FMP Week 5

Having changed my idea into an app I researched into creating one and found out that it was going to be harder than I thought it was going to be therefore I had then set my mind on creating an advertisement video for the app.

I researched into how I could potentially do this and YouTube videos showed me how to make an iPhone in Adobe After Effects which was pretty simple but when it came to moving it, it became hard to do. I wanted to make this idea work because I couldn't actually create the app and decided to take a break from this and design the way it would look rather than trying to move it. I drew out some of the pages and started to experiment with them in Photoshop. I wasn't happy with the way they turned out however I went back to the video and tried to move the phone frame by frame. This still didn't look good and I was beginning to feel frustrated and realised that I had set my standards too high. I did not have enough skill to produce what I wanted to produce. I've now scrapped this idea and now focusing on the pages of the book. 

The book pages previously planned out meant that it was literally time to just create them and get them done. I did do some drawings prior to making them in photoshop just to make sure that the design was perfect. I started off with the poster quotes inspired by the website worst clients comments turned into posters. I wanted to have a page which was funny to the designer and one that the client could see and laugh after finding out how stupid the things that people had said were. This could then enhance the chance of the client wanting to learn about the elements rather than just accepting what they are just for the sake of their job getting done. 

After this I moved onto creating the title pages and having spoke to Soofia one of the tutors gave me the idea to change the title page to represent each element. Such as taking the element and using it to the advantage for example Line would just feature the pattern in line form rather than full colour. This made each page really unique however some proved harder than others and with time running out I decided that the rest of the pages would just have the original pattern. Another set of pages were the explanation pages where it would say a few sentences which explained the element; the few words would then hopefully lead onto the designer explaining further to the client. I wanted to keep it simple and kept to a simple border of the pattern and then the same font throughout. One person said that this was too much with the same font however I could not find another font which linked with the previous.

 

The British Library

As well as Pick Me Up I visited The British Library where at first I did not know what I was going to see but was a bit disappointed when I was told it was called Comics Unmasked. Comic books are not something I particularly enjoy and although I wasn't excited I took it as a chance to learn more about the subject. The whole room was dark and spotlighted articles of old comics however I was freaked out by the models placed in corners of the room with V for Vendetta masks on. This made me paranoid and being claustrophobic having people surrounding me trying to fit in a small apace made me feel a little bit scared.

I did finally find something that I enjoyed and spent over an hour reading a Comic with a friend. We were one of the last people to leave from our group and it was very interesting to read. The comic was sewn but then taken into software to add text and even more imagery that was hard to sew onto the fabric. It gave a new feel to comics and I really lost myself in this one, something I didn't know I could enjoy. Having spent so much time on this one comic I didn't really spend enough time on the rest of the work shown but it was still interesting in ways.

I do feel like I didn't take in very much at this exhibition but I do not think it in the slightest links with my project and therefore isn't something I would do in the future. I also think that because I was not allowed to take photos that I was able to read more of what was going on but makes it hard to reference anything in the future.

Pick Me Up

Today I visited Somerset house which was holding the Pick Me Up exhibition. I was really excited to see some of the works that was being shown and I wanted to draw some inspiration from some of the people's works for my own however this was not something that actually happened. I did enjoy the exhibition and it was nice to see the people who created the works but it really didn't link to the things I was trying to do with my own project which was very disappointing.

Nevertheless, it was a great day out and got me thinking about other styles of work. It was interesting to see some of the typography work as well as bookbinding but they didn't really help with my style of binding I wanted to do. There was a lot of stuff to look at and all varied in style which meant it was interesting to learn about other works and styles of design. It also meant that everyone could find something they at least liked within it. Something that I did find nice was the amount of effort they went into creating their business cards. I picked up a few which were very nice to see and inspires my own business cards in the future hopefully.

Having the people there to talk to was slightly off putting but both helpful in ways. It was great that they could tell you about their work but it felt too much about people trying to by their stuff rather than them trying to show off their artworks. It was somewhat off putting for me as I felt like I was being watched and put me in an uncomfortable mood to find out more about what they do.

Overall, I didn't enjoy this trip as much as I would have liked however it still felt interesting and made me think about new ways to start working.

 

FMP Week 4

This week I set my time on planning out the book, which means that I could potentially start to make it next week. I wanted to plan out the pages making sure that they all worked well next to each other and had a flow to the book. I started to research into how I would present the book being interactive and came up with the decision of making it very interactive specifying how each interactive page would work. Having previously researched into each element and explored how they could be made. I wanted to both teach and aid the design process which meant that I had to research into each element of graphic design and come up with a few words which summed up the word. 

I also researched into the app design and found out a lot about the different ways I could potentially present my own app. I wanted to keep my work original and none of the apps I found really grabbed me as unique in style and this made me want to create something even more powerful in style than others.

Knowing that I was going to plan out the book I wanted to come up with a name and was tied between Challenge Accepted. and Make up your mind. This was then chosen by asking people which they preferred and the majority chose Challenge Accepted. This is now the name of my book and I decided to mess about with a few ideas on photoshop which ended up with me scrapping most of it and recreating by hand. I Loved this font which was found online however it was of a hand writing style which meant that I could recreate this on my own. I tried using spray paint but this didn't give a sharp edge which meant that I decided to use paint and it felt much stronger. I then having been inspired by Kate Moross took on the opportunity to create my own pattern. I wanted to use a blocky felt pattern but also using bright colours to draw in attention. After hand drawing the pattern I disliked the lines and put the pattern into photoshop and neatened it up whilst adding a filter to make it feel more like a challenge referring both to the name and the game Tetris.