Coursework – More Thoughts…..

I’ve moved on from my initial research and have decided on two ideas to go with. It is now time for the design process, something that’s never as easy as i’d like it to be!

More Planning less Flashing

Both my banners will be created using Flash and interactivity will be added by using Actionscript 3.0, in projects past i have jumped into the software stage to quickly and as a consequence wasted lots of time messing around without really knowing what i was trying to achieve.

This time i have deliberately delayed using Flash too quickly and will only start once i am good and ready, with a fully completed plan of what i am aiming for.

Final Ideas

Seasonal Product – Hay-fever

My seasonal product will be a hay-fever remedy, in the form of a nasal spray (reasons for that particular form of remedy will become clear!) The size of this banner will be 300 x 250, so its more of a box than a banner but its listed by the Internet advertising bureau as an official ad size, so there!

The ad will show some evil pollen creatures rising out of the grass and plants and they will buzz around a head causing it to sneeze, the user will then be presented with the nasal spray and proceed to spray away the pollen and cure the sufferer!

Country – England (London)

I’ll be advertising tourism to England, with the emphasis on London. This will be a skyscraper banner, 160 x 600, a more traditional form of banner advertising.

The idea is to show one of the royal guards outside Buckingham Palace, the ones with the big tall furry hats, who are famously still and focused on their job.

The users task will be to distract the guard and make him smile or blink by waving and making noises at him. I plan to do this by making the mouse cursor a pair of hands and providing a button for the user to click on that will make noises. Once that is achieved some text will slide in saying something along the lines of ‘ Find out if it’s that easy in real life, visit london’ or something like that, still got to decide on the details of that part.

Sketches

My hay-fever banner will centre around ‘evil pollen’ characters that the user will have to spray away, here are some sketches Ive been doing as to what they may look like. Next step is to scan them in and tidy them up in illustrator and prepare them for importing into Flash.

 

 

 

Actionscript!!Ah!!

I’m trying to separate the functionality from the design for as long as possible, i believe this approach will allow me to focus properly on each task rather than muddling the two together. The interaction is obviously introduced through the use of Actionscript 3.0 and i have to admit i am struggling big time, trawling through the help guides and tutorials is proving to be very tedious and confusing me a great deal. Looks like i shall be having plenty of ’surgery’ in the week ahead.

With precisely 2 weeks to go till hand in its full steam ahead, just off to the shops for some pro plus and red bull!

Digital Arts – Broadway Cinema

Last week i travelled down to the Broadway Cinema to check out the Digital Arts Exhibition they had on, and to be honest found myself a little disappointed at the limited range of installations on show, however what was shown did impress me.

The first thing to strike me upon walking in was the large projection on the wall of the bar area. A piece by Alma Banuelos, a Colombian digital artist, it took the form of multiple lines of scrolling text. The message was lost on me as the majority of it was too fast for me to read, or maybe that was the point?

It was certainly an eye catching display but one that i thought had little substance.

 

 

Upon further exploration of the building i stumbled across a wall mounted monitor which was showing a reel of short films, as part of the Trampoline Project. I found several intriguing videos on this reel, the two which made most impression on me are below….

Drips (Colour) – Sean Capone

This piece simply showed loads of different colours of paint dripping down the screen, it was constantly scrolling down which made it feel like it was just one big wall the paint was dripping down, rather than just getting to the edge of the monitor and stopping.

I found myself really intrigued with this video and i was trying to work out how it was done, the vertical paint drips were fairly obvious but there were also some horizontal drips or more like splats. Did he film them and then rotate the frame in post production? Were they computer enhanced effects? Were they reversed? It certainly didn’t look like they had just been painted that way, their movement seemed unnatural.

I couldn’t tell but it got me thinking and made me appreciate the craft that must have went into the piece, well done Sean Capone.

134 Contrails – Lizzie Hughes

This piece was a really clever idea, simple yet effective, as all the best things are in my opinion. It was simply a series of pictures of the trails that are left behind by planes. Each shot was rotated so that when strung together the trails appeared to be rotating in a circle.

As there was no explanation on show of the piece i had to draw my own conclusions of its intended message. A thought that immediately struck me was that it was making a statement on global warming.

I could be wrong, but with all the hype and hysteria ( or lack of maybe?!) at the moment surrounding carbon emissions i thought it highlighted the proliferation of commercial flights currently in operation and the damage they are doing to our planet.

