Screen print idea

This is the illustrator file I created before I split up the colours into separate layers.

The image is supposed to be of a sloth, but to be honest, it doesn't really look like one. So it's abstract.

I used the card as a 3rd tone, so I don't need to print the white as a colour, I just needed to concentrate on printing the green and black.

If I knew what I was doing I could maybe have planned the construction of the image a bit better. Although I did each colour on a different layer, the black behind the green was just block, cause I didn't think anyone would see it. So when I went to print it out I had to trace around the green leaves and made sure the black followed it, which took quite a while on the day...

PPRD presentation

Although I enjoy showing people my work and receiving constructive criticism, I generally dislike presenting work in front of groups of people, so I wasn't really that excited about presenting client briefs I'd done to others.

I was quite relaxed doing this though because I felt I had a substantial amount to show, which I could talk about for the whole three minutes. I still know I have a long way to go to becoming an accomplished graphic designer, the work I showed at this critique didn't really reflect my capabilities. Once I begin to get a steady flow of live briefs then I might feel a bit better about the work I do.

Our tutor also mentioned about portfolio reviews, I think I should start thinking about this sooner rather than later so I have a good enough portfolio to present to clients. So over the next few months I am going to start getting my better pieces of work together. To keep it professional I will make some sort of template together keeping the same size and layout on a page.

Animal Farm printing

Yesterday I did all my screen prints for the animal farm exhibition. I was a it worried at the beginning because I had never done screen printing before, and I wasn't sure if my illustration was going to work.

After an induction, and finally getting into the swing of creating some images I felt a lot more relaxed. I had two colours to do so I was happy with the first colour prints I did because I felt I got about 12 out of 16 almost to perfection. But when I got to doing the second colour, I found it a lot harder than I thought it was going to be, trying to line up the page with the screen so they were in sync, and in the end I ended up with about 8 which were pretty average.

What was a successful start to my day turned pretty average by the end. It was my first time doing screen printing, so I knew I wasn't going to be an expert from the start. It's a skill that you will gain experience from doing more and more. I enjoyed doing a different style as opposed to working on a mac all the time. It could easily have persuaded some inspiration for any future projects. I will be putting up some pics of the final prints soon...

Planning and reflection

Yesterday I had a tutorial with Kit to see how I was getting on with my PPRD unit. After talking with her I feel a lot better about the direction I should be heading. We talked about the events of last week, and how I hadn't got the full story across in my blog. After thinking about it. It was really hard to concentrate on my work in Uni when stuff outside of it was worrying me.

Even though I got an extension for screen based 2, I decided not to use it. Because if I had used the weekend then I new I would have never done it because of other stuff going on. So like my last project I was under pressure to finish work in a short period of time, which was added stress on my part.

Coming up to the next project I want to stop this from happening again. I will do this by planning in advance, and maybe setting myself some deadlines which could reflect where I am at with my studies. I think if I sort this out now then I will feel a lot more at ease with the events I have encountered and will give me some experience of how I would deal with this if I was working for clients in the future.

Evaluation screen based 2

I was really looking forward to this project, being able to learn new skills and new software. One of the main paths I wanted to follow after finishing University was in the digital industry. I quite like the idea of designing polished websites. Because I was learning new software I knew it would be difficult from the start, but I didn’t anticipate the amount of problems I was going to encounter.

I really wanted to try something different, a website that had never been done before, which would stand out from all the others. I chose to do a box because I was inspired by a quote I had heard time and time again from my tutors, that ‘we are the package.’ The reason we were on this course was to acquire the relevant skills to set us up for industry, that we were trying to sell ourselves. I felt that this was a strong concept, but by the end of the project the way I finished was a little bit rushed. I put this down to my lack of organizational skills under pressure.

To push myself a bit more I decided I was going to try learning ActionScript 3.0. In the previous screen based unit last year we used ActionScript 2.0 and after getting to grips I found it pretty straightforward to use. I knew as long as I had enough tutorials in 3.0 I would be ok. But I found out the day before the deadline I had hit a brick wall. I think this was voidable if my time management was a little better. I left it to close to the deadline to be doing extremely technical problems.

Another problem was that while I had been spending a long time on researching ActionScript 3.0, I wasn’t leaving enough time to record what I had learned. I think if I had recorded this in my sketchbook and time planned a bit better then I wouldn’t have been in the stressful situation I found myself.

During the project we were given tutorials in how to use Dreamweaver. Unfortunately half way through the learning process, our tutor Neil was ill, so we had Lee to help us learn the program. I don’t feel as if my learning experience was fulfilled because we went off the point of learning Dreamweaver, and instead were shown how to use flash catalyst. Even though it was an interesting program and a look into the future at how web design could be shaped, it wasn’t the software we should have been learning at the time, which confused the point of the unit a bit for me.

Having finished this unit now I regret not taking the decision to use the extension given to me. If I had taken it, it would have given me the opportunity to sort myself out with organisation and time management skills. I wish that I had a better experience of learning Dreamweaver as this could have helped with my ideas generation for the unit.

ActionScript 3.0!!!!!!!

SUCKS!

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imageLoader.load(imageRequest);

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research

I got this awesome book today called 'web design: flash sites,' having a read through it there was a few sites which had something to do with cardboard boxes, their logos and signage.

I'm hoping that this well motivate me to finish the site I have done on a box theme.

final crit. web

I had my crit today, and although I was confident going into it, I got a lot of constructive criticism, which gave me an indication of how much work I had to do, so I was a bit nervous coming out of it. The stuff I had gone over with my tutor before christmas hadn't actually been done, the gallery need to be completely re-thought as it wasn't rally working for the other people in my class and the typography was the worst bit, when someone commented 'it looked like WW2 type,' which was true, and I knew this was where I would need to make the biggest changes.

So I have quite a bit to get on with, as the deadline is coming ever closer...

back to the zone...

So it's the first day back after a long christmas break and I think today has been quite a productive day. At the end of last term I was going to re-do my website, so I could add in the extra textures which would make it seem more appealing to the viewer by making it come out of the page. Before the final crit tomorrow I hope to have the main part of the website done, and then after I can have time to work on any changes and the animation to go at the beginning of the site.

Here is a preview of the progression I have made in developing this website.

I am looking forward to finishing this brief and getting on with the Fmp...