The future of Digital Media Production will entail the exciting combination of traditional multimedia, motion graphics for television, media arts and animation, computer gaming, and interactivity all rolled into one. Future Digital Producers will be required to have a strong understanding of production concepts and tools. They will be able to plan, design, and execute projects entirely from on-site and remote locations. Also, Digital Producers should be able to understand the concepts behind the “back-end” scripting, which will allow creative interactive designs to “speak to” servers and wireless devices.
~ Future Prediction circa 2002In the summer of 2002, I co-founded a small private college “Guru Digital Arts College” in Edmonton, AB. I had recently left NAIT where I had worked for years as Program Director of two full-time programs (Multimedia Technology and Webmaster).
I had just finalized the last of our curriculum and after a short break started on the task of designing a promotional brochure for the inaugural program. I knew that we had a lot of information to include in the brochure so I began by sitting down with our Admissions Director to hammer out the details of what needed to be included. With pen and paper, I took notes as we discussed the content, detailing where larger blocks of content may be located and other content I recorded live while we worked.
The second step was to define the cover content for the design and I sat down in the boardroom with my Academic Director to discuss the cover designs. we spent time sketching on the whiteboard and browsing through stock photos looking for inspiration. We agreed upon simple designs focusing on powerful imagery of people and minimal verbiage.
The verbiage used on the first cover is a typographical look at the entire six-month program using visual progression, size, and contrast together with the words themselves to relate the experience of taking the program as a whole. The swirling bright void was created using a photo I had taken of some blueberries heavily manipulated using photoshop to achieve the high resolution final image.
The other design a beautiful crouching form of a woman was chosen to give the feel of peacefulness, contemplation, and emergence. The design utilized a stock image along with numerous vaporous wisps overlaying the image using layer blending modes. The dark imagery gave the impression of the creative spirit showing around the human body.
Graduates of the program are qualified to create dynamic content for interactive Web, DVD, or wireless delivery by formulating, constructing, and delivering digital audio, video, broadcast graphics, and animation. They are also prepared to manage content for distribution through traditional and new media, including CD, DVD, television, and broadband Internet. With the portfolios created in class, graduates are prepared to begin their careers serving the needs of corporate, television and entertainment, e-business, multimedia, and other media distribution outlets for existing and new markets.