I have done so much work today and I am actually still working away after I write this post. So I have designed a few new bits and pieces for my surveys: So the 2nd image is simple, but I actually really liked how I gave the answers a facial expression. I also tried my hardest to have a the scales of all the heads to the correct proportion of the percentage I got from my surveys. The rest of my surveys I kinda felt because I want to make a small video of my findings and give people the results of my surveys. I think sticking with pie charts and graphs will go a long way, although they are traditional I think this will make more of an impact. So here are just some of my pie charts that I made. very simple, all the info is there though, now down to real buisness. and start designing what I want to do for my video, so here are a few images from my sketch book on how I have been designing so far: So one thing I am noticing about this is half way through drawing everything up, suddenly I get a new idea and I want to move things about and change my layout. This is where I have gotten so far with designing my video, I am getting nervous and excited about continuing on and actually getting this made. I hope I get everything I want done on time for hand in, as I have said before I have used After Effects, however it has been over a year since I have used the program. So yea, thats all from me today hopefully Ill have a bit more colour and things to show tomorrow.
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Today has been a pretty productive day, I managed to get a lot done despite being pretty ill today. I have finally started to design banners and layouts for my main project. The poorly photographed image on the left was my original concept idea. I then finally put this into illustrator and created the image on the right. This has even developed further, as I realized the pound sterling sign, the euro and the dollar sign didn't really go together. Especially as my project is aimed at universities within the UK. So I went back in and made them all sterling pound signs, I then began to play about a little with the design as, I felt everything was sort of floating in space. So I added shadows, banners and back ground colours to see how this would look Here are my mini experiments above, I do really like them a lot, although I have definitely decided against the green background. I was thinking a long the lines of the little piggy bank being free and running around. It doesn't look like that at all in my mind. I then began to look at the white and blue banners. I wasn't even too sure why I had three pound coins on display, so I went back in again and changed the display a little. So as you can see my piggy bank is trying to be a horse, ready to charge into battle. Well that's what I get from it's pose, which I really like to be honest. So as you can see I have made it look as though the coins are going into the piggy bank, or flying out of it, whichever way people see it. I'm pretty happy with it, although I do realize how cartoon like it does look. I'm worried it may look even too childish. So I started to finally get started on making a website. I used Weebly as my website generator. I have to admit, when trying to make a website for a specific thing, weebly sucks. I was on here for about 3 hours playing around with themes, trying to get things to work, change menus, messing around with the HTML codes (which I know very little about). I have to admit, for the amount of work I was trying to accomplish today with the website, it really didn't happen. So now I am currently struggling with the idea of wither, just creating what I want the website to look like on paper rather than actually make the website, or go to a different website developer and try again. I am going to have a break from it for now, here is the home page however: Currently it's very bland looking, there is a lot of restrictions within the themes which makes it difficult if you don't know HTML code. I have been trying, and I don't easy give up on things. I think I just need to shower my brain over it and think what else I can do. I also added my little protest character, he was a lot bigger but again on weebly, I found that once I got it to a way I liked it. As soon as I saved it, He was twice as big and took up all the space of the text. Here is all my sketch books where I also seem to brain dump all of my thoughts and feeling over my project: So these are just the pages I have done in my sketch books today. Tomorrow, as I said I am going to be just concentrating on my Cards project to try and get the entire suit finished tomorrow, and possibly even start another suit, I would love to say Ill have the whole set done by tomorrow, but there are a lot of design issues that do come up, like I've seen today with the website, so we will see how that goes.
I am also hoping to get some of my ViewBug projects started on Thursday, mainly if the weather is nice so I can get some underwater photography.... in fact even just to have the water to be calm, that might help me out more. That's all from me today. So I have been pretty productive, so productive I didn't even notice I missed another day of blogging. So firstly. My survey is done, so if your a student or a past student. Please, please, PPPPPPLLLLLLEEEEEEAAAASSSSSEEEEE do my survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/S2C6VY3 I have also finally completed my first set of cars in the traditional style. I have also been playing around with the idea of having little characters around the answers and advise I get from my surveys, here are some illustrations I have been looking up, for inspiration and ideas in general I have been trying to identify stereotypes that everyone sees at university. Like everyone knows a few of them and can even identify to these stereotype characters. I thought this would be interesting, although it's all still very early days. The character idea could end up being a total flop and not work at all. Hopefully I will have sketches to show tomorrow. That's all from me today.
