Friday, 21 May 2010

Exhibition Setup

Today was the setup of the exhibition.

Everyone was meant to turn up and give a helping hand to get us ready for opening day but unfortunately did not. This obviously had a knock on effect of making more work for less people.

Nevertheless we powered on and achieved what we wanted!

I took photos with Dan of the process of setting up, and here they are:

IMAGES

The main tasks I was involved in included getting paper stuck up on walls (paper ripping, sellotape ripping...how fun) and then once this was done to sketch all over it. This created what is known as the Idea Board. I am very happy with how this came out and I think it definitly adds to the surroundings.

Other tasks included sign making, painting a sign, vacuuming/general tidying and fetching Dan his lunch.

So all in all is has been a pretty tiresome day and I hope it is all worth it in the end!

Lots of work put together

Well it has finally come to putting all my work together for the hand in. Surprisingly there was more than i thought...

Here are some images of the work I did etc through the process of this project

IMAGES

Thursday, 4 March 2010

My Exhibition Website Design Concept

As part of my Website Team for the exhibition I have created a design for the site layout.

Each one of us in the group have done this and we will decide upon a design and/or take aspects of each which we like to make one mega site.

I tried to fit the design of the website in tune with that of the actual exhibition (design studio).



















I tried to make it look like the designers workspace/desk. i implemented the use of pieces of paper as 'notes' to like what the designer needs to do; these would be used as the navigation links.

In the top corner i thought it would be interesting if the logo was situated on top of a pile of post it notes, I have just used a quick piece of clipart to demonstrate where the logo would sit.

My main concern was thinking how would a banner/advert fit in at the top of the page. Thats when genius hit! I thought 'everyone has a mobile, and keep it near them usually at all times. Why would this designer be any different'.

This led to me laying a mobile phone length-ways at the top, allowing the screen to be utilised to display any banner, whether still or moving, without it looking like it doesnt flow with the rest of the design.

Now all that is left is to see whether the rest of my group like it!

CV

Moving on from the business card, came the CV.

I thought it best to tie this in with my business card design. I even thought maybe it could include a paperclipped business card to it - or just for the visual style (as it is in this image) a layered effect to make it look like a business card is actually sitting on top.

Or possibly even (and what im leaning towards) is a business card paperclipped at the top, but when removed the printed version is still beneath it - just in case they lose the business card, but still have the cv for instance.




























I kept the design simple, not displaying too much information. Obviously my CV would probably run on to 2 pages as references need to be displayed etc. The 2nd page could use the same format following the border like design. Possible additions could be a disc with some work on it, or even any written references I have.

Business Card

Well we need a business card....so that means one needs designing!

This was quite a good thing to do in my opinion and came at the right time as I had just recently pulled down my old website that I had not updated in an age.

This meant a complete overhaul of design and new themes!

I already had an idea as to what colours (red and white) I would use for my site, so I applied these to my business card.

Here is what I decided upon:











Front of Card











Back of Card


The card is set to the standard size in the UK of 85mmx55mm.

When designing it I wanted to give the impression of some movement and flow whilst including something that could be represented as a logo. After recently watching the winter olympics, and being a fan of ice hockey, I decided to use the Canadian Ice Hockey team as some inspiration and incorporate the use of a maple leaf.

I am happy how the designs came out, particularly how the colours flip round from one side to the next (front having white background red text, and the back red background white text).

I kept the information on the card simple as to not over-complicate it. I thought this was the best way to simply say 'I am a designer, heres how to contact me, heres my site'

Exhibition Groups

Well Success!

Our idea of the Sketch Studio was selected after our presentation, which I think all of our group felt proud about.

The next stage here was to split up into new groups deciding who would be doing what for the exhibition.

Originally I 'applied' to go into the Graphics team, but seeing then that only Mike volunteered for the website I quickly swapped over to give a helping hand. I still enjoy website design so it doesn't really bother me that I'm not in the group I originally went for.

Basically our 3 man website elite team will be responsible for the design layout and giving background information on the artist etc online. So effectively we are a source of advertising for the event before it happens. This however means that we need to be up and running before everyone else. This will need good time management and collaboration with the other groups so that we get the material to put online.

