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I decided to update and improve my Portfolio as I felt it would benefit my chances for success with obtaining work experience.

Contacted several Design Agencies today in the Southampton area. Two seemed quite interested in the prospect of work experience however I will await a reply after sending my CV and Portfolio.

Well its the end of the first year in Visual Communications so this could possibly mean less blog posts... however I will try to keep blogging and keep everything up to date.

Quick re-cap of Friday the 26th of May, which basically consisted of me handing in my Placement project case study and supporting work. I felt extremely pleased with what I had achieved over the past four weeks and felt that my case study had reflected this. Even though I was unable to experience a true working environment I still felt that the live brief was a sound representation of how the industry may work, with tight deadlines, quick thought and idea processes and also the inclusion of team work and professionalism with the quality of work produced. Overall I felt that the Placement and live brief had been a very rewarding project, opening my mind up to the industry of design and helping to give me a greater set of resources and knowledge for obtaining work in the future.

On Thursday the 20th of May I began finalising my Placement case study, taking information from my blog and cutting it down to meet the word limit. I also added in the relevant imagery to help back up my case study, placing in images of the various design work carried out included initial ideas and final outcomes. Overall I felt I had achieved an effective and well presented case study which showed a deep look into what I had carried out through the course of the live brief.

Today I carried out some extra work on the live brief in order to bring it all up to scratch and ready for presentation. Once again the team was significantly smaller (three members) so we had to work extremely hard to get everything done. I felt we worked very productively and efficiently, especially when taking into account the lack numbers within the team. We were able to take all the finalised designs and imagery and present it in a professional way. This would then allow us to present the designs to the client if needing to do so.

As well as finalising the live brief I also began my case study which wasn't to difficult to carry out as I had made sure to blog my progress through the live brief in great detail. I decided to present my case study using InDesign, creating a suitable layout and showing my learning process throughout each day. I actually spent most of my time having to trim down the amount of words for the case study, which was difficult but I aimed to include the most relevant and suitable information. I also began placing in relevant imagery which I felt would help to back up my case study and also present my final design outcomes.

On Wednesday the 12th me and my fellow team members of 13plusone began finalising the castle point project. There was a plan made to show what we still needed to do in order to have the initial work complete and in a presentable form which would be suitable to show to the client. We created a list of things that we needed to do and planned out how we would present our finalised work.

Amongst the plans for things to do for presentation we also needed to tweak the work that had been created from last week and add in some extra pieces of work as well. We needed:

- Finalised icons
- Decision on how the icons will work, what they will compromise of
- Images of the signage system in use within castle point (through use of photoshop)
- Icons/Glyphs of shop logos (We had decided to include these as they would be used below the signs to add further information to the customers)
- Finalised icons printed and mounted up to a professional standard
- Alternate solutions decided on and understood
- Layout created in In Design for the presentation pieces

As our team was considerably lower this week (due to optional attendance of the third week) we had to work much faster and more productively to have everything completed in time. We set tasks for each team member to carry out in order to spread the work load and increase work efficiency. I was set the task of tweaking the imagery of the signage systems in use which in turn led to me creating this design.

As well as creating this design I was also set the task to create some of the shop logo icons. We had hoped that we would be able to find the vector images of the icons in order to save time having to create each icon. We managed to find most of the icons as vectors but had to create some of them from scratch. I created all these icons except for the orange logo.


These are all of the icons to use together


One of the team members had carried out some of the presentation work, printing out the final designs for the icons and mounting them up on foam board.

Overall I was very happy with the progress made, however due to the lack of numbers within our group we hadn't managed to get as much of the work up to scratch as we'd liked and still had some presentation work to complete as well as making additions to the images showing the signage system in use. We therefore made a decision to meet up next week and complete the remaining work in order to get the live brief work up to the highest possible standard.

Today I worked with one of my team members to help re-design the AUCB map for the upcoming shows. We basically needed to take the original map and improve it so that it would be easier to navigate through and uderstand. The use of adding a black outline around key areas gave the map greater deffinition and made it more understandable. Changing the colour of the arrows to purple helped to link in with the AUCB colour scheme. Re-aranging the information around the map was also key to improving it as we were able to place in the information of the locations and the events taking place, using numbers as well to refference on the areas of the map, allowing for a less use of lines. Overall I felt the map was strongly improved and was much more efficient than that of before.

