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

Week 6: Developement of Posters

Earlier during the week I have been working on 3 poster designs which I had been asked to produce, making sure to leave room for the 'Exhibition Logo' and any text that is generated to advertise the event.

The three Designs I came up with are shown below. These can be altered if asked.

Idea 1:



Idea 2:



Idea 3:

Week 5: CV, Covering Letter and Personal Card

During the last week I have begun work on editing my CV and started designing the business card I will be handing out on the day of the exihibition. In the design I wanted to combine my skills in graphic design, web design and my natural ability at traditional illustration.

Business Card Progress:

Boarders:

Top:



Side:



The above boarders were originally created for my website. However, since I like the design I will be attempting to impliment the designs into my Business Card, CV and Covering Letter. This will demmonstrate originallity and display each of the main skills a posess.

Curriculum Vitae & Covering Letter:

So far, I am following the sheets provided, explaining what is to be included in the CV and Covering Letter. I am having a bit of trouble trying to think of what to write down for both however. I will be asking for assistenace from my parents and personal advisor so I should have something to show for my efforts for the next lecture.

Week 4: Gathering of Media for Presentation

During our last lecture, each member of the group were assigned to gather different media to present in the main presentation in week 4 of the Semester.

My contribution to the group work was finiding Audio that best fit the two main ideas that our group had chosen. These ideas are, Natural Environment and Magnification.

I found it difficult to find any audio at all on the topic of Magnification due to it's purely visual context. The Natural Environment was easier, I found a number of decent sound scapes which could be used in the Exhibition, including 1 audio track in particular called "Spooky Wood".

My idea is to perhaps combine mood lighting to best enhance the mood and atmospher of the exhibition area coupled with the sound. This will give an atmospheric feel to the space and possibly help to pull in viewers to the exhibition and will want them to view our work.

The audio track in question, "Sppoky Wood", can be found here:

Spooky Wood.mp3, added by priestjd.

Week 3: New Idea

During Last week our group met up and decided to change ouridea from the theme of Science and Technology to a more natural based theme.

This theme was put forward by another member of the group, we then discussed the idea and all agreed that it is a simpler and concentrated topic than Science and Technology.

I agreed with the change in ideas particularily because the natural enviornment is a topic that I am really interested in and I have done a few pieces of work in the previous years of the course based around this topic.

An example of my work is shown below.

Module: "Comunicating with Images"

Conservation:

Pollution:



Conservation Logo:



De-forestation (Bar Chart):

Week 2: Developing ideas and CV

During yesterdays lecture, our group got together and began to discuss the ideas for the 'Exhibition' theme in more detail. Each member of our group made suggestions on how best to display our work which relates to our chosen theme.

The main suggestion was to have a 3 dimensional display made of glass shapes, containing our work. These glass panels are to be spaced apart from each other with lighting behind the work to best make it stand out. The spacing out of the glass sections is to give the optical effect of a 3D display when viewed from the sides and a 2D image when viewed from the front and back.

My contribution was the suggestion of having the glass sections being suspended from the ceiling of the Exhibition area. My suggestion was greatly supported when explaining our ideas to the lecturer.

However, after getting some rather unexpected feedback from our lecturer, we decided to change our idea to a single, large glass plane and utilise a Mosaic effect to display our work in a more confined space.

CV:

I had previously created a CV in College and over the last 3 years or so have been editing and updating it as I progressed through my life of higher education. However, after listening to Jo Bomans talk on how to lay out a CV and what's best to include in it, I found, when observing my own CV, that I had made a few of the critical errors which Jo had said to avoid.

So it is clear to me that I will need to edit my CV a Great deal in order to get it up to standard. Fortunately, I have kept the hand out Jo had provided 'Producing a Covering Letter', to assist in my editing of my CV.

Week 1: Introduction to Module & Brainstorming

First session of this new module, the class all split up into 5-6 groups ranging from 3 to 5 people. After lengthy discussion in the group I joined, we initially decided upon a 'Science and Technology' theme.

For this theme I was willing to add 3 pieces of work I did for the '3D Modelling and Animation' module which I studied in the previous year. The main theme to the work I did in that module was based around 'Science', more specifically, Space.

Shown below are the pieces of work I am going to contribute to the exhibition:

Solar System

(3D Animation of a revolving solar system with all 9 planets included.)


Supernova

(3D Animation of a Star going Supernova, i.e.: expanding then shrinking rapidly with particle explosion.)


Moon Collision

(3D Animation which is meant to portray how the moon was formed when a slightly smaller proto-planet collided with earth at the time of its creation in the Solar System.)


(I'm sorry to say that I'm having trouble trying to upload the rendered 3D animations to this blog. I will keep trying but for the moment they won't be on for a while.)