Finally!

Finally the website is up and works. After alot of technical "How do I...?" and "But why isn't it...?" questions the only bit to add is a little animation on the front. Im about a week behind on my original timeframe and so even though the little animation hasn't been added I have sent an enquiry email to Funnel Creative for an opportunity to meet up and discuss placements.

Linky

Business cards have been created and A2 portfolio pieces finalised and await printing out.

Monday 10am is when our marks for these briefs will be pinned to the wall for all to see. I am curious to see what I get given that I didn't seek direction on any of the briefs. From the presentation on Wednesday afternoon I'm guessing a pass for all three.

Wednesday morning was a Final Cut Pro revisit and Thursday was Dreamweaver introduction, although apparently we were suppose to have been introduced to it last year. I'm not going to say it. The concept of CSS finally makes sense.

I have had yet another rethink and have now decided to change my competition brief to The Science Museum as this ties in with my idea for the self directed brief, that might lead to another live brief.

I have yet to write my self directed idea up but it runs along the lines of introducing technology into Manchester Art Gallery in a sympathetic manner. Money of course isn't an issue :)

To judge a book by its cover

This week has been non-eventful in so much as I have just been getting on with it. I have to briefs and have been working on my self promotion tools, ie website, portfolio and business cards.

I have nothing worth showing at the moment so I decided to show you the sketchbooks I use and the covers I made for them out of wallpaper samples from Focus.

Behind the times..

I just watched a CSI NY episode and was wondering if this QR technology really exists. So I wiki-ed it and it does and has existed since 1994, comes from Japan and was initially used to track manufactured parts. It has since widened its application and is now used as a hardlink or physical world hyperlinks. QR is short for Quick Response it was used as artwork for The Pet Shop Boys' first download-only single called Integral in 2007. I wonder where it will end up? Other news, I have decided to work on a couple of briefs which include a complete branding of a loyalty card scheme and book cover for a re-release.

Here is Room 101:


Pure Screen
Here is the intro:

and here is a screen shot the general layout of the menu:














And finally The Space:

I would love to know how I came across this site but I could not retrace my steps even if I tried. On this site I found an entry which caught my eye. What initially caught my eye was the mouse looking blob on the right which turns out to be what looks like paint being dropped onto glass, which I thought was a very cool effect. Any I love this type of animation, use of typography and motion. The other aspects I love about this is the use of black and white and the seamless transition between "scenes" and an element is taken though to the next scene and helps set it up.

"Mathieu Foucher made a motion graphic clip WE BE which got him a second place rank. It will be shown on stage during the tour of Wax Tailor, a French hip-hop/trip-hop artist that organized the contest for his new single. Mostly typography following the lyrics it is simple, and yet underlines a powerful message."

Killers album cover

OK, don't particularly like their music but thanks to the annoyingly regular iTunes newsletter (I'm sure I did stopped my subscription) I happen to see this and I quite liked it.

Why do I like it? As a question I don't really like it, but I will endeavour to explain why I do.

Firstly, I like the combination of photo (even the scary looking guy second on the left) and illustration. I also like the dot effect font used for the word Killers. Finally, I have always liked black and white illustration and so the lack of colour compared to the colour within the photo and background works to highlight the members of the band.

It's all in the technology...

This week has been very trying from a technology point of view. Swapping between a mac and pc under a tight deadline just frustrated me and I could have done without the software going all querky on me. DVD Studio Pro decided it would be fun to put random artwork on different menus and could I remove it, could I heck! I estimate I re-did various menus about three/four times in order to get it right. On the bright side Im more proficient with DVD Studio Pro and I know it takes two days to get it right and checked etc but I could have done without the hassle. I was relieved yesterday thinking I had completed all three projects almost within the deadline only to realise today that Room 101 has a audio/visual issue that I will have to fix on Monday. I also want to check Purescreen for quality on the big screen. Again this is down to my decision to redo Room 101 from my initial idea. I still think its much better but it threw all my organisation out the window and as a result I dont think I have done any justice to any of the pieces.

So I have a five minute presentation on Tuesday. For some reason I had it in my head until yesterday that it was Wednesday that we were to present. Im finding it difficult to get the right practitioner. At the moment Duffy is in the lead but I have just found zumm-creative who might pip Duffy at the post. The plan is to have the presentation done for Monday to hand to Mike and ask him to check it and gives me enough time to fix any problems etc.