Overview
The Field Trip and Seminar subject is composed of two parts, the Major FTS and the Minor FTS. It has been 4 months and 11 days since we had our Major Field Trip and Seminar outside here in Mindanao. 5 days of visiting companies and listening to their seminars was very tiring, yet beneficial to us. However, despite of it, we cannot forget how full our stomach was everyday due to constant buffet eating. It was heaven for us, though. In fact, it was an awesome experience not only for me, but to all of us who enrolled on that subject.
We were unable to conduct out Minor FTS due to several reasons such as time constraints, paper works, etc. The Minor FTS was to be conducted supposedly back in October, but as mentioned earlier, we failed to conduct it. And as a result, we were all marked as INC on the FTS subject.
They planned about how the Minor FTS will flow or go. They proposed that instead of visiting a company somewhere here in Mindanao, we’ll rent the Social Hall and conduct a seminar.
We’ve waited for days, until days became months. Actually, I didn’t mind waiting for the Minor FTS to happen. I don’t know if there are others who are annoyed and being impatient while waiting for it to happen. But, after 4 months of waiting, it was finally announced that our Minor FTS will about to be conducted on the 23rd day in this month of January. I was so glad to hear it, and I am sure that I am not the only one who was happy that time.
Our Minor FTS was seminar about Graphic Design and Web Development. It was merged with our pitching activity on our Techno1 subject and a hackathon contest. So the program goes like this; In the morning, the Minor FTS will be held and in the afternoon, the pitching and hackathon will take place.
We had guest speakers, and they are Mr. Ralph Gideon and Ms. Shannen Yu Spar. Mr. Ralph Gideon was the speaker for the Graphic Design topic and Ms. Shannen Yu Spar for the Web Development topic.
Graphic Design
Everyone settled as soon as the ecumenical prayer and the national anthem and the opening remark led by Sir Pabilona ended. The emcee, Ray Neal, introduced us the very first speaker. It was Mr. Ralph Gideon. Mr. Gideon walked in front of us and grabbed the mic and started to introduce himself.
According to him, he was an IT graduate at the University of Southeastern Philippines. Meeting people who graduated from the same college as I am gives me inspiration, cause you know, it is really hard in the Institute of Computing and there isn’t a single day that you wouldn’t think of giving up. After he graduated, he got a job, although I forgot what it was. He later quit his job due to its low salary rate. That’s very reasonable though. As far as I can remember, he then took up the course of Fine Arts at the University of Mindanao.
Now, before Mr. Gideon shared a word about graphic designing or anything about art, I know that I will definitely lend an ear and focus to whatever he’ll say because we are on the same page. I love art, and I love multimedia editing.
He showed us his drawings in his slide presentation. He then talked about art, its basic elements such as lines, dots, shapes and etc. which to be honest, I already knew them way before. But, still I listened to him. The things that he talked about and shared to us are things that we knew in common.
He showed us a lot of examples of graphic art. He showed us a Steampunk-themed icons where he mentioned that it is the trend nowadays. He’s right. If you go and search for customized icons or themes, you can see and notice that there are series of it which the icons, or themes are in uniform. If you’re confused, basically what I’m trying to say is that things right now are themed.
He then asked us a question which got my interest and got our minds working. The question was; “Are all artists designers?” vice versa. Everyone inside the social hall began chattering. A lot answered “Yes”, a lot of them answered “No”. How about me? Well, my answer was “No”, but with reservation.
For me, not ALL artists are designers, nor ALL designers are artists. But, I stand that there are people that are both artists and designers. They are ambiguous. In fact, I know many of them. I have friends who are both of it.
Mr. Gideon then answered that question by saying “No”. In his defense, Artists have a wide range of creativity and can go out and explore more of creativity without limits, breaking outside the box. While a Designer has limits. Designers, for him are tied and constrained by the commands given to them by their employer.
He’s got a point, but for me, it is not a concrete basis, or the only basis to determine/call someone an artist or a designer. When you’re an artist, you’re thinking of creating a masterpiece. You’re thinking how does its structure goes, how does or will it appeal the view/people. How will the colors compliment to each other. And by doing that, you’re already thinking of/creating its design. You designed it, thus you are technically a designer.
And when you’re a designer. You think of its design, its structure, its color, its underlying message, etc. Put them together and you’ve created an art. A masterpiece. Your output is a masterpiece of art.
But, we are all entitled to our own opinion. There is no right, and there is no wrong. What Mr. Gideon said and shared to us, I respect and welcome it with all my heart and wits.
It was indeed fun having Mr. Gideon to tackle about graphic design. It was refreshing to listen to him.
Web Development
Shortly after Mr. Gideon was done sharing about graphic design, the next speaker was introduced immediately. It was Ms. Shannen Yu Spar, a front-end web developer. She walked in front of us and grabbed the mic. She stood there looking so glamorous, pretty, beautiful, and all of the complimenting words you can insert here. To simplify it, she’s so pretty. And to think, she’s a web developer which makes her so kickass. It’s very rare nowadays to meet a pretty lady who’s got brains.
Anyway, she talked about web developing. She showed us samples and shared the basic knowledge of web developing. She also shared to us that she was not a web developer before. Before she was a complete web designer, but then web developing tasks were passed on to her. She studied and learned web developing on the process.
She asked us what a front-end developer is. A lot of us murmured and chattered that a front-end web developer is the one who’s got to do the UIs and the designs. Unfortunately, the answer was not exactly the way we thought of. According to Ms. Spar, a front-end web developer would implement the designer’s UI by coding it, and creates the structure of the webpage.
As much as I wanted to write down more of what I learned from Ms. Spar, but I forgot a lot of the things she shared to us.
