Insp:rat:on from Em:t

There's no doubt that this week has been different to usual. It's been very much inspiration-focused... gathering inspiration in the form of logo designs, and using music as inspiration- using it to provoke emotions, feelings and words to be put in mind maps/mood boards.

Obviously I've done mind maps before, but never in this kind of way to gather inspiration from a source such as music. Normally I listen to music as music, and as a musician I'm thinking about the technicalities and rhythm, etc., not the emotions and thoughts expressed through the music. Having to do this took some time, but I think listening to a type of music that I don't normally associate with very much assisted in this. In the end, I ending up getting quite a lot of ideas from the music, and began to establish some quite interesting interpretations.

Writing the review yesterday also helped in forming these interpretations, as it helped me develop and express the feelings in writing... something I always find useful when articulating myself.

Today's mood boards helped, as adding imagery to my interpretation has begun to give me ideas for some elements of the designs which will come over the next couple of months. I did one mood board for every two tracks, so some of them are quite mixed in what they represent. Here's my mood board for the first two tracks... not very well organised or nicely presented, but I decided the random inclusion of different aspects was the was to go.


Collecting the logos over the past couple of days has been useful, as I've noticed a few things that seem to come up in logo design repeatedly. I'll bear these things in mind in the future when considering any logo designs I may do. Of course, the problem with this is the things that set logos apart in many ways is their individuality, and hence it might be worthwhile to just forget these things, and start with a blank canvas. Any thoughts?

I've found looking at the word 'emit' today slightly trickier, as it's difficult to get a mass of inspiration from one word. I've also been in a bit of a difficult mood today, and I've struggled to settle in the same kind of rhythm I was in yesterday. I'll probably come back to this for a while later in the week to spend a bit more time thinking about it. I think it'll be worth it to do this in the long run.

Beatsystem '2297' Review

It is generally considered that music is art. Art is hard to define, and as such, it is my opinion that the majority of music should be considered as simply music. However, the minority of music is undoubtably art; expressed in an infinitely deeper and complex manner, often challenging and - even more often - misunderstood. In an album where less than half of the tracks have a recognisable time signature, the latter is definitely the case for '2297'. Throughout the album, the listener is exposed to a wealth of emotions from the artist, ranging from joy to distress. Definitely not an album for the feint-hearted.

The introductory track, 'Invade Areas Where Nothing's Definite', is a mismatch of sampled sounds, conveying frustration, as though the artist is struggling to get their true message across. This conjured in my mind the scene from The Matrix, in which the main character Neo has his mouth sealed over with his own face- he has no way of communicating his message of anguish.

'For Pierre' is a track very much open for interpretation, particularly in the latter part of the track... with sounds similar to those heard in a fairground, interrupted by the shocking inclusion of what sounds like gunshots... or is that fireworks? This is art at it's best, allowing the audience to develop their own connotations of the sounds, and conjuring a wealth of emotions, dependent on the listener's perceptions.

'Closely Tuned Drone' is the final track, and to me, is the artists exploration of the development of life. It begins with a drone, representing the development of a foetus prior to birth. The track develops to become very playful, portraying a freedom of exploration and discovery - reminiscent of childhood. Next comes the suggestion of maturity, responsibility and an increased level of seriousness, implying the growth from a child into an independent adult. The track then descends, which to me represents old age - a feeling of captivity and frustration caused by illness and incapacity, followed eventually by death. Interestingly, the track then begins to become playful again, perhaps suggesting the freedom found through death and leaving this life? Finally, the track once again drops, becoming mysterious, which could suggest an uncertainty of what really may occur after death.

As an album, '2297' explores a range of emotions and situations in very interesting, artistic ways. More challenging than your everyday electronica album, it takes time and patience to develop an understanding with the artist. It also requires you to process your own interpretations and deal with the emotions that this can stir. '2297' is well worth the money and time, if only to begin to understand and explore the artist's emotions. Again, definitely not an album for the feint-hearted.