After I had helped out with the map I carried out some T-Shirt designs for my tutors graphic design company "We Are Level." This was set as a further side project which was also combined with packaging design and also creating ideas for a logo re-design if desired. I decided to stick with the T-Shirt design and created some sketched ideas and work with illustrator which I hoped would be able to develop into a finalised design. I felt my T-Shirt design ideas were very effective and relevant to the BMX'n target audience of the We Are Level company. They showed different styles and different possibile effects.

Today I continued the Live Brief with the main focus being to refine the original designs and begin thinking about the materials to use and how the signs would be produced. We noted down what was needed:

- Final printed icon designs
- 1 full size mock-up
- Selection of samples for client
- Costs
- Images of sign in use (Photoshop)
- All artworks
- 3D designs
- Alternate solutions

Once we noted this down we decided which assigned of the tasks to each of the group members and began carrying out the work. I was required to produce an image of the sign in use which I created using Photoshop. Once I had created this I then helped out with finding prices for materials and obtaining quotes.

We managed to produce all the required design outcomes and overall I was very happy with the progress made.

Today I continued working on my live brief through carrying out some group work. We would be required to begin creating ideas for the signage system to use within castle point so I began carrying out research which would help benefit the ideas process. I looked into existing techniques that are used to help aid blind people when finding their way around such as guide dogs and the use of a cane. I aimed to look deeper though and found that there is actually a chain of hotels which are designed speciffically for visibly impared persons. I also found the use of braille within watches and money. Overall I felt my research was strong but could have been stronger if I had broadend my search. After carrying out the research the group shared what they had found.

The next step was to consider what types of partially sighted people we would be aiming our signage at, for example someone who is fully blind, someone who is partially blind. We were then able to generate ideas for ways to encorporate an efficient system to use. The use of audio was considered as well as infra-red and bluetooth. The bluetooth could be used to send audio information of shop names to an ear piece. A closed loop system could also be used in this way as well. Textures were considered, embossing and also braille. We began working out ideas as a group and decided what categories each shop in castle point would fall into. The six categories were:

- Entertainment
- Electrical
- Supermarket
- Food & Drink
- Clothing
- Homeware
- Books (this was still an uncertainty as to whether it would be included or not)

We found a list of all the shops in castle point from the website and began placing these into specific categories. We discussed how the pillars between each shop would work as a key area for placing our signage systems and began thinking about what imagery to use and what format the signage system would take. We decided that panel could be placed on each pilar to display the signage. The use of an icon for each shop ctageory was then decided on, giving us the task of having to design the icons. The whole of the team was split into groups, with each one being allocated one of the icons to design. My group had to design the entertainment icon and also the books icon. We were still unsure about what icon design to use for the entertainment category and were stuck between using a CD, Music note, Joy Pad, Smiely Face. We begun the design process by firstly creating the joypad, which worked quite well. However after creating the design and presenting to the group we all felt that the joypad could bee sligthly misleading and didn't portray entertainment as best as it could. We therefore decided to go with the smiley face design which overall I felt was most suitable for portraying the category.



1st set of designs presented between the group:


Improved smiley face:



After creating the smiley we then brought this design together with the other designs and decided what kind of style to use througout all of the icons in order to show consistancy. We felt that the blocky, bold style was very effective and decided to go with it. A small amount of group members were then selected to bring this consistancy to the designs. There was also a decision made to include the text relating the shop category below the icons.


Once these icons were designed we began thinking about precise sizes and measurements and how the icons would fit onto the pillars in castle point. We made a decision to make the panels 300 x 300 mm and to use helvetica as the typeface for the text. We also decided on a margin of 40mm all the way round to be implemented. A decision to make the smiley face square was also implemented in order for it to show consistancy with the bold, blocky theme.

As well as helping to produce the icons I also created some imagery of the icons in use within the castke point shoppin centre through the use of Photoshop.


The decision for the types of materials to use was also considered and how the implementation of audio or bluetooth would work. We were asked to carry out some research into light emitting plastics for tommorrow, such as UVT which would work at emitting light with out the need for an electrical source.

