I am Anoo Vaddi

Composing Digital Media Portfolio

Cartoon and Design


Digital Self-Portrait

Image

I created this graphic on Illustrator. It was created from a picture I took within the first week of coming back to campus in Fall 2020. I went to a picnic outside in Schenley to watch the sunset.

Comic: The Realization

Image

After learning that Comics are more than just for children, I realized that comics are within everywhere in history and society from hierglyphs to how-to diagrams. This was created on Illustrator and then, transferred over to InDesign to format the text and panels.

Culture in Photography

Image

Within this graphic, I added a personal touch of my Indian background and culture. The author behind this quote was speaking to how a photograph can see people's cultural background, behaviors, emotions, and more.

Course Goals


1. Consider technology’s role in acts of making

With these first few projects, technology played a great role in helping me bring my artwork to life. I learned to grasp the basics of Illstrator and InDesign to produce pieces of work that I am proud to show off even though I have just started to dive into these programs deeper than I have used them in the past. With the help of technology, the role it played in my graphics is astronomical. It allowed me to create emotions and create an aesthetic with my graphic designs.

2. Embrace experimentation

Through these assignments, I've learned to embrace with experiementation. I began to mess with the tools within Illustrator and InDesign to create the graphics above. In the self-portrait assignment, I started to use mess around with the pen tools that allowed me to make the lines within my facial features more round. Later in the comic panel assignment, I experimented with shading and adding different colors to add dimensions to my face and clothing. Finally, in the magazine cover, I tested out various fonts to bring together the aesthetic of my artwork.

3.Engage with others in a workshop environment

In each class for far, I learned that engaging with others beneficially helps us to create our artwork. Every time I'm in a breakout room, the group discusses ways to debug our problems or give advice on how we created our graphics. By compling everyone's learnings and advice, all of us can create our best artwork. Furthermore, this motivates us to be as creative as possible. When we have multiple people with different ideas, we can construct an environment that is helpful for everyone.

4. Practice revision within and across media forms

One of the biggest takeaways from this first portfolio was revision. After I made the graphic, I would step away from the art piece and try to come back to it later to see what I can do better. There was a lot of trial and error while making it, but just coming back to the graphic within a couple hours or just a day later also makes a huge difference. This allowed me to see the aspects of the graphic that I missed the first time I created it.

5. Learn to present your work

Presenting my artwork in class a bit uncomfortable in the beginning. As I moved through each presentation, I learned how to explain my graphic designs and the process of coming up with each piece. Most importantly, presenting also helped me understand other people's pieces of work as well. Without their explanations and their train of thoughts, I wouldn't have understood how they came up with their graphic. Furthermore, presenting allowed me to gain advice from others in order to improve my artwork or if there were any other method that I could use to make my graphics stand out more.

Photography


Trip to Ikea

For this photo assignment, I went on a trip to ikea and took pictures of my journey through the store. I edited each picture in lightroom in order to give them a warm and cozy aesthetic.

Title

./.

Watch this photo essay about West Oakland, where I currently reside during the school year. I used Premiere to create my journey around the block and show a few things around my house on Chesterfield Road.

Course Goals

1. Consider technology’s role in acts of making

In order to create these photographs, technology helped me capture photographs for my projects and to edit them through lightroom. Without it, I would not have been able to create my specific aesthetic that I was trying to reach for the first photo assignment. Lightroom and Premiere were great technology tools in order for me to showcase the story that I was trying to demonstrate in my assignments.


2. Embrace experimentation

Throughout these two photo projects, I tried to experiement with the different angles of my pictures. I would mess with the lighting setting on my phone in order to get the photo. Furthermore, I would try to experiment with some of the editing features within Lightroom and Premiere. For example, in Premiere, I messed around with some of the wording and the editing graphics.


3.Engage with others in a workshop environment

During our breakout session, I would interact with my classmates in order to figure out some of the problems that was happening with my projects. While I was editing on Premiere, all my photos ended up disappearing due to my harddrive unplugging. I brought this up to my classmates and they were able to give me some advice on fixing this problem.


4. Practice revision within and across media forms

Revision was key when I was putting together these projects. I either had to retake the pictures or change the ways I edited the pictures on Lightroom. On Premiere, I would rewatch the video everytime I edited it in order to make sure the storyline made sense and everything melded well together. I would also wait till the next day after finishing the project to look through my project to ensure my vision was achieved.


