Andy Richmond

Credit test

2011-05-19T03:54:00.000-07:00

This is a credit test for a film I am working on at the moment...more details to follow

This is...summer submission

2011-05-17T13:22:00.000-07:00

Evaluating the year

2011-05-16T03:55:00.001-07:00

Over the past year I have been concentrating on how I brand myself as a designer. I feel that as I make the transition from University life to the real world it is most important that I use work I am most proud of, that can showcase my credentials as a designer.

The portfolio I have produced for this unit is based on a simple layout showcasing six of my best pieces of work from my time in Visual Communication. From the beginning of the course my mentality towards my studies was to create a well rounded selection of work including print to digital work. As a designer I wanted to have an extensive choice of pieces to present to employers, which could assist me in any opportunity of design.

As I have matured as a designer my work has progressively moved towards a more digital specialism. Through online tutorials and short courses I have been able to teach myself how to use programmes that are industry standard. I hope to take this knowledge and apply it to everyday life when I start to apply to work with agencies.

For this unit I also had to create a CV and business card. From creating a logo I was able to base my designs around this, forming a uniformed set of marketing tools. I wanted to keep the CV quite simple and straight to the point so potential employers could read it easily. I went for a two column layout, making use of the space on the page, creating a well designed piece of work. I think where the creativity comes in is how I present this document to employers. This will change depending on the people I apply to. The business card follows the same suit, I went for a two colour style with a simple logo on the front and my contact details on the back. I changed my email address to something a little more professional to my previous address.

Post university life will see a vast transition in the way I work, it is important that I start marketing towards the employers I want to work for in the most creative way possible. Over the next few months my goal is to do three two week placements in design agencies to get a feel for the working environment. From this I hope to pick up some tips as to how best to present myself to creative employers. My five year plan is to be in a well established creative agency thinking ahead to developing my own business in creative design.

Business card design

2011-05-11T12:14:00.000-07:00

Connection lost

2011-05-01T04:46:00.000-07:00

This is my housemates final piece, a bit different to my usual design work, but I play with a couple of members from my band to mark my next most recent performance/acting roll.

Design for inmode competition

2011-04-21T16:42:00.000-07:00

F5 ethos

2011-04-14T06:16:00.000-07:00

The making of google streetview ad

2011-04-12T07:01:00.000-07:00

This is the production video for a street view advert in Germany. I like the way in which they have broken it down into week by week production. It has helped me think about how I need to go about planning my final piece.

Facebook profile branding from Rhett and Link

2011-03-24T06:58:00.000-07:00

Rhett and Link are viral specialists and I found this video on branding a facebook profile picture so the person looks dateable, I think I can learn something from this and apply it to my own project.

The idea

2011-03-22T08:28:00.000-07:00

This piece of inspiration has influenced me to think about how I could bring an animation to life. As I am story boarding different ideas I am going to incorporate different design techniques to help reach the next stage.

Influencers

2011-03-15T07:28:00.000-07:00

This is a documentary film about finding creativity, while it is helping to find some motivation in my EMP I particularly take interest in how it is filmed, as a possible direction to take on how to show the building of persona/brand identity.

D and AD hand in

2011-03-15T06:48:00.000-07:00

These are my final pieces for show at D and AD. The brief was to Re-design the Taschen magazine for the new breed of multimedia tablet devices. For the show I had to produce at most 4 show boards to explain my idea and an animation which shows how the application would work on a tablet device such as an Ipad.

TLK 3 - Freelancing

2011-03-09T07:30:00.000-08:00

The third TLK lecture invited two freelance designers: Joel Lardner (an illustrator) and Chris Wharton (a web designer). Jane Richardson who is a senior member of recruitment agency Aquent was also there.

The main subject of the talk was looking at how students were to get a foot in the door with companies, how to approach them and employability. As a freelancer the most important thing is to create the best professional profile you can. Whatever research you can do into a company they can do into the employee too. There were some helpful suggestions of links to look at such as behance and sortfolio two types of online portfolio. When looking for jobs twitters tweet deck could be a useful resource.

It has influenced me in my extended major project, because it has made me think about how graduates look to the employer. There are plenty of social networking sites to build profiles and brands, including Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. When a prospected employer can type a candidates name into google, the first thing that comes up will be these social networking sites... so it is important to keep professional and personal profiles separate.

The Other Guys credits

2011-03-06T14:12:00.000-08:00

This is another great example of well done infographics. I am still really interested in this area in visual communication and see it as one of my paths after I finish uni!

