Open source software, also known as free software, now offers a creative platform with world-class programs. Just ask the people who have completed high-quality projects or developed popular web 2.0 sites using open source desktop applications. This phenomenon is no longer underground or restricted to techies—there have been more than 61 million downloads of the Audacity audio editor and more than 60 million downloads of the GIMP for Windows photographic tool from SourceForge.net alone. Crafting Digital Media is your foundation course in photographic manipulation, illustration, animation, 3D modelling, publishing, recording audio and making music, DJ’ing, mixing and mastering audio CDs, video editing and web content delivery. Every technique described in the book can be achieved on GNU/Linux, but many of the applications covered run on Windows and Mac OS X as well. New to GNU/Linux and a little daunted? Don’t worry—there’s a step-by-step tutorial on Ubuntu for either temporary use or permanent installation. If you are a creative type who wants to get started with open source software or an existing GNU/Linux user looking to explore this category of programs, this is the book for you! Realize your own personal projects and creative ambitions with the tools this book will place at your fingertips.

Introduction -- Author's craft, genre study, and digital writing -- Crafting web texts -- Crafting presentations -- Crafting audio texts -- Crafting video texts -- Crafting social media -- Modeling and mentoring the digital writing process.

In this investigation of the possibility of craft in the digital realm, the author discusses the emergence of computation as a medium, rather than just a set of tools, suggesting a growing correspondence between digital work and traditional craft.

Digital Media, Projection Design, and Technology for Theatre covers the foundational skills, best practices, and real-world considerations of integrating digital media and projections into theatre. The authors, professional designers and university professors of digital media in live performance, provide readers with a narrative overview of the professional field, including current industry standards and expectations for digital media/projection design, its related technologies and techniques. The book offers a practical taxonomy of what digital media is and how we create meaning through its use on the theatrical stage. The book outlines the digital media/projection designer’s workflow into nine unique phases. From the very first steps of landing the job, to reading and analyzing the script and creating content, all the way through to opening night and archiving a design. Detailed analysis, tips, case studies, and best practices for crafting a practical schedule and budget, to rehearsing with digital media, working with actors and directors, to creating a unified design for the stage with lighting, set, sound, costumes, and props is discussed. The fundamentals of content creation, detailing the basic building blocks of creating and executing digital content within a design is offered in context of the most commonly used content creation methods, including: photography and still images, video, animation, real-time effects, generative art, data, and interactive digital media. Standard professional industry equipment, including media servers, projectors, projection surfaces, emissive displays, cameras, sensors, etc. is detailed. The book also offers a breakdown of all key related technical tasks, such as converging, warping, and blending projectors, to calculating surface brightness/luminance, screen size and throw distance, to using masks, warping content and projection mapping, making this a complete guide to digital media and projection design today. An eResource page offers sample assets and interviews that link to current and relevant work of leading projection designers.

"An impressive selection of over 100 objects that embrace digital technology."—Library Journal Digital by Design considers the work of design visionaries who are reimagining the relationship between technology, products, immersive environments, and human interaction. The result is a captivating assessment of pioneering approaches in art and design that encompasses a broad spectrum of humanist values, humor, magic, and sensory experiences. The London-based design firm Troika has selected more than one hundred objects and installations that illustrate a new wave of art and design. The book’s introduction offers an overview of the possibilities and practicalities of technological innovation. Then four chapters feature products and cutting-edge objects by emerging and established artists, designers, and engineers. The book is completed by a collection of incisive interviews with some of the most visionary practitioners and critics in this field—Dunne & Raby, Ron Arad, Steven Sacks, and Machiko Kusahara. A useful and comprehensive reference section includes designers’ biographies. Troika was founded in London in 2003 by Conny Freyer, Sebastien Noel, and Eva Rucki. They have received critical acclaim for, among other projects, their installations “Cloud” and “All the Time in the World” at Heathrow Airport Terminal 5. Troika’s work is part of the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, the British Council collection, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Writing and Editing for Digital Media teaches students how to write effectively for digital spaces—whether writing for an app, crafting a story for a website, blogging, or using social media to expand the conversation. The lessons and exercises in each chapter help students build a solid understanding of the ways that digital communication has introduced opportunities for dynamic storytelling and multi-directional communication. With this accessible guide and accompanying website, students learn not only to create content, but also to become careful, creative managers of that content. Updated with contemporary examples and pedagogy, including examples from the 2016 presidential election, and an expanded look at using social media, the third edition broadens its scope, helping digital writers and editors in all fields, including public relations, marketing, and social media management. Based on Brian Carroll's extensive experience teaching a course of the same name, this revised and updated edition pays particular attention to opportunities presented by the growth of social media and mobile media. Chapters aim to: Assist digital communicators in understanding the socially networked, increasingly mobile, always-on, geomapped, personalized media ecosystems; Teach communicators to approach storytelling from a multimedia, multi-modal, interactive perspective; Provide the basic skill sets of the digital writer and editor, skill sets that transfer across all media and most communication and media industries, and to do so in specifically journalistic and public relations contexts; Help communicators to put their audiences first by focusing attention on user experience, user behavior, and engagement with their user bases; Teach best practices in the areas of social media strategy, management, and use.

Writing for Digital Media teaches students how to write effectively for online audiences—whether they are crafting a story for the website of a daily newspaper or a personal blog. The lessons and exercises in each chapter help students build a solid understanding of the ways that the Internet has introduced new opportunities for dynamic storytelling as digital media have blurred roles of media producer, consumer, publisher and reader. Using the tools and strategies discussed in this book, students are able to use their insights into new media audiences to produce better content for digital formats and environments. Fundamentally, this book is about good writing—clear, precise, accurate, filled with energy and voice, and aimed directly at an audience. Writing for Digital Media also addresses all of the graphical, multimedia, hypertextual and interactive elements that come into play when writing for digital platforms. Learning how to achieve balance and a careful, deliberate blend of these elements is the other primary goal of this text. Writing for Digital Media teaches students not only how to create content as writers, but also how to think critically as a site manager or content developer might about issues such as graphic design, site architecture, and editorial consistency. By teaching these new skill sets alongside writing fundamentals, this book transforms students from writers who are simply able to post their stories online into engaging multimedia, digital storytellers. For additional resources and exercises, visit the Companion Website for Writing for Digital Media at: www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415992015.