5. Learn to present your work

While presenting my work during this section of the class, I learned to be able to tell story on how I constructed my project. I definitely was able to do this through the photo collage one. For each picture, I was able to tell what I was doing during that moment since I was on a mission to buy decor for my house during my shopping trip. By presenting, it also helps my audience to figure out what I was trying to do with my photo collage.


Podcasting


Interview Podcast

In this Interview Podcast, I ask my cousin, Samee, who is a Senior in High School about her perspective on Social Media.

Narrative Podcast

In this Narrative Podcast, I read about the haunted locations around Pitt's campus.

Exploratory Podcast

In this Exploratory Podcast, I explore more on the topic of the simulation theory.

Course Goals


1. Consider technology’s role in acts of making

The technology in creating these podcasts were a whole new form of applications that I had to learn how to use. It was definitely a challenge to navigate around Adobe Audition and figuring out the different ways you can edit the audio. The role of technology helped me create a clear sound of my audio and helped me condense my recordings. Furthermore, it helped me see where I needed to edit out long pauses or even add music to add character to the audio recording.

2. Embrace experimentation

I embraced experiementation through this podcasting unit through the background music of my audio recordings and my editing. Within all of my podcasts, it took me a while to figure out the right type of sound that would work well with the content of my podcasts. In the narrative podcast and exploratory podcast, I was able to experiment more because I added more sounds than a normal podcast. I also was able to add in recordings of other people speaking in my exploratory one to delve more into my topic.

3.Engage with others in a workshop environment

Through the breakout room, I was able to engage with other in a workshop environment. In these, we were able to speak about how we got to record ourselves and talk about how we created our podcasts. this was super helpful when moving on and creating the other podcasts within this unit, because I was able to use the advice I learned from others to apply it to my own work.

4. Practice revision within and across media forms

Revision was key within the podcasting unit. My voice had to be clear and not fuzzy at all in order for my audience to listen in. In doing so, I recorded myself sentence by sentence making sure each one was clear before I added it into my podcast. If it was not clear, I would try to record. This was a feature that was within my iPhone memo recordings, where I was able to listen back and record over my earlier recordings.

5. Learn to present your work

This unit helped me be more comfortable in presenting my work to the breakout rooms. Hearing our own voices does not seem like the best, however after working on editing my podcast, I felt a little more comfortable presenting. I was a bit nervous when showcasing my work at first, but as we went through each podcast. It felt easier to share my work.

Film


B-Roll

Let's take a tour around my home.

Vlog

I take you with me to show you what I do in a day.

Exploratory

Let's look at the importance of music and how it affects us.

Final Video: Goodbye Vlog

I look back and see how much I've learned this past semester in this class.

Course Goals


1. Consider technology’s role in acts of making

The technology we used for this unit was Premiere. It was a bit tricky to use since for every individual clip I would have to change the setting to ensure each clip seemed to be consistent like the others. In Premiere, I learned that there's so many effects that I can use in order to be able to tell the story of my video. Premiere was the perfect application for us to use during these film projects, since it was able to visually capture movements and the storylines of our videos.


2. Embrace experimentation

One of the biggests ways that I experimented within this unit was using the effects and the way I would slice each clip. I would try to add effects in between clips and even effects between each clip of my audio. Within my exploratory video, I experimented with using pictures and videos in one video in order to get my points across so the viewer would know what I was talking about. I also tried overlapping videos sometimes instead of cutting every little detail that I didn't want at the end of the clip. This made my editing process slightly easier.


3.Engage with others in a workshop environment

Once again, the break rooms were the best place for the workshop environement. I felt like we were more comfortable to share our opinions in smaller groups. We were able to focus on smaller details of people's videos and were able to ask questions to learn more about their video projects. I definitely learned a lot from their videos and seeing how people used certain editing styles and effects to their advantage.


4. Practice revision within and across media forms

Revising a video project is neverending. Once I would complie the videos together in the first draft, I would rewatch it to see if the music and the clips went along together. I would also make sure the clips were in the order they were suppose to be added in the video, so the person watching would be able to understand the content within my video.


5. Learn to present your work

Presenting my work this time around seemed a little bit easier since I was able to explain parts of my video clips by adding a voiceover. Also since this was our last presentations, I was more confident in showing my work to the class. I felt like through the videos, we were able to show more and feature ourselves especially since we are not able to see each other in-person. It made my work more personnal, and I was presenting my work through the video instead of myself explaining each part of the video projects.


Steve

generated by Pitt Fuego

“Why make a spark when you can light a fire?