As a final word on the experience of this mini exhibition, i thought the lack of notes and blurb on each piece was interesting.

Maybe i missed it but i couldn’t see any and this meant i was forced to think about each piece and try to interpret it myself. It’s possible that i have gained a completely different perspective on the art than the artists originally intended. Which i think is pretty cool and allows me to engage with the art in a way i want to rather than being bombarded with contextual meaning that i neither understand or agree with.

Coursework Banners – Research

For our first piece of coursework this year we’ve been set the task of creating two banner adverts. One must advertise a seasonal product and the other must advertise a country.

A few brainstorming sessions and plenty of internet research have lead me to my choices. My seasonal product is going to be for a Hayfever remedy and my country will be good old england, more specifically focusing on London

A key part of my research in these early stages has been bannerblog, a blog full of various banners from internet advertising campaigns past and present. It really is amazing what some people have done with such a limited space and here are a few that inspire me….

http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2006/12/virgin_blue_photocop.php

http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2005/09/octopus_travel_find.php

http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2006/08/bahamas_signs.php

The above are all tourism themed so they have given me some great food for thought with relation to my country banner, i particularly love the simplicity of the Bahamas banner ad, so if you havent already clicked the link do it now!!

Right, it’s back to the drawing board for me, lots to be getting on with. I shall return soon with some early prototype designs!

Web Design Book Task

I have been asked to write an entry about a book that i think would be of help to me in relation to my pathway choice, web design.

When undertaking web projects the most difficult part i feel is at the start, it can seem very daunting when you have a whole site waiting to be built and you dont know where to start. This caused me significant problems last year during my coursework, lack of fundamental planning lead to a dissapointing end website.

With this in mind i have chosen to talk about the following book:

Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning (Dan Brown)

Recommended to me by Adrian Snodgrass and written by Dan Brown, no not the Da Vinci Code man, the web design one!

This book deals with the variety of ways there are to plan and design a website. Such as wireframes, site plans and flow charts. Each stage is broken down into managable sections with checklists to complete.

By using the information provided in this book i can see that it would help me a great deal in my future web projects.

Here is a synopsis of the book from Amazon

Most discussion about Web design seems to focus on the creative process, yet turning concept into reality requires a strong set of deliverables-the documentation (concept model, site maps, usability reports, and more) that serves as the primary communication tool between designers and customers. Here at last is a guide devoted to just that topic. Combining quick tips for improving deliverables with in-depth discussions of presentation and risk mitigation techniques, author Dan Brown shows readers how to make their required documentation into the most efficient communication tool possible. He begins with an introductory section about deliverables and their place in the overall process, and then delves into to the different types of deliverables. From usability reports to project plans, content maps, flow charts, wireframes, site maps, and more, each chapter includes a contents checklist, presentation strategy, maintenance strategy, a description of the development process and the deliverable’s impact on the project, and more.

Pixel Art

Last friday we had a seminar on the wonders of Pixel Art, which is the process of drawing images pixel by pixel. It may sound fairly tedious but once you get into it it’s suprisingly fun.

I started messing around in photoshop and as i went on i somehow managed to end up making a swimming pool, which ended up looking like this…….

The first image is of normal resolution and the second image is zoomed in so you can actually see the pixels that i used to create the image. I’d like to experiment with this further and develop the design, i enjoyed that it was a fairly easy process to get to grips with.

Ive been doing some research and found some inspiring examples of pixel art, i cant imagine how long these must have taken to create!

 

Amazing! This is a design by eboy

 

This is something i found over at DeviantArt, beautiful

To think all of that is created by simply positioning pixels next to each other one by one, i find that amazing

Flash Game – Interactive Sports Quiz

As part of the Interaction Design element of my course we have been given the task of creating a Flash based game. I have chosen to go for a simple interactive quiz game, in particular a football quiz.

I spend a lot of time playing games like these on the internet when i’m bored but am always dissapointed when most of them are too easy so i thought this was a good oppurtunity to create the game ive always wanted to play.

Here are some screenshots and links of games i have taken inspiration from for this task…

 

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I shall be working on this game over the next week or so and will post progress reports here as and when progress is made! Currently wrestling with the joys of Actionscript 3 and also rather ambitiously attempting to model and render a 3d football for the background image in 3DS Max, lots to get on with then

Farewell for now….