Eden Frankham & PPRD

Right, tomorrow we have to hand in our PPRD. I have now finished both my portfolio and my CV which I am pleased with, all thats left to do is carry on doing my blog. I have also made plans to build myself a new website which will house the design of my latest portfolio. The PDF portfolio I have designed is clean, crisp and well presented, which basically portrays my perfectionist personality. I may have to see about changing the greetings cards page as it is the page that I feel lets the portfolio down.

As well as finishing off my PPRD, arrangements have been made with Eden Frankham to have a meeting on Tuesday 10th at around 1.30pm. He is going to meet us in the base and go from there. A great start to our Work Related Learning experience.

Tuesday is going to be a very busy day as we have Hamish Muir coming in at half 10 for a lecture. We then have a CV and portfolio session from 12.30pm - 1.30pm (ish) and then on to Eden.

Interim Critique

Today we had another interim critique which went well. There was five of us and we all had fairly similar topics. We were asked to navigate the critique ourselves and make notes on each. Here is mine;

Me: There are 8 weeks left - make a calendar of each seperate week.
For next week produce several types of moodboards - inspirational, cars, style, image, logos, names, shopfront layout.

Adam:
Going green
Posters
Recipe cards
Look into where it will be located
Target audience

Matt:
Make sure keep organised
Always make sure you can see final goal and exactly what you are doing.

Abby:
Small handmade short story book.
Collectables to treasure
Afican tales

Ben:
Organic clothing
Natural materials and inks
Categorizing logos
Look into appropriate shops for primary research.

Overall I think it went really well and we managed to share ideas well.

Reverse (Live Brief)

I was approached by Becky O'Neil who is studying a BA in Photography. Their final show was to be called 'Reverse' and they wanted a logo doing. They had previous logos created yet they were not happy with them and wanted a few ideas in order to move on. I had a meeting that lasted about an hour with Becky and together we came up with many different logos, here is a collection of the most successful ones.

As I had just used this font on my personal website I thought I would give it ago with the Reverse logo. It has a nice look and feel to it yet photography usually tends to be sharp so it didn't really fit the image.

This is the second logo that was produced. The sharp design fits the profile yet it just didn't shout as to either of us.


We then looked at it from a different approach and tried using the Zapfino font. It worked nicely and looked very clean on both the black and the white backgrounds. Yet Becky still thought it didn't fit the bill.


This was the final of the logos we came up with and to be honest both of us liked it the most. We thought it is bold, bright, and remember able which is pretty important.

Unfortunately I recently received an email from Becky saying that they had chosen to use a different logo to any of mine. This was a bit disappointing yet was a good little experience working with a client.

PPRD Update

Yesterday was just a plain old day plodding along with the FMP. Yet today was a good day! and I can tell that because I am completely nackered. I knew that I had to make a start on my Portfolio now that I had finished my CV and was up to date on my blog.

The first thing that I thought was keep it simple but enable it to blend in with the work that was going in it. I think I went through about six or seven different designs before I reached my final, which I am very pleased with. After looking through the BlueSkiesCreative advice kindly shown by Neil, I knew exactly what I wanted...and here it is.

Please feel free to comment

Curriculum Vitae

Here is the up to date version of my CV, I have kept it simple and it has been designed to aim at creative companies.

Work Related Learning // WRL // Peer Meeting

Well...yesterday we organised to have a meeting with the four of us doing the WRL, yet only two of us turned up. It wasn't all bad though. Me and Martin realised we had a lot in common when it came to career paths and what we can see ourselves doing in the near future than we thought. We had a discussion about the property he had recently bought in Italy and how I would like to go into the property market sooner rather than later. We also discussed about starting a company and working as a freelance designer.

We then thought it was time to get down to business so started looking at how we will go about arranging trips and meetings with companies. As Kit was going to try and get Claire Blackmore on the 23rd March we didn't need to worry about her. We also found out from Sally that Hamish from Octavo was coming in on 10th March at 10:30am so we didn't need to worry about him either. So we decided to start off with Eden Frankham who was a local that had started his own business with his father; Corvette Printing Ltd. Once we had managed to get the email addresses of both Eden and his father we thought it best to send a quick email asking if it was possible to arrange a meeting to discuss the ins and outs of starting your own business, the email went as follows;

Dear Eden,

As students of The Arts Institute at Bournemouth we were wondering if it was possible for a small group (4 students) to arrange a meeting in order to discuss the in and outs of starting your own business. We are in our second year of the Visual Communication course and as part of our Work Related Learning unit we are required to take a look at the industry with regards to future employment.

