The purpose of this e-portfolio is to showcase my skills and experience in the field of instructional design and educational technology. The artifacts featured in this portfolio are various examples of my work.

Bitmap

For my book cover, I chose my favorite book, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Wolf. The book has seen a few different versions of a cover over the century, depending on publish date and medium (print, audio, etc.). Most of them feature an image of an entire lighthouse, either drawn or from an authentic picture from the book's setting: 1900s. This approach is limiting because there are only so many photographs in the public domain from so long ago to choose from. Because this stream of consciousness style of writing from multiple perspectives over time with only the lighthouse remaining constant amid the tumult and transition of wartime makes the reader feel quite ubiquitous, I chose to search for an image from the perspective of being inside of a lighthouse, so I had to look through images that were newer. Instead of focusing the subject of my secondary image on period setting, I chose an image from the location of the setting: a populated beach on the Isle of Skye, UK. The first was acquired from Freefoto and the second from Flickr. I used the free select tool in Gimp to cut the secondary image to size after first sizing the first layer image to a standard book cover size of 9" by 6". I then flipped the entire image horizontally for a more aesthetically pleasing look. To make the image have that same turn-of-the-century feel, I turned the color of the entire image to greyscale. I then added a white shape with text on top for the title. The font I chose was Edwardian to match what might be seen during the time period.

Vector

For my vector logo, I chose to create one to symbolize my personal identity. I wanted to incorporate zodiacal as well as personal preference and background into the image. The elements I chose to include were the Virgo zodiac symbol, the Chinese rabbit zodiac symbol with reference to the elemental characteristic of fire, and a celtic type of knot to form a vine of camellias for my personal favorite flower (which also, like me, is planted in November) and foliage. The colors are also my personal preferences of gold and ivory. For the background shape I used two contrasting circles using the circle tool to give some depth to the image. I also used the circle tool (unfilled) and duplicating tool to create the circuitous vine. I used the pencil tool to free draw the Virgo symbol at the bottom, the fire rabbit in the middle, and camellias around the vine. The vine was the most difficult as each individual knot was made of a separate circle which I manipulated to the right angle with the positioning tool. Quite a chore!