Element Update

Website - Restyled my current website to link with City&Wool's image and colour scheme.

City&Wool | The Design Portfolio of Dan Ryland



http://www.danielryland.co.uk

Essay Research

Essay Term 2 - Creative Practitioner

• In this essay you should state your pathway choice and explain the personal challenges and opportunities afforded to you by choosing to enter that specific multimedia practice identified,
• Do that through discussion of your work produced this academic year,
• You also need to identify three diverse practitioners,
• Discuss why you have chosen these practitioners. Pay particular reference to particular concepts or ideas that form a conceptual focus, social conscience, visual dramatic work. Perhaps their work is thought-provoking, and innovative in its scope, delivery or execution,
• Finally through examining the work of these practitioners, reflect on your own work.

My pathway will be Online Environments.

Below are a list of website that I've found and gone through while trying to research for my essay. Some links are to sites that include examples of web practitioners -

• http://www.markevanstech.com/2008/01/28/how-important-is-web-design/
• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/14/web-design-trends-for-2009/
• http://dc2009.drupalcon.org/
• http://carrotcreative.com/
• http://24ways.org/2008/recession-tips-for-web-designers
• http://www.webdesignerwall.com/
  
• http://www.spoongraphics.co.uk/

• http://viewcreative.co.uk/
• http://www.llandudnoattractions.com/
• http://mychoicewrexham.co.uk/
• http://www.theatr-nanog.co.uk/

Summary of the links above -

• View Creative Agency link is a graphic and web design company that I like. Three links to sites they've made have a certain style that I like and use,
• SpoonGraphics is another practitioner that I like and he has a good blog (Check it out - http://www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/)
• Web Trends - Proof that web design trends are always changing due to the developing of coding and what you make of the tools you already have,
• Interesting article within first web link about how important web design is and does it matter at all? - 'The other question is whether Web design matters at all. At the end of the day, a Web site is going to be successful if it offers a product/service that people want. Aidan Henry had a good post recently looking at Craigslist, which features one of the worst designs in the world - yet people love the service.'
• 24ways website - how the current economy situation can effect career choices we make.

That's it for now. More coming soon. To finish a humours image...

Identities Update

Here are my final ideas for my identities project -

Showcase - General idea completed, just need to add the elements in.

Logo - Completed.

Avatar - Still not fully sure on final idea, but I want to complete this in the next few weeks. Probably go for the super hero idea. The concept behind this would be a good leader and knows what is right from wrong.

AV - Unsure of what to do. One idea I had was to video people saying words that describe me and my personality. These words would not be my own. I would then make it into a film review/audience reactions trailer of myself. To do this I will film people saying certain words or sentences that describe me.

The idea was a development from an entry requirement project that I had to do for Graphic Design down in UWIC, Cardiff. You had to create 3 image for 3 titles of your choice. I choose 'Your Ideal Self,' 'Yourself as a letter,' and 'Your Nightmare Self.' Here are my 3 entries -

Website - Going to use my current website but need to restyles to link with City&Wool's image and colour scheme. This would highlight my professionalism and quality as a creative practionier.

Last Element - I want to play on the idea that people around you make you who you are. I was thinking of combining stop motion with some sort of morphing program. Passport or Driver's Licence would come out of my wallet then as you would look at the photo it would morph from my face to my friends and families faces and then back to my face. Not sure what kind of music/audio I would include yet.

3D Studio Max - Biped and Walking

Above is a render of my walking creation.

A Shape That Represents Me

I have chosen a Pyramid because of the followings reasons -

• Solid Foundation in friends and family (Thats who makes me who I am)
• From a Multimedia Practioner's point of few - I have lots of ideas but will develop untill I'm happy with the final idea in a perfectionist kind of way (the top of the pyramid)
• Red because it is a striking colour and a colour that won't just blend into the background. I like my work to stand out and look good and not just fade away into the background.

SIFE Presentation Work

Here is just a quick update on what I'm up to outside of University work -

SIFE Design Team So I've been in the NTU SIFE design team for quiet a while now and we have finally been working on the first draft of the presentation they need. But before I show lots of attractive screenshots, here is a quick explanation of what SIFE actually is -

'SIFE is dedicated to nurturing the entrepreneurial skills of university students in a way that is both effective for them in developing their future careers and meaningful to the community.

We, as students, guided by university and business advisers, set our self up three years ago, to contribute towards the growing success of the SIFE culture. Our team develops projects which create economic opportunity for others. These projects are based on helping to increase knowledge of entrepreneurship, market economics, personal success skills, financial literacy and business ethics. Each year, we present our projects at competitions which are held in every SIFE country; the winners go on to a global competition: the SIFE World Cup.'