Today I was involved in a side project which required the whole of our group to think up some ways which we could promote our company to possible clients, preferably local businesses. We had to think about:
- Networking
- Targeting new companies
- The cost (can't cost a lot of money)
- Needs to deliver

We began by thinking about the types of companies and clients that we would be targeting are services at and how these types of companies would all be able to link together in some way. We came up with Record Labels, Fashion, Drinks, Charities, Food and Education as the main areas to consider. We felt this was quite a wide area to target in and could show links between each other, however we narrowed these categories down by removing food and education as we felt they would not link in with all of the other categories. We also felt that there were not many companies in this category that were local and also that would be able to fully benefit from our services.

For ways to promote the business we thought about virals, creating a set of headphones to send out to clients which would link in with music and fashion. The headphones could then use some form of audio to deliver a message to the client.

We then began thinking deeper, looking into our brand name (13PlusOne) and using this within our promotion ideas. We thought about sending companies an apple a day for every 14 days relating to 13PlusOne. We also thought about sending shoes to show SOUL. The shoe idea was also linked with getting your foot in the door so by placing a shoe outside the possible clients door. However we then came up with problems for this idea relating to gettin the shoe in the door, which led us to thinking about a paper based shoe design being used to slip under the door. We then felt that using a paper based image lost the feel that the shoe gave out.

The day consisted of a great amount of thought processing and ideas generation which led to us bringing all of our ideas together on some larger sheets of paper and having a group discussion on what idea to use. We had struck a problem as we had achieved some effective ideas but we knew we could generate something better and more effective with less constraints and cons. We were stuck at an idea of using bottles and postcards, which resulted in us trying so hard to think up ways of putting it to use, when we eventually looked closer to the actual design of our brand identity, which led to us to linking the green plus to doctors, pharmacies, cures and then coming up with the use of a prescription as a bases for a promotion idea. The prescription could use some creative copy and type to show some play on words which would be technical, creative and interesting to look at. The use of showing our company as a cure to design problems was a strong idea that was struck upon.

After this idea had been chosen we split into groups of three and each created some promotional materials relating to the pharmaceutical theme. The ideas that my group came up with were to create a medicine paper bag promoting our company with a prescription, a sachet of sugar, a tipex and also a rubber in the shaoe of a pill. We presented our ideas to one another and ended up choosing the survival kit to work as our promotional materials.

My groups ideas:

Our final design ideas:

Other groups designs ideas: (chosen design on the left)

On Thursday

On Friday

Today I began the live project brief work which had been implemented in place for those who were unable to find work experience. We were firstly taken through what the project would consist of and what we would need to achieve. The brief was made clear which was based around creating a signage system for Castle Point Shopping centre in Bournemouth. It would need to be suitable for partially sighted or blind people in order to help them navigate their way through the shopping centre.

Once the brief was made fully clear we began thinking of a brand identity for our company. We were split into three groups with each group developing an idea for the name and logo. My group came up with Camelleon as the company name using an image of a Chamellon with the tail representing the letter "C". We created a mind map to help relate our company to the traits that we could offer possible clients.

After our group had created our logo for the company we linked up with the other groups and presented each of our identity ideas. We then discussed the qualitites of each idea, giving opinions on which we felt were the strongest and how each one could possibly be improved. We then had to decide as a group which design we would take further.

We eventually made a group decision on "13PlusOne" to become our company name and identity after a heavy debate. Three memebers of the group were then asked to volunteer to create a set of designs for the company and to present these to the group. When the designs had been created they were presented to us and we were then able to discuss between the whole group, which design we felt were the strongest and most appropriate. We ended up choosing this design for our finalised brand identity.


When the three group members had been assigned to designing the company identity the rest of the group were assigned a side project which required us to create a set of stencils which would need to be circular and portray a set of numbers from 1 - 12. The signage could then be used as a navigation system to be placed around certain areas of the univeristy where the number would relate to the area. The signs would be used for people to navigate their way around the university when attending the upcoming shows. The brief that was given required us to divise a system that would use... We were given the task of researching stencil systems and typefaces to firstly gain some understanding of the subject at hand. We were then required to carry out our own designs and ideas individually and produce a finalised number stencil with the implemented design.

These were my ideas that I created. I eventually went with a system that used the style of the numbers on the right.


This was the design that I brought to the table.

