, and within my skill. I was resurrected, and thus, Crisis was born.                The project for this week was to create movie credits for a real or imagined movie. As you may have gathered from the dramatic prose above, I came up with a lot of great ideas but

              Animating kinetic typography is a beast.               I say this to be punny, and also because it almost kicked my butt.               I was having fun, and I got over ambitious as I tend to do, and I ran out of time and had shorten the project I was working on. It still works. I still met the requirements, but I ended up with 42 seconds instead of the near minute and a half I had anticipated. I could have gone a bit longer, but I think I’d be working on the next 40 seconds for another week and that is Against The Rules. The question that might be asked is why specifically 42 seconds, and why was the only other alternative to go overboard and have double the required time?               The answer is I chose a very specific song with very specific beats and sections that would not work broken up in any other way than 42 seconds or 1 minute 20 seconds.               I…let me stop talking and just show you the video I made.             That was mine! I made that!

               This month I’m learning about post production with the use of After Effects! I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy it, but I have so far, and I wanted to share a couple of projects I’ve worked on this week. One of them is purely for amusement, and the other I think I might actually be a little proud of. This is the first project, which I’ve simply been calling Sad Window Rain. One of the options for a beginner project was to add rain to a video, and my genius decided that meant filming the dolls that live in my dollhouse looking sadly out the window. It’s Poetic And Sad because the dolls living in the dollhouse represent me and my best friend, who moved across the country this summer. It’s Also A Joke because the music I chose to put in the video is from that iconic Australian mermaid show H2O: Just Add Water, that plays whenever any of the characters has a break up and they look sadly out the window while it rains for a full three minutes. It was fun to get to play aroun