Mini teaching tool: How to handle photos in the archives

In the archives, we have thousands of photos that have been produced by SFU departments over the last 50 years, plus plenty of others that are par GIF files showing the proper way to handle archival photos t of the records donated by faculty, campus community members or others.

Photographic prints are vulnerable to the oils on our hands, so we ask users to always wear gloves to provide a barrier between your hands and the prints.

The paper supports that images are printed on can also become vulnerable and fragile as they age, so we show users how to carefully turn one image at a time to protect the prints.

These images are part of the F-247 collection which contains material from the Media and Public Affairs Office of SFU.

March 4, 2015

The Medium is the Message

We are deeply involved in the form educational media can take in the learning experience. Here is a gorgeous animation from the BBC that presents a high level of McLuhans narrative in the famous work;

The Medium is the Message

Is the form that you receive a message as significant as the message itself? Marshall McLuhan argued that throughout history what has been communicated has been less important than the particular medium through which people communicate. The technology that transfers the message changes us and changes society, the individual, the family, work, leisure and more.

Narrated by Gillian Anderson. Scripted by Nigel Warburton.

From the BBC Radio 4 series about life’s big questions – A History of Ideas.

This project is from the BBC in partnership with The Open University, the animations were created by Cognitive.

May 25, 2014May 25, 2014

Whiteboard animation for International Development

A little bit about a recently completed whiteboard animation project using Videoscribe.

I recently wrapped production of a new whiteboard animation with collaborator, and illustrator extraordinaire Sarah Menard. The project we took on was a promotional piece for an academic work by prof. Martin Scott, working with David Girling from The School of International Development at UEA. Sarah and I are really getting into a groove producing these animations, and her style is a perfect fit for this medium.

A bit about our process. After we figured out the concept with our client, Sarah creates the finished artwork directly in Adobe illustrator using her drawing tablet. She is a master of <layers> and <paths> which is essential since Videoscribe relies on the sequence of each one when doing the final rendering. Exporting the files in .SVG format, I can then import the artwortk on a scene by scene basis, and match it to our audio track. I like how the software allows to set the timing and camera moves, and plan on exploiting that feature more in forthcoming projects.

I plan on writing up a bit more of our process in upcoming posts, specifically to tell the story of the development of our first project, but for now will end and post this. Trying to get better at blogging this year, and actually posting instead of drafting all the time! Hope to see you soon. 8j