Assignment #8 

 

WELCOME TO saramilaninc.com/ 

CAUTION STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!!

I’m proud to announce that I am the founder +CEO of saramilaninc. The website creation processes like creating a domain name and installing wordpress was very easy because I just followed the zoom video that Professor Ryan uploaded on assignment #8. As he was doing it himself I opened up a new tab on my computer and just copied everything he did which made it very easy. I’m glad we had that video because there were a lot of steps I could have forgotten easily like making sure I copy and paste my password and username into a blank document. 

So I chose the domain name saramilaninc as my domain name because it sounds like it could be the impetus for all the other ideas and content I want to display on my website. I mention in my domain name that I was passionate about cooking, fashion, journaling, and making reviews on products so I’m using this platform to umbrella all of these ideas.

Something really interesting Professor Ryan told us was that many well known websites use WordPress, for example Microsoft. So I decided to look at website to find inspiration on how I want my website too look and feel like a real website people enjoy looking at!! 

 

Assignment # 7 Domain Names 

 

FEELS BLEU
SARA’S KITCHEN
CREATIVE WRITING WITH SARA
SARA’S BOUTIQUE
SARAMILANINC.
SARAMILANINC

I haven’t completely decided on what specific genre or concept I want to use for my website. I had a list of names and ideas I would be interested in writing about because I’m passionate about all of them. Feels bleu is just a brand name I created myself just in case I didn’t want to use my real name or if my full name isn’t available. But it will most likely be a newsletter style blog where I journal and write about things I read about emotions I have been feeling and want to express. Similar to a podcast where there’s a different topic each week and I go into detail and write about it formally. Perhaps I saw a theater play I want to talk to you guys about. Or I read a book that I thought was great or not so great. Sara Kitchen is inspired by my passion for cooking. There’s something about cooking specifically that brings me so much joy. This will be a blog style website. Where I have recipes, recommendations for restaurants, and recipe ideas that include seasonable items in your supermarkets currently and how to use them in your dishes. Furthermore, It began to get colder and I had an amazing recipe for chicken noodle soup that will knock any cold way!!   

Creative writing with Sara, will be a blog style website as well, this is where I am going to post poems, short stories, and scripted plays. This is one of my favorite ideas, because I get to flex that writing mussel. It’s important as a journalism major to keep practicing. 

Sara boutique will be a blog style website that focuses on curating looks from affordable eco-friendly stylish brands. I think clothing brands should focus on sustainability. They should care about the consumer and make their clothing inclusive for the people purchasing their clothes. Brands should be mindful of the products they are selling and the impact it has on the environment. By using better materials and resources effectively, with minimal waste. In Addition, the brand should care about the planet and be advocates for climate change.  Last year in my business 150 course, my professor talked about CSR which is corporate social responsibility which is a form of international private business self-regulation which aims to contribute to societal goals of a philanthropic, activist, or charitable nature by engaging in or supporting volunteering or ethically-oriented practices. This is very common in big powerhouse companies like Microsoft,Coca Cola.  In addition, I think every business no matter how big or small should follow these guidelines, especially in the fashion industry which is one of the most wasteful industries, and it really doesn’t have to be.  

Lastly, there is Sara Milani Inc, which is just my first name and my middle name because I’m positive Sara Martinez is already taken. Number 6 and 7 will be the same, they are just written differently.  Sara Milani Inc is a personal brand where i can just do everything i’m passionate about so i essentially am writing about all the four things i mentioned. Each week will just be a different genre but it will still be everything I’m passionate about.

I’m very excited about this project, you can probably tell because I’m already creating ideas to write about in my newsletter/ blog.  Some of the newsletter im using for inspirations is www.chrissyrutherford.com   Rutherford is brand consultant, and was a magazine editor at harper’s bazaar. I am subscribed to her newsletter where she talks about her experiences. This week’s newsletter was about trigger warnings: specifically alcohol/ drug abuse, eating disorders, sexual assault. Her writing is very informative and gives such an open perspective on the topics.   

Please comment what theme you would like to see from me !!!

From the assignment bank I choose a visual assignment, specifically drawing a musical Puppet This assignment originated from Lynda Barry AKA “The Nearsighted Monkey”  

For this assignments the rules are

1. While watching the Tame Impala video “I’m A Man” 
2. make four separate drawings on a single piece of paper divided into quadrants. For each drawing you make, set a two-minute timer to tell you when to stop.
3.  Choose one of the band member puppets to focus your attention on and make your drawing about. 
4. Make each drawing in a separate pose. 
5. Do not stop the video while drawing! Try to capture the energy and motion in each of your drawings. 
6. Do a cartoon-style drawing, not a fully rendered fine-art work. 
7. Focus on capturing the essence of the character in each different pose.
8. The whole project should take a total of 8 minutes which means you can only watch the video a total of two times. 

