Thought I’d share them with you too
Note: The backgrounds included in the download do not include my quote.

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Download this set: Watercolor iPhone/iPod Background (29)

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Download this set: Grunge Floral iPhone/iPod Background (40)

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Download this set: Hogwarts House Colors iPhone/iPod Background (168)

This is the story of my life.

I’ve joked about this kind of thing with friends. I have an inability to remember names, of anything it seems. They will be on the tip of my tongue and I begin describing the person/place/thing in full detail until I’m able to finally reach a name, or the person I’m talking to figures it out from my own performance of a Cranium Copycat Card (i.e. A player must imitate a famous person or character for their teammates to guess).

This happens with Movie Star’s names all the time, I will list off all the movies they were in – and sometimes I don’t remember the name of the movie so I’ll end up describing the movie – until you or I can figure out who is the common link in them all.

I always knew I was a visual learner, remembering what I saw more often than what I heard or read. Images would stick with me. Recently, I started to pay more attention to how I perceive much of what I see. I found that I go through about 6 different phases. It varies sometimes, I don’t go through this whole process, but when I do look at something visually pleasing I will go through all of these thoughts.

I will recognize that what I’m looking at is a word, sign, object, place, etc. I don’t however actually look at what it means just yet.

I observe the aesthetic of what I’m looking at. Are the colors complementary, monochromatic, or analogous? What shape is it? What is it made out of? What could create that kind of texture?

I move on to deducing what font is used if it’s a sign with words. If I don’t automatically know what it is I break it down. Serif or sans-serif? Gothic? Calligraphic? Handdrawn? Black Letter?

What properties were adjusted to make it look the way it does? Has the space between letters been adjusted? What about the distance between lines?

I begin evaluating if I like the overall appearance of what I’m looking at. Does it work for what it’s trying to convey? Does it feel like not much effort was put into the design? I figure out if I were to recreate it how would I do it? What steps in Photoshop might I take?

Then at the very end I read what the word says and means. Then I wonder if it’s all been put together well. Does the style fit? Does the image reflect what the word means? Is there a correlation between the aesthetic and the definition itself?

It seems like a lot for a person to take in, but with having done it so often I begin to just automatically go through this process. I think that steps 2 and 3 are the most important to me because that’s usually what I remember most in the end. When I’m trying to figure out the name of something these are the things I can easily describe.

Scott Gerstl – @DeveloperKlin
Web and Digital Media Development & CIS

*UPDATE* This Justin Bieber has nothing on this kitten video is a shortened adaptation of the longer Oma Kitten video. I want to compare the performance of the shorter video with the longer one and see which is more accepted. I will measure this in likes and comments but not necessarily view because the videos are linked through my channel. I would prefer that viewers looked at both and leave comments or like one so I know which they prefer. I want to understand the preferences people have in the online viral video culture.

I would like to exceed 9000 view by June 7th.

I am taking an eCommerce course at UWSP where we need to develop a viral marketing campaign. I wanted to run an experiment with this. Before this project, I was not connected to social media in any impressive way and I want to see how far someone can get starting fresh in social media. I wanted to compound the difficulty by doing something everyone else has already done (cat videos). The drive to succeed with this experiment is to try to break into other social realms that I was not previously connected to; I want to get out at least 4 degrees from my my own personal network.
So far I have found that I really do need help with distribution. I probably generated only 30 views on my own with no traffic driven by any other source. I currently have 141 views a day later with only a little help from other sources (retweets, facebook friends, etc).

Link: OMA Kitten – http://youtu.be/6Bx76NSX0Yg

Drew Frisk – @DrewFrisk
Web & Digital Media Development, Philosophy of Religious Studies

BaconSniffer – Free Android Mobile App
Ultimate Goal: 500+ active installs on android devices, 25+ reviews, feedback, and/or suggestions

BaconSniffer allows users to aggregate recipes from  a couple bacon recipe websites as well as the bacon hashtag and “bacon” trend on twitter.  Upon selecting the recipe or tweet, it will take them to the source website where they can view the recipe (or tweet from twitter).

I chose this project primarily for 3 reasons:

1. I LOVE BACON! and I wanted to get access to the glorious food anytime I wanted and I wanted the same opportunity for other people like myself who love bacon just as much as I do.
2. I wanted to begin promoting myself as an android developer. I thought trying a viral market campaign for an android app would be a great way start in this effort.
3. I wanted to see if I could create a mobile app that was tailored to the type of data the users would want and see how well and efficiently I could make updates to the application to meet these needs.

Viral marketing is incredibly difficult if you don’t have a large following or network and as a result can be really exhausting trying to keep up with everything. Having a published application is a really satisfying feeling.  Even though there aren’t a lot of downloads yet, after 2 days I have almost 50 downloads.  I’m incredibly excited about that, especially since I released it in an alpha/beta state.

Links:
BaconSniffer on the Market: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.drewfrisk.baconsniffer
BaconSniffer on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/BaconSniffer/187297777988952

Travis R. Kath – @trkath
Web and Digital Media Development

I started this campaign because I am losing confidence on how aware people are in Wisconsin of the Recall, and it is very important especially for College kids and working middle class.
I wanted to use some video I took of my dog, and I thought for awhile how I could take that message and make something Viral out of it serious but slightly humorous and unexpected.
I believe that the same messages have gone stale the last few months with WI politics and I hope this will get people more fired up about the recall or even want to be a part of this movement by contributing their own content.

