Week 13: Personal Learning Perspective

Personal Learning Perspective

Over the course of this module I feel I have been tested creatively to the limits of my ability. I feel I've had a taste of the sort of challenges and working enviornment I may encounter if I were to get a job dealing with mainly graphics and being a part of a team of graphic designers working towards a common goal. To say that the last 12 weeks have been interesting is an understatement.

What I found most difficult about this module was possibly the daunting sense of the ammount of work need to be put in at the start and also the prospect of displaying my work to the general public to see in an Exhibition in the local town centre. I had never participated or even gone to an Exhibition before this module so the experience was all new to me. However, I did find, that ounce I calmed down and focussed on the work step by step that this module was possibly the easiest I have done this year.

What I most enjoyed about this module was the chance to work with grpaic design and to flex my creative muscles as it were, sketching, brianstorming, and designing graphics with Photoshop is something that simply comes naturally to me and which I really enjoy doing.

In conclusion I must say, I have enjoyed myself immensely with doing this module and working towards a common objective with my fellow students and look forward to the Exhihbition taking place in just over a week's time. I surely hope to go into a career when I can be challenged creatively as I have been with this module and course.

Week 10: Portfolio Binding Idea and Final Version of Poster

A few weeks ago, I posted a couple of Binding possibilities for my portfolio. a reminder of those ideas are detailed below.

Binding Portfolio:

I have yet to decide on how I want to display my portfolio as of yet but I have researched online and few images of pre-existing porfolio binding techniques which I have found interesting which are shown below.

Accordian Style Portfolio:



The tutorial for making this style of portfolio can be found here.

Custom, Leather Portfolio:



The above portfolio grabbed my attention simply due to the look of the how it is presented which the different colour leather, giving the text a raised feel to the binding and more texture as well. The only down side is that to produce something like this would cost a considerable ammount. The portfolio image can be found here.

Main Idea:

The main Idea I have for binding my portfolio actually came to me on the way to there University today. The idea I had was re-using the fox image I used for the Business Card and CV in the design of the portfolio Pages and Portfloio Holder.

Fox Picture



Just a personal note, I actually drew this fox myself from a preference picture during 2005 when I attended College.

Portfolio:

Embossed Fox



I most likely I will be using the above Fox image on the portfolio pages as well but at 40% opacity like I did with my CV.

Portfolio Holder:

From the Ebossed image above I isolated the head, adjusted it to A4 size and added a grey rectangle to the back of the head.



I then flipped the whole image for the other side, these will make up two sides of the Portfolio Holder.

Portfolio Binding:

For binding the portfolio, I got my inspiration from our tutor and decided to use Treasury Tags.



This image was found here.

Final Poster Design:

Here is the final Poster Design which was chosen to advertise the Exhibition.



I'm particually proud of this fact from being the person who made it.

As an addition I have edited the finished version of my Business card as per our tutor's suggestion and I agree with her that the design does look better with the slight changes of the Fox graphic being lengthend and the text re-sized and then moved.

Week 1 (EH): Completed CV and Business Card

During week 9 and first week of the holidays, I have been working on finalising the both the my 'Business Card' and 'CV' designs. Below are the Graphics I used to make both documents and some of the processes on how I came to the finished product.

I wanted to tie in the designs of the Business Card and CV to the pre-existing website which my mum helped me build while I was in college. The Site is currently being updated and should be finished, ready for the hand in date.

Business Card:

I took a few of the website graphics and added them initialy to the design of the business card. These Graphics included; the main title of the website 'Lightspeed's Art', a horizontal dividing bar and one of my illustrations done by me back in College.

Site Title:



Nothing was initially changed when adding this to either the CV or Business Card except for re-sizing the graphic accordingly.

Divide Bar:



Same for the 'Site Title' as stated above, this was only re-sized to fit the requiementss of the two documents.

Illustration:



Some reasonable editing was made to this illustration. I wanted to show a knowledge of graphic desgin software (Photoshop) comibined with my natural ability of producing illustrations. The effects made to this illustration were; using an emboss filter to make the image stand out from the rest of the page and then lowering the opacity to 40% so that the text over the top of the image can still be seen.

Finished Design:



Here is the finished Business Card design, with my contact details added in a 'Cetury Gothic' text font.

CV:

My CV was created in much the same way as my 'Business Card' was, with 'ADOBE Photoshop'. The only difference is that the final CV desgin is set out like a regular CV would be except with; website title graphic 'Lightspeed's Art', four divide bars instread of one and the same illustration set to 50% Opacity.

(The opacity was set to 50% as opposed to 40% like on the business card due to their being a white background instead of black so the emboss effect would show up better.)

Finished Desgin:



Here is the finished design of my CV layout with the relevant information displayed. I personally think the layout works very well and that the grapphics do indeed help in making both my CV and Busines Card more personalised.

Week 8 Lecture: Continuing Poster Work and Thoughts on Bindings for Portfolio

This session I have been working on the four main poster designs which I designed during the first four weeks of the module. The main edits I have made to the poster designs have been adding the 'Main' and 'Sponsors' logos and changing the fonts to the text which include the name's of the sponsors and the date the event will be taking place.

