ajamal3

[ajamal3]

Final Final

https://editor.p5js.org/aishajamal/sketches/Npgu6rX-K

Please read! I had a lot of trouble making this game the way I wanted it to be. The idea behind it was that the red square was trapped in a cage, and you, the blue square, would need to kill the surrounding enemies to free the red square. Once the red square was free, you could touch it and together turn purple (blue + red = purple) and win the game. But I am submitting this game having been unable to meet those expectations. Lots of problems I couldn’t fix: velocity of laser slowing down after killing enemies, enemies not immediately dying (disappearing) after hitting them with the laser, could not get up to making the cage untouchable until all enemies killed, could not figure out how to change the squares to purple upon killing all enemies. Sorry about it, but I did make an effort. You can see in my code there are attempts to make these things work - I commented in where the attempts are.  

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Final draft

https://editor.p5js.org/aishajamal/sketches/c74LrUkGB

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JS Sketch 2

ellipse pattern https://editor.p5js.org/aishajamal/sketches/HFh_DFMoD

interactive mouse press https://editor.p5js.org/aishajamal/sketches/pznpe01Xs

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JS HW

sketch - https://editor.p5js.org/aishajamal/sketches/op5tmdqQT

drawing tool - https://editor.p5js.org/aishajamal/sketches/X6B4wUGff (mouse press to clear screen and change background color)

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MIDTERM

note: wait a few seconds after loading the homepage for the slideshow to appear 

https://codepen.io/ajamal3/project/full/DNRrjk

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Home page, Shop page, Inspo page, and About page

Only first three are annotated

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3 Precedent Websites

http://www.michaelcinco.com/

https://badsuns.com/

https://wiishuwrites.com/

CSS Style Guide

https://codepen.io/ajamal3/pen/KEgGWq

Skeleton 

https://codepen.io/ajamal3/pen/moOvgJ

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https://codepen.io/ajamal3/pen/BMOBNK

https://codepen.io/ajamal3/pen/GzboOV?editors=1100

https://codepen.io/ajamal3/pen/GzzdZj

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Photo Collage Info

https://codepen.io/ajamal3/pen/OdZOvY

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Something that inspires me the most is the thought that success can be reached by anyone through a lot of hard work and determination. I tried to represent this in my collage poster by the mountains that take up the bottom half of the page and the beautiful scenery that is beyond them, because the mountains can symbolize the obstacles and the journey that blocks success from being in reach, the success being represented by the scenery on the other side of the mountains. The scenery is from a video game called Skyrim and to me it represents success because when I discovered this area in the game I was amazed by how beautiful it was. It was breathtaking and I felt that I want to make a game in the future that would somehow at some point make players feel the same way. The victory sign (also from a game) is to indicate that reaching that area would be a success. The two cats on the bottom are the same picture of a friendly stray cat that lives around my grandparents’ house in Pakistan. That cat inspires me because after I met her I felt so loved and happy that I decided I want to get my own cat (or, like, five of them) someday. She is in shades of blue because I wanted to play with the use of color in the picture by keeping the whole image within the same color range to show uniformity. Her placements at the bottom of the image can also be interpreted as her presenting the viewer with the view beyond the mountains, like guards who open the palace door for a hero. Her placements also create a triangle effect, as the viewer’s eyes might travel in a triangular movement, moving from between the cats on the bottom to the victory sign at the top. The white border around the image are stitches like those on clothing, and I used it because fashion and tailoring and sewing inspire me, as I do want to learn how to make my own clothes some day. I wanted it to look like this image is sewed onto a piece of clothing represented by the galaxy background. I used a galaxy image to represent the clothing because a galaxy can represent the vastness and mystical characteristic of the mind, so my inspiration that is this image is sewed into the fabric of my mind (another way of saying that what inspires me comes from my mind and way of thinking). I think I did well with the usage of color (the shades of blue), balance (”heavy” on the bottom, free and spacious at the top), proximity (the distance between the two mountain ranges and the distance from the mountains to the scenery), and hierarchy (the victory sign indicating success is at the top) in my collage poster. I found most of my content images through Google searches for png images; only the cats are from a photo taken on my phone. Overall, working with Photoshop challenged me to be artistic and creative using digital tools that I never worked with before to this extent, so I enjoyed it and I think more practice will help me improve my graphic design skills.  