A6 Evaluation

The 'A6 - Revert to Type' assignment has proved very worthwhile for a number of reasons. I feel that I have developed my knowledge of a number of important design principles, and have been able to put these in to practice in a number of ways. It has also been a very worthwhile test of my time management skills, in that it has involved the micro-planning of hours and minutes, rather than days and hours. Despite the focus on the timed tasks of the assignment, I have found the constant presence of the presentation very useful in developing my understanding of typography. By completing the presentation, I feel I have developed a deeper understanding of the nature of fonts, and along with this has come a better appreciation of the intricacies of many typefaces. It is crucial for me to take this new knowledge and passion forwards with me into my future work. I now feel that typography is a crucial aspect of design - much more important than I ever realised before - and therefore it is important to continue my development in this area. One negative concerning my presentation, I feel, is the design of the slides. I believe that the content is very much efficient for the task, but the design is missing something. I feel that the reason for this is the lack of design work I did for the slides in my sketchbook. Before beginning on the course, much of my design and development process was completed on-screen. However, developing the sketchbook has proved very effective in developing my design skills. This, I believe, can be seen in the timed-tasks completed during this assignment, for which the sketching design time has been priceless. I will take this into account for future presentation designs.

The presentation on the final day, I feel, went very well. I managed to fit into the time limit almost perfectly, and I felt pleased with the way I presented the content of the presentation. I felt confident in that I was very familiar with the content, but nervous with the delivery. This manifested itself in a lot of ‘um-ing and ah-ing’, which I was very conscious of. For future presentations, I need to become more confident in my ability to deliver the information successfully… the content isn’t the issue, but my own self-confidence.
The first 'practice' timed task, entitled 'FontBook', was much more difficult that first expected, and for this reason, I was late for the deadline. The inclusion of this 'dry run' was crucial, as it really opened my eyes and enabled me to complete the future timed tasks more effectively. The main focus of improvement relied on better time micro-planning. For the rest of the timed tasks, I am very happy with my performance in terms of time-planning and the final product of the time. I was able to employ a number of design principles, including the P.A.R.C. (Proximity, Alignment, Repetition and Contrast) principles, as well as a number of typographical devices learnt during the typography unit. The one major negative from all of the timed tasks is the one mistake I have noticed I made, on the Vodafone advert. Namely, I put '.com', instead of '.co.uk' on the end of the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) included on the advert. This was due to making a last minute change to design, and not having time to check my work again before the deadline. Despite this mistake having a negative impact on my work, it has also been a very potent lesson for me. If the scenario in the brief was a real job, this would have been a £4000+ mistake for Vodafone. I have learnt that checking spelling, punctuation and grammar is invaluable, as well as ensuring the content of a design matches the brief not just to the letter; but to the ellipsis, to the em dash, and to the '.co.uk'! In future, the very last thing before the submission of any design will be to check the content, even if this sacrifices not having the time to make a little amendment to make the design perfect.

Thankfully, we had the opportunity on the final day to withdraw one of the timed tasks from the final submission. For the above reason, I decided to remove the Vodafone advert. This, however, was disappointing, as I was quite pleased with the final product of the Vodafone task, as it involved a lot of tweaking and developing new skills with leading and kerning.

The two products I did include in my final submission were the ‘Hokai’ paint tube, and the ‘Jonathan Gee’ article. The ‘Hokai’ task was relatively difficult, as working on such a small scale with such a lot of information to fit on wasn’t something I had prior experience of. However, with a bit of trial and error with font sizes, positioning of page elements, etc. I believe I came to an effective solution.

I’m also pleased with my final solution for the ‘Jonathan Gee’ task. I was able to utilise a number of Newspaper devices, including a pull quote and a drop cap. The best aspect of this article, for me, is the headline used. I purposefully used white on a black background with a very dark, prominent font to give maximum contrast, which will impact upon the reader effectively. Having ‘Jonathan Gee’ contained within an invisible rectangle is also aesthetically pleasing, as it gives an extra bit of alignment to the readers eyes.

The final day brought with it the final timed tasks, entitled ‘Grid’ and ‘Story’. I found the first ‘Grid’ task very useful, as it helped develop skills with using columns and grids. I haven’t been particularly neglectful of using columns and grids, but developing the grid prior to having the content may prove a useful skill in the future.

