20A
FALL 2014
Technology
by Gary Clites
ADVISER UPDATE
Eight sites students can use to build
unique and creative photo illustrations by
black
Unleashing the power of image generators
C
Gary Clites
has been technology
columnist for
Adviser Update for
over a dozen years.
He served for over a
decade as president
of the MarylandDC Scholastic
Press Association,
received a
Columbia Gold
Key Award in 2008,
and was a 2004
Distinguished
Journalism
Adviser in the
DJNF National
Journalism Teacher
of the Year program.
An archive of his
articles on his
website is available
at www.garyclites.
com. He can be
reached at gclites@
comcast.net.
Motivator
(http://bighugelabs.com/motivator.
php) You know those iconic white
print on black motivational posters
featuring a big photo in the center (as
constantly featured in Barney’s office
in “How I Met Your Mother”)? There
are a number of sites that let you
generate them. Motivator is a supersmooth one that creates big, printable
images. Easily upload your photo,
enter your text, and you can illustrate
your work with very believable
encouraging posters.
oming up with illustrations for stories, especially
those for which action photos or likely photo
illustrations are not available or easily created, is a
constant challenge for student journalists. With the
explosion of social media, however, have come a
plethora of sites on the Internet designed to generate
unique and clever illustrations. Sure, they’re designed
for use on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, but they
can also be used to generate images you can use to
dress up layouts that might otherwise be difficult to
illustrate.
Meme Generator
(http://www.reasonablyclever.com/
mini/flash/minifig.swf) “The Lego
Movie” made Lego-ized characters
all the rage. The Mini-Mizer site
pre-dates the movie by a lot, but it
allows you to easily build Lego-like
characters out of a library of parts to
look a lot like just about anyone yo B