SoundSlides Project

Toward the end of the semester, we were assigned to create a SoundSlides project. I chose to do mine on the balloon inflation for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I took pictures, a sound bite and cutlines that my professor provided me and put them into the SoundSlides program. I edited the cutlines to make sure they were in AP Style and did some outside research to add information about the size and age of the balloons. Finally I made sure that each picture stayed on the screen long enough that the cutline could be read. The SoundSlides project was interesting because it gave me the opportunity to add audio to the pictures and cutlines in order to tell a more complete story.

Book Review

One of the more interesting assignments of the semester was writing a book review on a book about editing. We were supposed to analyze the book for criteria, including the author’s credentials and purpose of writing the book; the target audience of the book and how well the book is written. The book I chose to review was The Fact Checkers Bible by Sarah Harrison Smith. This assignment taught me how to write a book review, making sure that everything is written in AP Style. Click here to download the review.

Headlines

One week during the semester, we focused on writing headlines, both for print and online publication. For our Headapalooza assignment, we were given a list of stories to read and create print and web headlines for. The web headlines were supposed to be six to ten words long, and we were given specifications for each print headline. For the headline below, the specifications were that it should be two columns wide, 24 points in size, and two lines deep, in the plain, Times New Roman typeface. The Headapalooza assignment taught us how to create two different types of headlines for the same story. Below is a screen shot of my headlines; you can click on the image to enlarge it. Click here to download the story.

Print Design Project

For our final project of the semester, we had to design a newspaper front page on InDesign. We were expected to know how to place text, pictures and captions onto an InDesign page and design it using the four elements of design we learned in class: contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity. I believe that creating a front page design was a very practical assignment because knowing how to do it could give me an advantage in the future. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Fact Box

Below is a fact box I created with the program Adobe InDesign. The goal of the assignment was to create a biographical fact box about a member of the United States Supreme Court or the Cabinet and type it in a way that it would appear in a newspaper. The assignment taught me how to research and fact check biographical information. It was also the first time I used InDesign, so the project taught me the basics of the program. Click on the image to enlarge it.