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So good old theory started today. A project I dreaded last year, but ended up enjoying and getting my best mark! It seems like it's going to be more of the same this year. I'm not really feeling the theory unit, but I'm hoping it has a similar outcome!
Today we had a group hour session, where basically Anna took us through what she wanted of us. As with last year we are to produce a 2500 word essay, complete with bibliography and Havard referencing. After easing us into this new unit we were put on the spot and asked what we were planning to do our essays on.
I'm wanting to link this closely with my Professional Project so have decided to base it on how the film poster has evolved through the years and why this is. I also enjoyed looking into semiotics last year so will include an aspect of this also.
Anna gave me a few pointers to look into before the session next week. On my point of the poster being a dying art especially when coming to film, she told me to look into the use of graphic design as a marketing tool and how technologies have changed it. I was also told to look into how in the 80s when the VCR was first introduced, this was classed as the death of the cinema, and how this had a socio-cultural effect and impact on design. For my essay I would need to take some key iconic posters from different eras and reflect them against each other.
9.2.09
6.2.09
[RESEARCH PRESENTATION]
To help us get started with our Professional Project, Mike Ryan provided us with a presentation showing some of his students research work at Farnham. As one of their units they had to produce a presentation based solely on research of a chosen subject.
After watching the presentations it appears that they were split into these main areas -
- The problem
- What's out there (designers etc.)
- What is needed
- Target audience
- Presentation of work
- Language of design
- Conclusion (what you want to achieve - and how to implement this into the project)
- List of pros & cons (pitfalls of the project)
After watching the presentations it appears that they were split into these main areas -
- The problem
- What's out there (designers etc.)
- What is needed
- Target audience
- Presentation of work
- Language of design
- Conclusion (what you want to achieve - and how to implement this into the project)
- List of pros & cons (pitfalls of the project)
I found this presentation very useful as it will help me do more thorough research for my Professional Project, opening me up to more options and inspirations.
[NOW SHOWING]
Whilst researching last night I also came across - WIWP Presents "Now Showing"
Exploring the Lost "Art" of the Film Poster. To put it simply it was an exhibition where designers and illustrators were invited to take a favourite cult film of theirs and redesign the film poster using their own style and interpretation. Or as they put it -
"40+ Creatives were given the task of creating their own interpretation of a Cult, Classic or Obscure film poster from the past, whether it be a literal or abstract solution. The result is Now Showing, an Art exhibition paying homage to more than 70 years of film, through the form of Prints, One Off Screen Prints and Sculptures."
Link to images on Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/keepsmesane/sets/72157601618281265/
The results to put it bluntly are fucking awesome! The amount of different styles, techniques, typefaces, illustrations is just amazing. Really wish I had known about it when it was on as I would have definitely popped along. I'm really glad I stumbled upon this as this has really given me the motivation to do this myself, and hopefully I can produce something that would have sat proudly with these.
The exhibition ties in closely with what I had in my head as to what I wanted to do. It's a great starting point, and I am looking forward to moving on from this and designing my own.
My favourites from the exhibition are -
Creative Review produce a monograph for this show, and I already have it in my hand (thanks to Vicky Martin!). Can't wait to have a flick through it.
Exploring the Lost "Art" of the Film Poster. To put it simply it was an exhibition where designers and illustrators were invited to take a favourite cult film of theirs and redesign the film poster using their own style and interpretation. Or as they put it -
"40+ Creatives were given the task of creating their own interpretation of a Cult, Classic or Obscure film poster from the past, whether it be a literal or abstract solution. The result is Now Showing, an Art exhibition paying homage to more than 70 years of film, through the form of Prints, One Off Screen Prints and Sculptures."
Link to images on Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/keepsmesane/sets/72157601618281265/
The results to put it bluntly are fucking awesome! The amount of different styles, techniques, typefaces, illustrations is just amazing. Really wish I had known about it when it was on as I would have definitely popped along. I'm really glad I stumbled upon this as this has really given me the motivation to do this myself, and hopefully I can produce something that would have sat proudly with these.
The exhibition ties in closely with what I had in my head as to what I wanted to do. It's a great starting point, and I am looking forward to moving on from this and designing my own.
My favourites from the exhibition are -
Metropolis
Faster Pussycat... Kill! Kill!
Blade Runner
The Birds
Creative Review produce a monograph for this show, and I already have it in my hand (thanks to Vicky Martin!). Can't wait to have a flick through it.
