May The Forth Be With You! Today I finished off writing up my sketch books, I also researched unique portraits from my ViewBug project which the deadline is for next week. So here are some inspiration images I have been looking at. I really like how I have total freedom with this, I have a maximum of two entries. Some of these are pretty mental, like the top image on the right with the spaghetti and meat just randomly on models faces..... its a creative? yep... a little weird. Totally entertaining though. I really like the powder paint and the paint on peoples faces. I have been thinking about the possibility of putting in some things to do with consumerism, not too sure how that's going to work out, but I will be experimenting with it anyways.
I have also been looking at some of the art supplies I have. I have a lot of ink, so I might also incorporate that into this portrait challenge. I have also been looking for music to go with my video for my main project and been planning out what I want to do. I have things a little bit more sorted, however I'm not going to lie. I have been more thinking and planning one what to do with all my projects today. I am in that panic mode when I think of all the things I have to do, and end up sort of doing nothing..... eeeeek I am hoping to have more to show in the next following days.
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The pressure is majorly on! Everyone is beginning to run round like headless chickens. I have been super productive today in the hope that my head won't explode. So I have been re-designing yet another story board and started to design all of the elements for that so here is a few small things I did today for the video: So the first image, I thought would be funny to have, as he was designed to look like he is struggling to hold up a title within my video, I did however draw him with no reference and was more or less just messing about. The second image I used a reference for. I am still not too sure I like him, I think it is probably the structure of him as himself, as well as me being very picky. The third image is just to be a background image, I am however very tempted to give the queen a Mohawk, and a pint and maybe a cigarette. Although I don't want to over complicate the image, I may do this anyway though for a bit of fun and also, just to see how it would actually look. I wanted to get more of this done, although I realized I sill hadn't fully finished my cupcake cards. So I went back and made a little design for the middle of all my cards, then went in and added the suit symbols and the letters for each card, now officially finished. I am hoping to get started on the next theme which is monsters for my deck of cards. Here are all 12 of the cards: Going back through my research on the monster theme of cupcakes I can't help but think about my tea towel portrait I did of myself and how that might look for this theme. I will hopefully have sketches up of it tomorrow. As well as more images to show within my main project. I also have a ViewBug competition I am still to take images for. It is all rather chaotic at the moment. I have also been talking to tutors about the development of my small video for my main project. As it have been well over a year since I last used the program, so a wee refresher on the program would be amazing. I mainly need help with how I will export the video and how I will render it so it is small enough to go on the likes of You Tube etc. aaahhhh so many things. I'm going to leave it here for tonight, more info and more colourful things hopefully to show tomorrow
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.
SO, I am very excited to FINALLY! have my logo above being an animated gif! It took me forever to figure out the code of the website, although I have to admit, this had made me more interested in wanting to learn how to code websites. Which brings me to my main project, I ended up going to the website generator, "WIX" and I have to admit there are a lot more themes that I can really see working a hell of a lot better rather than the ones here on weebly, I signed up with them, and began to test out their websites, here are just some little snippest from the website on their themes: I have to admit, I truly just find their themes a lot more inspiring, I have also noticed that they are easier to use to design the page, I did have a wix page years ago when I was first starting to make myself a website, I remember the editing of the website was highly difficult. Due to the fact that if you clicked anywhere on the page, suddenly you had activated 50 different components at once and your stuck and cant do anything. Also going over everything that is in my main project, I am really worrying as I am now in my last year of university, there is nothing that really pops and stands out, so I was thinking about perhaps doing a video as well as some of my photography Ideas I had previously had. I need to get my act together and get my portfolio looking amazing, oh and try and get a job. So for the nest few days I will be playing about with different looks for the photography, as well as drawing out stuff to make a video with, I have decided to do a simple video, mainly due to my experience within After Effects. I would like to use purely animation and not so much film. I have taken inspiration from some of the Buzzfeed videos that have done videos to exactly the same way I want mine: I just like how a lot of the illustrations are very clean cut and they float in and out of the space and a lot of the animation techniques they have used in making this video, I have done before. Its just going to be a case of getting the illustrations to be the way I want them to be.
I also have to apologize for not posting yesterday, all the above was my thoughts, feeling and what I did yesterday, I simply fell asleep early and didn't get a chance to post. So today, I simply have been writing up my project to make sure everything is up to date, due to having a lot of projects, i usually will take one day out a week to just go back and write everything out and have a good think about the directions I am going in and just keep myself up to date, so for today I dont have anything really to show, I have just been updating all my work to make sure it's all up to date. 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 just being doing research and writing up my books today really. Today was a bank holiday in Scotland, so with uni being closed I have been working from home. I have been asking a whole bunch of different people which of my logo's they prefer. I have previously put up the different colours of my logo, a lot of people have more than one colour that they liked my logo in. I have finally managed to make it into a GIF. It looks soooo pretty. However, I have a feeling that the above image is not actually animated to show the different array of colours. (I'm currently viewing it as black) I have been having this problem with weebly for a while. I thought I had been just doing something silly, there is no reason for it not to work.... yet here I am, I have to admit it is really starting to bother me. I even tried to make it my banner to see if it just turned out I couldn't have it as a logo, and nothing. So yea, its annoying me, I keep getting on with other projects and working away. Although it is still in the back of my mind so every so often I suddenly find myself searching how to fix it on Google, looking through all of the Weebly help pages, trying to even re-save the logo in a different way...... notta.
So, I am now trying to discover or even just think is there a different way I could show this on my website, I am even planning to get business cards printed soon with all the different colours, so people who pick up my business card can get a colour they prefer. Ok, so besides my logo being a problem the rest of my projects are getting on pretty well, I have just had to kick everything up a gear. Especially with my main project and trying to get my side projects all up to the same sort of standard. Within my main project I am started to really gather all of the information I have and get it organized, I am actually planning on designing some info graphics once I post this blog and even a logo if this is to become a website. My ViewBug stuff has sort of been on a hold while I really get back to writing up all of my projects. Although I have already noted down some challenges I would really like to do before the deadlines, One of them involves getting to play with my face, with makeup and what not. So that's going to be pretty fun, I also have seen a few opportunities to again brush up on my underwater photography skills, so hopefully more things to show in the upcoming weeks. Card project, I am planning to take Wednesday out and just have that one day to design the Diamond cupcake suit, and who knows maybe even start getting on with the clubbs or spades suits. I am hoping to have all of the designs done by the end of the week, So i can get started on my Monster suit. I'm not too sure If I have mentioned it or not, I am planning to do this cupcake suit, then toying with the idea of merging cupcakes and monsters together. Not too sure if it'll even work but hopefully I'll have cute little twisted cupcakes. And of course, I have already ranted about my logo project. So, yea, that's all from me today, hopefully have more visual things to show you guys tomorrow. I didn't get to post yesterday due to feeling so ill. I didn't manage to get any work done yesterday. Still feeling crappy today. however I was actually finally able to do some work. Not a great amount but still a fair bit. I finished my Queen of Spades card, I am now currently working on the jack of spades. I also skipped a little bit a head and have started to design the newest deck of cards design, Cup cakes As you can see, I'm just on the concept of ideas, I plan to go ahead into illustrator and see what designs work better than others. I also have been toying with the idea of giving the cupcakes a bit of a horror/ monster feeling to them, I am as yet unsure. As I feel that the monsters could again be another design of a deck of cards on their own. I am hoping to be well enough to go to uni tomorrow, being ill is getting boring and I am dying to get my teeth stuck into my work again. That's all from me today, hopefully more to share and see tomorrow.
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. 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.
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. |