The best thing i could hope for would be that others want to make their own videos under this fresh brand, but I’m inexperienced and have no idea how this experiment will go. I am hoping to get at least 5,000 views on the video by June 07 but will try to go for as many as I can get.

Links:
Scott Walker Makes My Dog Cry Youtube Video
FB Group Facebook Group

I will be updating this post as I receive more campaign descriptions and links from students.

Want to learn more about their projects and the course? Check out Professor Tim Krause’s Website

I went to the “First Time Attendee Orientation” with Larry Becker because I didn’t want to get lost or be confused by crowds of people during the conference. It really helped to get a feel for how Photoshop World is run. It’s more casual and fun than other conferences I have attended. Larry encouraged us to talk to speakers, as questions, and meet new people. Take classes out of your comfort zone, you never know what’s out there until you look. I left excited for the sessions to begin and to start learning again.

On Wednesday I went over to the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) a little early to beat the lines at the registration booth. I sat down and started double checking the sessions I wanted to attend on Wednesday and what rooms they were going to be in. I quickly became friends with two girls sitting by me and throughout the conference we hung out together. I was so glad that I hit it off with them and wasn’t alone anymore. I think that’s one of the great things about Photoshop World, you go in with a positive attitude, talk to people and make great connections with people in the same creative field. Everyone attending and speaking is excited to learn and share with each other.

The keynote was wonderful and so much fun! The theme was Project Photoshop, a play on Project Runway, “The Feel. The Fashion. The Filters.” NAPP had Orlando Fashion Students create a batch of Photoshop inspired dresses and displayed them with a large runway show during the opening video. It was hilarious, cheesy at times, and gave everyone a good laugh. Best keynote I’ve ever been to (and will be until the next Photoshop World I’m sure). There was a balloon drop that ended up being more entertaining that it should have. Scott Kelby told us that there were B&H coupons inside and people were to pop the balloons to get them out. This began a 2 minute machine gun sounding tirade. Amusing if nothing else for us in the back who didn’t get a balloon. I’m just glad people held off popping them throughout the rest of the Keynote.

I want to mention the three speakers who stood out most to me over the days: Moose Peterson, Corey barker and Dave Black.

Moose Peterson – I attended “Shooting Landscapes With ACR Finishing” and quickly followed him down to the Exhibit hall where he talked about wildlife photography at the Kelby Live Training Booth. He started out the ACR class with a 4 min slide show of his work, it was epic. My eyes feasted on his beautiful landscape shots, I had to see more. Down in the exhibit hall he showed more photos, this time focusing on wildlife. He has shot pictures of endangered and extinct creatures that I have never heard of. It’s so exciting to see his work and listen to his stories. I plan to attend all his classes at the next convention. The big things I took away from listening to him is that small changes can make a big difference, adjusting the clarity of the RAW image can make big changes. Also, don’t brighten whites, darken blacks to bring out whites. This reminded me of my favorite Mitch Hedberg joke, “I thought of getting my teeth whitened, but instead I got a tan.”

Corey Barker – I attended “Hollywood Effects”, “Photoshop CS5 Type Effects” and “Photoshop Design Effects”. These classes were specifically for work and really helped inspire new ideas and helped me discover shortcuts for what I’m already doing. I like his personality that he brings to his sessions as well as the speed of his process. There are a lot of classes that have a slower pace for beginners, but his classes are great for intermediate to advanced Photoshop skills. He showed us how to take text, turn it into a brush, and have a picture bleed through. A lot of his tutorials were simple effects I knew how to do, but I had never thought to do it that way, or combine those processes together. He made me want to go play in Photoshop right after his sessions ended.

Dave Black – I didn’t attend any of his classes, but I will be sure not to miss one next time. At the Conference wrap up he told an amazing story of how his world changed in one week. He became who he is today because one professor supported him. It was amazing, everyone was in tears. And his work is amazing to boot.

At the conference wrap-up it was bittersweet knowing it was over. Secretly, I was hoping it was an April Fools joke, and they would have another round of classes after, but not so. I had a great time, became inspired, met new friends, and then… Won the Grand Prize of 2 Full Conference Passes to the next Photoshop World! So now I’m not going to miss out on the next one at all

I recommend all you designers out there who are either experts or begginers in Photography or Photoshop to attend Photoshop World on September 7–9, 2011 at Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas NV. It will be well worth it! Also, if you’re not already a member of NAPP you’re missing out on some great tools!

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Download this set: Cosmos iPhone Backgrounds (188)

I recently came across this website, http://typenuts.com/ and spend awhile drooling at how beautiful the type backgrounds were. I paged through them all and thought how easy that would be to make one of my own. Well it’s not as easy as I thought it would be.

Deciding on a font to use if the most difficult part of something (in my opinion anyways). It sets the mood for a design. I have a love for italics and irregular serif fonts. I spent awhile on these iPhone backgrounds, and then gave up. It’s a 320px by 480 px rectangle of white space that’s just supposed to make your phone more personalized.

Simple and basic right? I grabbed one of my favorite fonts to play with: Amperzand
And just… free styled. Literally.

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Download this set: Freestyle iPhone Backgrounds (215)

Another collection of iPhone backgrounds for the holidays.

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Download this set: Holiday iPhone Backgrounds (277)

I love Harry Potter and I wanted to represent my love on my iPhone.

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Download this set: Hogwarts Crest House iPhone Backgrounds (385)