Placement prospects

I have really struggled with placements when it came to the time we had to send emails out, i have to admit i have never really had a top 10 special list of my favorite designers, i do have people i like but they are in different countries and i felt it was unrealistic for my to contact these o hope of a placement. Instead over the summer i am going to contact these for feedback with my work, now i have developed a new portfolio of work i am much happier with. The below are a list john and i formed together who i contacted i dint get anything back, but at this point i wasn't happy with any work i sent.

Image Evaluation

The image module has had a really positive effect on my creative choices. Before this module i new i like illustrating and handmade craft but i wasn't sure what i was actually go at or what even looked good. This module has given me the possibility to experiment with different areas within image and find out my strengths, this positive influence has also made me realise how much i prefer it to type.

I was slightly concerned when i began the image brief, that my work would be a really poor quality compared to everyone else and i wasn't really sure what i was getting myself into, i heard the words 'moving image' and wondered if this was the right decision, but we explored a new and different way of doing this and it opened me to the different possibilities there are, not everything has to be produced digitally for it to be on screen. This is think is where my love for handmade onto screen developed and i became more confident in my own work and possibilities of it.

I found it difficult getting back into the process of documenting development on paper, as i hadn't done this process for a while and we hadn't done any short week or 2 week long briefs. The development of my work process lack's in this area mainly towards the first few weeks, however at the time i had several other briefs ongoing at the same time, this also distracted me from the process of developing different ideas. However my work was quite rushed and lacks imagination, the first brief i feel is definitely one of the worst but again this was at a time i was trying to adapt back to a different working method whilst continuing at the same time as my current one for a different module.

I really enjoyed getting back into smaller one week briefs, this and the 'image' based briefs made me happy and love what i was doing again, as i was going through a bit of a course stress at the time! I found out new things about myself and new ways of working, I had never worked solely with paper before and i really enjoyed the book brief and the origami i developed from it this was a completely new approach to something i would have ever chosen before. The negotiatiated brief however is where i finally found my mark and thoroughly enjoyed the whole process and found a way of illustrating i really enjoyed and looked professional as a final piece.

I am really pleased i took the image module and feel it has had a really positive effect on my creative influences as a designer and has helped me find a way to work that i really enjoy, by concentrating solely on image and exploring different areas.

Book Fair

My face!

After hearing Bridget make a comment, that she sees so many amazing business cards at the end of the day when she gets home she find it hard to remember which business car belongs to who, so i had an idea to some how put my face on it so they cant forget it, obviously it needs to be something interesting and not just my face to show who i am. This first business card i like the best although it could be considered slightly dull. I think i may have a go at something similar to this but i want to add my own designs to it somehow so they can see me and me as a designer.

I found this before i found the one above with a person on it, what i liked about this was the 3D quality it has and you can pop out the pieces and put them together making it interactive. What i could take from this is to make the pieces parts of me.

This business card was deigned for a barbers, this is really interesting concept with the texture a colour coming through being the colour and texture of hair.

Inspiring business cards

I need a bit of inspiration for my own business card, i hope from this i will be able to bring this across and link it to my CV. I really want something with a difference, i have read around at different designers opinions and of course it is varied but the general consensus seems to be that they like to have something with a bit of inspiration and interesting. As they get hundreds of business cards you want yours to be the one to standout.

The first point i want to achieve when i make my own business card is to find a way for people to remember my card and want to look at it again. I definitely think this card has achieved this, it address the green qualities it emphasises on its company. It works by dipping the bottom in water and in a few days the seeds grow.

This is probably the most random that i have found, i think it is possibly too random for it to even be legible, it barley holds any information or shows anything about you as a designer.

This final business card, although it is not for a Graphic Designer it does show you can have fun with your business card, i think the funnier they are the more memorable they are as long as its for the right reasons. Id love to find some fun quirky way of representing a path of a Graphic Designer.

Online Presence

After our first Dreamweaver session today and being asked to comeback with some ideas for my own next week, i thought it would be beneficial to have a look around and post some web layouts and navigations i like and look what i can take from them.