[ajamal3]

Something that inspires me the most is the thought that success can be reached by anyone through a lot of hard work and determination. I tried to represent this in my collage poster by the mountains that take up the majority of the space on the page, because the path leading up to the mountain can symbolize the journey that inspires me. The victory sign (which is from a game I am terrible at playing) and the sun around the peak of the mountain also depict how the top of the mountain symbolize success resulting from a long journey. Around the mountains are other things that inspire me: games represented by game characters peeking through the page, my culture in general represented by a meal my mom made, a friendly stray cat that lives around my grandparents’ house in Pakistan that made me want to desperately get a cat or five of them when I’m able to, and sewing which is represented by the stitching bordering the page. I found most of my content images through Google searches for png images; only the cat and the food dish are images taken from my phone. I think I did well with how space is considered throughout the collage, because the eye travels around the areas that are meaningful and can tell a story: the eye might travel up the center edge of the mountain and then gaze around in a circle at the other elements around the mountain. Overall, working with Photoshop challenged me to be artistic and creative using digital tools that I never worked with before to this extent, so I enjoyed it and I think more practice will help me improve my graphic design skills.  

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“The Medium is the Message”

Marshall McLuhan makes a well-formed argument about the definitions of “medium,” “message,” and the relationship between the two. He says that the medium extends our ability to communicate and interact with the world. The resulting changes to society and culture from our communication and interaction is the message. The medium can also make a more profound impact on society and culture regardless of what the subject matter is. I think this is certainly demonstrated by various media, especially in the impact of smartphones. We can have access to an enormous amount of information daily, and we can take advantage of this information by developing strong perspectives about different issues and organizing dramatic events like protests. We can even become addicted to using our phones. Thus the smartphone as a medium has such a profound impact on our contemporary society and culture that, as McLuhan says, we learn more about the potential of our phones than the importance of the information we send and receive using them.

“Nabiilabee” is a fashion designer who uses Instagram and YouTube to share fashion inspiration specifically for Muslim women who dress modestly. Her social media platforms have received millions of views and her followers number in the few hundred-thousands. Her success was followed by the start of her own fashion brand. It seems, however, that as a designer she struggles to maintain relevance. Her brand only releases clothes that are available for a limited time only, so once they are sold-out they never restock. Her recent launch is also strange, because most of her items look like merch, rather than anything fashionable. In addition, she advertises her brand regularly on her Instagram page, so it seems she needs to make an effort to get her items to sell. While she receives recognition for being an inspiring modest fashion blogger, that recognition is not as strong for her own creative and original fashion designing. It could be that she is still in the early stages of her career and has other responsibilities besides blogging, so she cannot present her brand the way that she might like to at this time. Thus she probably highly depends on her social media following to garner recognition for her brand and generate an income. In other words, she uses these social media platforms as the medium for which she can share her design content with the world.

I do think, though, that Nabiilabee has a lot of potential to grow a flourishing modest fashion business with a wide variety of styles because she has shown through her online posts that she does have a unique and fashion-forward taste that many Muslim women take interest in. I imagine that when she becomes ready to focus all her energy into the brand, it will become successful not only from promoting it on her social media pages but also possibly with business partners in the fashion industry. I think that her design work needs support from a prominent source in order for her to receive recognition and praise for her brand because at the moment her social media following does not do enough for it (because of possible reasons stated previously). She should use another medium to promote and grow her brand, using a more professional approach, so that she can harness her skills in a drastic way, one that will require more money and effort than she can afford now with only social media to back her up. I think she has the talent, she just needs the financial and professional support to impact the thousands of women like her who want to feel inspired and beautiful in the modest dress they wear. It is this impact, after all, that is what is most important for an artist, and is what McLuhan would call the “message” being made by the modest fashion industry (the “medium”).

Artists want to inspire, and through Nabiilabee there can be change in the mindsets and daily experiences of some fashionable Muslim women. However, that change needs to be come from a source that has the ability to support Nabiilabee’s vision, and social media has not generated enough support for her so far. That is why I think a more appropriate medium would be a more professional one. Not only will her brand succeed, but thousands and thousands of women would find the variety and inspiration needed for them to feel confident and dress conveniently on a day-to-day basis.