Keaton Henson narritave film

2011-03-02T08:43:00.000-08:00

I found this video as part of the research for my EMP. Keaton Henson creates a narrative piece for the packaging of an album. I think the visuals are strong and the narritave process relates to part of my EMP creation. I would like to find more videos like this which could influence my final piece.

Sky - Better Effect

2011-02-28T04:04:00.000-08:00

I saw this the other day on TV and really like the use of animation over film, for the next two months I shall be concentrating on my designs for my extended major project. The brief I have set myself is to create a piece of film/animation based around the subject of online persona. I have already began to look at brand identity in the attempt to come up with a formula of how internet users perceive themselves online. I would like to create a narrative which raises awareness about how this data concretes itself online.

Hitting blanks

2011-02-21T04:24:00.000-08:00

It has been particularly hard over the past past weeks to find motivation to do the Taschen brief for DNAD. Especially when you find out they have already completed the brief for you. I have tried to collate the positives from the experience so far, on the preview page people have reviewed what they think of the application. They have left some pointers on where to improve the application, which has helped with my research into the usability.

click here to see the Taschen app

TLK 2 - The creative process

2011-02-04T07:57:00.000-08:00

The second in the series of TLK lectures invited back David Burton of Redweb, Bella Lewis Smith of Salad, Ross Cleaver of Revolting and Paul Leon who is a Freelance designer.

Like the first lecture there was a layed back atmosphere to the discussion, which brought out some key points in the creative process, one of the main topics being the perception of freelance work, should artworkers be paid for work while they are at University to boost their portfolios or should payment be the experience gained from working with a client? There was a good spread of views from students on different courses, mainly illustrators doing work on magazine artwork.

I had the opportunity to speak with Ross Cleaver, who had spoken of working in Australia for a year. This was a worthwhile opportunity to find out some information as it was one of my options in the pipeline after I leave Uni. The main objectives I learn't were through inspiration. In order to be inspired I need to keep life fresh, do something different each day and be curious about everything, that way I can spark ideas more easily.

Ikea marketing

2011-02-03T09:31:00.000-08:00

Ikea made this marketing campaign through Facebook. I liked the viewer interaction it incorporates. The viral works by people tagging pieces of furniture they win it, sounds to good to be true, but a really good way of producing buzz.

Narrative process

2011-02-01T06:07:00.000-08:00

Over the past few days I have had the chance to think about how I would like to show the process of my EMP. One idea I have been fond of is the idea of creating a time lapse film.
Today is the day where I start experimenting with the method. I have chosen to take a picture every 10 seconds to show the progress of the shot material. This should give me some extra motivation to produce work, and an extra dimension when showing the process I took to creating the final piece. I have experimented with timelapse before, when showing the process for Tim Patricks full portrait.

I now need to progress my research through looking at different narratives in order to produce some visuals. The simplicity of "bottle" gives the viewer an easy yet abstract narrative to follow. I would like to produce a piece with this simplicity that could use another level of technical ability.

Magazine design process

2011-01-31T04:29:00.000-08:00

This was an influential piece of work in how to show a process, and now I am constantly thinking about my EMP I am trying to think of a new way in which I could show my process of reaching the final outcome without creating a sketchbook. One of my ideas is to create a timelapse piece which shows this process...

Thursday.

2011-01-26T07:53:00.000-08:00

This is a narrative piece of animation which looks at the effect of technology on nature. I am interested in this style of communication as it is a path I am looking to take for my EMP. This piece of work has given me a little inspiration into what I could create.

TLK1 -Networking

2011-01-14T03:54:00.000-08:00

This was the first lecture from TLK, this week was about networking and there were three guys from industry speaking about their past experiences. They were from local companies based in Bournemouth including: South west screen, Thinking juice and Redweb. The main subjects were looking at communication, creative clusters and social networking.

All three representatives were friends in industry which helped the interest of the talk. The main things I learned through this experience were when speaking to prospected people in industry it is important that I bring something to the table, even if its just a piece of research that could inspire someone, know what my audience is and stay at the forefront of their minds to improve regular communication.
From gaining work in my portfolio and working with industry professionals I would be improving my reputation as a person in industry.

PES underwater

2011-01-13T05:16:00.000-08:00

Intel - The Chase

2011-01-10T05:32:00.000-08:00

This is the most recent ad campaign by Intel called 'The Chase,' it is a film that simulates a multiwindow environment rather than the real thing and it therefore lacks the engagement. Many people in industry are tipping this style of multi window use to be a dominant trend in 2011.

