Wordle

Wordle.net generates word clouds from a certain URL link and all the words on that website. Heres one I created from just sticking the link to my website in the provided box. Pretty sweet.

Screen based communication (2)- Finished

Handed in my screen based unit on friday; am really pleased with my website, have worked really hard on it. The begging of this unit seemed really daunting; to create a fully working, easily navigated portfolio website to advertise ourselves, using a piece of software that seemed even more complex (dreamweaver)!

Final Crit

Feed back

• I was advised to try and make my logo more dynamic, maybe by using a more modern typeface or different style. Maybe to show more of my personality within the website.
• Maybe to try and give myself an identity, some sort of label so potential clients understand straight away what type of designer I am, i.e Graphic Designer, Illustrator etc.
• In my "about" section try and talk as a designer and not a student. Clients don't want to employ students, they want professionals.
• Lightbox- have been advised not to use lightbox on my website. Justin was talking to me about a three click rule; you don't want anything t be more than 3 clicks away. By having the lightbox involved it would make my website too busy.
• Meta tags- need to insert my meta tags; they help get my website found in search engines. VERY IMPORTANT!

As I'm not using lightbox anymore, I will have to have information on the images somewhere. I will experiment on having a dig tag below my slider gallery or possibly above.

I'm really glad I stuck with Dreamweaver and not Flash Catalyst or InDesign. People in my crit who had used other software were having more problems and were getting a lot more constructive criticism from the rest of the group. Dreamweaver is definitely the way to go for me; it just all makes sense, it's easy to edit/change, and things can be done with a click of a button using CSS.

Some great illustration- Blexbolex

Here are some great illustrations I found in this months grafik magazine (jan). The small book was created by a french illustrator, Blexbolex. Its a chilling/ odd sci-fi come crime thriller story that has been published as an artist's book by No Brow Press.

Definitely getting my self a copy of this- No Brow Press!

Screen based communication (2)- new unit

Had the first flash session with Leigh on Friday. He gave us some great advice on creating our websites, and that it wasn’t necessary to use Dreamweaver and HTML. Leigh also explained that it wasn’t necessary to use web safe colours as 95% of computer monitors can now show the entire colour palette; this is massive advantage as the colours I wanted to use were not web safe.

We were advised by Leigh to create our website in Photoshop or Illustrator and then import each page and all its separate layers into Flash Catalyst (a new piece of software which will be in CS5; can be downloaded for free on the adobe website). Flash Catalyst can be used to create our entire website. Leigh explained how we would also be able to use any typeface within our website as Adobe have sold the rights/software to search engines like Google and Yahoo which can read text on any website, even if its in Flash; we don’t need Meta tags!

People asked if this was cheating or going the wrong way about creating our websites; Leigh explained that in industry a designer does not create an entire website by there self. There are web designers who create the layout and make the site aesthetically pleasing; then there are the coders, who create all the code for the website and actually make it work. I know for a fact that I would never want to become a coder.

By Thursday we have to have put together a working site map, showing forwards and backwards steps and our initial design for our entire website, that includes home page, contact page, about page etc.

I feel as though a massive weight has been taken off my shoulders after Leigh’s Flash session. The Dreamweaver sessions we have been having with Neil are good and I’ve understood them, but for the work and effort you put in the results aren’t anywhere near that of Flash catalyst. I don’t want to spend days trying understand and learn Dreamweaver and code to a high standard, when I could be using that time to improve the appearance of my overall website.

Great websites:

lynda.com

960.gs

noupe.com

Brand Identity Complete

Overall, I felt this section of the unit was the trickiest. In a way I felt a pulled the short straw with George Eliot, the information and history on her was quite limited, and that of which I did manage to find was of some age. I tried reading her novels to get a feel for her personality, but I struggled with this as I'm not the strongest of reader and her writing is pretty intense.

Saying this I have finally managed to create a business identity for George Eliot and have had to deal with it. I don't personally feel branding is one of my strengths and haven't particularly enjoyed this part of the unit.

Here are my final designs portraying what I feel suits Mary Anne Evans' (George Eliot) style if she were to have her own business identity in the present day:

Letter Head

Business Card

Communicating Ideas Complete

Finished my communicating ideas brief on Jeff Hawkins today, create a newspaper spread. I originally found choosing a video from TED.com quite difficult as they were in-depth videos with some references I didn't understand, such as scientific meanings etc.

I did eventually decide to go with Jeff Hawkins, who created and found Palm Computing and eventually went on to study neuroscience full time. The video on TED.com talks about how brain science will one day change computing. My brief was to create a means of advertisement for TED.com through this video in an original way.

I began my research looking into puzzles and crossword books. Hawkins talks a lot about how how the brain breaks things down into puzzles and if somethings not right it automatically tries to correct it. I eventually came up with the idea of having a puzzle type advertisement in the gaming/puzzle section of a newspaper. By placing the ad here I would target the correct demograph; people who enjoy puzzles and mind games.

Flickr link to my final piece - Final spread

To start with I wanted this piece of design to be challenging to the reader. "How much can you predict?" is asking the reader can they do the dot to dot and rearrange the brain and football? Thats the simple bit; the reader then reads "intelligence and perdciontn are gained through mmorey". This sentence is deliberately spelt wrong, it gets across Hawkins' message that the brain is continuously deciphering puzzles, even it is a simple spelling mistake (deliberate mistake). My aim was to gain the readers interest, thus linking to the video and further TED.com.