5.2.09
[OLLY MOSS]
Whilst researching into previous attempts at redesigning film posters I came across the designer Olly Moss - http://www.ollymoss.com/
He has taken a minimalistic sort of post modern German-ism style approach and has used simple type and illustration along with just 3 colours of black, red and white. My favourites from the set being -
He has taken a minimalistic sort of post modern German-ism style approach and has used simple type and illustration along with just 3 colours of black, red and white. My favourites from the set being -
Die Hard
American History X
and Taxi Driver.
[LEARNING OUTCOME NOTES WITH SALLY]
Today we had a class tutorial with Sally, and she took us through each of the Learning Outcomes for the Professional project and broke them down for us.
LO1 Demonstrate a professional standard of creativity and practical ability, including:
• Work that is technically comparable to that made within a specified genre.
• Work that shows an awareness of contemporary trends, styles and
subject matter, within commercial contexts.
• Work that shows a high degree of creativity and aesthetic judgement.
For this everything has to be included (eg. print specs.) Everything has also got to be in the right format.
We've also got to understand the trends with the chosen field (eg. colours, styles etc.)
LO2 Demonstrate a professional ability to plan your time and your work, including:
• Project time planning.
• Working successfully with others in the production of creative outcomes.
We need to plan our time management professionally. For example planning and making time for interviews, research. Also need to take into account time for booking workshops, and the delay between booking and the workshop taking place.
LO3 Respond appropriately to the demands of a professional/self initiated brief, including:
• Appropriate creative outcomes to industry/work related briefs.
This learning outcome is for the learning proposal and the final outcome(s). We need to make sure that everything is appropriate.
LO4 Demonstrate readiness for employment, freelance work or further study with confidence
in the level of your creative, practical and professional knowledge and skills.
This takes into account the whole body of work.
- how it has been produced
- it's documentation ( this needs to be really considered as this needs to be both professional and visual for portfolio)
LO1 Demonstrate a professional standard of creativity and practical ability, including:
• Work that is technically comparable to that made within a specified genre.
• Work that shows an awareness of contemporary trends, styles and
subject matter, within commercial contexts.
• Work that shows a high degree of creativity and aesthetic judgement.
For this everything has to be included (eg. print specs.) Everything has also got to be in the right format.
We've also got to understand the trends with the chosen field (eg. colours, styles etc.)
LO2 Demonstrate a professional ability to plan your time and your work, including:
• Project time planning.
• Working successfully with others in the production of creative outcomes.
We need to plan our time management professionally. For example planning and making time for interviews, research. Also need to take into account time for booking workshops, and the delay between booking and the workshop taking place.
LO3 Respond appropriately to the demands of a professional/self initiated brief, including:
• Appropriate creative outcomes to industry/work related briefs.
This learning outcome is for the learning proposal and the final outcome(s). We need to make sure that everything is appropriate.
LO4 Demonstrate readiness for employment, freelance work or further study with confidence
in the level of your creative, practical and professional knowledge and skills.
This takes into account the whole body of work.
- how it has been produced
- it's documentation ( this needs to be really considered as this needs to be both professional and visual for portfolio)
4.2.09
[INITIAL IDEAS BRAINSTORM]
After deciding to go down the route of redesigning film posters I have been brainstorming further to get a better idea of what I can do.
I could either take an old design of a film poster and show how it would be interpreted today, or I could flip that on its head and take a new film poster design and show how it would have been interpreted in a different era.
There is lots of areas that I am going to be able to research -
- design movements and how they affected poster design
- how type has changed within posters over the years
- different codes and conventions within each genre
- how illustration styles have progressed and into now mainly photography
- how technological developments have affected the design of poster
I have also got a lot of things to take into consideration for my project -
- style and scale
- media and how they're produced
- what films?
- what is the reason behind this project
I have a tutorial tomorrow which will hopefully be able to push me in the right direction. Before then, research...
I could either take an old design of a film poster and show how it would be interpreted today, or I could flip that on its head and take a new film poster design and show how it would have been interpreted in a different era.
There is lots of areas that I am going to be able to research -
- design movements and how they affected poster design
- how type has changed within posters over the years
- different codes and conventions within each genre
- how illustration styles have progressed and into now mainly photography
- how technological developments have affected the design of poster
I have also got a lot of things to take into consideration for my project -
- style and scale
- media and how they're produced
- what films?