Sour - Mirror

2011-01-10T04:52:00.000-08:00

This is the video for Mirror by Sour. What is good about this video is the relationship to The Wilderness Downtown using pop out windows. I am using this as part of my research for DNAD and my EMP. I am concentrating on producing a viral around this theme.

Ipad uses...

2011-01-07T07:06:00.000-08:00

This is a little inspiration for the DNAD brief: To re-design the 30th Anniversary Taschen Magazine into a digital Ipad format.

The suburbs

2010-12-28T18:53:00.000-08:00

While Iv been writing my dissertation I have came across this film directed by Spike Jonze, this film combined with the music shows the album 'the suburbs' by Arcade fire in much more depth...

Just a dande thought?

2010-12-09T19:20:00.000-08:00

These are the final animations for the brief "Not just fleurons." I created these animations as a sort of awareness campaign to bring out the good in weeds, in particular focusing on the dandelion. I am quite pleased with the final outcomes, although a lot of work into producing them and the researching behind them...

A Pot Noeldle Christmas

2010-12-03T13:13:00.000-08:00

I thought this was a brilliant commercial from pot noodle, in particular how each animation sequence is linked to the UK. Our society captured perfectly!

Troy Davis Amnesty campaign...

2010-12-02T17:08:00.001-08:00

Just dandy...

2010-12-01T16:44:00.000-08:00

Here is one of a series of animations I'm working on at the moment. I think it still needs a few tweaks with voice over placements, and speed of the animation. I want to add a bee flying through aswell...

Sharp - This is why

2010-11-30T06:45:00.000-08:00

Smart dumb campaign.

2010-11-30T05:45:00.000-08:00

dandelion testing

2010-11-24T07:37:00.000-08:00

Over the past few days I have been working on some ideas for the style of my animation. For my tutorial on Thursday I will be looking to bring the narrative and style of the project.

The DNAD time again

2010-11-16T09:58:00.000-08:00

We were met by guest lecturer Rhiannon James today to speak about what judges look for in an award winning piece of work and to show us some examples of winning work and the type of thing not to produce. I learned:

- The piece of work needs to have originality.
- You need to have a good idea, well executed and answering the brief.
- Twist the industry, disrespect the format in which you work to achieve an innovation.

Unfortunately I found the way in which the talk was presented was poor. When showing examples of work the animations were either skipped through at the wrong point, or the lecturer would try and talk over them, which never worked. It was because of this she lost a lot of attention of many students. With regards to other briefs I feel I could have been working on my ISTD which I am really under pressure to do at the moment, and overall see the talk as time wasted!

Google masterplan

2010-11-10T07:31:00.000-08:00

I found this interesting animation, i like the style of the animation, and it is inspiring my experiments for my final piece! Illustrating statistical information will make the animation more appealing to the viewer!

Trapcode Form test 1

2010-11-05T08:06:00.000-07:00

This is my first test into using trapcode, I made this just to see the possibilities of how it could fit into my final design. The tutorial used film that was manipulated by particles and I see this as an extreme use of technique in animation. From doing this piece it has taught me a lot about how I could use it...

House of cards experiment

2010-11-02T06:57:00.000-07:00

While on Aaron Koblins website I found this experiment he had done with Radiohead. With James Frost as Director they collaborated with Laser and sensor specialists to create the 3D data music video. It was launched as an open source project on Google code. The video can be viewed here.

charlesdownman.co.uk

2010-11-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

This is a side project I have been working on for my friend and fine artist Charles Downman. He wanted a portfolio website that was fit to show to future employers. We spoke through about what sort of stuff he wanted on there, and the style of the site. I like the outcome of the site, although I would have changed some design aspects.

some good info-graphic animations...

2010-10-29T02:56:00.000-07:00

I think these animations could come in useful when brainstorming ideas for our info graphic animation. Each one has a particular style, and they all follow statistical information.

Rubber Republic

2010-10-25T10:53:00.000-07:00

Rubber Republic is a blog which is updated regularly showing some of the most up to date viral videos. It has given me some ideas for case study's to work with on my dissertation, and I'm sure it will inspire and influence future projects I do.

This is Dare.

2010-10-24T16:18:00.000-07:00

Redweb lecture

2010-10-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

We had the head of design and head of innovation come in to talk to us about the work life at Redweb design studios. Redweb are a leading company in the web design industry behind some of the biggest web innovations today. Damian Proctor and David Burton are two of the guys behind the Meetdraw night as well.