The ‘Story’ task challenged a number skills and principles learnt through the assignment. Again, a number of Newspaper devices were employed in the design, along with the P.A.R.C. design principles. The task also involved using precise measurements of point size, in terms of font size, leading, tracking and kerning. Using these different tools, I was able to align the columns perfectly along the bottom, thus preventing any white space; considered unsightly in Newspaper design.

One area for improvement in the future is to refine my abilities with the various different ways of amending the appearance and layout of type, and therefore become more proficient with this. Adjusting these details has, throughout the timed tasks, been one the most difficult and frustrating aspects of creating the final digital products. However, when the process is complete, it has also been one of the more rewarding aspects if the assignment. By practicing and developing my skills in this area, the process should hopefully become less taxing, and more rewarding.

In conclusion, I am very pleased with the progress I have made throughout the assignment. The final digital products I have produced from each timed task are, in my opinion, all to a good standard. Each uses a variety of design principles, learnt previously and in this assignment, to effectively communicate with the reader. One of the most valuable lessons from the timed task has been that from the Vodafone task- always check and double check work. Finally, I was also satisfied with the content of the presentation, and the final delivery, although the latter still needs improvement in future.

Word Count: 1241

Eh? Where'd the time go?

The past few weeks seem to have absolutely flown by. I can't believe that the deadline's next week. I think I feel more prepared for this deadline than for the past deadlines though, which is obviously a good thing.

Over the next week the main things I need to complete are the merit and distinction list and the evaluations- although I'll obviously only be able to start the A6 evaluation.

I feel as though my 'A5 - Builder' site is complete now- I've done quite a lot of messing about and feel as though any more would probably be pointless. I'm going to try to spice up the home page a bit, not sure how yet, but other than that it's pretty much done. There's just one small issue with IE, concerning a valign (vertical alignment) attribute for the navigation... it works in all other browsers but IE just won't align the navigation in the centre. Thanks Microsoft. See the site here.

Over the last week I managed to get some usability testing done with some of those lovely folks in the 50+ age group. Unfortunately, I only managed to find 5 people willing to complete the form. Whilst testing this was in some ways useful, it also didn't really show up any issues with my site... which could be good, but to me it just seemed as though those participating in the questionnaire were just giving the answers they thought I would want.

In terms of A6, I was again pleased with the results of this weeks timed task, 'Jonathan Gee' which I'll upload onto my portfolio site later tonight (26/2/08). I particularly like the header now, which came around after an idea from Steve to make the 'Jonathan' smaller, and I then decided to incorporate the two names into one rectangular shape. I found last weeks 'Newspaper Devices' lecture very useful in the designing of this week's task.

'I touch myself too much!'

I suppose I should start off this week by explaining this weeks title. Or maybe I'll just leave you in suspense until a bit later...

All in all this week has been an interesting week. On Monday we had the usability tests for our A5 - 'Builder' websites. This proved quite useful in bringing up a couple of issues that have now been addressed. I'm feeling quite happy now with my 'Easy As Pie' website. I feel it's simple design and layout lends it to it's target audience of 'Silver Surfers'. Just a few bits of touching up to do over the next couple of weeks and it'll be complete. I also need to spend time reflecting on the results from the usability tests and how this may influence my final product.

During the building of the website I've been 'teased' a bit by CSS. Using it for defining text only has given me a preview of what it can do, and I'm looking forward to learning more about it in the coming months. As a play around, as well as a learning exercise, I spent a bit of my limited free time over half term building a test portolio site using CSS. Take a look and let me know what you think. Unless you're Gary, in which case I already know you don't like it!

Tuesday morning brought a lecture on Newspaper devices. Following this came our second timed task: a job advertisement for Vodafone, to be displayed in a Newspaper. As with the last task, I enjoyed the process of designing and producing the advertisement. It has to be said, the time was cut close at the end as I went to the very end trying to get the product finished to as good a standard as possible. I suppose while it could be said that cutting time close is a dangerous thing, it also allowed me to make full use of the time available to us. Maybe next time 2 minutes to deadline might be a bit close though!

