Updated Online Portfolio

I've recently updated my online portfolio to include a few more details about my projects. Enjoy!

Dan Ryland - Graphic & Web Designer
http://www.danielryland.co.uk

New Web Design Project

Just got a new web design project today! I'm going to be designing a website for a theatre company called Catalyst. I've been given some rough sketches and I'm going to set three weeks for completion. I'll be blogging the progress of the website as I go along.

Assignment 004

Visit the FIGURING LIGHT, Colour and The Intangible Exhibition at Djanogly Art Gallery, Lakeside. Choose a piece of work and write 200 words about the artist use of colour and light.

When you look at this painting for the first time, you instantly focus on the stronger colours in the centre. This is because the artist uses bold colours and dark shadows which absorb more light that the outer colours. Rebecca Partridge has used many different colours in this painting. Each shape is made up of shades of a colour and the combination of contrasting and complementary colours give the painting depth and create a strong focal point. The first place your eyes focus on is the white shape in the middle of the painting.

When looking deeper into the concept/idea behind this painting, Rebecca Partridge has used a combination colour and light to create intensity and to make you concentrate on the centre of the painting. This intensity towards the centre of the painting, could relate to an explosion or a sound blast of some sort. The fact that the outer colours are brighter show that the further away from the centre you are the less intensive it is.

Take two photographs based on a theme of your choice. Using Photoshop change and replace the colours to express complementary pairs of colours. Explain your choice of colours.

What are complementary pairs of colours? Lets ask the wonderful Wikipedia...

'Complementary colours are pairs of colours that are of 'opposite' hue in some colour model. The exact hue 'complementary' to a given hue depends on the model in question, and perceptually uniform, additive, and subtractive colour models, for example, have differing complements for any given color.

• red complements (blue + yellow) = green
• blue complements (red + yellow) = orange
• yellow complements (red + blue) = purple'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementary_color

Above is the original photograph and below are the two photographs with their colour replaced.

New Website Up & Running!

Tom Wright - Photographer & Artist

http://www.tomjwright.co.uk

I've been busy over the past week doing this website for my housemate, Tom. He's a photography student at Trent and has a fantastic collection of photos. If you would like to get prints of any photograph just email him (his email address is on the left hand side of each page). After a few hours messing around with designs we finally came up with something Tom and I really liked. Hope you like the Tom's online portfolio. Enjoy!

SIFE Design Team

'There is a position for a design student who has a good knowledge of multimedia and presentations. This person will work with us to develop our existing website (www.sifentu.co.uk) and produce a presentation that will be shown to a group of judges at the national competition in London in April.'

Looks interesting doesn't it! Well, this is what I've recently got involved with. I have joined a small team of 3 students, all from different areas - Multimedia, Graphic Design and Architecture, and I'm really looking forward to be working with SIFE because I will no doubt gain some good experience from it.

The Meeting - One Shot Short

Pixilated after compression

One Shot Short - Filming Complete!

Today, throught the rain and wind, we managed to film our one shot short 'The Meeting.' Here is the post production version of our one shot short.

One Shot Short - Ideas... ...again

The camera has to stay still but we could try putting it in a car. Idea -

• Position a camera on a tripod in a car
• Have the camera filming out the passenger window
• Running man being filmed on the side of the road
  
• Man running to a meeting/from a meeting

One Shot Short Film Ideas

I just been searching for 'CCTV Camera Footage' on YouTube and found this. The title 'Face Meets Floor' is perfect for this clip...



Its a funny short clip that's all done from one angle. Maybe we could use something like this in our one shot short. Since the camera has to stay in one place, we could make the camera as a CCTV camera capturing some sort of meeting. When it comes to editing you could make the picture dark and grainy with a dark shadow round the edges to replicate it being a CCTV camera.

One Shot Short - The Meeting - Ideas

The Meeting
Here are some quick ideas that have come from the title 'The Meeting.' These arn't the best of ideas but all have some connection with the title 'The Meeting.'