They put on a very interesting presentation which highlighted how the different parts of their company functioned, in particular concentrating on the creative team. I was surprised at how many different people there were running a job from start to finish, to produce a number of different websites. Theses included the:

- User Experience
- Content designer
- Web editor
- Visual designer
- Accessibility designer
- Front end development
- Senior designer
- Video designer
- Head of design
- Innovation design

I was blown away by the number of people who were involved with the whole project. But gave me a great insight into where I want to be in the next few years maybe? Each bullet was explained as to what each of their jobs were, and it was really interesting to find out about. A few areas within this team stood out in particular to me, mainly the video designer, who was in charge of creating the motion graphics which is my main area of interest at the moment.

My next step from this talk has motivated me to go and email the company to see what they think of my work. I will ask if I could get in touch with their video designer to see if I can find out about more of the work he does.

D-list website.

2010-10-18T08:11:00.000-07:00

I found this d-list website when I was doing some research for design buddies. It has loads of clean web and graphic designs. I think this blog would be useful when doing research for creating websites. There are some interesting flash websites on here to, which is one of the areas I am considering for my SMP (specialist major project)

the significance of numbers critique

2010-10-16T22:45:00.000-07:00

This is the piece I handed in for my crit yesterday. I picked the quote because I think it defined the significance of numbers. I wanted to keep it as simple as possible because I didn't believe it needed much to make it work as a final piece. I used black and white cause it was to reflect that of a blackboard, the lines through the text were to represent an abacus, n the quotation marks were to represent the beads.

I got a negative response from the group because they said that having lines through the text was a negative connotation. They said if I maybe put the words on top of the line it wouldn't look so negative. The group also said if I wrote the quote on a genuine blackboard then it would be more authentic.

Meetdraw

2010-10-15T16:02:00.000-07:00

Last night I went out to a night called Meetdraw. This is an event for creatives based in and around Bournemouth and they invite a host of design agency's to socialise with. This was the first time I had been, and I have to say that I quite enjoyed myself, another plus point was that Duncan was there, so I could talk to him about 3 sided cube. He asked if I could send him my animation so he could show the people in his office, So I will get on that asap!

design buddies meeting 1?

2010-10-13T17:22:00.000-07:00

So today was officially the first day I was going to meet up with my buddy. His name is Duncan Cook and he is managing director of a company called 3 sided cube, who are a digitally creative agency based in the Enterprise Pavillion in Bournemouth. Unfortunately he was working on a project so couldn't turn up for the first meeting. It was disappointing because it would have been a really good opportunity to get to know what he was about, the food was good though, and it was interesting to see what the other buddy's were like.

Time lapse test

2010-10-08T03:58:00.000-07:00

Wilderness downtown

2010-09-29T07:22:00.000-07:00

This is an internet experience developed as an experiment by Chris Milk. I hadn't seen anything of its kind before, and it questioned my perception of the future of web advertising. It features a track by 'arcade fire,' and allows the viewer an intimate, exciting and innovative web experience looking into a past time. It is called The Wilderness Downtown

Trapcode

2010-09-24T15:31:00.000-07:00

I found a really good blog today, after effects has been a growing passion of mine throughout this year, and seeing the variety of things you can do with it still amazes me! A friend was showing me a piece of software called "Trapcode" which works as a plugin through After Effects.
It allows the user to create different types of visualisations through different shapes, and I always wondered whether there was a programme that souley creates visualisers. Well this programme users after effects to help create it. The blog I found shows loads of examples of "Trapcodes" capability's, anything from film titles to small self initiated projects.

web design placement?

2010-09-19T12:21:00.000-07:00

I have been in contact with a web design agency, whom have recently been interested in taking a few students on for a rolling placement over this year. I jumped at the chance to take any experience in the web design industry as it is one of the areas I am keen on going into. While I have done some research on what the jobs of a web design worker does, being able to see it first hand would help me a lot.

The un-named agency are quite a small company who specialise in web design and iphone applications. I know little to nothing about iphones or iphone apps for that matter so I am questioning whether I should research a bit into why I'm hearing more about them all the time. Will iphone apps still be a sustainable design industry in the next ten years or is it a bridge to a new technology?