You were recommended to us by Kit Johnson, a Senior Associate Lecturer on the Visual Commincation course.

If you are able to help us please could you get back to us with a date and time that is convenient to you.

Kind regards.

Jamie, Martin, Chris and Jenny

Within an hour or so of us emailing I had a reply which was as follows;

Hi,

Yeah sure that sounds all fine, happy to try and help. Best day for me this week would be Thursday, or if it's easy for you I can do Monday / Tuesday next week. Any of those days I'm free all day. If you want, we can tie it in with the days your at college. If you want to discuss a time you can get back to me with this e-mail or phone me at 01202 729 100.

Regards

Eden

Me and Martin said Monday at about 10am would be best as we have another WRL session at half 1 that same day, so I will let Martin and the others know and then get back to Eden as soon as possible.

TENTONNE Productions

After watching a few videos by Wagenwerks. A production company that solely films and edits work to do with the VAG (VW and Audi Group) scene. I thought I would come up with an imaginary production company of my own. TENTONNE Productions.


Please comment

Work Related Learning // WRL // Session 2

It was our second session for the WRL unit and hallelujah my peers turned up, which was good as we all get on well and the majority of us have the same interests. We basically went through what I had done in the previous session but in more depth. This is what I brought away from the meeting;

1. Look at high level companies as well as independent small companies.
2. Broaden my views on the creative world.
3. Look at how the business is run.
4. How do they bring in clients.
5. How do they settle on a price.
6. Make sure I attend all portfolio reviews.
7. Always take your portfolio along to the companies if they agree.

Relevant names:
Laura Walker - Old Vizcom Student
Jonny Whelles - Old Vizcom Student
Stevie Boxall - Old Vizcom Student
Martin Coyne
Eden Frankem - Started his own business
Claire Blackmore - Paintworks. (Talk 23rd March)
Hamish someone - Octavo
Luke Lobbley - Wonderland Magazine
Jeremy Prescott - Gate Worldwide
Steve Gordon - Careers Advice (sgordon@aib.ac.uk)
Pentagram

ALWAYS MAKE A PLAN!! Thorough research and planning is needed.
Write down what you initial career plan is and do a personal brainstorm on what you would like to get out of this unit.

Mike Ryan Talk // Take 2

I had my second talk with Mike Ryan today. We started off by going through my Learning Agreement and sorting out a couple of bits and bobs in it. We then delved into what I had done for the research of the project. I had looked into various magazines such a GQ and had collected many cutouts from each.

Once we had skimmed through the cutouts we came to the conclusion that the different pieces of clothing weren't that important to my project. It was more the logo design and branding that was what I should look into. We also discussed how the more expensive brands tend to use serif fonts and the less expensive, usually high street retailers tend to use san serif fonts as this usually portrays the correct image for both, across to the public. As I taken this into account I had been coming up with possible names for the brand. We went through these and discussed in detail which Mike thought worked the most. The name Tendenza was the one that stood out the most. It means Trend in Italian.

Mike also told me he thought it be best I stick to a certain age range. Preferrably the young professional from about 24 to 34 years of age. This would benefit my project considerably compared to the age group I had in my Learning Agreement.

For next week (Thurs 5th March) he wanted me to create a mood board of all the fashion logos I can find. Photocopy them and place them in different catagories depending on the fonts used.

Work Related Learning // WRL // Session 1

Today was the dawning of a new era; the Work Related Learning era to be precise. I am glad to report it was a success, and a flop at the same time. The success was that it went really well and looked like it was going to be a great project, the flop was that I was the only one that turned up!

The unit is intended to help me to develop my understanding of the creative industries, and identify future employment opportunities.

My plans and expectations in relation to the unit will be presented in the form of a Learning Agreement, which will be discussed with my unit leader.

I will be expected to make all relevant industry-level contacts through my own research, and the onus throughout the unit will be on me to arrange visits, interviews, and a work experience placement and/or professional assignment.

I was given a brief introduction to what is asked of us and how I go about doing it. We lightly discussed what I would like from the unit and what I can see my future consisting of.

