So today, I finally got talking to a tutor. I am starting to get my survey questions drafted, which I will not deny, took me a good while to do. After speaking with my tutor, I realized that I was still being too broad with what I wanted to ask, and have to bring the whole project back to what I have been doing, mainly all about money. So, I am at the moment, toying with the idea of creating a book, website , leaflet or what not. On finance and money issues with students. Possibly creating a themed looking book, leaflet, website or what not. So, once my tutors check over my survey questions, it will then go out and I will get real experiences from other students, as tips and advice for new/future students. I also went on a hike today, I attempted to take more underwater images. This time at the beach, rather than rock pools. Most images weren't successful, however I did manage to get a few good images. I plan to continue on with this theme, just as experiments. I am hoping to do get more and more successful images. As at the beach, I did find it very difficult to get many images to work. I also feel I need to invest in wellies.
That's all from me today
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Today, I did a lot of logo work, I experimented a lot within illustrator, I now feel I am on the right track of having a final logo design. As you can see, these designs are totally different compared to the ones I have previously put up. I am still not too sure about shapes in certain places in all three of the designs above. I also started to play around with fonts a little: As you can see I chose the 3rd design to experiment with, simply due to I thought it was the strongest of the designs. There is still a lot more work to do, but I believe I'm on the right track.
I didn't get talking to a tutor today, which sucked. However I did a bit more research into my main project, I managed to find that other universities, do have a student advise guide, from past students. So I have been reading over their questions and what some of their students were concerned about. Mainly to get a better idea on what questions to ask students, and what other students would be interested in hearing. I have so far found that students want to know:
This gives me a better idea of questions to ask, although these are important questions to ask on advise, I know I want to add in some humor, like:
So! Happy St Paddy's Day! I have not been taking part in the festivities this year, I have however gotten sooooo much work done today, I gathered a lot of information on the services that my university offers. In hope that I could find a new sort of market for my own book. I below is just a few pics of some of the material I have found available: I have found that my university really does have a lot of areas covered, and there is a LOT of information for all students. So have been thinking about what to do all day. Looking over the materials found and trying to decide what my next step may be within this project. So while I have been allowing this information to sink in. I have turned to one of my other projects, my deck of cards project. I did say I would try and get a new deck of cards designed every week, that being 12 new designs every week. which I do realize is a lot. I haven't however really started this, so I have just been finishing off the previous deck. I am just finishing off on the Diamond suit. I only have the Jack of diamonds to finish off, then go onto the next suit. I know that these are still not completely finished, I would however like to design something that will go across where the figures join. I have decided to do this more nearer to the end. The King Of Diamonds was a lot of fun to do. Please note the detail on the kings bling. I plan to do this with the Jack's bling too.
So as I have been working on the deck of cards and thinking on my main project, I have come to the conclusion that throughout the material I have found, there was not primary sources, no experiences from other students. So what if I created a book with just pure advise from past students to future students. On a few carefully chosen subjects, I would like to be able to get really funny stories, I don't however really know how to go about this. I could do a survey, have a box that people post their stories anonymously through, they can even post as many stories as they like. Set up a section on my website that people can email or again virtually post their stories and advise through...... there's a lot of different things I can do. I think I really need to talk to a tutor about this, as I can even up with no one answering. and be out of having a book. I do think that this idea could be very amusing and probably in most cases rather shocking. I do also know however that, other websites have done something similar to this and while some stories were grim. It was all really funny and in a way made up your day. This would also make the book not only aimed at just my university but it can also be advise for others. So yes, I think I will email my tutor tomorrow and ask her advise on whether or not to continue with this idea. Long time now speak, I have been travelling and setting back into my flat. So i did what I said and went and took some night time photography. I did have a few technical difficulties, as I had borrowed some of the equipment from friends. Anyways, here is my incredibly blurry star images taken on Friday night First image was my most successful image taken, unfortunately it is of course, blurry. My camera also started to act up and not showing images once they were taken. As well as just shutting it's self off. I plan to however go out sometime next week to take some more images, however. This will mean I will miss the deadline for this particular challenge. Which sucks, but to be honest, I'd rather miss this challenge, practice a bit more and be prepared for the next challenge. I do however have a choice, of uploading a past image. This is the closest image I currently have of stars, just the moon is very much dominating the image. I still really like this image, it is however still not right to upload for this challenge. I also have a really good Idea for the other ViewBug challenge , which is playing with light. When out in a forest of the outskirts of Belfast, where I took the top two images. I had my assistant holding a torch for me so I could set up. He however had other Ideas. He started to play with the torch as all of us have done as children. Making animal shadows with our hands. It was pretty creepy. Being in a forest late at night, alone and creating shadows on the forest. I really wished I had gotten a photo of it, It was creepy, but really amazing looking. So again hopefully when I go and take more starry night images, this time with fellow photographer. I will be able to do this, again though I really hope this will be possible due to the deadlines.
