Desktop Multimedia

Client: Theatre Winter Haven

The purpose of this course was to learn the use of computer hardware and software in the design, production, and delivery of multimedia communication. For the class, I chose a client, created a project proposal, print piece, and website from scratch. This showed that I could use text, images, numbers and design elements to support effective communication.

The client I chose was Theatre Winter Haven, a well-known community theatre from the Central Florida area. I already knew a lot about my client because I spent a lot of time at the Theatre during my childhood, whether it was acting in shows, teching productions, or interning for the summer camps. Even though the Theatre is successful, I still knew that they lacked younger audiences for their mainstage productions. Through my proposal, I expressed my concern and shared my plans for the print and website to appeal to younger audiences.

The Proposal was created on Adobe InDesign and includes a brief history of the client (Theatre Winter Haven,) my relationship with them, my perception of the current audience and competitors, and then my ideas for the print piece and website and explanation for why I believe it will work. The Proposal goes into detail about the typefaces, fonts, images, and colors I will use as well as show the placement of text and graphics on both my print piece and website. Finally, the Proposal ends with a schedule for when each task and assignment will be completed and possible jobs I would need help with if this was a real project. I created newspaper advertisements for each position.

Here is a link to view the full Proposal.

For my print piece, I decided to focus on one of the shows the Theatre would produce as their fall opener: Hamilton. This is a new musical that attracts younger audiences with its rap lyrics and youthful cast. I made sure the poster expressed that through text. I still wanted the poster to look patriotic so I made sure the colors were red, white, and blue and the image was well recognized (it's the ten dollar bill!) I also made sure to include important information, such as what Theatre is producing it, when the musical will be playing, how much tickets will be, and contact information. The piece was created on Adobe InDesign and the images were edited on Adobe Photoshop.

For my website, I made sure that the entire site was simple to navigate and understand. There were eight pages with information relating to each page’s topic. There is a homepage that briefly describes the Theatre's mission, a page showing the five mainstage productions with a short paragraph about it, a page showing the two children’s productions with a short paragraph about it, a page for adult classes, a page for children’s classes, a page with audition information, a donate page, and a contact page. The font was easy to read and the colors related to the vibrant, fun colors you notice in a theatre. My version still provides the reader with the same information of its original website, but does so in a simple, appealing way through the use of color, text, images, and overall design and navigation.

I created the website from scratch using Adobe Dreamweaver. My past experience using HTML and CSS in a previously taken web design course helped tremendously. The domain given by my instructor allowed the website to show online for a couple of months. I screenshotted pictures of each page before the website was taken off of the domain.

Overall, I received As on the main assignments and enjoyed this class. I love expressing my creativity, organizing information, and helping a client I am passionate about.