I really like this, its probably my favorite so far and i found it from a link from one of my recent favorite illustrators Carolyn Gavin. I really like the hand crafted look it has i really want to take this approach with my website. Although its not 100% straight away the flowers are the navigation bar i do still think this works really well and suits the style of the website and the designs really well.

This second website, i dont love so much but the aspect i want to take from this is the focus on the word create, its really interesting to look at and its all small pieces of the designers work. The rest of the website doesn't really match this illustrated piece of work, so i need to make sure when creating mine all the styles and type fit in together.

The final website has a much more professional approach that the first however it still has handmade qualities to it with the textured backgrounds and imagery used, i really like how there is a separation to the different parts its adds a new element to it.

Self Evaluation: Moving Image

1. your ability to select develop and evaluate a range of appropriate source material gathered through a breadth of appropriate research methods.

I feel i began the module too broad, starting with superheroes as a whole so the first few weeks of the project is quite weak. Once we had our initial crit with each other i decided to narrow my idea down to just one superhero. I began by researching across the net and asking people what their most memorable quotes were from superhero films. This was how i chose Batman there seemed to be more opportunity and information available for me and to make the best of my idents. The next stage i took was to watch the films and note down times where there was good audio or image. I struggled to find a way to cut audio from the films and couldn't really find the one's i wanted online. I lack in computer skills, so this module has brought to light two new programs for me which i found extremely useful in the making of my idents, these were audio hijack and VLC. Other sources of research have been through popular imagery and batman fan websites. I feel i have used quite a variety of research, i would have liked to have found more external video clips or idents on Batman as secondary source research but i found this area quite hard and it is a weak spot in the module research. However i do feel i gathered a lot of research from the films themselves once i began the Batman process. I did intend to collect research from at least 2 other films, which you will see commented on my Design Context blog, but i ran out of time completely to keep research whilst trying to make.

2. the level of investigation and experimentation into appropriate production media processes and technologies.

i feel i did quiet a lot of secondary research into other idents i like, i did find some superhero idents but not many. I would have like to find more related to Batman to get a feel for what other channels or professional industries supplied for the films. Now looking back i think it would have been beneficial for me to investigate stop frame animation using film clips, once i had decided this is what i wanted to use for my idents.

I feel i began experimenting quiet weak, i initially only made a few test idents that dont use stop frame and i feel it i had persisted then the use of type would have worked really well and i would have felt the final idents were more my own work. I could have possibly spent more time on testing different screen grabs, but they themselves took quite a while to produce as i had to screen grab at least 100 images for it to run smoothly never mind have enough for the 10 seconds. I do feel i investigated into the Film 4 ending well, with story boarding shown on my DVD and various tests shown on my blog. I think teh end result works really well as i got quite a lot of feedback from other people on this.

3. the breadth and quality of practical skills, ideas and design development.

After finishing my idents i am not convinced i have pushed myself to my limits to expand my skills in after effects however i know if i had gone onto use after effects and not screen grabs i would have run myself into the ground and never finished the module! I have never made a stop frame animation before and think i have developed a skill and understanding to do this in the future using other methods and hopefully my own work. I cant say i haven't developed any skills in after effects because i have i animated the Film 4 sequence and some of the finals and tests have effects on them such as spotlighting and fadeouts. I feel the design development of storyboards and screen grabs is a strong area and hopfully backs up the tests and finals i have produced.

4. the documentation, organisation and presentation of your work for this module.

I feel my work is well organized and labeled, i have commented and evaluated almost everything posted to my blog. I think i have followed this through well on my DVD i have seen some peoples DVD menus and find them quite confusing to follow.

I have documents my process from story boarding to tests to finals in order running through my blog which makes it less confusing. The DVD background process could probably be ordered and presented in a better way but time has not been in my favour sometimes and i forget it is an assessed area.

5. the success of your final products in relation to the briefs.

I do feel i have created some good final idents, i do now looking back feel as though i have cheated a little by using stop frame but as mentioned earlier i did this for a reason. As a set they all seem to work really well, but when i look at them individually some one of them 'rooftop' i feel stands out as the weakest, but for some reason i had lots of problems with this. I lost my original final and all the links so i had to resort to using an earlier test and now it for some reason as a flashing message on it every now and then. Aside from that i am happy with what i have produced especially the DVD packaging :)