Department Head
A welcome from Margaret Penney, Multimedia Arts Certificate program department head
Margaret Penney is a skilled multimedia artist, motion graphics designer, and Web designer. She serves as Multimedia Arts Certificate program department head and is an instructor in the program. Her welcome message for prospective certificate students shares her enthusiasm for the tools and software of this exciting field. Read her bio of professional experience.
A Message to Students from Margaret Penney
One question I'm often asked is: "What is multimedia?" Multimedia is exactly as it sounds... The combination of a variety of media including text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactive content. Let's face it, "multimedia" is all around us. Everyday, in cities and towns around the world, monitors and screens large and small are loading up rich interactive motion graphic experiences to entice customers or just draw in a million eyeballs.
The Multimedia Arts program at Sessions equips the budding motion graphic designer with tools for combat in this image, sound, text, and motion-based landscape. We outfit students with the basic skills needed to start a career as a professional motion graphic designer or video and film editor/producer. When students leave the program, they hit the ground running with a portfolio of work that shows off what they've learned.
Students learn about a range of programs from Adobe Premiere Pro to After Effects; dissect the camera both technically and as a tool for creating beautiful shots; learn how important editing is in any motion-based work; and explore Web scripting including bringing video into a Web page. Along the way, they are schooled in color theory, typography, and other core design and film theory fundamentals—so that the work they create flows from the rich history of design and the image.
The Multimedia Arts are not going away, and more likely will become an even more common avenue for visual communication in the future. As bandwidth grows and iPhones carry more gigabytes, the use of video, sound, and animation in screen-based presentations will increasingly become a default mode for communication, both personally and in commercial projects.
As a teacher at Sessions, I am excited by all that multimedia has to offer. I want to share what I have learned with students and help them reach a high level of professionalism in their work, so that when they leave class, they really are ready for prime time.
– Margaret Penney, Multimedia Arts Certificate program department head
Multimedia Arts Certificate program department head 
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