so, ok. I lied about blogging once a week. things have been a little hectic lately. I got a new job working at a call centre, I also just haven't really felt the want or need to design anything lately. still adjusting to life at home after four years of university, Aswell with the fact that I'm no longer wanting to stay in education. so, sadly I just haven't really done any design stuff..... until last night. my partner is a gamer, like most folk. he has decided to make a twitch account and for people who don't know what twitch is: twitch is basically an website/app that you can go onto and watch live streams of people playing a plethora of different games. if you find you like watching a certain player you can follow them and even donate money to them. as far as I'm aware some players are so popular that they actually are able to live off the donations. Every little gamers dream right? (I really hope I got all that info right or I'm in trouble..... I'm totally not a gamer) sooooooooo, my partner asked me to design and create his profile picture, cover photo and any buttons that he has on his profile. Now, anyone who knows my partner, knows he's uppsessed with cats...... see where I'm going with this? I actually had so much fun doing this. I have managed to get his profile picture finished, I am currently working on getting his cover photo finished, here is a few of my enitial drawings it's been a long time since I've last drawn but you get the idea, just imagine it all......waaaaayyyy less scary than my sketches. so all the little drawings were my ideas for the profile picture. As (I.probably should have mentioned earlier) My partners name on twitch is "ShleepyPete" he also sleeps more than most humans... so the idea was basically to make him into a cat, he loves both his cats which are both pure white. I think I have an image on my site, that i did a few years ago. A game of thrones style portrait. It's of my partner sitting on the iron throne with his two white dare-cats on either side of him. I'm currently on my phone writing this blog (first time ever) so I don't have the image on my phone to upload, on here. if your interested. it should be on my commissions page. here's an image however of my partner with one of his cats (hopefully I won't get murdered for putting it up) isn't he sooooooooo cute! talking about the cat here guys... :P so I based his cat on him, I however didn't include the beard. I sort of felt that the cat it's self had enough fur, never mind the beard. So here's the finished product, I am actually so pleased with this, I now just have to get the cover photo done and then the buttons that will go on his Twitch account
That's all from me today :)
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Today has been a beyond stressful day. I have had problems with my phone not charging as well as stress just with trying to get all my work handed in on time. I had to go get my phone sorted out, which was a joke as I have to get it sent away and I now have a phone that I'm pretty sure is from the stone-age. Although at least it has colour I guess. So I didn't get as much work done today as I wanted, I have been just more or less writing up things on and off and sorting out my website. As you can see the website is now a little different. As it didn't originally have a little bit about me in the side bar or the categories. So I ended up having to change theme within weebly, but because my logo is a little awkward with being a GIF. I had to edit a bit of the code so it was continue to show up as it is currently. I have to admit I am actually pretty proud of myself, as if someone had asked me six months ago to try and edit some html code, I think I would have cried. I am starting to think that I am getting the hang of things. I definitely wouldn't say I'm a coding genius or anything at all like that. But code is starting to be come less like hieroglyphics. Also I know as I had said yesterday I was continuing to edit my magazine cover, I ended up coming up with this: So I come up with this, I actually really like this, there are just a few minor things I still need to sort out within the image. But I'm pretty happy with this, I purposely chose the gold writing to symbolize money, as of course I am getting at consumerism and corporations screwing over not only their workers but even the people consuming their goods.
