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.
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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. OK, So I again forgot to blog yesterday, I have to admit I had done a lot of work yesterday I just completely forgot. Today was no different, although I have gone back to my cards project making cupcakes and researching cupcake designs. So below is some of my research, I hope it makes you as hungry as I am! So first of all what I really like is that, most of these cupcakes are unbelievable looking, I don't have to worry too much about the design being believable looking or not, as the things people can create with cakes and cupcakes is pretty brilliant to be honest. Here is one cupcake I made last night, I have to admit I'm very happy with this: There is still a lot of things I would like to add and change about this, I also have a slight problem with making cupcakes looking masculine and feminine. So I have saved this image as my Queen of Hearts, but I may end up changing this to possibly being the Jack of Hearts.
On a separate note, I have been doing more research into my main project. I have previously looked into the most expensive cities in the UK. However, I was concerned that I didn't see my own university city showing up, as it is incredibly expensive to live here in Aberdeen. So I looked up one of the main private student accommodation companies prices. I went through every city writing down the new prices for 2015-2016. I have previous lived with this company, looking at the price that I paid per week when I was there in 2012, to the prices for next years students. The price has gone up a clear £30 a week, that's pretty much an extra tenner per year that the rent goes up. This was also at the time the cheapest student accommodation available, what is scarier, is that this still seems to be the case, even though the prices are going up. Within the list of cities the student accommodation has housing. I looked at the prices of the cheapest accommodation within ever city, out of the 20 cities I looked into Aberdeen was #14 in the cheapest, Sheffield was the top for cheapest student accommodation offered with this company. What my research is showing me is that, although the government says that higher education isn't just for the rich. The reality is that it truly is going back to those old ways, this may not be due to just tuition fees. But companies like private student accommodation, are exploiting students. This makes it harder for students who are not as well off as others to study away from home. My project is to help students, by giving advise on how to save the pennies and still have a full university experience. The advise I am giving is all from my surveys from past students and current students from all over the UK. I am still looking into my own research and have even looked at cheapest cities to live in judging by the price of pints. Not an exact science, but still good to know. That's all 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 |