• A man meeting his death
  
• Two people meeting - being spied on?
  
• Colours meeting
• Two objects - TV and its remote
• Clothing - Socks/Coat meeting man
  

Other ideas/comments for the one shot short that could be looked at -

• Using lighting effects for changes in time (day/night)
• Using objects (walls/trees) as scene breaks

Assignment 003 - The Rule of Thirds

Describe the Rule Of Thirds and make a short, 5 second film that demonstrates this rule visually. Post your Rule Of Thirds description and your video to your online journal.



The Rule of Thirds states that an image can be divided into nine equal parts. This is done by dividing the image with two horizontal lines and two vertical lines. (See 5 second film above) The horizontal and vertical lines can be used to align objects in an image. An example of this is when photographing or filming people. It is common to line up the body with a vertical line, and having the person's eyes in line with a horizontal line. Another example of the Rule of Thirds is when photographing or filming landscapes. It is common to line up the horizon with a horizontal line and objects with vertical lines.

Assignment 002

Think about what goes on in your head when you buy something new, take a photo of your favourite designed object and answer the following questions:

• Why is it that we want our belongings to do more for us than to function well?

• Why are we willing, as soon as we can afford it, to pay extra for things with appealing forms?

When buying something new, the first thing that comes to mind is how good it looks. But the question is – ‘How do designers make objects look good?’ Let’s take Apple’s iPod as an example. Why is it so successful and why do we like them? Personally, I think the reason we like iPods is because their shiny! The objects we find pleasing are the objects that reflect light well. It doesn’t matter what shape or material it is, as long as it reflects light, we love it! A good example of this theory in action is diamonds. Diamonds are rocks that reflect the light well. If diamonds didn’t reflect light well it wouldn’t be as appealing therefore you wouldn’t buy it. However, there are other reasons that we want our belongings to do more than just function well.

If you’re buying anything from the latest mp3 player to a new pair of shoes, we can look at how it could improve our appearance, our social status or how it could make us more appealing to others. These are all factors that play a part in buying something new. A good example of this would be label or logo recognition. With many young people today, labels play a big part in their social status and the way the make themselves more appealing to others. Occasionally when buying a new object we are ashamed to own something which could be considered ugly or unattractive by the people we respect the most. Objects that have labels or logos on them can be expensive and there could be a cheaper alternative but, with the fact that ‘fitting in’ plays a part in our decision making many people would buy the more expensive object.

We are willing to pay extra for things with appealing forms because of two reasons. The first reason is lasting appeal. We all like to buy new object and know that in a few months, if not years time be able to say that the object still appeals to you. The second reason for paying extra for thing is lasting value. Why should people buy a cheap old iPod that only has 1GB of memory when you could buy newer iPod with 16GB of memory? People should be buying the ‘best of the best’ when it comes to certain objects because then it will last longer and you will be able to get more use out of it.

Big Brown - The Final Cut

Here is the long awaited Big Brown Pixilation Animation. Enjoy!

Big Brown Pixilation Animation...Take 2

Here is take 2 of the Big Brown pixilation project. All that needs doing now is soundtrack, opeing teitle and credits the I will have finished my pixilation project! I will hopefully be doing more versions of the Big Brown animation with different styles.

NO AUDIO

The final steps to complete the animation will hopefully be done tomorrow due to the fact that I haven't got Premiere Pro C3S on my laptop.

Pixilation Project - Adapting Images 02

After playing around with Adobe Photoshop CS3 for a few hours, I decided to play around with the lighting effects.

I've always enjoyed watching Top Gear every week and I like it for two reasons - The cars but also the new camera techniques and effects they use in filming. Here's a picture of someone trying to achieve Top Gear effect -

I have also gone for a similar effect like the one above. However, I changed it a little - I've gone for a stronger black circle around the images. By using this effect, I've tried to highlighting and intensify the action in the animation. I have also used a colour tints to create a certain mood and atmosphere. The image below has a blue tint which creates a cold/dark atmosphere. I've tried to use this to describe the relationship between the man and the machine.