- what is the reason behind this project
I have a tutorial tomorrow which will hopefully be able to push me in the right direction. Before then, research...
29.1.09
[PROFESSIONAL PROJECT BEGINS...]
Today we officially begun our Professional Projects. The unit that will either act as a portfolio piece to get us jobs if we decide not to do a third year, or the unit that will pretty much get us onto the third year.
Dan took the session, handing out booklets that he had made to help us prepare, and to start our initial brainstorming. The booklet had four main sections -
- What are your strengths/what learned?
- Preferences?
- Where do you want to be?
- What type of work do you want to produce?
I worked through these sections and it helped a lot. It made me see in more detail what I want to achieve, and opened me up to new possibilities that I may not have thought of otherwise.
I see myself as both a Graphic Designer and an Illustrator, and am looking to progress onto third year Graphics. Therefore I am needing to have mainly a graphic project, but I am still wanting to implement illustration in there somehow.
I felt that I was a bit of an all rounder when it came to strengths and weaknesses. I feel that my only weakness really was Flash animation. I believe my strengths include print (poster design, magazine layouts), branding, illustration, web, and theory.
Obviously it would be pretty much impossible to implement all these strengths into a project, so I am going to have to pick and choose. I feel that my real passion lies within print, typography and illustration, so I am going to have to think of something I can do with this. I also enjoy the theoretical side, so having a project that I can link in with my theory unit would be ideal.
Another factor to deciding what I want to do is going to be that I need to choose something that is going to keep me motivated over these next 12 weeks, and something that is actually going to take 12 weeks. I feel that if I combine my passion for design with another passion of mine I will achieve this. Better get thinking!
Dan took the session, handing out booklets that he had made to help us prepare, and to start our initial brainstorming. The booklet had four main sections -
- What are your strengths/what learned?
- Preferences?
- Where do you want to be?
- What type of work do you want to produce?
I worked through these sections and it helped a lot. It made me see in more detail what I want to achieve, and opened me up to new possibilities that I may not have thought of otherwise.
I see myself as both a Graphic Designer and an Illustrator, and am looking to progress onto third year Graphics. Therefore I am needing to have mainly a graphic project, but I am still wanting to implement illustration in there somehow.
I felt that I was a bit of an all rounder when it came to strengths and weaknesses. I feel that my only weakness really was Flash animation. I believe my strengths include print (poster design, magazine layouts), branding, illustration, web, and theory.
Obviously it would be pretty much impossible to implement all these strengths into a project, so I am going to have to pick and choose. I feel that my real passion lies within print, typography and illustration, so I am going to have to think of something I can do with this. I also enjoy the theoretical side, so having a project that I can link in with my theory unit would be ideal.
Another factor to deciding what I want to do is going to be that I need to choose something that is going to keep me motivated over these next 12 weeks, and something that is actually going to take 12 weeks. I feel that if I combine my passion for design with another passion of mine I will achieve this. Better get thinking!
23.1.09
[SCREEN BASED COMMUNICATION 2 EVALUATION]
Screen Based Communication has been a fun, stressful and challenging experience. I’ve been looking forward to this unit ever since I saw the 2nd years doing it last year. It’s a project that we not only learn from, but is used to showcase all our work to a whole world of possible employers. It’s something that I have taken pride in and am really happy with the final outcome. All the swearing and clenching my fists has been worth it in the end.
The first part of the project was to research into what web is and its history and future. I’m a user of the internet every day, and found it interesting to actually understand how it was created. It was also interesting to read how technical everything is, and how many bits there are to actually make it all work. I enjoyed reading about the future of the internet, and it’s current state of web 2.0. There’s still so much potential in it, and with the ever-advancing technologies we are in an exciting time.
I then researched into existing online portfolios. When researching I noticed that they all either had a black background or a white one, so I split my research accordingly. It was amazing to see that so many different designs and layouts worked so well. There was so many ways to present the work, each being successful in its own way. For each site I looked at the home page, gallery page, about me/info page. I decoded each site, looking at the colours, the font, the layout and what technologies they had used to create their sites. I also tried to write five good points (+) and five bad points (-) for each site. This proved difficult on some, as I could find nothing wrong with the site, or on the other hand nothing much good about it!
