Personal project

Research

For my personal project i will be designing and creating a website about the artist Salvador Dali. Most of my research was taken from a previous investigation project where i wrote about the life of Salvador Dali and his work.

Developing an Idea

Because i had very little experience with Dreamweaver and web design in general i decided to go with a relatively basic design. i wanted to add a home page, a little bio page and a mini gallery.  

Evaluation


Overall i am relatively happy with the outcome but next time i would make some changes such as the layout, the colour and i would add more images in the gallery and a description. during the production of the site i read a website about the basics of dreamweaver and website design which was invaluable for me because of my experiance.


http://www.thesitewizard.com/

Community Project

Researching and exploring ideas

For this project I have chosen to help out the library by offering my services as a designer. I decided to go down to the Library to do some preliminary research. They had some posters and leaflets on the shelves and walls advertising clubs and groups, but nothing eye catching or exciting.

I wanted to approach them and tell them about what I am doing at college and what I can do to help them. I can use photoshop and illustrator to make collages and posters, also I told them what course I am on.

Here are some questions I am going to ask:

• Is there any area that needs more attention?
• What sort of projects do you have on that I could help with?
• What kind of message do you want to bring across?

I decided to ask these questions in order to understand what the clients want from my work.

• Take examples of previous work I have done to show the client my skills

I had to choose between two possible groups, the first one being the library and the other being a group my parents set up called the power pack. the reason i chose the library over the power pack is because libraries help the community in their local area which the power pack only helps a small group of people.

April 19

• I went down to the library and had a conversation with the Librarians about ideas for the project.
• One of the Librarians had spoken to a manager and received a brief for the project by email.
• I was given a copy of the email which asked for a poster (A4 size) to warn parents and carers to keep children under supervision in the library at all times.
• The words that the manager would like to have on the poster are as follows: “Parents and carers are reminded that children in the library remain their responsibility at all times”.
• I told the Librarians that I will attempt to design 3 different posters for them to choose from in the coming weeks.

Devolping an idea



For my poster i have made three possible ideas for the final poster. I will show these ideas to the library for feedback and ways to improve on them. here are some potential posters of mine.

This poster here in my opinion is very basic and quite dull, it wouldn't catch anyones eye and the message being given in the images isn't the correct one. i made the cross and the tick in adobe illustrator. 

This is my second poster, this is my favorite one mainly because of the "Big Brother is watching you" theme i have used. i decided to use humor to get peoples attention and to try and recreate the poster in photoshop as close to the original poster as i could.

Again, like the previous poster i used humor to bring the message across, i also used a well-known book character. one thing i did differently was using some fonts from dafont.com. i sent these posters in an email to the library for them to give feedback on them.



http://www.tcnj.edu/~santoro2/family2.gif
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikzBLiOFQyXF99r4xSqMiBoRvT27NVx4B0q7fH_HomPXGzwG-QeIQtD9mlaEcZjZxrT3l2YzUQ0iVy3-8FKnNA2uQ-ar2cepxCe1PnxBUYKMa0xH9BT3-Yl6m09b8ctAM7EWl_ls6sJAw/s1600/big-brother-poster.jpg

Working within constraints

For this project i was using photoshop and illustrator. these were the only programs i used for this project mainly because they were the ones i knew how to use and were the only design programs that did the job. i used the internet to search for images of book characters and fonts.

swf test

Reviewing your own work

I think our group did an amazing job with the flash site mainly because of the amount of effort we put into it and the scale of project. I am very pleased with the variety of sea life we have on screen along with the plant life such as anemones and coral. Through out this project i have learnt some new techniques in production such as; Live Trace for vectorizing the images of fish, the Puppet Warp tool for animating the fish frame-by-frame and swapping bitmaps to piece the frames together instead of trying to reposition them in the same position constantly.Personally i am most impressed with the art style i have used with Live Trace which gives the fish a cartoon look but not too childish either which is suitable for any age group.

Completing the work

Working within constraints

The programs I've used include  in Photoshop for cutting out the images and Puppetwarp to modify them ready for animation, the Livetrace feature of Adobe Illustrator and Flash which I used to create the animation, including action script for the interactivity between the diver character and the fish.

I used these programs as they gave the effects and functions required for what the aquarium requested, they were available for me and I've been taught how to use them, and they work within the parameters specified in the brief.

I have been part of a team of three for this project: I've been responsible for finding and creating the resources, as well as researching the species of fish and coral chosen. Other tasks within the group have included coding and site design, animation, liaising with the client and preparing and delivering a Powerpoint presentation.

The aquarium provided us with the brief and overview of what they wanted, which is an interactive flash site for educational purposes and to be an introduction to the aquarium. They also stated that the fish had to have realistic details and features of the real fish that they were representing, and facts about their habitats, lifespans and distribution. There was no finance available, though the art college paid for season tickets for all students involved, and provided the computers and software to complete the project.

The resources available to me were the computers and necessary software, access to the aquarium itself and the staff there for answering questions, the equipment stores at the art college, which provided photo- and videographic equipment, and the internet for research purposes. My team and I used all of these where and when appropriate.

Practical constraints have included; time, workload balance between team members, transport for me and my wheelchair to the aquarium, availability of equipment from the ERC, and not having the necessary software at home.

The original idea the group had has been modified to allow for faster, smoother scrolling, speedier download time for the end user, and more realistic animation and better educational facts. We also modified the plan after delivering a presentation at the aquarium and receiving feedback from the staff there. This was to allow integration of the feedback to deliver a finished project more in keeping with their requirements. A good example of this is the request that was made to include two different hand sizes for the diver character, to allow both adults and children to feel more immersed in the experience, which we have incorporated.

HEALTH AND SAFETY
http://sealthandhafety.blogspot.com/

Devoloping an idea for interaction work

Researching and exploring ideas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_game#LucasArts_.281986-2000.29
http://www.national-aquarium.co.uk/

Because this project is interactive, I have been researching point and click adventure games, and also flash sites and their interactive features. Something important is how we'd show the different species of fish and corals and how they interact with each other and their environments. We had the idea of a diver swimming in a coral sea, where it's possible to go up to each of the species and find out information about them. The brief was explicit that movements, scalings etc. had to be accurate and true to life. The plan was to have the fish interact with the outstretched hands of the diver, and to have dialogue boxes pop-up with facts, video, a map of distribution, and a size comparison with both an adult's and child's hand.

These are some of the assets used.