I decided to change the original foot -print of the assignment and to make it more visually appealing to myself and the viewers. I decided to use color pencils to try and capture the color of the puppets to make it look more aesthetically pleasing and realistic to the real puppets. I also decided to add more time so I could have enough time to draw them. In addition I didn’t incorporate rule number six because I wanted to make the drawing as similar to the real puppet as I could. Also, In reality each drawing did take me 8 minutes for each muppet because I also added color, but I did only watch the video twice to make follow the rules.  

This is my image of one of the guitar players.

 I like this assignment because we got to choose what type of media we wanted to create for example visual, design, audio, video, mashup, writing, fanfic, and animated gifs. 

In order to complete this assignment successfully, something that I did was read the description of the assignment and look at some examples of how other students have executed the assignment just so I have an idea. In addition, I think I am pretty good at drawing. I don’t think for this assignment you need to necessarily know how to draw very well but it is an advantage if you do because you don’t have a lot of time to fix mistakes, and since these are moving images it is even more challenging to draw them. 

I think we should be doing these assignments weekly because they are very fun but I think the more I do them the better digital storyteller I become and then these projects become better and cooler than the last. I really want to see improvement in my  video and design skills. Sometimes I feel like I have some really good ideas in my head but executing them can be a real challenge for me. The first time I ever made a gif or a meme was because of this class and it was a really great project. I had a fun time thinking about all the different memes i wanted to create and how I was going to execute them in terms of which image I was going to use and what type of language and content I was going to use to make the viewer engaged and relevant and of course funny, it was all a lot of thinking but it was a fun process.  Also what really has inspired me and made me more interested in this class was the class work and projects of my class members. Everyone has such cool and funny ideas and I got to learn more about them and the things they like and find funny. 

 

ASSIGNMENT #3: MEMES VS. ART

Picture this: you’re walking through the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. You walk into a room with a crowd of people, pushing and shoving and stretching their necks to see the main attraction of the whole exhibition which is this :

(MEME OF LEONARD DICAPRIO FROM A MOVIE SCENE, THE TEXT ARE LYRICS TO A VERY TRENDY 21ST CENTURY SONG CALLED “ICON” BY JADEN SMITH) 

 

This brings us the question: is a meme a piece of art?

(THIS IS A IMAGE OF FUTURAMA FRY AND I AM JUST EXPRESSING HOW ANNOYING IT IS TO TAKE A COVID TEST EVERY WEEK IN THE BEGINNING OF THE WEEK BECAUSE VACCINATION CARD TAKES 3 WEEKS TO PROCESS THROUGH CUNYFIRST) 

                                                              VS

(Frida Kahlo’s 1939 oil painting “The Two Friends”) 

Some of her artistic themes were highlighted in “The Two Fridas,” a 1939 oil painting that shows two seated Kahlo’s holding hands. Near-mirror images, they reflect love and loss and ideas surrounding beauty. 

Can Memes be considered art???  My first initial answer to this question was absolutely not but after doing research and watching some videos I am definitely more open minded to this theory. Firstly I had to dissect what a meme is. According to google a meme is “is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. … Memes spread through the behavior that they generate in their hosts.” 

According to wix.com “The original “meme” was a term coined by Richard Dawkins to describe how cultural information spreads. However, unless you’re wandering through the halls of the nearby sociology school, when someone mentions the word “meme,” they’re probably referring to a funny image or a video being shared on social media. The common use of the word “meme,” usually refers to the “internet meme,” a subset of the general meme concept.

I do agree with these definitions and interpretations. Furthermore I think the most important fact is that memes are something that is fueled and revenant by a culture. For example, most likely the memes that are relevant and intriguing to my 4 year old little nephew about roblox and Minecraft will be more difficult for me to understand.  

On the other hand, I do believe that memes are considered art, because they communicate a message or evoke a feeling (in most cases it’s usually laughter and humor) to make the viewer feel some emotion or form an opinion or different perspective. I believe memes can be meaningful because it is used to spread their personal experiences or an idea. For example, If I were to make a meme about my experience in CT101 it would be like this:

(IMAGE OF PIKACHU, THE TEXT IS MY INTERPRETATION OF EVERYONE’S REACTION WHEN THE PROFESSOR MENTIONED ALL THE COOL THINGS WE WILL BE TRYING THIS SEMESTER)

Memes can also be very inspirational and they can allude to a bigger meaning. Furthermore, after watching this video in class   I do notice there are many similarities between art and memes. Although many of my past art professors would disagree. They’re both used to spread joy and make people smile and laugh.   

I created all the memes in this blog post using imgflip