26.11.09 Thursday

Today i started my web site i created all 5 pages to start with then formed their structure through the table method. I'm happy with the layout so far but i think it still needs a few tweek. I have started adding images and photos of band members and merchandise. On monday i would like to add some videos from youtube and maybe something to play music or a link to some music.

I am finding it quite easy creating the website but i have had no feedback on the quality of my site yet. But this is by far the most interesting unit which may be the reason.

25.11.09 Wednesday

Today i was working on my website plan. Most of it is finished now the only page i haven't done is the colour scheme page. I like my page design as i spent a lot of time drawing out each page separately.

I couldn't do the colour scheme as i need to start making my website to get the colour codes off of photoshop. I have started the page and i know my two main colours are going to be black and red which where the two most common colours found on the similar websites.

23.11.09 Monday

Today John showed us how to use tables on Dream Weaver. It was my first time using Dream Weaver but I feel like i already get the jist of it, it's a very simple program to use then again we're only doing it at a basic level.

When making my website we used the table tool, inserted images and made rollovers. The only thing that i struggled with was the table when you had to re-size it as it was very fiddly. Here is an image of my website the only problem was when i re-loaded it some of my images had been deleted so 3 out of my 4 roll-overs have been deleted as well as my title image. But for a first attempt i think it's ok.

After finishing our websites i did some more of my website research.

18.11.09 Wednesday

I carried on with my research today i finished off the section on WWW but had to finish the rest of the reviews in the library.

I was actualy quite happy with my research especialy as i managed to do most of it in one day (12 pages)

The two good websites i reviewed where the disney website and an australian soap company.

The two bad ones where a border collie web site and some random web site with hundreds of adverts on.

16.10.09 Monday

Today I continued my research on the third unit we're doing "web design".

I think the research i have done is of better quality than my other units this is because I have done it all by hand even most of the pictures are hand drawn so far.

But this has made it slightly more time consuming this combined with other things means i'm a little bit behind i think.

Today i desided i think i'm going to base my website on the red hot chili peppers. this is because i couldn't think of any recent games that i liked or knew enough about to make a web site for them.

11.11.09 Wednesday

Today we continued with our research on the history of the World Wide Web i have now finished my first 3 pages on the history of the world wide web which I'm quiet happy with i will need to go back and give it some more colour at a later date but the text and content i am happy with for now. I have also done a page and a half of the contribution to the world wide web. which may also need a little bit more colour later on.

Since we have been doing this unit i have learnt that there is a difference between the Internet and the www which is apparently a common miss conception.

The next few pages have to be on what is the www which I'm not looking forwards to but after that we need to do some web site reviews which should be a lot more fun as we will have more freedom picking and analyzing the websites.

09.11.1990 Monday

Today we started the next unit which is for web design. which i think will interest me a lot more than advertising did. We are doing research first 18 A3 pages which sounds a bit excessive on the world wide web and reviewing four different web pages two good two bad. I'm looking forwards to actually creating the web site.

I have done two pages of my research today but i don't have any pictures to put up.

We had to do some sort of navigational skills exercise where we had to find door names within the college i think this was to show how important it is to have clear instructions and paths Including within a website.

I reviewed a web site which i thought was a good example of web design i chose YouTube as i couldn't find 1 problem with it. It has a good layout looks visually appealing, has good community features and is very easy to use.

02.11.09 Monday

Today i started my bus advertisment in photoshop after planning it. I have nearly finished the back of the bus and i think it's looking good. I have also started one of the sides.
I thought both sides would be the same so i only planned one side and the back of the bus meaning i will have to go back and and design another side.
I don't seem to be able to find and pictures of someone sitting at a mac at the moment which is what i need but i still have two days to look so it should be ok. I don't think it's worth putting up a picture of my work yet as i don't feel i have done enough so i will on wednesday.
This project all feels a bit rushed as we only had three weeks tho.

