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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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 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 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 So today I have been mainly focusing on my ViewBug projects . I have been looking back at my most recent underwater images: So, these are just a few of the images I took. I have to admit the paddling pool was a little disappointing. I didn't really have anymore space that I had before when doing the last underwater images in the kitchen sink. I really need something deeper, I am going to start aiming for doing underwater photoshoots in the summer. I think this is more in reach of the kind of ideas I want to do. I also think it'll be more fun. Here is the final image I have chosen for the underwater portrait challenge. I really like ho trippy this image is, and how surreal it is. I also really like how the colours are almost dream like. I also really like how my hair has almost made a slight heart shape under the water. I have also finished another challenge, although my final for it was very unusual for me. It was a bit of an experiment. I think I had mentioned it before, when I went out to photograph the stars. I got the idea from my "assistant" as he was making shadows in the torch light on the forest. So as I hadn't really made it out to photograph this for the past few nights, I improvised. So here are a few of my hand shadowy shapes. I then drew out a wood scenery, but I felt it all looked a bit too illustrationy, rather than more of an illustration and photography mix. So I got an old photo I previously took at a forest a few months ago and photoshopped my animal shadow shapes into it. I then decided to make the whole image Black and white, so the shadows would fit in a little more. Below is my final image for the ViewBug challenge, playing with light: Thats all from me today, tomorrow, I will hopefully get talking to a tutor about my main project and see where it is going.
So today, I got a few more bits and bobs done. I finished off the heart suit within my deck of cards project. I also got started on the spades, within my deck of cards project. I only have 4 more designs to do, I am hoping to get them all done tomorrow, so I can move on. Here is my King Of Spades: I also finally got experimenting with doing more underwater photography, below was my set up for doing so. I however I'm still to edit the images, so I don't really have any to show for now. I also went to a lecture this evening held by Iain Stewart, on his latest TV series "Planet Oil" It was very interesting. I don't normally go to such lectures, but I was invited by a flatmate, so I thought, why not. That's it for me today, hopefully more to talk about and show tomorrow.
didn't realize the time, so slightly missed a day of blogging.... by about half an hour, whoops. Today I have to admit, I didn't really get up to too much, I got woken up by my flatmate over the Solar eclipse, I managed to get a few photos of the event: The moon looks a little like a banana.... Just saying. I also went out today and got a padding pool. Yes, a paddling pool. I'm hoping to continue on with experimenting with my underwater photography, I had meant to do some today. But I think I am starting to get sick :(
So here's hoping I will get to experiment a little more tomorrow. Just not sure if I will be putting this bad boy in my kitchen or the bathroom. Either way, lets hope the flat mates don't walk in and fear for my life. Hoping to also get a bit more deck of cards done, even get another deck entirely started. As I am beginning to get a little bored of the ones I am currently doing. They are too traditional, so who knows, i might go back and make them all rock starts or something for fun. That's it anyways for me tonight/morning. Will update in roughly 20hrs time 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, today I have to admit I didn't get as much as I wanted to get done today, done. As it was my flat mates birthday, my self and another flatmate procrastinating away fro work. Decided to bake all day. Vanilla cupcakes, Jaffa cake cup cakes and heart shaped brownies. The heart shaped molds found at the back of the cupboard, thought it was hilarious and tacky, so we thought why not. I also made chocolate chip pancakes with bacon in between. We also decorated the the flat, and even had a little sing song. So yea, Happy Birthday Matt. I went back and decided to go back into the designs of my logo again, this time I just drew directly into illustrator and played around a bit, I didn't get these finished due to being taken away to bake goodies. Although, I do feel that I am getting closer to my final idea of my logo design. Just a little bit more work. I am going into uni tomorrow to hopefully get talking to a tutor about my main project and see their thoughts and opinions on the direction I want to continue on with. That's all from me today, Hopefully more to tell tomorrow.
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. |