HDR Experimentation

Yesterday and today I started playing around with my camera again. I'd always been interested in HDR images and have never managed to make a decent one. HDR Image = High Dynamic Range Image. In image processing, computer graphics, and photography, high dynamic range imaging is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of luminances between light and dark areas of a scene than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows. My first inspiration came from this amazing image of an Aston Martin V8 that I found on Flickr which was shot by Rob aka Robmcm. I just think the whole image works so nicely, the tones and reflections are just awesome.


So yeah, that was my inspiration and I took a few "experimental" shots of different objects, which to be quite frank, came out crap. Yet I then tried doing a HDR of my girlfriend's Ford KA. By using Photomatrix Pro I managed to come up with this...

It was shot on an overcast day at about 4 in the afternoon. I was pretty pleased with how it came out as it was my first real HDR. Yet once posted on Flickr I managed to get some feedback from Guru Photographer Dan Hodson, who advised me to sort out the white balance of the image. I will know for next time!

Learning Agreement

Today we also had to hand in our Learning Agreement for the Professional Project. It was a big relief as it took a lot of my mind and showed me what I really needed to put into action.

Synopsis of Study

For my Professional Project I am going to create a clothing brand that will compete with the likes of Bench., Burton, Topman and River Island. It will be a clothing brand that will concentrate on contemporary fashions and have a range of clothing to suit the pocket of both students and professional individuals. I am going to look into the difference between high street retailers such as Topman and River Island, and the more expensive high-end clothing companies, such as Armani and Gucci. I will look into how and why they are more expensive and whether there are any ways you can get such a good quality clothes for high street prices.

As I am starting the brand from scratch I will decide on an appropriate name. Possibly generate about 5 or 6 names and let my peers decide which they like the most. Both genders would have to be taken into consideration for this in order to avoid gender discrimination although I would like to mainly stick to male association. By deciding to undertake the brand development side of things I am venturing into the field of what I would like to do in the near future, it will also show that I am capable of developing a company from scratch.

My target audience will be the younger generation, yet not too young. 18 - 30 is a good age range as the brand will benefit all groups between those ages. The clothing will be high quality at affordable prices. Yet there will also be sections where higher paid individuals can splash out on more expensive clothing.

The brand development would consist of the designing the Logo, Stationery and Website Layout. Besides the required I am also going to design a few items of clothing that have the company’s style or signature on them. By designing the clothing ranges I am stepping out of my boundary, as I have never created anything to do with fashion design before.

Recently I have become more interested in the modern fashion era. Which I wish wasn’t the case as it involves spending money I currently do not have. I wanted to do this project as it would be something I have never even thought about doing, hopefully it will be very different and give me a whole new incentive on the aspect of work I wish to undertake. I propose to present the brand development and brand guidelines; along with some clothing designs in order to kick-start the company. I also think this is going to be a very successful project as it looks about the correct amount to do in the time given. It is not too big and yet it isn’t too little either.

Screen Based Communication 2 - Results

Today we got our results for the website project. It is fair to say that I am comfortable with my mark; 59. It would have been great if I could have got one more mark as that would have given me two 2.1's in a row, but hey, you can't have everything. I received the following feedback...

LO1
The final site works well and effectively displays your work. The design has a very industrial feel which suits the motion and display of your work. With the layout of the page some of the images are a little small but most are perfectly legible. Through this project you have shown a good use of web software that will aid you well in the future.

LO2
The explanation of web culture are to the point and have clearly influenced your decision making in terms of choice of software.

LO3
Your design sheets show clear progression, though it is unclear why you changed direction so drastically. The overall presentation of your work is professional and your annotations are clearly written.

I think that was fair feedback and understand all that has been said. Now to look onto the professional project.

London Trip

Today we went to London. To be honest I thought it was compulsory to go so that was why I paid to go. Yet it was a good trip, took many good photographs which I decided to shoot in black and white the whole day, guess it was just my impression of London in general, even though it was a very unexpected lovely day. The photos can be seen on my Flickr.

We also visited the likes of the London Graphic Centre, loads of things in there that I could of bought yet I just didn't have the money to. We visited Covent Garden and had a really nice lunch. Visited a book binding shop which Vicky Martin was dying to go to. The had a nice pint in the pub and headed back to Tate Britain to be picked up to embark on a very sleepy journey home.

Mike Ryan Talk // Take 1

As I missed the one minute presentation as I was out of Bournemouth. Mike Ryan gave me and one of my peers a 2 to 1 talk on how the project was going so far and how we could kick start ourselves into moving forward. He liked my idea and thought it be best for me to look into separate aspects of the world we live in to influence me with my work.

