Author: Mike Zaporozhtsev

Generally, I was doing all the graphic projects given to me: the COACHE poster, Facts sheet; as well as the first initial edit of the old Tik-Tok videos.

The one-pager was given to Oscar, he was in charge of it. When Nick joined, Isana put him in charge of the videos. Since I was actively getting ready for the Senior Project, I was kinda laid back for the videos, I admit it. So, if there were new past shots we needed to edit together – Simon and Nick were doing them, not me.

Because of that, Isana put me in charge of the video we needed to actually shoot. I was the one to report to her about done/not done works, as well as the document where I would write what else do we need to shoot. So after that, I am the one who writes Isana about any changes to the project.

This post is a review of an app called Procreate Pocket for iPhone (I guess, Android too, I just don’t have it).

This app is good for drawing or sketching with the layers feature. It is made for design and art; I use it for sketching on a go.

Continue reading “App review (Procreate Pocket)” →

This case is about the poster “Hope” made by Shepard Fairey using the photo of Obama made by the Associated Press. (AP). The AP claimed that the photo was copyrighted, while Shepard said he used it for Fair Use. In the end, Fairey has agreed not to use any AP photos in his work without first obtaining a license. Both sides will also share rights to make merchandise bearing the “Hope” image. 

Fair Use, according to Stanford University, is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. This means, that Shepard might use the photo and create the poster as a parody or criticism.

I think, still, Shepard should have obtained the license first, before using the photo for his poster.
I may imagine, how this would be a criticism or a parody, but I don’t think it is true.

The designer just used the photo without asking, basically. Is it ethically correct? No.
However, on another hand, this piece of work has become a trend and is being studied in design/art schools nowadays.

This post is about the TikTok video we filmed as a team (Nick, Simon, Oscar, and I). We had to shoot a TikTok video called “Career” about how busy students are with their part-time jobs or internships. Then, there should be an ad for “Jump Start” programs at Brooklyn College that helps with work or internships. 

First, we wanted to shoot in the CityTech library, and we did. We shot the first sequence of the video (the professor teaches the students).

However, we had to reserve a room upstairs, but we got only 25 minutes, which was absolutely not enough for the shooting. After that time expires, we could reserve more, but this time it would not be free (10 cents per minute). It was expensive for us, so we moved to the Pearl building room P123 (if I remember correctly). There we finished filming the footage and were done for the day.

Well, the attire of the company is casual/informal. We could wear T-shirts, jeans, sweaters/hoodies.

Our workday was the same all the time: for me, Mondays and Thursdays, from 9 am to 4 pm, with 30 min break time per day (6,5 hrs a day; 13 hrs a week).

Our supervisor and the team were communicating through messaging (SMS) and email. Through email, we were given the task for the day, scheduled Zoom invitations, and also were confirming that we have done the job. Also, we had a shared Google Drive folder, where we would upload all the graphics or videos we have done for the day.

Since the COACHE poster was put on hold by the department, we moved on to the Facts paper.

This is an important document, where all the demographic stats are updated for the current academic year and associated with the Office of the Associate Provost for Institutional Effectiveness.

Each of my team members worked on one page. We changed the numbers for the current year and updated the photos. We were given the photos. I worked on page 1.

The page I worked on, with already updated data.

I am working for Brooklyn College, a public university in Brooklyn. It is located in south Brooklyn, on Bedford Avenue. The primary business of the company is high education, hence the primary clientele is mostly students.

In 2022, the size of enrolled students is more than 13,000 students (both under- and graduates).
The faculty size is 463 persons (full-time).

Brooklyn College has been found in 1930 as a part of the CUNY system. The college’s motto is Nil sine magno labore (Latin) – “Nothing without great effort”.

The department I work for is Educational Research and Assessment (ERA). This office provides tools to support learning outcomes assessment and faculty efforts in this area.

One week in October we discussed ethics in the field of our profession. We talked about different real-life events that were not really ethical.
One of them was a famous Ram car commercial for the Super Bowl about 4 years ago.

What is unethical (or just wrong) about this ad is that the speech of Martin L. King “The Drum Major Instinct” was used. Not just speech, but the very part, where King was speaking about how advertisements adversely affect society.

We also talked about whether is it ethical to manipulate photos for magazines, or in general. If this is ethical to do manipulation for fashion magazines. We, in our class, had a little argument about this. Some classmates were saying that it is better to show models how they look really, and not manipulate photos (change the weight of the models, for example; or clear their skin from freckles) so as to not offend photographers. I was saying that it is how magazines work – they have to attract their target audience to buy the products, so the clothes and models have to look near perfect. So, it doesn’t matter if the photos are manipulated, this is how it works, it is just a business, nothing personal.

This week I showed one more example for the COACHE poster.

This time I used mostly red color and its shades, as Isana asked to do.

We still did not get any approval from the department, so there is no body text yet. I used some rectangles this time and tried to make a random pattern.

This is our final work with COACHE so far, we put the project on hold because there is no response from the department so far.