Taken from http://www.sifentu.co.uk/

So here are a few screenshots of my work on the presentation.

Research

Looking at my creativity, and what and who I’ve been using it for, I find that all my projects fit into two groups/under two titles. The first group/title is personal use and gain and the second is one is client based. I have been designing and creating websites, graphics and illustrations since GCSE level and since being on the Multimedia course I have produced taster trailers for a future film project.

I’ve designed my own online portfolio, created a logo for myself and recently been developing my Adobe Premiere Pro skills by creating trailers for a film idea called Doll Death Demise. This film project, which is currently in the early stages of storyboarding, will be a creative collaboration between my brother and I that will hopefully be hitting the big wide world next year.

When looking at the specific projects listen above, I find that my creativity has been use to think up and designed these projects for my personal use which has been a good platform for experimental work and the testing of new skills.

The second group, client based, is where I believe most of my creativity has been going, not that I’m running out our losing it, but where I feel I am more focused towards. I have designed logos for local businesses and companies, which includes the design of a logo for the WHAC Scheme run by the Welsh Hockey Union, websites for various clients, like Katalyst Theatre Productions and Tom Wright Photography and the design of a poster for the Nottingham Trent University EdCam (Education Campaign).

I find when looking at personal projects I don’t restrict my creativity due to the fact that I am the client and I allow myself to express myself in a creative way however, when looking at client based projects, my creativity could seem to be restricted slightly due to the fact that they might have different opinions and tastes to myself but when looked at in a different light, my creativity is never restricted, it’s just manipulated and adapted in a different ways to fulfil the client’s needs.

For the future, I seen my creativity blossoming into something unique and original. This will be used in the form of web design but also in graphic design and film design. I have always enjoyed creating things that look good but I also like making things that work well underneath its exterior. This is where I find myself falling towards the wide world of web design and its pathway, but don’t worry - no one pushed me.

When using the powerful tool of Research, I find that I can develop and build on skills I already know but also find new things by learning new technologies and skills through various tutorials. The web is a brilliant place to find a huge collection of inspirational blogs and website which include designs, images and ideas that could be nurtured into creative original ideas.

When looking at the four starting points of research, behind the text, in or through, in front of and finally for, I find myself drawn to ‘in or through.’ With regards to web design I find it interesting to look at the html/xhtml coding of websites to see how each image or paragraph comes together to make that website. By looking at the coding or source of a website, you can see its bare back bones. However, I find myself feeling wary of the ‘in front of’ starting point due to the fact that there can be so many opinions. When it comes to designing a website, you might like using large images as backgrounds but others with slower internet connection hate the fact you are using a large image because I takes so long to load in their browsers. When looking at which one of the four starting points seem irrelevant, I think that they all should have an equal importance in research however, I personally don’t tend to look at ‘for.’

Avatar Development

Here are a few sketches/traces of an idea for my avatar. My avatar will be called The Disco Ninja since this is a tag I've had for many things.

Interactive Showcase - Changes

Here is the latest copy of my interactive showcase. This copy also includes audio however I am tempted to add music. I want to make it as if you are listening to music using headphones and not paying any attention to the teacher/speaker. The only one problem with this is copyright but fear not, I have recorded my band playing original material so I will use that. All links to the buttons work and I have included a test video to see how if it works. Other links are just to blank pages because I have created the finished product for all the five elements yet.

Feel free to comment on my work - It would be useful to know what others think and ways on how I can improve it!

Lets get that constructive criticism flowing!


Interactive Showcase - Take 2 by ~TheBigDiscoNinja on deviantART

Interactive Showcase - Changes

So after showing my mood board in the seminar on Friday I've decided to use my mood board as my interactive showcase/box. This is because the mood board in more visually pleasing and has more elements that could be developed.

Here is how my showcase is going to look -

I have imported it into Flash and begun work on making it more interactive. To do this I'm using invisible buttons so when the user moves their cursor over certain images they become clearer. The user would then click on the objects to see more/go to another frame.

Here is what I've done so far -

Interactive Showcase by ~TheBigDiscoNinja on deviantART

Does take a long time to load

In other news, in the seminar on Friday I was able to play around with a Wacom Bamboo A6 Graphics Tablet and enjoyed it so much I have decided to purchase one. The reasons for this are because I can product illustrations of a high quality, trace images and photos accurately, develop my 3D avatar and hopefully, using a this graphics tablet in my work will improve my ability to draw.

Below is a trace, using the Wacom Bamboo Tablet, of Superman -