As my professional project is to do with the fashion industry I am going to have to look into the ways the recession has affected the shopping market. Whether prices have changed much.

Magazines, cut out as many appropriate material as I can find and annotate, it may be expensive but it will count for a nice part of my research. Also look into the higher market, such as companies like Gucci, Armani, Hugo Boss, D&G. Find out why they are more expensive than high street companies. The sophistication of the higher prices companies. Analise anything and everything.

Come up with various possibilities for the name of the company I am going to create. Possible get my peers to decide on a final.

Most of all, step away from what I know and push myself further than I have ventured, hopefully it will pay off.

Professional Project//Final Major Project

On the 29th January we were given our latest and final project of the Visual Communication course. This project was to be extremely personal. The Professional Project draws together my practical and professional knowledge of my chosen specialist subject area and provides the opportunity to plan and produce the practical work required to the highest professional standard, either working to a live or simulated professional brief. The brief will reflect industry standards and the area(s) of practice in which I would like to concentrate professionally after completion of the course. The unit requires me to consider all logistical and organisational aspects of the brief and to define my proposed solution in a Learning Agreement.
The work will also be displayed in the end-of-course exhibition. The Project thus not only draws
together my creative and practical knowledge and skills, but also presents my best possible
work to a public and professional audience.

Aims

A1: To consolidate your creativity and practical skills in response to a ‘live’ or simulated
professional brief.

Stick to what you are good at!

A2: To develop your creativity and your knowledge and understanding of professional
practice.

Research into design companies and appropriate media

A3: To develop and produce a professional standard of creative work in response to a ‘live’ or
simulated brief.

Make sure I keep up the high, professional standards

A4: To prepare you for employment, freelance work or further study.

My chosen career subject.

Learning Outcomes

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.

Identify the genre that I am working to. Appropriate research - current, past 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.

Take variables into account, timetable, feedback, client interaction

LO3:
Respond appropriately to the demands of a professional/self initiated brief, including:
• Appropriate creative outcomes to industry/work related briefs.

Make sure I stick to my own brief.
Present it as to a client.
Leave 2 - 3 weeks to print.
Keep the brief very broad! Leaving room for change.
Look at London Graphics Centre.

IDEAS

• Hotel branding and architectural design
• Car Design - Re-design an old model
• Some type of Photography
• Web Design
• Font Development
• Branding
• Identity
• Rebrand Top Gear, Idents - Channel 4
• Fashion? - Brand Development:

1. Logo
2. Website
3. Stationery
4. Clothing Design

Look to Bench, Topman, Burton, ASOS, River Island, Republic for inspiration and research.

Catell Ronca & Hayley Potter

This is a very outdated post that should have been up ages ago, but there you go! On Monday 5th January an Illustrator named Catell Ronca came in to give us a lecture on illustration and freelancing your work. Here are the notes:

• Define your market
• Research potential clients - Writers and Artist yearbook
• Address the correct person
• Self promotion! - How special are you?
• Think outside the box
• Tiny little books
• Feedback sheet
• Create a website
• Illustration Mindo, corroflot
• Network - Keep in contact with people
• Get commissioned - confirm commission in writing. Stating the fee and © your name.

Show your portfolio (Hardcopy)

• Relevant work
• Commissioned work at the front
• Work you are proud of
• Experimental work at the back
• Maximum A3 portfolio
• No more than 20 pieces
• Business Cards
• Who can the Art Director recommend

Pricing
• What will the piece be used for?
• Is it a big client?
• Circulation
• Always do an invoice!
• Paid within 30 days

On Friday 30th January 2009, an illustrator named Hayley Potter came in to give us a talk on her work and how to promote ourselves in the industry.

Young Illustrator
Graduated in 2007
'Four Letters of Love'
'Don't Panick'
Draw what inspires you and never get rid of any work

Overall I learnt quite a few helpful tips from Catell's talk and will put them in place when it comes to it.

Website Project

I haven't really spent much time on my blog for quite a while now. Since my last post a lot has changed, including my final website layout. In the end I chose to go with an arty feel, the second design on my last post. This was because no matter how many times I change my mind over the designs I had created, I ended up getting bored with it. Having too many ideas can be worse than having none at all.