Poster 1:



Poster 2:



Poster 3:



Poster 4:



Binding Portfolio:

I have yet to decide on how I want to display my portfolio as of yet but I have researched online and few images of pre-existing porfolio binding techniques which I have found interesting which are shown below.

Accordian Style Portfolio:



The tutorial for making this style of portfolio can be found here.

Custom, Leather Portfolio:



The above portfolio grabbed my attention simply due to the look of the how it is presented which the different colour leather, giving the text a raised feel to the binding and more texture as well. The only down side is that to produce something like this would cost a considerable ammount. The portfolio image can be found here.

Tasks:

- For next week, continue producing and working on pre-existing Poster Designs.

- Continue Work on Business Card and CV.

Week 8: Finished CV Information and Main Poster Design

Finally finished editiing the contents for my CV. will now be concentrating on the design and how to make it personal to me and my skills. Below is the finished information in my CV.

Richard Graham Dutton
07903639461
richard2_88@hotmail.co.uk

Skills:

My skills are Web Design, using First Page and manual HTML coding in Notepad, Graphic Design, using Adobe Photoshop, 2D and 3D animation, using Adobe Flash and Autodesk 3D Studio Max and Database Management, using Microsoft Access.

Work Experience:

2003: Work Experience at Sutton Central Library. For the week in the Library my responsibilities were: shelving books, working at the tills, sorting books and repairing books.

2007: Work Experience at Edith Borthwick (Special needs school). During my time there I worked in their IT department doing a variety of tasks. These tasks included the installing and setting up of software onto ‘Apple MAC’ computers and Video Editing.

Education:

2007 - 2010 University: (Chelmsford) Anglia Ruskin University, Essex
BSc Hons Degree Computer Aided Visualisation – predicted grade 2:2

2004 - 2007 College: Braintree College, Essex
BTEC National Diploma in ICT (Merit Pass Pass (MPP))
BTEC First Diploma in ICT (Merit)

1999 - 2004 High School: Glenthorne High School, Sutton, Surrey

Interests and Achievements:

• Basketball: Member of High School Team for 3 years and College Team for 2 years.
• Chess.
• Strategy Card games.
• Wildlife:
• Drawing: Occasionally I enjoy drawing out a few character sketches or Wildlife drawings to pass the time.
• Editor and a Publisher for High School magazine.

References:

Ms Jo Bowman (Lecturer)
Room 326 Faculty Building
Anglia Ruskin University
Chelmsford
Essex CM11SQ

Mr Dave Deacon
14 Dukes Road
Braintree
Essex CM7 5UE

Main Poster Design:

This is one of the poster designs I have been working on for the last few weeks. I was asked last by my team leader to find good quality images of our sponsors logos. Our sponsors being 'High Chelmer Shopping Center' and 'Anglia Rusking University'.

Below is the poster design complete with sponsors and sponsor logos.

Week 7: Personal Description and Photo

I spent roughly 3o minutes during the previous night working on my personal description for the Exhibition Website. Below is what I put down for it. It is supposed to be 200 words long but I have gone over it by 4 words, I don't think that would matter too much, however, I am willing to make it shorter if asked.

Personal Description:

My name is Richard Dutton; I am 21 and am a part of the Graphics team for this exhibition. My main role for this project was designing some of the posters to advertise the event. Through this I have conveyed that I have a decent grasp of graphic design and knowledge in using graphic based Software such as Adobe Photoshop.

However, my main strength with graphic design is in drawing out my designs first on paper since I find it easier to get my ideas down rather than using only Photoshop. I also have skills in Web Design and 2D and 3D Animation and am working towards increasing my knowledge in both types of animation production. The software I am accustomed to for animation is both Adobe Flash and Autodesk 3D Studio Max, for Web Design I am comfortable with using either First Page or inputting HTML code into Notepad.

As a later career I am hoping to get into any of three areas, Animation, Web or Graphic Design. Specifically I don’t really have any preference to what sort of field I wish to go into with Animation, Web or Graphic Design but I would like to be involved in either film games graphics.

Week 6: CV Progress

Earlier today, me and my one to one tutor began working on my CV, I imagine we will continue working on it and the Covering Letter over the next few weeks before the holidays.

The sections we worked on are shown below:

Personal Details:

Richard Graham Dutton
14 Dukes Rd
Braintree
Essex
CM7 5UE
07903639461
richard2_88@hotmail.co.uk

Skills:

My skills are Web Design, using First Page and manual HTML coding in Notepad, Graphic Design, using Adobe Photoshop, 2D and 3D animation, using Adobe Flash and Autodesk 3D Studio Max and Database Management, using Microsoft Access.

Education:

2007 - 2010 University: (Chelmsford) Anglia Ruskin University, Essex
BSc Hons Degree Computer Aided Visualisation (pending)

2004 - 2007 College: Braintree College, Essex
BTEC National Diploma in ICT (Merit Pass Pass (MPP))
BTEC First Diploma in ICT (Merit)

1999 - 2004 High School: Glenthorne High School, Sutton