I have included a recent iphone application that has caught my eye for Stephen Fry's autobiography, it is called 'myfry' and allows the viewer an innovative new way of reading books, but ill let the video describe how...

tippex experience

2010-09-14T03:04:00.000-07:00

I can across this advertising campaign on youtube and thought it was a really clever way of

engaging the audience: http://bit.ly/cJmnlY

For all the answers to what you can write in the space check out this website: adflavour

drummingjim.co.uk

2010-07-18T17:39:00.000-07:00

This is the second website of the holidays. I think this one was different from the first as I was given free reign on what the design would look like. The client was just about to graduate from the ACM in Guildford, and he wanted a site which would be easy to navigate and appeal to a wide range of potential students. Unlike most drum tuition websites on the web he wanted his to be light.

What I have tried to create is a simple way to navigate, easy to read website which creates effortless control for the viewer.

The colours I used were to reflect a light feel the white background contrasting to the dark text and, when rolled over light blue enables the viewer to feel they are in an environment they can control with ease.

I wanted to give this website a twist whereby music meets design, the font I used is welcoming to the eye and urges the viewer to click the buttons. The one main problem I had in this process was the use of safe and non-safe web fonts. I feel that as I get to grips with different web briefs I am learning as I go along. To visit the website and have a look click this link: drummingjim.co.uk

bhavnaodedra.co.uk

2010-07-01T06:45:00.000-07:00

While it is the break from Uni I have decided I would like to keep on top of my freelance work. To start this I have created a portfolio website for Bhav. She is a textiles graduate from AUCB, and she had some basic designs for a website. My job was to code what she had designed so it was web ready. Below is a photo example of what the website looks like:

You can also visit the website through this link - Bhavna Odedra website

I think this was a pretty straightforward job, and allowed me the chance to get to grips with dreamweaver a little more. One of the more challenging parts of the task was using lightbox 2.0.

I'm here - Spike Jonze

2010-06-27T17:41:00.000-07:00

I was recently shown this film and I really liked the clean and complex style of the animation. The short film was created by Spike Jonze on behalf of 'absolut vodka.' I have been involved with a few web briefs recently, and it was really interesting to see how this website used film clips to promote its film. I say this because I may be involved in creating a website like this where short animated film sequences are strung together.

What makes this piece of advertising stand out is the idea behind giving the viewer the option to watch the movie with other friends on facebook. I guess this is a continuation into how viral marketing is expanding, and 'absolut' have created something new for a viewer to be able to interact with. The film itself is well worth a watch!

Link to full movie - I'm here - Spike Jonze

22 many Djs logo design

2010-05-06T01:30:00.000-07:00

Green Energy Awareness campaign

2010-05-05T08:40:00.000-07:00

professional project

2010-04-28T03:09:00.001-07:00

It has been a while since I have updated my blog, generally because I have been in the zone working on my animation for the hand in to the professional project.

Once I get it finished I will be able to show some screenshots. In the mean time I have a link which may help towards my essay research for next year...

Advertising lab

A little more politics

2010-04-17T16:32:00.000-07:00

Seeing as I wrote about the Labour Manifesto I thought it would only be fair to show the Lib Dem plans too.

I was really surprised when I saw that the Lib Dems had taken one step further on technology to produce a iphone application of their manifesto.

I really like the initiative they have taken to paving some sort of future, unfortunately it's only been half hearted as it's proved that they haven't blown their budget on the design. You can see the full story here and make your mind up for yourself on what you think of it.

The Bunker poster

2010-04-15T05:26:00.000-07:00

This is a poster i recently did for a 3rd year fine art student, the poster was to promote a gig night at champions in Bournemouth which would help to fund-raise their final show.

Not to scale

2010-04-15T03:30:00.000-07:00

This is an animation by company 'not to scale' called '3650.' It ties in with my professional project because it is about climate change and new energy. I really like the style of animation it uses a combination of CG and live film. I know I won't create anything as complex as this but it is a really inspiring piece of design work.

Another piece of work 'not to scale' did was with laterooms.com which can be seen on the motionographer website.

I don't want to get political but....

2010-04-14T07:04:00.000-07:00

For one of the first times we are starting to see politics advertised in new ways, through the new manifesto launches some parties have

opted for animations to help with their promotion.

Here you can see the labour and green party's ideas. Both use a very different style of animation, and both get their messages across

clearly, using some interesting character design.

Pixles by Patrick Green

2010-04-13T09:29:00.000-07:00

This video has been all over design blogs recently. I think it's because it's just a really well thought out piece of work, an awesome piece of animation.

This could be uselful to the sort of work I'm doing at the moment as it is quite an influential piece of work.

headgear animation

2010-04-12T05:11:00.000-07:00

I have been looking through some of the work from headgear animation studio's and I found this piece of work done for the YMCA.