I took all the good points and bad points, and used this to help me decide what I wanted on my site and how I wanted it to look. This helped a lot in my layout design thumbnails, and I found myself quickly choosing a favourite design that I was going to use. I went down the route of having a white background site, with black san serif text, as I felt this best represented me and it looked clean and professional.
Branding myself I found to be quite easy. I know myself as a designer, and I know my style. The first obstacle was to choose whom I wanted to be known as to everyone else. Since I was young I have had the nickname buddah, and I wanted to take this forward and use it as my creative identity. It needed to be shortened though, need to look like a designers alias. I quite simply just reduced the number of letters in the word, but making it still pronounce Buddha. I settled with buda. I felt this to be professional, and was good to work under a name that meant a lot to me.
Choosing a name was simple, but I did however have a major swap of logos, as I had to think about how I would be perceived to the outside world. Initially I went down the route of having a monkey head illustrated in my style, with buda written underneath in Helvetica. When this was taken forward to the crit, the point was raised that this style (having a monkey) would attract a certain client base, but cut out quite a big one. I agreed profusely, and knew this had to be addressed as I wanted to attract a large audience. Another idea I had was to use a symbol as a logo. I decided to use an ampersand (&), and have this placed before buda to create &buda. Ampersand is a symbol for ‘and’, a word which is used to connect two things. I personally am trying to connect to people with my work.
As I sat down to make my website I noticed that I had forgotten how to use CSS. This made me panic a bit, but I was pointed towards some online video tutorials - www.willgoldstone.com/learn/#http://willgoldstone.com/learn/#. I found these too be very easy to follow, as he took you through every basic, and detail, as well as showing you where to click. The site also contains some very helpful pdfs, which I had by my side when I was making my site.
I then progressed onto building my site. My layout design was a site consisting of 2 rows and 3 columns. I struggled to get this all to line up and sit right. I eventually researched into absolute and relative positioning, and using a mixture of these, with different sized margins, I was able to produce the layout as I had wished. This layout was to be used throughout my site, with just the content being change on each page.
After building this layout from my measurements, I however felt the site balance wasn’t quite right and the image for the gallery wasn’t big enough. After a lot of calculation, I changed a lot of the measurements, including padding and margins to produce a new look site. It was the same layout, but had a bigger image, a better balance, and in my opinion looked a lot more professional.
On my home page I decided to include a flash show reel of my work. I got this idea from http://www.thedesignersrepublic.com/. I found there show reel to be very eye catching. The speed of it meant that it was almost subliminal, as you could see the work, but it made you want to look into the site further, and explore the work further. I took this idea and also implemented it into my contact page, having my buda from my logo change colours. I also put in one frame of a picture of me for fun, that some people may not see, but others will be bemused.
For my work gallery I used swap image. I used text links, to swap the main image. I encountered some problems but after adding in some code to add a span and a class, it worked a treat. This meant that each piece of work only had one page, regardless of how many images it had. This would save on a lot of loading. To the side of the image I had a short description for each piece, something that wouldn’t take long to read for the viewer so they wouldn’t lose interest.
For the design of my curriculum vitae, I deliberately left in the printers marks, and I feel this shows my style of work, as I am a graphic designer who loves cmyk. I tried to keep my cv short and to the point, as I felt potential employers wouldn’t have the time to read a lot of descriptive text, and that it would be the images of my work doing most of the talking.
Finally I made sure that my blogger and flickr links were attached to the home page. Not only to show off more of my work, but to also produce traffic to my site, and bump me up in the google ratings.
I have learnt loads by doing this project, from css to better time management skills, and it’s great to have my work finally available to everyone in the world. I’m now looking forward to start my professional project, and feel that branding and maybe a website could be incorporated into it.
The first part of the project was to research into what web is and its history and future. I’m a user of the internet every day, and found it interesting to actually understand how it was created. It was also interesting to read how technical everything is, and how many bits there are to actually make it all work. I enjoyed reading about the future of the internet, and it’s current state of web 2.0. There’s still so much potential in it, and with the ever-advancing technologies we are in an exciting time.
I then researched into existing online portfolios. When researching I noticed that they all either had a black background or a white one, so I split my research accordingly. It was amazing to see that so many different designs and layouts worked so well. There was so many ways to present the work, each being successful in its own way. For each site I looked at the home page, gallery page, about me/info page. I decoded each site, looking at the colours, the font, the layout and what technologies they had used to create their sites. I also tried to write five good points (+) and five bad points (-) for each site. This proved difficult on some, as I could find nothing wrong with the site, or on the other hand nothing much good about it!
