Not all graphic design involves static material such as posters and billboards. As I had mentioned in my last post, jobs like a multimedia designer involving working with video and audio. I’d like to discuss another project I worked on while earning my Bachelor’s degree.

For a Digital Literacy course, we were tasked with creating a 30-sec piece of audio for online radio. The theme for the semester was the 80s. I decided to create a commercial for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which came out in 1984. This was the first audio assignment I had ever worked on, so I had some difficulties getting it to a higher level of quality. As I had mentioned in an old post, there are creative common resources, which means they are free to use under certain conditions, that are available on several different websites. For this project, I got all of my sounds effects and music from freesound.org. This is an excellent place for beginners to find sound samples.

Along with finding the audio samples, I was also in charge of writing my own script and editing the final cut of audio. To record and edit all of my audio, I used a free software called Audacity. I’d recommend using it if you’re just starting out with audio editing.

This is a great project to try, and I’d highly recommend giving it a try. First, choose a product you’d like to sell. Next, write up a script and write down what kinds of sound effects you want. Search through sites such as freesound.org and collect your audio files together. Finally, use a program like Audacity to record your script, add in the effects, and export your audio file. Feel free to upload your final project to a site like SoundCloud and share your link in the comments.