It uses a cut out style much like one I was considering for my professional project. From seeing some of their other work, they work with a lot of stop motion and claymation, and I thought it was quite an inspiring style of work...

Doritos advert

2010-03-30T02:12:00.000-07:00

This is the final advert for the doritoes competition...

thoughtbubble.org animations

2010-03-25T03:27:00.000-07:00

I saw these animations from a website called thoughtbubble.org, the main idea behind 'thought bubble' is to create short viral motion graphics to spread information across the planet. I found an article on there website which I think I will use for my professional project, speaking of awareness and if visual communicators are to blame.

thoughtbubble.org

Logorama

2010-03-22T09:23:00.000-07:00

I found this prretty cool film all revolving around logos. I had seen screenshots before, but I had never seen the film. I thought the style of the animation was interesting, it gives me another idea towards the style I'd like my professional project to be:

Lastminute.com final boards

2010-03-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

dnad submission

2010-03-17T03:29:00.000-07:00

Today we handed in our project for 'lastminute.com,' I felt that there was a lot of extra stress on top of all the other projects we have at the moment, that is always the case on deadline day though. I think our final piece boards looked real professional, and I was proud of the work I had created.

portfolio website.

2010-03-11T13:07:00.000-08:00

I found a link to a website called 5oup. They are a community of designers, which gives people a chance to upload their work...

Tilt shift photography

2010-03-11T05:35:00.000-08:00

I found this video on the creative review blog. I have seen stuff like this before, but never recorded it. I think it was the one of the hp adverts which used this kind of style, it was something that really interested me as I used to do photography.

This particular piece of work was shot in New York, it took 35,000 stills to make and was shot in just over 5 days. Away from my project work I found this quite inspirational, and saw it as another good piece of tilt-shift photography.

A replacement for barcodes?

2010-03-11T02:56:00.000-08:00

Recently I was reading up on the new barcodes. They are called bokodes and they work in the way as the barcodes. The difference is that they don't have stripes, it looks more like a pixelated picture, much like the one to the left.

They are revolutionary in that they have more patterns than the barcode, and can therefore be used on a greater range of products. The guy in the BBC video says that they could be used on the front of shops so when the Google maps van goes past it will automatically understand where it is, and link it to the website.

mitv plan 2

2010-03-10T07:37:00.000-08:00

Today I was sent an email containing the plan for the second track drawing. So I have been doing some work on this trying to get it out of the way asap so I can move forward with my professional project.

I have already sent the first draft to the client for checks, and I got a response this afternoon with a couple of changes to work with, so I think this project is moving on nicely...

Strida commercial concept.

2010-03-10T06:09:00.000-08:00

This video was created by a student called Seokmin Yun. I have put this on my blog because it shows use of After Effects in animation. He also uses a program called '3ds max,' I'm guessing he is an animation student, and although ill never create anything this technical for this project, it is interesting to see the programs he used to create it.

I will keep researching different animation styles and see if I can find more after effects based work. From that I will be able to start sketching up some concepts.

Second Wind

2010-03-10T05:51:00.000-08:00

I found this animation through looking at the Motionographer blog. It has a lot of relevance to my professional project because half of it was created in After Effects. The creator, Ian Worrel created the characters using pencil and paper. Then they were coloured using Photoshop. I like the use of hand rendering in the animation which gives it a unique style.

packaging design

2010-03-08T14:39:00.000-08:00

Although I'm not doing any packaging design at the moment, I was researching into names for my campaign identity and I found this pretty cool website: The Dieline

advanced database searching

2010-03-08T07:55:00.000-08:00

I just had Charlotte for this advanced database search thing. The idea of the session was to help us with research for our essays. She gave us a booklet which described different databases, and how to go about searching for articles, books and DVD's. One of which I had already been recommended.

The session enabled me to think deeper about my research and where to find key materials that I could use for my essay! Now, I shall go away and think about what sorts of things I want to look on top of the 'American Express' advert.

Mr Muffin.

2010-03-05T06:44:00.000-08:00

I found this ad when researching the energy saving trust. It is by Tom & Mark who can be found on the nexus productions website. I thought it was a really inspirational piece of work.

natural gas ad

2010-03-05T05:19:00.000-08:00

update.

2010-03-04T09:24:00.000-08:00

I am well into the research for my professional project now. I have been looking at many different ecological issues. But one of the more interesting is the work I have looked at for 'bloom energy.'
They are an innovative researching into new energy, and ways to power the earth, without the use of fossil fuels to create something which is 100% renewable.
I went into the critique today really excited about my plan for the professional project. I think it was quite an eye opener to the amount of questions I had to answer. If I'm aiming it to the public then I need to make my information as clear as possible.