Also going back to my underwater photography, I have been thinking about doing more of it, perhaps for my main project. I was looking up paddling pools and was surprised that they can be as cheap as £4. So I may get one and practice, only problem is filling the small paddling pool up and also being able to empty it....... In student accommodation. WHOOP! I am unsure when I will be doing this, but I have been thinking and taking a lot more time with my main project, I previously mentioned that I was looking up some student help guides. I wasn't very surprised to find that there are many. This has disheartened me a good bit. As I feel my project will get lost in a sea of student self hep books. Even with some of the topics the books had within their blurbs. They had topics I had never even thought of. Such as sex, drugs, freshers week, and exams. I personally have no interest in touching on these subjects. I would prefer to talk on topics such as: Money, mental health, social life, and "life hacks". This is still all possible, but do I now aim this towards people who just go to my university or do I continue to aim with the idea in mind, of any university. I have started to think about what sort of questions I can ask people, however I have so far not written them down as of yet. I plan to do a bit more research, and go to my student union to get some leaflets to see what they offer. Hopefully I will get more ideas on how to move forward with this project. I have also thought about my deck of cards project, I had originally said I would design a new set every week. So I am starting this tonight, continuing on from what I have currently done, however I feel that these may not be completely, completed. To make it easier for myself I think, I shall just have sketches, this will also help me balance my time between my side projects and my main projects. I am beginning to feel I am procrastinating too much within my other projects. I will choose which suit style is the strongest to go forward with. I also have to still design the back of the deck of cards. This I am hoping to keep neutral so whichever design I use, the backing will suit all. That's all from me today, a little bit of an information overload. So today was horrendous, the weather was one word. shite. I really didn't think I was going to manage to get photos. So I opted for a slightly different option. I took photos within my parents small pond in their back garden. There is already frogs spawn in the pond, so i hoped to photograph some frogs too. As you can see the water was really murky and rather creepy looking. I also experimented a little bit with the flash on. It didn't really do much and I ended up preferring the images without the flash. I then decided to run the garden hose into the pond, in hope that it may make the water clearer to see through and even just healthier for the frogs. My parents also own two dogs, so the garden was filled with "land mines" So taking photos of the pond was a little bit like an obstacle course. This really worked! YAY!, I also saw I frog, however it was too quick for me to photograph, it's head bobbing above the water looking at me..... made me jump to be honest. Also algae got absolutely everywhere, so many images taken where the algae had stuck to my camera lens. As you can see the image of my boots has algae firmly stuck to the lens. I plan to take more images of the pond tomorrow, as I have spent the rest of today cleaning dead leaves, little toy boats and even pipes that have fallen in to the pond over the years. Really got my work cut out for me I think. I have also been thinking about my main project, however, because I am home this week I haven't been able to do the research I want. As I would like to see what is available at my university for students and then start to really develop an angle to what I will start to create, also not going to lie, the project has started to bore me a bit. So I really feel I need to find a way to make it more interesting to me I also got an email today about the Belfast Photo Festival. They want a range of images from the same body of work. The deadline is the 17th of March, which is just short of next week. I am also hoping tomorrow to go through all of my images and possibly even re-edit old photos. I am currently thinking of uploading the paint images I took roughly five years ago. I am still not too happy with how I have edited them since. So I am hoping to go back and re-visit them. If I had of known about the festival a little earlier I would have started a new body of work for it. As I have recently gotten a new shipment in of powder paints. So I am starting to plan what I want to do with them. This is my main image from the paint photoshoot. "Model Envy" there are other images from this series.
"The theme has been left open to remove any restrictions; submissions must be photographic or lens-based but can include incorporations of other art forms with the photographic medium (i.e. performance, painting, sculpture, music, literature etc). Individuals and collectives are welcome to apply; individuals should select and enter between two and six photographs from a particular series or body of work AND/OR submit their Photo-book for exhibition by uploading a single PDF (no image limit). (Note: You can submit both a photo-book and photographs of the same project, but a fee will need to be paid for both. If submitting only a Photo-book and not photographs, it will be your photo-book that will be selected for presentation and not photographic prints for exhibition) Collectives are also welcome to apply; as a collective, you can submit up to 10 photographs (a £15 submission fee will apply for every 10 images submitted)" This is just a little snippet from the rules and requirements of the festival. I have to admit I am not happy about having to pay the fee of £15, again I would have loved to have photographed something specially for this festival. Although there is always next year. Just excited that this is festival is coming from home. That's all from me today, here's hoping I will have something more interesting show tomorrow. So today I decided to go back to my logo project. I have been going through so many images of octopuses. Looking at species, and just general shapes of them. I defiantly preferred the images of them just swimming. So I decided I have done sooooo much research, I'm going to jump into the deep end, so the above are the same image with slight differences. This is just my first trail sort of run for my logo. The back ground is also not permanent. I just needed to see clearer on what I was doing. I do like this logo so far, but I'm still not too sure. Also on a side note here is my final dissertation out put: First image is the front of the dissertation, Second image is the inside, along with the dissertation, and the third is the bum. I plan to hand this in on Friday which it is due to be in for anyways. I had planned to hand it in today or tomorrow, but due to laziness and being preoccupied with logo designs, and fixing up my other sketchbooks. I didn't get to hand it in today. I also have people coming from home tomorrow to Aberdeen, for a wee visit. So I don't think I will be able to hand it in tomorrow. Which also brings me to my final point, I may not be able to blog tomorrow. Due to this visit and the fact my crappy little phone won't allow me to blog, which sucks. So there will be either no blog tomorrow or a the very least a late one. Back to business, Here are a few of the octopus images I was looking at today I love the bottom middle image, the amount of detail within the image is truly stunning. My logo is still not as perfect as I would like it, however this is just the very early stages. Hopefully on Friday I will have more to show on the Logo and Deck of card front.
