Pixel by Pixel

After receiving the restoration task last week, this week has been dedicated to adding some colour to my image. Finding a suitable flesh tone was the hardest task and to be honest, I’m still not 100% happy with the colours that I’ve chosen, so throughout the rest of this week I will be dedicated my A4 self study time on improving my tones and working on areas that are still need some attention. During our seminar group today, we showed our restoration images and the work we’ve done on them so far. As you can see below, mine still needs some work doing to it.

To get us into design industry practise, we had a timed task yesterday. In half an hour we had to design and create a business card, set to a specific brief. Initially I found this quite daunting, as I usually prefer to plan things out in a lot more time than the 15 minutes sketchbook work we were given. But once our time was over, I had produced quite a few ideas that I thought could be developed into something better. After printing off and sticking our designs on the wall, I was pleased to find out that my business card adhered to the brief Steve set and that there were no typographical errors.

My work on the A3 assignment is now picking up speed. This week I’ve finished the content section of the web plan and now I’ve moved onto some initial thumbnail work. Yesterdays exercise has helped me a lot with this. To make sure that my ideas were off the top of my head and not too thought out, I set myself a time limit in which to get a certain number of ideas down in my book. Hopefully by the end of the week, I can choose five to develop and show them on my blog for feedback.

For next week’s seminar, I need a fair bit of work ready for feedback.

• Web Content (which I completed last week)
• Screen Designs
• Site Structure Diagram
• Assets List
• Budget Statement

Because of the level of work needed, I’ve done a time plan with a quota over 32 hours. This may increase during the week as I think I may have under estimated some tasks.

Thanks for reading.
Sue

Clone, Heal, Rinse, Repeat

Image manipulation is a topic that I've always been interested in but never had the skills to put into practise before. When we received the image that we had to manipulate, I immediately set about trying to fix various parts of it before quitting the image and beginning all over again. After three false starts, I decided that there had to be another way to approach this task. After what felt like an eternity staring at the computer thinking of better ways to tackle the different aspects of each task, I made a design decision and started on the torn corner.

For the rest of the week, I'm going to have to keep messing about with the different techniques mentioned to us in the lecture this morning and see which one gives me the best effects on the photograph. Then once I'm satisfied I can move onto the application of colour, which will be hard. TO get the correct colour of certain aspects will take some time.

Yesterday, after realising I'd set about my A3 assignment the wrong way, I had to bring myself back to the point where I was meant to be at, rather than getting ahead of myself. In today’s seminar group, I've realised a few key pointers about the way I want to do this website. Although, in my opinion, I've got a good competitive analysis, I don't want my delivery requirements to let me down again. My target audience is a lot stronger than last time, I’ve even gone as far as naming her! Yes, her!

Things to improve on: I really need to begin to improve my time planning. At the minute, my self study time between the two assignments is a little all over the place. I need to continue the practise made in college time and devote half of my time to one assignment and half to the other assignment.

For next week I need to complete:

• Finish writing up my delivery requirements, making sure that I have a more in-depth web hosting comparison this time. Concentrate on the technologies that are going to be used.
• Begin the content aspect of the assignment; try to get around 50 words for all 40 terms. While doing so, collect images from open source/free web sites if able to do so. If not, email the owner for authorisation to use the image.
• Continue with restoring the photograph ready for formative feedback in seminar groups next week, add colour.
• Print off image compression essay, also for seminar groups.

And to finish off this blog, could I just say congratulations to Mark on the birth of his baby girl!

Don't be such a GIF!

During the course of yesterday, we received feedback regarding our A2 - That's the Plan assignment and the areas which could be improved for next time. Apart from forgetting my Production Schedule (which cannot be forgotten next time!), the other areas of improvement were things that with practise during this assignment I will definately improve on.

Last week we were given the topic of Art vs Design for our first of two essays on the A4 - Image Rights assignment, I found that starting this essay was the hardest thing I've had to do on the course so far, getting the right start was important to me as it meant that I could get in the right 'flow' of the assignment and aim for as many words as I could. Sadly, I fell 100 words short of where I wanted to be. But this can always be made up in the second essay, which we've begun today.

This weeks essay is all about Image Compression and the best format to use on images. After choosing two images from a selection of eight, we had to test different compression settings and record our findings ready to answer the question:

Assess how effective industry-standard image compression schemes are on a range of bitmap images. Describe the pictorial content of each image and then present your qualitative and quantitive findings in an illustrated essay.

For this essay I need to be able to write about 600-700 words, so that I don't exceed the combined word limit of 1,500 for the two essays.

For my A3 - Back to BASIC assignment, a list of 40 computing terms have been given to us which we need to research and write around 50 words for each, specifically aimed at 'silver surfers' without sounding patronising. Therefore, my main content will be around 2000 words. My project goals are a lot better than the ones I did last time and they are a lot more measurable.

My time planning for the rest of this week includes:

• Begin and hopefully complete essay #2, with no more than 1,500 combined with #1.
• Research the 40 terms given to us and write 50 words about each one.
• Collect images relating to the terms provided from free sites or gain copyright permission for non open-source images.
• Complete delivery requirements and competitive analysis on A3.

Thanks for reading.
Sue

Artist or Designer?

That is the question indeed.

Another week of tense and exhilerating work in the life of an Interactive Media Student. The most daunting week I think I've faced so far consisting of new assignments, previous assignment results and my first ever presentation on this course.

On Monday Morning, we had our presentations. To my relief we didn't have to present to the whole class, just to Steve, which is how I wanted it to happen. My second sign of relief was that I wasn't the first person to present, which eased me into the process better. During my presentation, I was helped along by Steve, the fact that he was acknowledging the facts that I were presenting to him made me more confident to continue with the information that I had prepared. I met the five minute time duration we were given and hopefully managed to keep within the 30 seconds we were allowed either side. A huge sense of self gratification was felt afterwards!

Monday Afternoon and something new to get nervous about - our assignment results. As Steve was reading our names out on the list to the class, telling us whether we'd refered or passed, I felt my self getting more and more anxious as my name came closer. Eventually it was my turn and a sudden rush of adrenaline came over me as I heard him say Pass! My worry over the past two weeks was finally over and I'd achieved the grade that I wanted!

Now for this term and my two new assignments:

A3 - Back to BASIC
This assignment requires me to create a website plan similar to my website plan for A2 - That's the Plan! With my target audience of 'Silver Surfers' in mind, I have to plan a computing fundamentals website which will detail components related to computing. Collecting Images (and therefore image rights permission) will be a major part of this assignment and therefore the use of a free photo site will need to be used.

A4 - Image Rights
This assignment requires me to do a number of small tasks.
My first one is to write an illustrated essay about Design and Art, are we designers or artists? Or both? I have to relate this essay to tDR (the Designers Republic) and include some examples of their work relevant to the topic I'm writing about. My second task will to be to write an essay on my findings relating to an image compression task we shall be doing in class next week. Then to the creative tasks, firstly an image restoration task using Adobe Photoshop, which i'm really looking forward to. And finally, two static banners relating to a topic Steve provides us with. Again, something I'm looking forward to.

So, in relation to the A4 assignment, I'd be grateful if you could leave some comments on how you feel regarding my first essay question. Is Art and Design the same thing or are they different? Are we Designers or are we Artists? Or are we both? All opinions are welcomed.

Things I need to do for next week:

• Research into the Designers Republic and find out some information about them and their style/techniques.
• Find some examples of their work to include in my illustrated essay.
• Begin to write (and hopefully complete) the essay for next week.
• Remind Jonny B to wear his gorilla suit to college on Monday!

Thanks for reading.
Sue