I'm going to work towards one thing at a time, and another point that came out of the crit. was my ambitions of creating a website and animation being to much. I don't want to rule it out just yet because it is in the brief.

My plan for the next few weeks will be to reaching a decision on who my market is, research into the style of animation I would like to follow and get an idea of how the campaign will start to take shape. I was reminded we have 3 weeks till Easter, which isn't long. So it's important I got on it.

bbc olympics ad

2010-02-26T07:10:00.000-08:00

I really like the animation created by Marc Craste, I think this is because of the style of the animation. One of his more famous pieces of works was "Jojo in the stars" This won the 2004 bafta for best animated short film. The bbc ad could be useful towards the research I am doing towards my Professional project at the moment.

Bloom Box.

2010-02-25T05:12:00.000-08:00

I have been doing some research for my professional project, and I found this on the national geographic. I found it a fascinating innovation and I was wondering how I could tie this in with the project I'm doing...

advertising research

2010-02-23T08:29:00.000-08:00

'Anyone who hears butterflies laughing knows how clouds smell.'

Novalis

The name of that ad was...

2010-02-20T07:37:00.000-08:00

This is the advert I was trying to talk about in Dr. Anna's session last Monday. I would like to write something on this sort of ad campaign?!

Learning agreement hand in

2010-02-19T11:05:00.000-08:00

I would say today was quite an intense day to end a pretty intense week. I finished writing out my learning agreement which wasn't to hard to be honest, there was just a lot of copying and pasting which took time.

So my idea for the Professional project is to brand/do an identity for a campaign, and make an factual animation promoting this. I decided I wanted to keep this brief as open as I could so it would give me free reign on the type of thing I would like to do. So I resolved this by putting an ecological issue.

After finishing this and handing in, I was anticipating the weeks ahead. One of the objectives which will be key in my handing in, will be my time management. I created an intense, week by week plan, so hopefully I will be able to do a good job of it

Looking forward to the next week I will have to show my organisational skills which will help towards my hand ins:

Monday I have the PPRD hand in
On the same day I have to have my essay question ready, with possible images.
The beginning of my time plan, for professional project starts Monday to.
I will also need to fit in some space to work on the lastminute.com brief for DNAD.

If I can keep on top of these then I should be fine.

A little inspiration

2010-02-18T10:56:00.000-08:00

Aquent talk

2010-02-18T10:24:00.000-08:00

Emma Barrett from Aquent came down from London to speak to us today. I was quite excited about this talk because I knew they were one of the largest creative recruitment agency. She said on average they are employing 3500 people per week, which I think is quite a few.

Emma explained that agency's have changed and it is rare to get an agency that does a bit of everything, so most agencies specialise in a certain area. She spoke highly of agencies such as Fitch and Landor who specialise in branding, which influenced me to find out a lot more about these people.

Through some research I found out they had worked for some of the biggest brands in industry and they were just a couple of the top agency's in design today.

She also spoke about Kino the people who designed one of the concepts for the London 2012 logo, they also have a contract to work with apple.

Here are a few points I learned from the talk:

If I'm looking for magazine work, know my publishers and look for the art director so I can contact them.
When showing my work to potential employers, have a good use of type, a strong layout and relevant work.
Keep doing self initiated projects and enter competitions such as DNAD because it is essential for a good portfolio.
Most importantly use your contacts, cause they can get you places.

I showed my portfolio to Emma after the talk, the feedback I got was helpful and she gave me some names of employers to send my portfolio to, which was promising. I said that I saw my future being somewhere in digital. She gave me the names of 'BskyB' and 'proximity' who were a digital agency. After today I left feeling inspired to go out and do something with the advice I had been given.

Anna Steinberg talk...again?

2010-02-17T10:24:00.000-08:00

Today a freelance illustrator called Anna Steinberg came in today to talk to us about working in freelance design. Even though I am a graphic designer, it was interesting to hear how being a freelancer could effect how we work.

So a bit of background to Anna is that she graduated from a general graphics course in 1994. After graduating she went to work with the AOI aka association of illustrators.

As an illustrator she spoke about ways of promoting herself. While promoting herself in commonly known ways she said a way to go out and get work was through trying to find the art director of a company, for example in a magazine, she said it was important to speak on 1st name terms which would give the conversation a warmer atmosphere. I particularly enjoyed the step by step guide of how she did the guardian brief 'pushed into work.'