I took all the good points and bad points, and used this to help me decide what I wanted on my site and how I wanted it to look. This helped a lot in my layout design thumbnails, and I found myself quickly choosing a favourite design that I was going to use. I went down the route of having a white background site, with black san serif text, as I felt this best represented me and it looked clean and professional.
Branding myself I found to be quite easy. I know myself as a designer, and I know my style. The first obstacle was to choose whom I wanted to be known as to everyone else. Since I was young I have had the nickname buddah, and I wanted to take this forward and use it as my creative identity. It needed to be shortened though, need to look like a designers alias. I quite simply just reduced the number of letters in the word, but making it still pronounce Buddha. I settled with buda. I felt this to be professional, and was good to work under a name that meant a lot to me.
Choosing a name was simple, but I did however have a major swap of logos, as I had to think about how I would be perceived to the outside world. Initially I went down the route of having a monkey head illustrated in my style, with buda written underneath in Helvetica. When this was taken forward to the crit, the point was raised that this style (having a monkey) would attract a certain client base, but cut out quite a big one. I agreed profusely, and knew this had to be addressed as I wanted to attract a large audience. Another idea I had was to use a symbol as a logo. I decided to use an ampersand (&), and have this placed before buda to create &buda. Ampersand is a symbol for ‘and’, a word which is used to connect two things. I personally am trying to connect to people with my work.
As I sat down to make my website I noticed that I had forgotten how to use CSS. This made me panic a bit, but I was pointed towards some online video tutorials - www.willgoldstone.com/learn/#http://willgoldstone.com/learn/#. I found these too be very easy to follow, as he took you through every basic, and detail, as well as showing you where to click. The site also contains some very helpful pdfs, which I had by my side when I was making my site.
I then progressed onto building my site. My layout design was a site consisting of 2 rows and 3 columns. I struggled to get this all to line up and sit right. I eventually researched into absolute and relative positioning, and using a mixture of these, with different sized margins, I was able to produce the layout as I had wished. This layout was to be used throughout my site, with just the content being change on each page.
After building this layout from my measurements, I however felt the site balance wasn’t quite right and the image for the gallery wasn’t big enough. After a lot of calculation, I changed a lot of the measurements, including padding and margins to produce a new look site. It was the same layout, but had a bigger image, a better balance, and in my opinion looked a lot more professional.
On my home page I decided to include a flash show reel of my work. I got this idea from http://www.thedesignersrepublic.com/. I found there show reel to be very eye catching. The speed of it meant that it was almost subliminal, as you could see the work, but it made you want to look into the site further, and explore the work further. I took this idea and also implemented it into my contact page, having my buda from my logo change colours. I also put in one frame of a picture of me for fun, that some people may not see, but others will be bemused.
For my work gallery I used swap image. I used text links, to swap the main image. I encountered some problems but after adding in some code to add a span and a class, it worked a treat. This meant that each piece of work only had one page, regardless of how many images it had. This would save on a lot of loading. To the side of the image I had a short description for each piece, something that wouldn’t take long to read for the viewer so they wouldn’t lose interest.
For the design of my curriculum vitae, I deliberately left in the printers marks, and I feel this shows my style of work, as I am a graphic designer who loves cmyk. I tried to keep my cv short and to the point, as I felt potential employers wouldn’t have the time to read a lot of descriptive text, and that it would be the images of my work doing most of the talking.
Finally I made sure that my blogger and flickr links were attached to the home page. Not only to show off more of my work, but to also produce traffic to my site, and bump me up in the google ratings.
I have learnt loads by doing this project, from css to better time management skills, and it’s great to have my work finally available to everyone in the world. I’m now looking forward to start my professional project, and feel that branding and maybe a website could be incorporated into it.
[WEBSITE IS NOW LIVE]
My online portfolio website is now live and can be seen here - http://visualcommunication.org/james_mcmorrow/index.html
16.1.09
[WEBSITE FINAL CRIT]
Final crit for the website today, and good news all around. Kit and Neil feel that my site works really well and that the navigation is easy, and best of all the website represents me well. One thing that I have to change is to make the Sub Menu header stand out more by a simple colour change to Magenta. Need to get into serious work mode now till deadline to make sure that it all gets completed and that I get a good mark out of it :)
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