In the afternoon we had our practice presentations in our seminar groups. This is where the 'touching' comes in. I know this from the last presentation, but when I'm stood in front of people talking, I tend to touch my face and shoulder. Quite a strange habit to have, but it's there nonetheless. Other than this, I thought the presentation went OK- just a few amendments needed, and a lot of practice to get it perfect for the final presentation. Over the next week, I'm also going to amend the handout as I'm still not happy with it's design.

I remember when Half Term was a holiday...

Following the feedback I received last week about my site, I've spent this week implementing the feedback. This has meant a redesign of a few aspects of my site, which I feel has led to a massive improvement for the site. The updated site can be found here.

I'd appreciate any further feedback on the site, and obviously the sooner I receive this the better, as the usability testing obviously begins on Monday. The main thing I need to sort out now is linking the images to larger copies of each picture.

Over the last week I've had to change some of my ideas for the site, most noticeably reducing the number of Access Keys I'm using throughout my site. This has led me to deviate slightly from one of my target goals, which was "All links and form input fields will be accessible via the 'Access Key' function". Essentially, I can't complete this as it would end up with some Access Key shortcuts conflicting with the shortcuts for the browser. This actually ends up restricting accessibility rather than increasing it.

For A6, I've spent a lot of time the last week gaining more experience with InDesign. A friend of mine who works for the local church wanted me to design a postcard for him to advertise a gap year programme he runs. It turns out he's one of these clients who are never quite satisfied and always think that something else can be changed to improve a piece of work. I think next time he wants me to do something, I'm going to have to actually charge him... and do it by the hour! The positives of this, though, are that I'm feeling increasingly prepared for the other timed tasks that are coming up, as well as feeling as though I'm getting more proficient with InDesign, as well as other programmes I've been using, including Illustrator and Photoshop.

For the rest of this week I need to concentrate on practising my presentation, and also redesigning some aspects of my handout and presentation.

Despite the fact that it's half term, I've not managed to find much time to do college work yet. My dad got married last weekend, and I was best man, so that took up a lot of time. One of my good friends is getting married this weekend, and that's going to take up a lot of time. I'm really hoping I can find the time to complete all the work I need to get done for next week, without having to do any all-nighters. I'll let you know how that goes!

All in all, I'm really enjoying this semester so far. Having now settled into the course, I'm beginning to feel more comfortable with where the course is leading me to- and I feel very happy with where I now believe I am heading.

Hokai

Tuesday began with a timed task: 'Hokai'. We had to design a label for a small paint tube. I really enjoyed the task today, and was really pleased with the results. As the space we had to work with was very small (65mm x 45mm), it was quite a challenge to get all the information onto the label yet retain a legible font size. Like I said, I was really pleased with the final result of the task. I think the way I approached the task was much more efficient than for the last timed task, and my time management was better for the limited time we had.

The rest of the day involved further work on the presentation and handout. I'm not feeling the look of my handout at the moment, so might have to revisit the design process. It all seems a little squashed at the moment. Other than this, I feel the preparation of my presentation is going well, and I should be prepared well in time for the practice presentation just after half term. One issue I'm having is balance of how much information I should have on my slides in relation to the amount on my handout. I'm going to have to sit down at some point, and think about what I can omit from my slides in order to make them communicate my points more effectively.

On Monday I got some feedback from Steve and John about my site. This brought a lot of issues to light, which were reinforced by the thread on Das Forum. Over half term I'm going to spend a bit (or a lot as the case may be) of time implementing the feedback I have recieved, some aspects being minor, some being much more major. I'm actually really grateful for the feedback, as I've found myself agreeing with a lot of what's been said. Although my site did take a lot of criticism, I see this as being a valuable stage in the overall process of creating a better site.

I'm looking forward to implementing the feedback I've recieved, as although it could be seen as a hassle to have to change things on the site, I really enjoyed building it, and therefore I should enjoy changing aspects of it. Hopefully!