When looking through each others designs we presented each one individually one by one to the group and then discussed together which designs we felt stood out and were most appropriate and effective. We chose three designs that stood out and then narrowed this down to a final design choice. Eventually we decided on a system that used the numbers being emerged from the outer area of the cirular black background. We felt that this was most effective as it showed a neat and appealing style which showed an effective way of compensating for hollow areas within the text. Once the the design style to use had been chosen each member of the group was assigned a number to design a stencil for. We needed to communicate with the group member who had designed the chosen idea in order to make sure were keeping consistancy within the design.

This was my finalised design that I created, which I then used to print out to scale and mount onto some thick card, allowing me to cut around the shape and create the stencil.

Today I went through Paper and Printing Specifications

Yesterday I carried out self-directed study on my magazine spread design as well as carrying out some sketch book work.

On Monday

On Tuesday I had a group critique which allowed me to gain some helpful feedback on my improved final design that I had carried out over the easter break. I found that my design was quite effective but still needed some strong improvements to bring it up to standard and enhance it. The typeface for the informative text needed to be decided on and the image and text arrangement needed to be changed slightly. I also needed to figure out whether I would be using an image in the first spread and if so I would need to obtain this image. Overall the critique went very well and also allowed me to see how everyone else was getting on. The critique really helped to make me up my performance in the unit and boost the drive to create a strong final design.

Yesterday I attended a talk with the art director at Wonderland which I felt was a great help to boosting my knowledge of the design industry and also to allow me to see some of the work practices carried out by the art director at Wonderland, looking at how he creates his ideas and the techniques used to develop these ideas and build upon them to create final pieces. I was able to obtain a general outlook of his career path that he had took and was able to gain some helpful information and views on design in general. Overall I felt the talk was very helpful and being able to view his idea generation and sketch book work gave me strong view into how basic ideas can develop into finalised pieces.

I thencarried out some self directed work on my final design, making slight changes to the layout to help improve the overall design.

Today I finalised my PPRD 1 project ready for the hand in tommorow. I used In Design to present the work in the form of a small booklet using a themed layout which I felt helped to enhance the aesthetic qualities of the project overall. I made sure to include all the specific areas of work and also the relevant pieces of accompanying text to help explain certain parts of the unit such as the editorial talk that I had engaged in.

Today I had a trip to Dayfold Printers in Verwood which was a great experience and a big help to learning more about the printing processes and printing industry. I was able to learn about print specifications and how the company quote their clients. Finding out about the different types of paper was also interesting, showing how certain papers can suit different outcomes. I was also able to view how printing plates were made as well as seeing how the prints were bound together and coated with a finnish such as laminating or glossing

I continued sketchbook work today, adding in notes from In Design tutorials and also carrying out some research on type designers.

On Tuesday the 23rd of March I took part in ideas development throughout the day which was carried out within the group as a whole. The main aim of the day was to firstly view exisiting design magazines and gain some helpful research, and then produce some skamps for design ideas and develop these into a possible finalised solution. I found the day extremely helpful and a key factor in creating a finalised design. Before hand I was slightly unsure of where to take my ideas and what design styles to use but through working hands on with research, idea generation and finalising solutions I was able to kick start the design process. Having the tighter diciplines and working under shorter time limits helped to give a strong representation of how the design industry would work and allowed me to produce designs that were efficient and effective. I was able to produce two double page spread designs and was very happy with the quality of them.

On Wednesday the 24th of March I had an interim critique which was carried out between the whole of the class, looking at the finalised designs that were produced in yesterdays development of ideas. I found the critique very helpful in that I was able to gain some quality feedback and also observe what everyone else had created. I found that my final designs were very effective and the use of the fish head being hidden was seen as a very clever and interesting style. The type face used for the headings was seen as quite consistent with the theme of the article which was focussed around a type designer, however the post it images could be re-thought and possibly replaced with a more effective image.



Today I contacted some companies about work experience and was quite happy with the progress made. I was able to obtain some email addresses and began sedning off some emails with an attached CV and a covering letter. One of the companies I contacted was Park Corner Design which are a broad design agency located in Winchester.

I also carried out some sketchbook work, making sure everything was presented neatly.

On Wednesday the 17th of March I had an In Design tutorial in which I went through preparing files for print. I was able to learn more about altering the settings of the document in order to create the most effective printout. We were taken through the use of colour and how spot colours can be used. We were also told how important it is to keep all files for one document together so that none of the files are lost. Marks and bleeds were also covered. Overall I found the tutorial a great help towards designing my article. There was a lot of information to take in and process but I felt that going through all the areas covered once again allowed me take more of the information in and further my understanding.

