Category Archives: Uni

Promo Flier.

Promo Flier.

Just a little bit of background to this image.

I am currently studying through Open Universities Australia at Curtin University in the Internet Studies Department (curiously enough, Western Australia is the only state to have a dedicated Internet Studies department!). I am working towards a Bachelor of Arts in Internet Communications, which is to say I will have a degree which a lot of techies will laugh at because it’s not a science degree and a lot of artsies will laugh at because it’s not a “real” arts degree. But you know what? This has been one of the biggest rollercoasters of my life. I am now in my second year of three full-time. I have never been so challenged or felt so accomplished when I see a good grade on my assignments. There have been failings, sure, but on the whole they have been minor (except for that one eeeeeeevil time with the Unit-that-shall-not-be-named but that will be fixed next study period).

Yes, my work load averages out to be rather minor. It’s by no stretch of the imagination a law degree. However, in order to be at the top of my game, I need to know what is going on in the world of social media and the like. As it’s an ever evolving field of study, there’s a fair amount of online reading that needs to be done. Up until now, all the “creative” work for any of my units has been done through a program called Comic Life (they can be seen here and here), so it was time for something different.

I have been involved in a couple of conferences this year already. The first was Swancon 2012, where I got “included” (read: held at gun-point by someone I once though of as a dear friend) on a panel about Firefly ten years later, with absolutely no preparation time whatsoever! I swam rather than sinking. The second was the Media140 event, which I was self-appointed Tweet-Queen. Again, swam rather than sinking. The third has been the Net204/504 CommUnity online conference about communities and networks online (strangely enough) which, granted, has been for university. However, when my tutor posted in the study group that we had been approached by the co-working, collaborative group setting up in Perth, SpaceCubed,  to hold a physical addition to our online conference, I thought it was too good an opportunity to pass up. There was a bit of a delay, as we needed minimum numbers and there was a general buzz as logistics were set up. I may have gotten a teeny tiny bit worked up about it, given that this is exactly the sort of collaboration I hope to make professional relationships with in the coming years. I guess I caught the eye of the tutor, because she has asked me to organise the event. Well, I may have been the only person putting their hand up.

So, I have had to face a fear: Photoshop. By face, I mean find ways around dealing with. You see, Photoshop and I do not have the chummiest of relationships. We love to hate one another. So, instead I use Seashore. By use, I mean go through each menu option until I find something that works, employing the old “Command+Z” if it doesn’t (yes, I’m on a Mac. So what?). Now, I am not the most artistic of people. Not by a long shot, so when I stepped away from my trials of the flier and was okay with what I had at that point, I was actually pretty happy, especially given that I had managed it with minimum hair pulling, teeth gnashing and general furniture destruction of frustration. Needless to say, the final edition which you see above is the culmination of years of trial and error (mostly error) and a day and a half of near-enough-to-say-it-happened keyboard/head/banging action.

Yes, there are some out there who could have achieved this in a matter of minutes. You know what? Power to them. I couldn’t have. Yes, I used some fairly rudimentary editing “skills” (what? a mallet is a skill, right?) to make it work. But I came out of it unscathed. My computer is all in one piece, and not a single piece of furniture was harmed in the making of this flier.

“Tick of Approval” Now More Credible.

Those who are aware of the PAFC’s real, non-superhero identity will know that she is NOT a fan of fast food. She thinks it is a waste of ingredients, not to mention incredibly poor for your health.

So when I stumbled across this article, I simply HAD to share it and my thoughts about it.

So, previously a company could approach the Heart Foundation and pay a sum of money in order to have their “Tick of Approval” placed on their food. This had been going on for five years, the first being a McDonald’s meal that was given approval for the Tick.

The main argument against the scheme is that it shields fast food outlets from actual.y making their food more healthy across the board. I completely agree with this argument, personally. Unfortunately, people are far too easily led into the false thinking that just because it has a picture saying it’s healthy, that must mean it is. Rather than checking the actual content statistics, a picture replaces real thought.

The Heart Foundation comes back at this notion by saying that they do actually check content and then have them independently checked in such fields as “…saturated fat, salt and kilojoules and making sure there is … healthier nutrients like calcium and fibre.” They also claim in the past 5 years, there have been big changes in awareness of healthier ingredients available to the fast food industry.

So what does this all mean to the average person looking for a healthier option?

For starters, it means you’ll have to be more aware of what it is you’re ordering. You will have to actually think about where it is you’re heading for food, their reputation for healthiness (I mean, let’s face it, NO ONE can say that fast food in general has the reputation of being truly healthy), and what your nutrition requirements (PDF)  actually are. In short, you’re going to have to think about your food. What a novel concept!

This means that fast food outlets are going to have to check their menu options and adjust them drastically if they still want the “health conscious” punters out there to buy their food. Mind you, I do think that people who go to fast food outlets looking for a healthy option are just kidding themselves in the first place.

In the end, we are all going to have to stop relying on little pictures to help us make educated food choices and start doing the real thinking for ourselves.

(Image Courtesy of The Heart Foundation : http://www.heartfoundation.org.au)

***UPDATE***

I was looking for further information I could post on here, as per the suggestions of one of my university tutor’s. I came upon the McDonald’s website  where you can plainly see that they are still advertising meals that are STILL marked with the Heart Foundation’s “Tick of Approval”. I have emailed the Foundation, asking how this can be if they have retracted the offer, but have not, as yet, heard anything back. Stay tuned dear reader. I shall find out what is going on with this.