Tomorrow, I am hoping to get a lot more done and have a lot more to show, however thats all from me today Today I got a hell of a lot done, everything for the end of year show that I wanted to put up is now up. I had to re-cut some new vinyl for my wall. And now everything is beautiful! I now get to just concentrate on finishing off my sketch books and writing everything up that needs to be done before hand in. I feel like I'm in a very good position, I even feel that I could hand in all of my stuff on Monday. Everyone else in my class is currently panicking and therefore this makes me also panick a little more due to myself feeling calm. Don't you just hate that. Although speaking of things that you hate most coming up to hand in, one of my class mates mentioned to me today was he "can't wait for this to be over, so he can stop feeling guilty about wasting time" Shit just got real! Deadlines can be really good for people or you can crash and burn, I do have that feeling of panic and worry, trying to get things done. It is a little weird when you stop just to breathe and then feel guilty. So anyways on to a more productive and positive note. I have done what feels like a million different magazine covers: As you can see I have been experimenting with a variety of different colours as well as text. I also went a step further with this I knew I wanted to have a bit of colour within the black and white image. However I think the lips actually make it more sexulised. This could however be a poster or even a magazine cover for human trafficking or something within that sort of topic. I however want a more generalized kind of image. So, I took the image from the above, went through all my photos I had taken from this project, and photoshopped eyes in from a different photograph. This was unbelievably weird I can tell you that, straight off. I have to admit this I think worked out pretty well, I however think that this looks like me, but a little different..... I know it sounds weird but, yea a different version of me. Although when it really comes down to it, as long as it looks like a person, and gets the point across. That is the whole point. So my idea here is a little more self explanatory. I want the eyes to try and look into your soul!, no I just want to eyes to grab peoples attention, although I still want them to look along the lines as realistic, however the more I photoshop this the more and more unrealistic it looks. especially as the eyes are very much a small part of the image, the colour doesn't really pierce through very well, even with the lines of the bar code coming down the face. I however really like the 1st image on the 2nd row, as I think this does grab your attention. I am just currently a little unsure on how to take it further. I am also really unsure on what colours to have my text and I seem to be continuing the same argument with myself on which fonts look the best. I am continuing to work on this even as I write this blog, I have a feeling however I may need to sleep on things and see how I feel about it tomorrow. So yea, that's it from me today.
Well it has been forever since I last blogged. I have been a busy bee as well as going home for the Easter holidays. I have been designing a logo for this website so I can get my business cards printed and what not. There will be even more work added to the website. I am now into my final 2 months of university, which is a very scary thought. Here is some of my characters for my student help guide, these are not finished yet, but they are a work in progress: from the top left, we have the hungover student, Hipster student, Sport student, Geeky student, Protester student, and Ghost student. I have also been researching the most expensive cities to be a student, in within the UK. I have already gotten 125 responses to my survey. Which is fantastic! I have a lot of information from current and past students. A lot of students have found to have the same problems and have solved them in the same ways. I have a lot more research to do, but I don't want to get so caught up with research that I am not really doing a lot of work. Which to be honest, is pretty much why I haven't blogged in a really long time, no pretty pictures to show and what not. On another notes with my logo project I have been experimenting with different colours for my logo. See below logos: I also really like the idea of having my logo be a gif that goes through all of these different colours. I am not too sure if I should continue with that idea, but I think Ill do it anyways and see how it looks. I have also been thinking about how to have this website. As I do love the amount of colours within it, I may keep this, but I would like to change the layout a little more, so the plan is to hopefully do Code Academy. I will also be able to create a website for my main project also.
I haven't managed to get much of my playing card project done, however I plan to get really stuck into all of my projects and knuckle down in my last few weeks of being a student. That's all from me today So, I had my meeting today with my tutor, I ended up getting a lot of new ideas for my dissertation, so now going back and looking at my work. I was also reminded of this part of my research a video by Annie Leonard, she looked into where all are stuff comes from and where it goes when we throw it away. It is a very interesting video, I highly recommend you watch it: So as you can see there is a lot more to things and stuff than we originally thought. I was also asked a pretty big question today by my tutor, regarding my dissertation, which was:
Q: As a designer how I felt about happiness, especially when put in a scenario of working with a company specifically designed to sell people products they don't need. What would I do? A: I have to admit, I would take the job. We all need money to survive, to a certain degree. However, I would give back to my community in my spare time. I have previously volunteered at local charity shops, it was actually a lot of fun, and I met so many people. Giving things to charity and helping people, is not something I just simply write about. It is something that I already do. I encourage people to do the same. And that's my answer and I'm sticking to it. I also gave my dissertation to my brother to read over. Mainly due to him continually nagging to see it. As he has already been through uni and written his own dissertation. I have to admit as soon as I pressed send. I regretting everything. However I will admit, instead of him telling me everything I did was wrong, like i thought he was going to. He was incredibly helpful, I actually think I will get a good grade on my dissertation now. YAY!!!!! :) I am actually so tired, but it is finished. However I have started making this into a book and I have to admit all the editing is such a pain. I have also noticed how many pages I am continually adding. I am not even half way through putting my dissertation on the templates and I am already on page 22. Although I have to admit Blurb do make the whole process very easy.Just I am not too sure if I will have this done on time to get it handed in for the 6th. I can see me being able to send this off by some point tomorrow, however. I have also just sent it off to get one last proof read before I get it printed.
