Professional Project

Today I received the brief for my professional project, Im going to be honest, at the moment I am quite nervous. I don't have any idea of what I am going to produce, although I do have an idea of what i would like to produce, if that makes any sense. After doing the exercise with Dan I thought about what I have enjoyed doing during this course and where I feel my strengths lie. I came to the conclusion that the two projects that I have enjoyed the most and feel that I have achieved best in are Visual Communication in context which was to create a magazine spread and also in the Screen based communication 2 project. So I feel that it would be within my best interest to either create a magazine or a web design project. Also I have to think about designing my work so that it is suitable to present to the BA Graphic design course, as Neil said there is no point in creating an illustration book if your going onto the BA Graphic design course. So I need to think what the content of my magazine or website will be.

PJ smoothies

I have been working on the D&AD project for last few days, we have gained a lot of visual research, mainly looking at other funky/funny posters which are aimed at a similar age group to the age group we are aiming our posters at. After looking at these posters together we all started brainstorming ideas, these are some ideas that I have been working on that I feel could work well. I have tried to make the posters look fun and funky which is what the brief is asking from us, I have used bright and attractive colours to do this. The idea behind these posters is to include the things that people my age like doing, what appeals to them. So I have included some silhouettes of people doing active things, this relates back to the smoothie as this is also conveying the message that the smoothie gives you energy. 

These are the first outcomes that I have created on the computer so I will need to go back and meet with my group tomorrow and discuss these visualizations with them and see what they think, and if they feel that they are strong enough to develop further.

Screen based communication 2 evaluation

I found screen based communication 2 a really exciting and enjoyable project, before starting this project I had always wanted to be able to create a website and now I have been able to do so, not only was I able to create a website but I was able to create a website presenting my work and me as a designer. I feel that this project was really beneficial for me as it may help me find work, and also because I would now feel confident if I was asked to create a website for a client. 

 I feel like I had produced a solid amount of work for this project and I am pleased with the final outcome of my website. I have worked hard on this project, putting many hours of my time into the project, from the start of this project I said to myself I will be putting my all into this project because I want to achieve the best I can, and I stuck to my word. By spending a lot of time working on this project I feel that it has payed off as I feel my website presents my work to a professional standard. I mean I went through many ideas and designs for my site which led me to creating my final design, if it wasn't for all of my development work I wouldn't of ending up with the final product that I did. 

I don't know wether you have noticed but I am giving all I have got into this second year, I am really pushing myself, and feel like I am developing as a designer whilst doing so. I know that I have developed since last year, I have noticed changes in myself, I am a lot more motivated and I feel that I am concentrating a lot more on the projects. I am aiming high this year because I am fed up of not achieving the best that I can. I know last year I could of achieved a lot better than what I did because I feel I wasn't applying myself as much as I could of. By writing this blog has helped me a lot this year, it has helped me reflect on my work and myself as a designer, keep me organized and also motivated.  

I have learnt a lot during the course of this project and would now feel comfortable if I was asked to create a website again. Last years screen based project was to create an animation in flash which was a long time ago so by having the tutorials for flash helped me regain my knowledge for this software, I also did the Dreamweaver short corse which I had also felt that I needed to recap on because I had forgotten a lot of the things that I learnt. So by using the tutorials throughout the course of this project has improved my skills in website design a lot. I have also learnt a lot by looking at other websites and how they have been constructed, whilst looking at these sites I have found so much that I was inspired by. 

After finishing this project I have realized how important the web is to us as designers, its such an easy way to show the client who you are and what your about, I think the web is the holds a strong future. I am so glad that I am now able to create a website, its I really good skill to have as a designer, especially with the way the that the current employment is going, as I have noticed there are clients needing web designers all of the time, so this is why I am pleased that I have learnt all of these new skills and would feel confident in taking the opportunity to create a website for a real client. 