The editorial illustration guest talk for Friday the 19th of March was unfortunately cancelled.

Today

Yesterday I had a pal session in the morning in which we went through layouts for our magazine publication spreads. I was able to understand more about relating a layout to the media within it and how a strong layout can be achieved. Looking at some of the second years layouts helped me to see what I would need to achieve and gave me something to think about. As well as layouts we also covered work experience, going through what we would need to do for example, contacting companies, sending cv's, writing covering letters etc. We discussed how we were getting on and what progress was being made.


Today I started off with a session on print processs going through cost; so how more colours will be more expensive, as well as touching on individual colours and spot colours. I was able to find out more about preparing work for print and also how sending specimen documents to clients is essential, instead of sending the actual document.

As well as print processes I was also taken through grids and layouts, going over how grid systems can relate to the designer in our article and also how the information can fit within the grids. I was taken through the different ways in which we can start the design process for example, using thumbnail sketches to plan out the designs or creating quick and basic sketches. I was also advised to edit out some stutters if there are a great amount within the transcript.

Today I attended an editorial talk by Copywriter Liam Donnelly who works for CHI & Partners. I found the talk to be extremely helpful and was inspired by much of the work that was on show. I was able to see how the right peice of copy can truly enhance the media that it is placed within. The burger king commercial was a very clever peice of media and one which I felt showed some very strong qualities. I felt after the talk that I understood more about how to achieve the right kind of copy. I was also able to discuss some areas of work from my current unit with Liam after the talk and was able to find out that the right kind of copy can often be simple and it is this that can often suit the outcome.

Yesterday I did some sketch book work in which I began mounting in some of the tutorial sessions that I had carried out as well as the notes that I had produced throughout the unit. I also carried out some research into type and relevant designers.

Yesterday was the briefing for the new unit entitled "Visual Communication in Context 1." I was taken through the key aspects of the unit going over what would need to be achieved and how I would achieve it. I found the briefing very informative and gave me a clear view of what I would be doing. I was also made aware that transcribing of audio interviews with designers would be a key part of the unit and was assigned the designer that I would be focussing on. I was then able to join the other class members working on this same designer to form a group.

After the unit briefing there was a guest talk by Briany Hartly, who is an editorial designer that has worked on a wide variety of publications from books through to magazines. I was able to find out more about how to make a magazine publication have greater appeal, through the use of attention grabbing page titles, an effective use of sub-headings and also through the use of captions which could add further information to the skim reader. I was also able to gain some helpful tips for use when designing a publication such as the use of colour palletes, grids, baseline grids, hanging points and also style sheets which can help to save time when making alterations to text. Overall I found the talk very interesting and helpful and felt more confident about producing the article.

Today I had my first Adobe InDesign tutorial which went over the basics of the program. It touched upon the set up, formats, grids and guides. I had previously used InDesign and found the tutorial very helpful at extending my knowledge. The correct ways of setting up the format of a document to suit its purpose was made clearer to me along with the use of grids and the use of the baseline grid. I was also taken through the use of master pages, layout, InDesign tools and also what type of image files to use and the specifications. The tutorial was quite informative and gave a great intorduction to the use of InDesign.

After the tutorial I was taken through an introduction to designing multi-page documents which went over flat-planning, pagination, imposition and binding. I was taken through each element looking at what each one consisted off. I was also introduced to new terms such as signatures and natural spread. I carried out some tasks throughout the session with one of them based around folding a piece of A4 paper to produce a 16 page signature. There was also a task which was based around flat planning and how colour prints could be used. I had to work out what pages would print out in colour when different printing attributes were applied. The session allowed me learn more about the technicallities of producing multi-page documents and gave a greater inisght into how the industry works.

On Monday the 1st of March I had a PAL session which consisted of the whole class working on their Flash animations with the PAL leaders being available to view our animations and give feedback, as well as help out with any problems we were having with creating the animation.

After the PAL session I then had the rest of the day to carry out self-directed study which I used to continue the creation of my animation in Flash, making the final touches in preparation for the crit on Tuesday.