22.10.09 Thursday

Today we where given a new task which was to produce two pages of research on the company you have chosen to create your advert for i chose apple. At first i was struggling to find print ads for apple products they where all movies. I only managed to find some images on google images after searching for quiet awhile. In all i found nine images which should easily be enough for two pages. i also went on the apple website to look for some facts about them and their products i got some good facts but they will have to re-worded and bulk added to them.

John showed us how to use the pen tool in photoshop today he showed us how to use it to cut out selected parts of images and attach text to it. We had to attach an image of our choice to a bus to make it look like an advertisment. I struggled with it at first as i didn't realise i needed to use a larger image and the one i was using didn't fit when i re scaled it to the other bus. But i had some help and got a larger image which fitted not perfectly but quiet well. I think i accidently deleted or saved over my picture of it or i would have put it up.

21.10.09 Wednesday

Today we started our second part of the advertising unit. we have to design in rough two vehicle advertisments to go on buses. We can use the back and both sides.
I am doing my advertisment on apple computers this is because it has lots of applications therefore giving me more options. we only have to make 1 final copy of the bus advertisment and i think mine will be either of on ipod or an apple laptop.

14.10.09 Wednesday

Today John showed us a Power Point about semiotics and we where talking about communication and advertisment. He then showed us a few short videos explaining how viral advertising works and why it works so well. I liked the animation in the videos we watched because they where very simple and got quickly to the point.

We have been given our first task in advertising now which is 12 A3 pages by next week. The research has to be on aspects of advertising such as T.V, Radio, Print etc and why they produce the adverts the way they do what their target audiences are etc.

12.10.09 Monday

Today We started Unit 9 which looks into advertising how it works and why it works.

we had to get an images and come up with slogans to sell the product to 4 target markets. They where 10-16, 16-19, 20-25 and 35-45. Below is a screen shot of my adverts as you can see the images are all the same the only thing that changes is the slogans.

My 4 slogans where

10-16 - Bring out the rock star in you

16-19 - Serenade your special someone

20-25 - Start a career in music today

35-45 - Get out of your daily routine.

08.10.09 Thursday

Today we had a supply teacher because john was ill. I have finished both of my posters now I am going to put a picture of my original poster 2 and a picture of my second finished poster 2 below.

as you can see I have changed the soldier added some new images and changed the background. I also faded and blended in all the images so it looks more realistic. I also added an aspect from my "Economical Effects Of War" by putting money into the fire coming out of the tank. I got the supply teacher to show me how to use the clone stamp which I used to put the baby into camo. The relavance of the child is to show how childrens innocence in war is taken away and to make you question how young is to young. A there are are teenagers the age of 18 being poorly trained and sent to war.

I also started and finished my powerpoint presentation today. I added my posters into my presentation and wrote why and how i did what i did as well as what i would have done differntly.

I think my finished posters are a big improvment of my original mock ups all in all. They have better images and better composition.

07.10.09 Wednesday

Today I think I may have finished my first poster it has both the scanned images now as well as the 4 photos and a few images from the Internet. I say think because I do really like my images I'm just not to happy with my composition but i feel the only way I could improve it would be to start over which I don't have time to do. I have scanned some images from news papers into my second poster one was a an army helmet which I plan to photo shop onto a baby, put a gun in his hand and put him next to marching troops which I also scanned into photo shop. Tomorrow I need to start printing out my screen grabs and first poster to begin annotating my work.



Below is my first posted which I feel is finished but i may touch it up a bit when I have some spare time.

As you can see I added some begging children to show that the money being pumped into the unnecessary war could be pumped into either their community or our community which is a far more important and respectable cause. I also added some soldiers made of money and photoshopped guns into their hands. This is meant to be questioning the cost of life but I'm not sure how effective it is at doing so.

05.10.09 Monday

Today I started my final copies of my posters. We only have to do 2 posters rather than 3 now to ensure we stay on schedule plus this gives us more time on each poster meaning they will be of higher quality. I have decided to do my "The effects of war" and "the economical problems of war" posters as I felt they where my 2 best original ones. I have most of my photos now but I'm still not 100% sure what to scan in. Below are both my unfinshed posters.