Website reflection

I have worked really hard on this project and I feel that it has paid off, I am pleased with the final outcome of my website as I feel that it portrays me well as a graphic designer. I have designed my site so that it is simple and easy to navigate around for the reason that I wanted the viewer to feel comfortable when entering my site. The type I chose works really well throughout the entire site and feel that not only the typeface works well but also the colour of the type looks strong against the white background. I feel that I have exicuted the design well and am pleased with the way that my site displays my work. I chose to use the lightbox effect which presents my work to a professional standard and wouldn't change this way of presenting my work as I feel that it shows off the work really well. By looking at my site I can't really think of anything that I would change at this point, but im sure when I get my feedback there will be some aspects of the site I will be told to consider. Other than that I feel that this has been my most stongest project that I have worked on during the study of this course as I have learnt so many new and what I feel benifical skills, which I think will come handy later on in life as a designer, and I am really proud of the final outcome.

Final critique

Today I had my final critique about my website, here are the comments I received:

• My identity looks really strong, a lot better than the old one that I showed in the previous critique, its a good choice of type and works well. 

• Think about adding more images to a thumbnail, for example when the viewer clicks on one thumbnail to view my greetings card they can then click on the next button when the image is open to go through all of my greetings card designs. This allows me to add more images to my website and I am still able to keep the same amount of thumbnails on my page.
  

 

 

Tutorial with Catel

Myself, Alistair, Rob and Chris had a tutorial with Catel who gave a talk earlier on during the week about how to set up a business as an illustrator, we showed her the work we had done which was mainly ideas at this point, we were told that our ideas were good but we now need to think how we are going to put these ideas together, we were told that our most solid idea was to include small images all the things that people similar to our age like doing, a bit like some of the coca cola adverts that we had been looking at. So she told us to start thinking about what we like doing and include these things in our designs. I thought this tutorial was really helpful as we all now feel we know what direction to go in.  

Critique

Today I had a critique with kit about my website, the feedback I received was really positive there were a few things that I was told to consider in my design. The main feature that was brought up was that I had used three different typefaces, I was told to look at the different typefaces that I had chosen and then decide which one I would use for the whole of my website, as I am coming across to the viewer as a graphic designer I need to show that I have considered my typeface. The other thing I was told to think about changing the lightbox effect so that there is no boarder around the image that is being presented and see if I could change the colour of the background to white. I intend to try this out but I am pleased with the way the lighbox effect is presenting my work at the moment, therefore if I prefer the way the lightbox presents my work after making these changes I would choose that way of presenting my work.  

Catel

Today I had a guest lecture come inn and talk to me about her work and the process of being an illustrator. These are some notes that I took from this lecture.

How to set up an illustration business

1. Define your market

2. Research potential clients

3. Address the right person

4. Self promotion

When sending work to art directors make sure the images are larger than A4 make your work original/limited edition. Send them feedback sheet with your work.

Good website for illustrators - www.illustrationmundo.com

Get commission in writing stating: agreed fee and copyright

Pricing- ask clients how big there budget is make sure you get paid within 30 days.

Even though I am not specializing in illustration I feel that all of this information has benefited me because if I want to do some freelance work as a designer I now know what to expect. 

Over the christmas holidays I have been working on the design of my website, I started by looking at the design that I already created. This helped me a lot as was able to reflect on my design and make changes accordingly. I started by looking at the entire design, I thought that it looks too similar to the website that I have been looking at called Sitesquared, also it doesn't convey the correct message that I want to put across to the intended viewer. So therefore I decided to look at other websites and see how I could combine the elements that I think would work well to create my site. I started by looking at sites that I think suit me as a designer which helped me then choose which elements to use in my design, I looked at many websites but found that the most simple layouts worked best. This is what I am aiming to achieve within my website, I don't want to make it complicated for the viewer I just want to keep it as simple as possible. I also want to make it easy for the viewer to navigate around my site so keeping it simple will help me achieve this. After drawing out some layouts of what I want my site to look like I came up with this design which I really like and I think could work well as a site. I have still used a similar design to the portfolio on the Sitesquared website by creating a rounded edge on the thumbnail images, I feel that this creates a strong effect for the images as they look more interesting than a simple square which is used in most portfolios. So by combing these elements that I like I feel that I have created a strong final design to present my self as a Graphic Designer on the web.