So my dissertation is finally over, I have printed it all out and it's looking pretty tasty. I will be getting it binded tomorrow, then I can finish getting the cover and all done for it. I went back and re-designed my cover image for my dissertation, I also did a little more design with preparing my shopping bag look for the actual cover of the dissertation. So just a little recap, this is the bag for my cover, I then made a little label you can see below Sorry for the bright colors, this image is in CMYK format . I then added this to my bag: It's not perfectly done, but you get the idea. I then went a head and started to cut the bag, so it will fold and be more of a dust cover for my dissertation: This is my dissertation currently sitting in the cover. This is also my new cover it has changed since last night. I still find it very hard to read. So I even changed the design again: This is my final, I'm done lol. So yes, getting this binded tomorrow and then trying to get it to stay in it's new cover will be interesting. Hopefully I don't completely wreck it. On another note, I got talking to a tutor today, looked over all my work and have started to determine which direction I will be going into. So I have been advised to create a student survival guide. Help students to budget money and such. I am in two minds about it at the moment to be honest. As I wanted to do more sort of photography stuff. Like I looked up this guy: Gabriel Wickbold, I would love to do my own version of this and have people covered in things that our to do with consumerism. I think it'd be pretty sweet. I haven't yet started research into this, but I have to admit I am very excited about this and I do really think it can work. So that's all from me today. Hopefully will have a finished Dissertation to show tomorrow. If all goes to plan :D
So, today I went again back into my dissertation. I am really starting to panic about getting it binded. I have came to terms that I won't be able to get it made into a book, by the deadline. However, everywhere seems to take a week to bind a thesis. So I am hoping to have this officially done by tomorrow, printed out by Tuesday, and possibly get it taken in to get binded, if not tomorrow, Wednesday. I have a back up plan though, however I think uni may yell at me, if I am unable to get it binded in time. I plan to pray to the staples god and go to staples to get a clip folder. Then if allllllll else feels, I may get the sewing kit out and sew my pages together....... They will have a digital copy, anyways.... so yea. This is my weird plan of slight panic.... i'm so impatient, mainly cause I have never gotten a thesis binded before. All my friends are telling me to chill out.... Can't. Minus my Dissertation, I did a bit more research for my new logo design. So I started to look up other peoples. They are all very well thought out and interesting, I don't want to rush the logo design, however, I would like to get business cards made up soon, especially for the end of year show. So the pressure is already on for that.
Tomorrow, I plan to run round like a mad idiot asking if I can get my thesis binded anywhere in uni. Then hopefully get a list of prices and a time frame. As well as finishing my dissertation!, that would help alot! I also want to start getting ideas onto paper, start doing a bit of design work for my deck of cards project. Which is another project I have to be careful of, timescale wise due to getting them printed off. So yea, a lot going on..... hopefully I will have a better idea of what is going on with all this stuff tomorrow. 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 About to collapse into a pancake coma..... So last night, I left off saying I was going to go back and do a few quick sketching and research for my re-branding. I ended up actually looking at a few different species of octopuses: Although I did start looking at species of octopuses, I started getting so captured on how they looked. So I had good intentions, but then I just started looking at how pretty they were. I however now know, I want my Kraken logo to look at though it's under water rather than on land or in some kind of container. I have to admit I am starting to get really excited about this, I feel things are starting to become clearer in my mind of what I want to create.
Today I did a bit more of my dissertation, I am now almost at my conclusion. I have however decided to add a few more things about cultures. I have started to sort of figure out what information I want to put into it. I have compared American consumerism culture with UK consumerism culture. From my surveys, It would seem that within the UK, we are more spiritual, with how we react to consumerism traits. 1 in 20 of us actually participated in Black Friday, and it wasn't even in stores, but online. There is a lot of huge differences. I am hoping to continue into looking into different cultures. I have already mentioned about looking into the Gypsy culture, I have previously looked into Bhutan. I would like to continue this theme looking into Chinese and Japanese cultures and their proverbs on happiness and money. Maybe they have a saying that can effect us in how we think on consumerism and lining our pockets. I also have decided to look into how charity effects our happiness. I am not too sure if I will be able to fit this all into my dissertation, I am already at almost 7000 words. My limit is 8000, so here's hoping if I do have to shorten some things down to make room it'll work out for the best rather than not making any sense. As I have said before thought, I am very happy with where I am in my dissertation. I am glad I have another two weeks to sit and think about my dissertation and how it's going to work out. For once I am glad I don't have a job, so I can use this time. |