The picture of the wooded area on the left is a picture I look at the level to show what the landscape could look like before and after war, I also look the picture of the school sign. On the right I look photos of the "bomb bins" all the money at different angles to give the impression that it's falling and the man is my girlfriends dad who I told to smile and throw socks in the air, then edited out the socks.

01.10.09 Thursday

Today we learnt two ways to use the scanners. You can load it up in the start menu and go on "Canon" or you can open it in photoshop which john says is the easier way to do it.

We have also started to plan our first final poster. I am leaving slightly early today to go and start taking my pictures and finding pictures in news papers and magazines to scan into the computer.

I also printed out my mock ups to stick in and anotate over the weekend they are abit late but I am sure i can have them in my monday morning.

28.09.09

Today I didn't have to come into communication so I came in at 10:30 (nice lye in). I finished all 3 of my mock ups today which are based on bringing our troops home. The 3 subjects my mock ups are based on are the economical problems of the war, The problems caused to foreign countries and the actual effects of war. I think my best mock up poster is the one i did based on the effects of war. This is because it has alot of powerful images that i feel work very well together. Here is my poster on the left and a few of my ideas of what the images are about. The children make you question how much of their innocence remains after living in such an unforgiving enviroment. The couple at the bottom show how life back at home is effected and the bombing showed the pure brutality even directed towards innocent civilianse.

I have learnt alot of new skills with photoshop and I think i'm getting a bit more confident with it.

I was given back my A3 sketch book today to add to and improve. I had already finished my research and was quiet happy with it. But it never hurts to improve it. So I added some extra pictures and and notations explaining what the pictures where and why I liked them. I also added my favourite photomontage which I am going to put on the right hand side. I liked it because I thought it was very creative and has a very good use of colour.

24/09/09

I handed in my mood boards today before starting a new project with photoshop. Half way through the day he did some photoshop work which was sorta like a recap and a little bit more practice. Then after lunch we did our mock up for our posters shown on the left. It does have some quiet brutal shocking images on it but then that's what war is. It's on the effects of war I tried to put alot of children in their because they tug at the heart strings more which is exactly the aim of my poster. This is the 3rd time I have used photoshop and i can feel myself getting a bit more confident with it now.

23.09.09

Yesterday we started learning how to use Photoshop it was my first time using it. But the task we had was quiet simple so it wasn't to bad apart from the fact that it was a bit fiddly but after about half an hour i got a bit more used to it. I did enjoy using it and I feel that it is a very useful tool so I am considering getting it at home. Which would give me more time to practise using it and I could also use to to sharpen or edit my drawing.

We also had our first one to one tutorial yesterday. I did them all last year and i never REALLY saw the point in them then and i still don't now.

21/9/09

Today we started our mood boards and some of us improved or finished off our research. We where meant to be learning how to use photo shop but i think we're doing that wednesday now. Maybe this is because not enough people had finished their mood boards + research.

I decided today I am definatly going to be doing my mood boards on bring our troops home. I was printing off images to start my mood boards when i get home but i ran out of print credit so I will have to print the rest out when I get home. hopefuly i will stay on deadline for thursday.

I had to do key skills again today but i spoke to the lady afterwards and she says because i got level 2 communications last year i don't have to repeat it this year. 10:30 Start on monday. :P

17.09.09

Thursday

It is our third day of college discluding the induction week and we're finishing off our 10 pages of research for task one after we finish it we watch a movie on the t.v. The film was about john heart field and how he used art as a political weapon aginst the nazi socialist party. he also tried to get the message out to the world about the suffering and oppression caused by the nazi's. we then had a long discustion about the art form followed by a discussion about word association. we then had to play a word association game to help us brain storm for our mood boards. Next thursday we will have to hand in our mood boards mine is on bringing the troops home which I have already started planning.