Friday 12 December 2008

WEBSITE STUFF // INTERIM CRITIQUE.

I honestly didn't think I would struggle this much to represent myself well through my own work on my online portfolio. As my work is completely different between graphics and illustration I don't know how to portray myself. I want to be taken seriously as a designer, however I want my website to have elements of fun and easy-going and to reflect me as a person.Below is some example on some logos I have designed for myself. I have chosen the name 'PegLegs' as it is personal to me and a childhood nickname.
The image clearly represents me and how I look. It also relates to past illustration I have done. However I don't want to be seen as entirely an illustrator. I like to think I have skills in a wide media and I want this to be reflected through my website.
Personally I don't particularly think my critique was all that positive and made me think even more about how I can represent myself well and professionally. Back to the drawing board I think!

The image above is a screenshot of how I thought I could made my brand look a little more professional and graphic-like. I would really like to have my gallery like this, although I may need to think further on this too.
People liked the name PegLegs although there were doubts from Neil, and a point was made as to whether or not I would like this name and logo to represent me in 15 years time? It was a good point however, I felt a little shot down. Just need to think harder I think and engage in more research.

In response to the critique, on my walk home I thought about maybe having a split personality on my webpage. My PegLegs brand can represent me as an illustrator, and Meg or Megan Corkhill (still needs to be thought about) can represent my graphic design/branding etc side of me. I'm going to pitch this idea in today's tutorial.

Thursday 11 December 2008

ISTD TALK FROM JONATHAN DONEY.

I found this presentation really helpful. It certainly made me re-think my ideas for it! And whether or not they are as strong as I first thought. I'm almost tempted to change my subject too... Eek! 
I feel a bit lost at the moment with where I should be going with my work, so hopefully a thorough tutorial will help me out. 
Point I did pick up from Jonathan were things like:
  • You need to be able to think differently.
  • Don't think literally.
  • You need to get more than 60%.
  • Really consider your presentation.
  • Don't go down the route everyone is expecting you to.
  • Thorough research to back all ideas.
Now all I need to do is get a brilliant idea! :)

Tuesday 9 December 2008

STUMPED.

Ok, so all the ideas I had previously had seem to be going wrong! Thing's aren't working out how they're meant to!
All I know is that for ISTD, I need a back-up plan for my recordings... I say 'all' as if it's nothing, but I'm hoping my solution will be simple.
Secondly, my web ideas are all going to dust. All I know are the colours I have in mind... I don't even know if these will work!
Keep on plodding on I guess :/

Saturday 6 December 2008

FINAL MEETING WITH CHLOE & INK BAR WEBSITE.

On Thursday James, Luke, George, Vicky and myself all had a final meeting with Chloe regarding photographs and printed media. We arrived early ready to meet with Chloe at 5.30 where we had photographs taken to appear alongside an article that will be written about the launch. Hopefully we will make an appearance in the newspaper! We have already made it in to DV8 magazine :)
After this, we were given our printed media, unfortunately it wasn't handed over to us in the pristine state we were expecting, but hopefully it will be in good enough condition to appear in our portfolios. On top of this we were also given a gift voucher for a meal in the Print Rooms which I'm sure we will be enjoying pretty soon.

After this meeting we checked out the Ink Bar website, which fitted in well with the chosen identity of the bar and printed media, however we were disappointed to see that our logo has been squashed on the front page! 


CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE.

Friday 5 December 2008

FLASH 3.

Today we did something a little different. Using just one image of a snowflake, drawn on illustrator, we had to reproduce it to fall, randomly whilst changing size and colour. Initially I thought we would have to draw lots of different snowflakes, and change the size ourselves, but we had to write a code which would enable us to do this using just one snowflake, of one size, one shape and one colour in order to produce what we need.
To my surprise the code wasn't particularly long, a little more complicated that we have previously worked on, however the results were much more rewarding because of the 'random' input.

This is what I started off with after I had perfected the codes. I dragged and dropped numerous snowflakes at the top of the screen to make the fall more often and random. I drew my own design on the graphic layer as my background. I now had to test my code to see if the fall had worked using random colour, random size, random rotation etc.

Above: A screenshot of my falling snowflakes. This proves my code works :)

This is my finished code. Initially I didn't have a '+' after rotation, but after speaking to James, if I include this, my snowflakes will rotate faster. :) Much better results I think! 

Thursday 4 December 2008

MIKE RYAN - ISTD TUTORIAL & FLASH 2.

AM.

In the morning, I had my second Flash lesson which again was very helpful to me, and more importantly I left understanding everything. 
Today we were working on a page which had already
 been produced by Neil, we just had to create characters to drag, enlarge, shrink, react on collision and to navigate using code. Although there was a lot of it, most of the code was copied and pasted, with only a couple of words and symbols to change (See sketchbook for more detail).
Above, left: My original characters in starting positions. No change made.
Above, right: An example of what happens on collision with the other character.

I have written the code so that only the pink character moves and changes, unless it collides with the blue character. It is here that the blue character rotates and the pink one changes it's transparency.

Above, left: Demonstration of pink character enlarging. (Using buttons on the right (+))
Above, right: Demonstration of pink character shrinking. (Using buttons on the left (-))

The pink character can also be rotated using the buttons on the right hand side and navigated around the page using buttons on the left hand side.


PM. ISTD TUTORIAL WITH MIKE RYAN.

I found the tutorial in the afternoon really helpful. He began by giving us a brief introduction to what he thinks is important when entering a competition brief before splitting us up in to groups with people who were working on the same briefs. From here we had to bounce of ideas and discuss our thought processes as to how we will progress through this project. 
As Laura was the only one doing her brief, she joined me and Jamie in our discussions and ideas.
Mike Ryan's brief introduction explained what was expected from ISTD:
  • It's GOT to have background research.
  • It's typographically based.
  • Have you had at least 3 different ideas?
  • It HAS to work in terms of type and organisation.
  • Needs to be a good idea.
  • Ideally research needs to be completed before we get back from Christmas.
I showed him the piece of typography I had produced yesterday. I think because I managed to show him what I meant about incorporating conversations in to text, he was able to give me more feedback. I was told I needed to collect the raw material before I could progress anymore.
I need to collect my inspiration and plan my research in order to produce the results I have in my head. I'm going to have a lot of text so I really need to consider how I will do this. The secret is in the presentation.

Wednesday 3 December 2008

FIRST RUN.

This is my first trial run of the sort of thing I want to do. It's just ideas at this stage on how I could incorporate my conversation and keeping the same font. Lots more trial and errors to go but I think it's quite successful for my first run! It's a clip from Pulp Fiction, the conversation involves 3 people, using one font I have managed to separate the three quite distinctively.
I really need to collect my primary research before solid ideas will settle as I don't yet know the content. We'll see how it goes!

NEW.

Well I've been trying to come up with some sort of logo/identity for my name for this website project and so far all I've come up with is a bird, which I drew whilst on the phone...
However, I've been experimenting with various designs for it, and compositions of my text and image and eventually made it my new banner for the blog to see how it looks. 
During this project I will continue to work on this as I need something I can really represent myself with.

Monday 1 December 2008

ISTD.

So my ISTD brief has been chosen and discussed with Sally. No ideas as to how I can make it work yet, but the research and information needs to be collected first. I am focusing on the 3 minutes brief as I think this is an amazingly open brief allowing us to do anything we want. My idea is strong and fixed in my head, now all I need to do is make it work!