Employed Software Programs

Final Cut Pro X

Final Cut Pro X is a professional video creation studio from Apple that facilitates production of videos and video edits. It offers an extensive range of tools to choose from and, therefore, it takes some time to learn how to work with this software. Luckily, I had used this program several times in the past while working on various video projects. The process of creating promo videos for Stubai-specific essential oils was thus rather straightforward. However, as I did not have any suitable own videos, I had to extensively search on the internet for copyright- and lincense-free videos that could be used for the assignment. This was very time consuming, as a vast majority of videos were either copyrighted or can only be used when purchased. Nonetheless, I believe the invested time and effort were worth it and the videos convincingly demonstrate Stubai in the summer and winter seasons.

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is the industry-leading photo, design and graphic editing program. It is quite complex and have a long learning curve. Being a big fan of photography, I use Adobe Photoshop on regular basis. Moreover, I have also employed it extensively throughout the creation process of this e-portfolio. I used it to create the graphics for Stubai-specific essential oil flasks, to design the logo for Nordic Hub Seefeld, and to edit the photos used on the website and within the assignments in order to unite the colour scheme and reach overall consistency. While designing the logos and graphics, I had the opportunity to improve my competence regarding working with multiple layers, which is something that had been on my to-do list for a long time. The e-portfolio project thus pushed me to accomplish that and, consequently, further enhance my Adobe Photoshop skills.

QuarkXPress

QuarkXPress is a publishing software that is used for designing and editing page layouts such as magazines, books or brochures. I employed this program for the creative part of the destination management assignment. I had used QuarkXPress couple of times in the past, most of all when I worked as an editor during conferences organised by the European Youth Parliament. However, as there had been multiple major updates since the last time I used the tool, I had to spend some time getting used to them. The most challenging part was to find and crop the photos used in the publication, thus making them fit well into the triangle shapes. Luckily, I took a lot of photos in the Arlberg and Laax this winter, so I had a wide range to choose from.

GarageBand

GarageBand is an audio creation studio from Apple, which can be used to record and edit music and podcasts. I employed this tool to aid me while working on the creative assignment for brand management, for which I selected Visit Tirol as an example. As I had never worked with this program before, it took me a while to understand its interface and how it works. After watching a number of online tutorials and reading help forums, I was able to record and edit my first podcast. However, the final version presented on the website is probably my 20th recording, as I had to retake it multiple times. Either I was not happy with the speed and tone of my voice or I made speaking mistakes. This significantly prolonged the creation of the podcast and took me much more time than I had originally anticipated. Nevertheless, I am happy I had selected this format for the task, as it was very interesting and insightful to learn about and try the enhancements and adjustments that can be done to one's voice while creating podcasts.

Microsoft PowerPoint

PowerPoint is the most popular presentation program from Microsoft that allows users to create, demonstrate and share slideshows. I identified this software as the most suitable one for presenting my concept of an apartment house in Seefeld, which was our task for the creative part of the product development course. I find PowerPoint to often have a bad reputation. The reason for this might be that it is used too extensively and serves as a quick and almost effortless way to create a presentation. However, I believe that if one invests enough time and effort into the PowerPoint presentation-making, its quality can be high. For that reason, I spent almost two entire days creating the layout of the final presentation for the apartment house concept. The most time-consuming part was to ensure that the presentation was visually appealing by adding icons of the cross-country skiers on each slide and making the presentation in the exact same colour and font scheme that is used throughout the website. I was rather unsatisfied with the quality of the presentation after embedding it to the website through the Wix application for online Microsoft files. The resolution decreased significantly and the transitions among slides were lagging. Therefore, I decided to save the individual slides as pictures and then create a slideshow from them directly on the website. This has fortunately solved the quality and lag issues. Overall, I am glad that I have chosen Microsoft PowerPoint for one part of my e-portfolio, as I learnt about how to embed a presentation on a website, while maintaining its visual quality on a high level.