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 was rushing around like a headless chicken, although I did get a lot done, just not uni work wise.... although I did get a few sketches for my logo done, I am hoping to get them drawn up in illustrator tomorrow. So here is just a few wee sketches I did today. The first image I prefer a lot more than the others, however this could change once going into illustrator. Below are the other logos I have already made. They are the same logo, just different variations of it. Today I also re-designed a local business's website. I had actually re-designed it during the summer (summer 2014). But he finally sent it off to actually get done..... whoop!
So I will show you images once the website is fully up and running. That's it from me today. Hopefully will have more things to show tomorrow So, I was unable to blog yesterday due to travelling home for the weekend. I also went out and celebrated a little with friends, as my dissertation is done :D So I was unable to blog yesterday. I haven't really done much uni work since I have been home, just doing the rounds of seeing friends and family. I am hoping to start doing more logo work tomorrow, I have also been thinking a little bit more on, what to do for my main project. I will explain a little bit more tomorrow, however in short I am thinking of just making a book or even just a poster on how to help students save money and possibly looking into well-being of students. Not too sure, will look more into it tomorrow. Thats all from me for today.
So today I have been researching how to turn a gift bag into a book, for my dissertation cover. I bought a gift bag yesterday, it was the only one that would fit A4 pages inside, was pretty and didn't look cheap, my only problem is that it only fits A4 pages in horizontally rather than vertically. I made a makette yesterday to try and figure out what to do with my bag, and how I could make it work. The bag it's self is pretty big. I found a few different tutorials : http://stephaniemakes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/glitz-design-gift-bag-mini-book-tutorial.html Stephanie Bryan's was the first tutorial I found on how to do this, the only thing that really concerns me about going ahead with this, is that she made her book into a scrap book/ photo album. I the most pages I will have will be around 50. So I won't need as much of the room fro m the page as she has used. This is the bag I bought from ASDA, it is a similar shape to Bryan's. I have a slight problem with the position of the handles, as this will determine how the book will be seen and opened, as you can see with Bryan, she has put her label on the side of the cover so that it will be opened the correct way, I don't want to lose the style of the bag and how the bag looks, by which way I place my thesis. I also plan to put tissue paper around the opening of the bag, so it gives the illusion that its luxury. The tissue paper would be positioned around the side of the thesis, rather than on top, This makes me think should I continue with this bag or buy another one that will be taller, rather than wider. I also found this video tutorial on You Tube, it shows how Mary Peterson, makes a lot of books from gift bags. Her tutorial seems a lot easier than Bryan's and even the layout makes a lot more sense. However, I feel slightly torn due to really liking the bag I got from ASDA. I think my best option is to go out and try and find a new gift bag, even just as a back up. Or even print my dissertation out Landscape rather than in the standard portrait. I also went back and did a wee bit more designing of my deck of cards. I have amended my little mistake with getting the queen of hearts and queen of diamonds mixed up. I also went back in a re-vamped the Queen of diamonds. Here is the image based on my queen of hearts This is Lady Anne Neville. She became Princess of Wales as the wife of Edward Of Westminster and then later she became Queen of England, husband King Richard iii (1472–1485) This completes the first suit of cards, within this series of experiments.
Today I got back to designing my deck of cards, I have now finished one suit of cards in this style. However this is just an experiment at the moment, as there is still lots I am unhappy with. I firstly designed these in a darker red, I wasn't too sure how the colour would look, So I also brightened the red.... it's very in your face though, so yea, don't like it much. I tried to make these all very minimalist looking. So keeping them simple and sticking to one colour. I chose to reference my King of Heart on King Richard Lion Heart of England he ruled in 1189, then died a few months later. As I spoke yesterday, Queen Wilhelmina. Although as I write this I have actually drawn her as the Queen of Hearts when , I have actually put her down as my queen of diamonds... whoops, not a biggy though, it can be easily changed. My Jack is referenced on Prince Louis Fredinerd of Pruissa. So, yes hopefully more designs tomorrow, I am thinking of giving myself a different subject every week to do for this project. So now that my dissertation is ending, you will hear more about my deck of cards, view bug and my main project. That's all from me today!
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