I have a meeting tomorrow with my CCS tutor, although I am not exactly sure what we will talk about seeing as we're nearing the end of the process. I am also getting to the point of not caring anymore. This has really been a lot of work. I will admit I have enjoyed it. I just hope I get a good enough mark on this. I am going to go now and stuff my face with chocolate, eagerly waiting for all this to be over..... I think it may be an early night tonight I am now officially eating my own words. I felt like I had a lot of time to get my dissertation done. Which I technically still do, however. I found out today that I can get my dissertation made into a book, and that there is still time left. So I have been trying to get it all done today. To insure it will be here on time, I am also being extra sure on time, as I plan on sending my dissertation off to get professionally proof read. It can take 3- 5 days.... Although I have been staring at my laptop screen solidly for 8 hours, I feel like I am now literally typing gobblely gook. Not much of what I am typing anymore makes much sense within my dissertation. My brain gave up on me about an hour ago. So I feel like I need to call it a night, I have had a lot of sugar today and am feeling really wired. I honestly feel I could get it done if I continued, but. It's gonna be so poorly done, especially as I am now beginning to tweak my conclusion. So yes, calling it a night and backing away.....
So today, I spent most of it working on my dissertation. I didn't really get what I wanted done, done today. This was mainly due to simply going back into my dissertation and re-arranging what I wanted to keep in and what I wanted to shorten down and delete. It took a lot longer than I thought I was going to. Although I have to admit, instead of making things clearer in my mind on what I'm doing. It confused me a little more :S I am however going to a meeting tomorrow about my dissertation, so hopefully I will get more guidance and if not, hopefully I will get scared back on track with deadlines.
Today has been a hectic day. I have been travelling since half 7 this morning. I missed my train from Edinburgh and was so late getting back to my flat. I had planned to go to the opening of my interim show. But by the time I got back to my flat, it had already started. I just feel so tired and exhausted from travelling. I really just want to go to bed and press restart. I am even so tired writing this, I had to really bully myself to do a blog today. I'm just not a happy bunny today at all. On a positive note today, when I finally got the train, I started to do a little bit of work. More so on my logo for this website. Here is an image from some of the images I am drawing inspiration from. It's just so absolutely cute! Hopefully tomorrow will be better and I will be a lot more organized with what I am doing.
So, today has been rather busy already as I was travelling most of yesterday I didn't get any work done. So I have woken up to a bunch of emails and a whole bunch of work to do. The interim show was top of my to do list. As my statement that is to go with my work needed a bit more work to it. So i tried my hardest, but as I am doing so many different things. To get that into a well described 200 words. Was incredibly stressful and annoying. I hope however that it is good enough for my tutors. As I feel I have really done my best. I have as been looking into Hedonism for my research into my dissertation. Hedonism actually has a lot to do with my work. Hedonism is the pursuit of pleasure, sensual self-indulgence. So this really does get my work into a better structure of better understanding. I have also been looking into behavioral economics. As a brief description wiki has summarized this as " Behavioral economics and the related field, behavioral finance, study the effects of psychological, social, cognitive, and emotional factors on the economic decisions of individuals and institutions and the consequences for market prices, returns, and the resource allocation" Again this narrows down my train of thought from being all over the place and struggling to say what I mean as well as having more facts. As I am beginning to freak out a little as I now have exactly a month till hand in for my dissertation. SO the chaos is starting to build.
That's all from me today. Here is an image by Tom Bagshaw. I have been looking into his designs for my deck of cards brief. |