Overview :
Welcome to my blog post documenting the Medium is the message project .We leant about different concepts of media specifically advertisement ,what it is ,techniques ,and how it affects society etc  .This was a really great hands on learning experience as we actually got to create an ad for a company using what we leant .

Keystone 1:
Keystone 1 introduced us to topic .Learning and analysing media to understand what media was .We had to fill out questions relating to our experiences with ads and interview a person for their answers .And finally we had to write a paragraph about what media is .This keystone gave me a better understating of what Media was and how it was effecting peoples life .

Keystone 2:
Keystone 2 taught us about media literacy ,what media is doing .We leant about 5 core concepts and applied them to some media we see on a daily basis to see how different types of media are trying of affect us .Our assignment for this keystone was filling out an ad chart about different types of ads and information about them including the ad form ,the target audience ,the ad techniques used ,the appeals ,what types of ads there where and the message of the ad.Researching 3 different types of ads(commercial ,print ads ,web ads) gave us an opportunity to target different forms of ads and learn more .

Keystone 3:
Our final keystone we interviewed a business in Oregon and created ads for them .Then we showcased our ads with our business group and presented it in an exhibition .We used a launch cycle to help with the learning and making process of creating a good advertisement
-The first stage was Look ,listen ,and Learn .This stage was mostly learning about my business the Astoria Column .What the column was ,it’s business ,and other additional info that we thought was important .We also had to define the brief ,which was basically understanding our end goal and what we need to learn in the process to complete it .
-The second stage “Ask Tons of Questions” was for asking questions to get a better understanding about our business .In my case my questions where mostly related to marketing to get some info on what my ad should focus on or target .
Some examples for my ads were:
-What would you say is your biggest problem in attracting customers?
-What makes Astoria Column Unique compared to other land marks in
Astoria
-Is there any specific design principles you want your ad to follow?
-The third stage about understanding the problem or process
In this stage we looked at potential competition the business might have and it’s target audience .We also spent some time understanding the process of making an ad ,which partly did when researching and investigating ads in our earlier keystones
-The fourth stage “Navigate Ideas” was about navigating ideas as the name suggests .I looked at different design ideas to brainstorm what I might want I ad being .I did that by creating a mood board of Astoria Column .The mood board included beautiful photos of the Column ,its breath-taking scenery ,and its rich history ; that was the vibe I wanted to give of in my ad .Our whole group had to come up with 3 design principles to follow ,this helped us with understand ,remember ,and  uphold important elements we want to include in our ads .One of our design principles was that we must include a photo of the Astoria Column(Obviously)
-The fifth stage was to create prototypes ,these where some of my prototypes before the final product .I was fun experimenting with different colours and photos to create an appealing ad .

-The sixth stage was to highlight and fix our ads
I noticed that the colour scheme of my second draft .The green seemed really unnatural and contrasting to the rest of of calmer photos .I though that I would ad white space in my ad to bring attention to words Astoria Column  it it just didn’t match with the color scheme and high quality photos .So I decided make brown my main colour scheme bc it relates to Astoria Column , it’s the column’s colour scheme,and  conveys emotion relating to nature and wholesomeness .Another main problem is that people don’t know what Im actually trying to advertise
To fix that I changed the border from green to brown .And made “Astoria Column” the same font .I also changed the white space to art depicting Lewis and Clark showing part of Astoria Columns historic appeal (it also fits the colour scheme).Then I added more contact information and a QR code on the bottom of the page .Finally ,I added a quote from Astoria Columns’s official website that imply that Astoria Column is a fun adventurous place that tourists can visit .

My exhibition experience :
I worked with 5 other classmates to set up our exhibition area .We had about one week to discuss foods to bring ,costumes ,how we would arrange our stand ,and individually worked on a keystone presentation .It went pretty smoothly and our communication was ok .Before the actual exhibition we helped set up the gym and our exhibition area and it looked really great .The preparation was also good as we all had our outfits and brought our food .This exhibition itself was pretty fun as got to see other peoples exhibition and I was happy to finally get the exhibition over with .I do hope next exhibition we assign breaks because people including where leaving for way too long and leaving the area empty .