To ensure this good time management we voted Mike as the team leader as he is probably the most structured between myself, Kiel and Mike.

We set our task for the following week to come up with a rough outline for a layout and then to each produce a design concept for the website for us to either select one or take aspects of each.

Our Presentation of Ideas

We had to present our 2 ideas of themes to the class, which were a Sketch Studio and Abandoned/Industrial.

With those in mind we had split our workload up for the presentation so each one of us would be responsible for producing certain aspects.

I was in charge of Logos and Slogans.

Here are my ideas for the Studio idea:























































I felt that these ideas had to have some kind of tool that the designer would use. So in most cases I included a pencil or something a designer could physically make something with. I jotted down a few slogans with my sketches, these were definately a lot harder to come up with than i thought they would be - and a little cheesy.

Now for my ideas from idea 2:


































I found these much harder to do, mainly because I liked the first idea so much (as was the case with the rest of the group). I tried to revolve round a broken or just left unfinished theme to the logos. The slogan felt near impossible for me on this, and only came up with one in the end. "A glimmer of hope through darkness" which is the ultimate cheese line if you ask me, but thats all i had at the time!

Work I Want to Exhibit

Obviously for the exhibit to come together we all first have to pick what work of ours we want to display. We each get to select 3 pieces of our own work to display at the exhibit.

I wanted to choose 3 different visual styles when it came to my work. The categories I decided on were Graphic, 3d and 2d. I was undecided whether I wanted one of these to be an actual animation or just stillshots. This will be a decision that can be made later though as obviously we are limited in terms of actually displaying moving images.

my first piece of work I decided I want to display is from my first year work of uni. It is a poster advertising a film/dvd that we did for our digital imaging module.
















I really enjoyed this part of the module back then. I felt that I really grasped a good visual style for this poster and tied it in to be recognisable from Tolkien's sketches itself.

Again linking to the Lord of the Rings (I was a bit of a fanboy) my 3d work is related. This is a single frame shot from my ident animation for my selected channel sky movies.

















I chose this image as I was really proud with my lighting and water effects I created within the scene and feel it creates a good atmosphere.

My final piece I decided to select, whether this will be animated or a still, is from my 2d animation of the muppets.
















I felt that this piece had to be included purely for being so different. It is much more colourful and I believe it will appeal more to the younger visitors to the exhibition. I really enjoyed making the animation, and creating all the characters - which is hopefully evident in their likenesses.

The reason I chose these 3 pieces of work is to show just how varied my work can be and to show I have skills that span all aspects of design. As stated before its undecided whether my muppets work will be the animation or that stillshot. Personally I think people may go crazy if you have to constantly listen to the muppet theme tune, I know I did when I was making the animation!

Thursday, 11 February 2010

Visit to Museums

I visited 3 museums in London:V & A, Natural History and the Science. I didnt find the science museum particularly useful but the other two very much so. I took pictures of of how they displayed their pieces/exhibits in each.

V & A















































































Natural History


































As shown in the images above the items on display were all presented in different ways. This included pedestals in the middle of a corridor or by the side next to a wall, hanging on the wall and even in some cases interactive exhibits. In some cases the exhibit flowed into a printed background behind it, or the environment was shaped or themed to fit in.

I enjoyed my visit to the museums and found them useful to see how we can display our work. I will use these images as a reminder to different techniques that can be used.

Thursday, 4 February 2010

An Intro to the module

The Exhibition module is about displaying pieces of our work (3 pieces each) in a empty lot in High Chelmer Shopping Mall as a art gallery. We have been put into groups to start brainstorming ideas for the theme of the exhibition. This is to show the creativity of the workers and give more than just the actual pieces of work to look at.

Each group would brainstorm ideas for the theme and at the end as a class we would pick a single theme and all revolve around that.

There is also an element of PDP to the module, learning how to create business cards and set up a CV with an online portfolio.

This module is very different to the usual stuff we do. We will be physically interacting with the public both by visual means through the media of our work and by speaking to them at the exhibition explaining etc.