Overall I am pleased with the progress I made and the knowledge I picked up with this project. I had been looking forward to this project for some time, since I seen the second year’s websites when I was in the first year in fact. I am glad I decided to do it in Flash as I think I would have just struggled a lot more in Dreamweaver, I haven’t quite got my head around that yet, but it is on my to do list! There will come a time that I will have to design a website in Dreamweaver and I plan on updating my knowledge on it very soon.

I think the aspect of the assignment that surprised me the most was the amount of information I took in about the world wide web, HTML, java script and action script. At first it all looked like chinese but after a while I got used to it and coding became fairly second nature.

I will take a lot away with me from this project and I am pleased with that being the case. I have learnt a lot from tutors and the assistants that were always there to help. Good project indeed!

To view my final website click here and enjoy

Website Progress

It has been a quite some time since we were give the website assignment. To be honest it has been very testing, I have come up with so many ideas, each one getting better and better. But eventually it had to come to an end. Most of my designs were dark as per usual, so whilst sat at home in Jersey after a good day at work, I decided I was going to attempt a design in white and not use black at all.

All the ideas that I had come up with previous had the use of my name as the main focus. Yet I was getting frustrated with how the 'J' in my name never really worked well with any font I wanted. So I started playing around with names for myself, this turned out to be very amusing. In the end I started messing around with my middle name; Mark, and came up with markedDESIGN. I also wanted a logo to go with it. I knew exactly what I wanted, and the reason for this was the way Lime:Green works, all their work is very sharp and perfectly laid out, nothing is left untouched. Here are a couple of my previous designs that I would like you to see in order to see my progression.

When I came away from the briefing, I knew it had to be simple, therefore I came up with this:


As you can see it is very basic, yet not unacceptable. The second a traced back to the CMYK as in my previous work:


This worked really nicely and was made in Flash with subtle yet cool motion tweens. In the end I decided it wasn't mature enough for what I wanted, yet I wouldn't dismiss using this design for something else. The next design is my final:

As you can see I have decided to use the markedDESIGN and the logo as my identity. I have posted it as my blogger title image and posted it on my flickr account as well. The website is still in progress with just the portfolio section left to do, but will keep you updated and as soon as I've finished it I will post the swf.

Let me know what you think

Flash Reloaded

It's been a while since I've set about doing a blog. I've been very busy over the Christmas period, I worked at Lime Green again which is doing me good, especially as it is improving my Uni work. But first off, I have some notes that need to be put on here from the Flash recap lesson, so here goes...

Actionscript 2.0
Time based
EPS 8 (Illustrator)
.swf (Illustrator)
Frame rate:
12fps - web animation
24fps - tv animation (UK)
25fps - tv animation (US)

Select everything ---> Click and drag over it
Convert to symbol ---> Button

3 Buttons = 3 Key frames
Click between Layer 1 and pencil to highlight all
Needs to be housed in HTML
New Layer ---> Stop
Window ---> actions ---> timeline ---> double click ();
Movie clip controls ---> user controls
Timeline control ---> Flash moving through time, previous frame etc
Browser/Network ---> Linking to external files, links etc
Click on Button 2 ---> actions ---> movieclip ---> on (release)
next line, timeline ---> goto and stop (2) (2 represents the frame number)

Circle > convert to symbol > movieclip > holder > centre > double click > delete > single cross
To get back to backboard click 'Scene 1'

Actions > on (release)
loadMovie("images/onoff3.jpg","holder")

Link to external website
Actions > on (press)
getURL("http://www.limegreencreative.com","_blank")

Text Button:
Double click on text
UP - When mouse click is released
OVER - When the mouse is hovering over
DOWN - When the text is clicked
HIT - Clickable area. Draw a fairly big square over it so whole area is active

Make sure the control button is way off screen.

Control > Actions > on(keypress"")
drag._x+=10;

///////////////// - Acts as dividers

To drag with the mouse:
New Layer > Actions >

drag.onPress=function(){
drag.startDrag();
};
////////////
drag.onRelease=function(){
drag.stopDrag();
};
////////////
drag.onReleaseOutside=function(){
drag.stopDrag();

hit.onEnterFrame=function(){
if(this.hitTest(drag)){
hit._rotation -=10;
drag._alpha -=3;
if(drag._alpha<20)}
hit.onEnterFrame=null;
hit.rotation = 0

All looks very straight forward right? Once you have the program in front of you and you start playing around with it it becomes pretty straight forward.