Dreamweaver Workshop 01

The beginnings of my website! Well, the process of leaning how to do it anyway.




-HJ x

OUGD202 Evaluation

For the Design for Digital Print module I chose to work on the Movie Season brief and create 5 ten-second idents on a movie season of my choice. The genre of movies that I chose to work with was Vampire Movies because it is a favourite genre of mine.

I started by doing a lot of research into my chosen five vampire movies, being Nosferatu, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Interview with the Vampire, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Lost Boys. I looked into the DVD covers, movie posters and film stills to get an idea of the design direction that each was going for. I decided pretty early on that I wanted to have very grungy, dirty look to my idents and wanted to have a consistent theme of shadows in all of my idents, and started to create textures and look into effects such as boiling and the distortion effects used by Len Lye. It was soon apparent to me that I needed to simplify my design direction as upon attempting to make one ident in the style that I had planned, it was a lot more complex than I had anticipated and took a lot of time. I revised my design direction and limited my colour pallet to black, white and grey; this helped to give my idents a consistent feel as I started to put them together. The idea of basing my movie season on the Sci Fi channel came to me quite early on in the project and the logo I designed to go on the end of each ident really gave them a feel of consistency. The original idea was to have music on each ident, but this was proving to be difficult to find music that worked and that could be shortened to ten seconds was difficult so I decided to stick with sound effects instead.

This project gave me the chance to learn how to use new software, such as After Effects and DVD Studio Pro. I struggled to get to grips with After Effects at first but after a while I seemed to get better at it and in the end it didn’t take me all that long to create my idents. I spent so much time on my idents that I didn’t leave myself a great amount of time when it came to doing my DVD interface, and so that has come out a little pixelated in places. But overall, I’m pretty pleased with how the DVD turned out; I didn’t think it was too bad for a first attempt. I also wish that I had left myself more time to properly work on the packaging of my DVD. While I like the packaging that I created, and think that it works and is consistent with the content of the DVD, I feel I could have done a lot more with it.
While I feel that I have learned a lot during this module, I also feel that it has helped me to realise that motion graphics is not my forte, and is definitely not where I want to go in my career.

I got so caught up in this project that I made the same mistake that I made in OUGD201, and that was to neglect my other modules that were running at the same time in favour of working on this one.
I feel that I have really gotten to grips with my blog over the course of this module and that I have used it well to record my work. When trekking through my blog, while I cannot say that this project was my favourite, I can say that I have done a lot of development work to get to my final resolution. I am pleased with the outcome of this project.

What would I do differently next time?

1. Leave myself more time to work on DVD Studio Pro
2. Leave myself more time to work on the packaging.
3. Learn to be more selective with my work when it comes to the DVD content.
4. Be more critical about my work.
5. Not neglect other modules running at the same time.

Electronic Poet Brief

Recently I worked with Electronic Poet in designing a t-shirt for their new Autumn/Winter rage, theme: Tribal.

The t-shirts have been recently screen printed and Charlotte and I went down to the shop to have a look at them and take some pictures. I'm really pleased with how it's turned out and I'm looking forward to seeing the professional pictures taken of them for their website.

EDIT: Apparently I'm not allowed to put the photographs on my blog because the products haven't been released yet. I'll upload the design sheets when I remember where I've put them, apparently I have to watermark them to stop anyone stealing the ideas. I mean, really?


-HJ x

This is my HR CV. Funnn.

Yep, it's definitely a HR CV. Up to date and everything.

-HJ x

CVs and Portfolios

What is a CV?

Well. A CV is:

-A way of advertising and 'selling' yourself to a prospective client.
-A summery of achievements, awards.
-Personal to me.
-A brief summery of my history, qualifications, (relevant previous employment).

What should a CV contain?

-My name.
-Contact information.
-A brief overview of my education and qualifications.
-Who I am as a designer.
-My strengths.
-Relevant work experience.
-A link to my portfolio.
-It should be tailored to be personal to person/company receiving my CV. (This of course doesn't really include the 'online CV' part.)
-Hobbies perhaps? Could be included in who I am as a designer.

What is a portfolio?

-A careful selection of my best (and most relevant) work.
-Can be a physical object, or online, or sent out on a DVD.
-Is completely personal to me.
-A way of displaying my strengths and skills.

What should a portfolio contain?

-My name.
-My contact details.
-It should definitely have a feel of consistency.
-The best pieces of work at the start and the end.
-A limited selection of my work. Don't overwhelm any prospective clients.
-A brief description with each piece of work.

Creative CVs

Here are some examples of graphic design CVs I have discovered through trawling through the internet. These are some of the more interesting ones that I've come across, because some have been atrocious. We are graphic designers. There is simple, and then there's just not bothering at all.

Chuck D. Lay

I like this because of the way it has been laid out to look like the classified/job section of a newspaper. Nice pun.

H. Sercan Tunali.

I particularly like this because of the strange format, and the fact that one has to physically turn it in order to keep reading. Also, it's absolutely beautiful, a mix of traditional and digital work. Which I love.

Plus, the CV, just by looking at it, makes it obvious that the designer is into his illustration.

This is why I want mine to be print based, because that is what I love.

This CV below, by Hilary Babcock, is my favourite out of this batch. Why? Because I love things that you can hold. I prefer something tactile to something on screen. This is why I like designing for print so much. I want to have a CV that somebody can hold and feel the texture of and play with. I want something that will stick in people's minds.

I don't want to be another online CV that will say pretty much the same things as everyone else's. Obviously, I will need to have an online CV for people who are finding me over the internet, but for the most part, I want my CV to be tactile.

Even if I have to mail it out.

Krista Gregg
This, by Steve Frampton, is another favourite out of all of the CVs I have come across and it is one of the first that I found. I like it because it's tactile, and it's different, and it is remarkably similar to a Pantone colour swatch book, which all Graphic Designers should be horrifyingly familiar with. So as well as being an interesting, hands on idea, it is in a format that links directly to industry. How clever.

Portfolio Worthy

It seems to have taken me a long time to produce something that I consider to be 'portfolio worthy', but the product of the previous module is something that I'm proud of. I tried new techniques, and produced something that looks professional and I actually like how it turned out.

It made me realize that design for print is where I want to be.