Anna gave me the inspiration to get organised before going into the real world. The way in which she did this was to encourage us to create a log which dated each live project we had done to help us find dates easily, see what company I was working for at the time, when money was sent and received.

I don't want to speak negatively of this talk because she was interesting to listen to, and had a lot of useful things to say, but she came in last year (when I was in first year) and did pretty much the same lecture, so it was a bit de ja vu so I decided to take this as a positive and see it as a refreshment session as I don't think I recorded it well last year.

A way this could have been improved was by letting the first years get involved with this talk too.

All Anna's work can be found at: www.annasteinberg.co.uk

Essay start...

2010-02-15T11:52:00.000-08:00

Today was our first tutorial about our essay for second year. An unfortunately I was completely unprepared. Dr. Anna wanted to hear about what subject we had picked to do for our essay, and I hadn't even started to think about it. So I tried my best to think up something on the spot, which back fired...

For next weeks session I will hope to have a solid idea of what I want to do...

flash animation?

2010-02-12T08:32:00.000-08:00

I found this flash animation on Miles Donavons blog, I really liked the style of the animation (and not cause it had something about Pepsi in it.) Over the next few weeks I'm going to start writing my essay for this years unit. I think it will be quite interesting to write about something about this style of animation...

Learning agreement presentation

2010-02-11T04:28:00.000-08:00

Today I did my presentation for the learning agreement. I hadn't really had many ideas before, but I came up with the idea to create a brand and the promotional material for an animation. Unfortunately my idea was shot down, and I could understand the reasons why it wasn't going to work.

I generally hate presentations so having to do one and then sit through everyone else's till 5 o'clock took way to long. Because we had just got the project, I think a better way of doing this would have been to have small tutorials, this is because it would have helped ideas a bit more.

The feedback I got from the critique was ok, but I feel I could have got a little more direction. The next step for me now is to push the ideas I was given from feedback, and see if I have any interests within them.

DNAD blog

2010-02-10T04:59:00.000-08:00

I have been reading through some of the more recent posts and have found a lot of interesting and relevant posts to my study's at the moment:

DNAD blog

Are logo's dying?

2010-02-10T04:13:00.000-08:00

'Brand worlds explain themselves globally. They intrigue, excite and offer flexibility. They are a campaign, useful and engaging. They are everything a logo is not. Which is why the logo is dead.'-Simon Manchipp

I was reading the metro yesterday and came across this article about the branding of the euro 2012 championships. Simon Manchipp is a founder of the London-based design company 'SomeOne.' He used the euro 2012 logo as an example of how logo design was changing. He was amazed by the selection of backgrounds, textures, illustrations and ideas that support this logo.

The main inspiration for this logo was the authentic early 19th art form of wycinanki which was paper cutting both popular in Poland and Ukraine.

My question is...is there a way I can incorporate this into my professional project? I was looking at creating an identity, I know that I wanted to do something that could reflect an industry standard piece of work. Over this year I have found myself enjoying more screen based work. So maybe creating an identity concentrating on how I could make a logo that inspires creatives?

dnad tutorial

2010-02-08T07:40:00.000-08:00

I had to come in to sign my work for our fundraiser that is happening on Wednesday at 60mill. Unfortunately my work wasn't of a high enough standard to be shown in the exhibition as they wanted six identical prints (which i didn't have).

I was really disappointed about this because I had put a lot of effort, and spare time into it. I really wanted to put something towards the end of year show as part of my contribution.

I forgot that I had double booked my tutorial for DNAD with work. So I spoke to Neil and asked to re-schedule for another day.

I think this has set me back on my progression with lastminute.com and my professional project. So hopefully during the next week I will be able to find some space to do it.

Dnad-last minute

2010-02-05T07:14:00.000-08:00

I went to Jacks today to discuss the brief we had decided to do for dnad. The night before we came up with ideas of our own so we could talk about which ideas we could develop. Most of the day was spent looking at lastminute.com and researching ambient media. Most of the good ones we found on youtube.

From our meeting I felt I gained a better understanding of the brief and a better direction for the work to take shape. I think the hardest bit was because lastminute.com covers such a big area of leisure time. It was difficult to home in on a particular part.

We decided it would be a good idea to set up a meeting with our tutor on Monday to discuss our ideas, to see if we were on track with this project.

Screen print idea

2010-01-30T09:06:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-29T06:23:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-28T04:52:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-27T02:16:00.000-08:00

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.