On Tuesday the 2nd of March I had the final critique for the unit. I was able to present my work to the class and also view other peoples work as well. My work was seen as effective and very clear but I was advised to make one improvement, which would be to add in a summary at the end of the animation as this would help to tie up the whole piece and allow me to enhance the overall message. I found this feedback extremely helpful and was able to use it to finalize my animation and make it much more successful. After the critique I then began the improvements to my final animation.

On Wednesday the 3rd of March I made some final improvements on my work and handed in. I felt the hand in went very well and was pleased with my overall progress throughout the unit. I was much more prepared for the hand in than I had been in previous units and was very pleased with this.

Today I continued with self-directed study, working on the final parts of my animation and contemplating possible improvements which could enhance my final piece. One area of thought would be to extend the animation slightly in order to enhance the meaning. This could be done by adding in some information which could sum up the critical stance.

I also recieved my feedback for the Visual Thinking unit towards the end of the day. Overall I felt the feedback received was very fair however I was unhappy that my grade was slightly lower than that in my previous unit. However I understood why I had dropped marks and felt that an improvement to time management would of helped me to achieve more. I am now ready to improve my performance with Screen Based Communication.

Today I had self-directed study which I used to carry on the creation of my animation in Flash.

On Monday the 15th of February I had a PAL session in which me and my group were shown some animation work that our PAL leaders had created in the previous year. It was good to see some existing work and gave me a greater insight into what I would need to produce in this project. We were also able to find out more about what we would need to include in our work in order for it to be most successful.

After focussing on the statistics project we then began going over work placements, talking about what componies we were interested in and what we had been doing so far in order to gain a work placement. This part of the sessions was very helpful as we were able to ask the second years how they had got on with placements and what we would need to do to have the best possible chance of obtaining a placement.

On Tuesday the 16th of February our group had self directed study while tutors were at hand in order to give tutorials and help. I was able to use the study time to enhance my animation and begin building on what I had already created. I began improving some of the motion tweens that I had used, making them run smoother.

Today I had self directed study with flash in the morning, allowing me to work further with my animation before the Interim Critique which would be taking place in the afternoon for my group. I began working on the next section of my animation which was the "Population" text flying in from outside the stage. I used text that I had imported in from Illustrator and began setting up each piece of text with the required motion tween.

After the self directed study I had my Interim Crit which I felt went very well. I was able to see what everyone else had created and gain some effective feedback on my own work as well. The feedback received was to keep working with the same style and to avoid over complicating it. I was also given advice on possibly making the icons at the start of the animation rise up from the land in order to portray the people growing from earth, however I felt this would be a contridiction as there are people dying on earth which would effect the population scale and therefore represent icons lowering down, which I felt would be effective. The use of icons flying in helped to bring a dynamic effect to the animation which I felt helped to show a metaphorical image of an existing population figure.

We were also going to recieve feedback for visual thinking but there wasn't enough time so we will be receiving it next week.

On Wednesday the 10th I carried out a Flash Tutorial which went over the navigation of the program, including how to find specific features and what these features can do. I was quite happy with what I had learnt and felt more open to using Flash.

Yesterday I received my essay results with accompanying feedback. I found out that I had passed which was great and the feedback I received was very helpful, stating that I need to continue with the same progress and that I was working at a good level. The feedback also stated how I could improve my work by including even more refferences to back up my statements as well as going into further detail with even more terminology.


Today I had a Flash Tutorial which was based around photo manipulation and how to create a simple but effective stock frame animation. I also learnt about how to use Photoshop to apply one effect to a number of different images through using actions. In order to apply an effect to multiple images I had to open an existing image and open up the actions pannel. I could then create a new action and begin recording the process. I changed the resolution of the image, applied a filter effect and then saved the image. I then had to move the saved image out of its folder so it wouldn't be effected when applying the action to all images in that folder. I could then use the automate and batch feature to apply the action of a resolution and filter change to the specific folder.

I also learnt about how to import sound and video into flash and the different types of files that are compatible.

Later on in the day I had a group session which was focussed around the presentation of storyboards and what we would need to include in them. The session was very helpful as we were able to look at existing storyboards and the different styles and techniques that can be used to create them. We were also given examples of how abreviations and certain terminology can be used to add information and make developing a storyboard much easier. For example placing the text "s/a" in the next frame of a storyboard where an image or images remain the same can show that a certain area of imagery is the "same as" before.