I've chosen these three web backgrounds coz the styles appeal to me. They are all fairly simple, uncluttered and graphically relevent to the sites they adorn.

For this assignment i took photos of the windows of Fresh cafe and the wilderness shop, cut them up, re-arranged bits, layered them, changed the scale & opacity and applied a green filter. I saved the image as jpeg 50 which gave the smallest file size of the 3 options. The quality of the image wasn't a huge priority as there is no fine detail to retain, and it's intended to be a little trashy/unclean...

Yes it was a bit dark...for a toy. I tried a quick solution...change the background colour but it didn't quite work. Chris also suggested that there were too many elements competing for attention and i agree. So I've made a few more changes...

The brief for this assignment was to sell a prized possession. The process needed to include using layer masks with a gradient tool being mindful of the basic elements and principles of design.
They may not be my most prized possession but they're pretty darn cute!! Handmade with care by a doggy-lovin friend who uses recycled materials. Designed for dogs and their owners =)

Ahaha! Was really hoping you wouldn't notice the lighting condradictions Chris! How foolish of me =).
So I flipped the background. I suspect the perspective is a little off also...

I had a little trouble with the wheels, and in hindsight perhaps should have chosen a setting which covered them...

The design for my blog promotion came about from my tendency to dark, gothic imagery. I like mystery and intrigue, and the raven bears symbolic significance. I have kept the colour scheme minimal, using only a very soft green/blue hue to 'cool' the image. I like the use of interesting typeface in design, so i've chosen 'bleeding cowboys' for the title, and my favourite Halda for the blog URL.The image is made up of a couple of pics i took at the park, layered and manipulated in photoshop.

Learning Activity 15: INTRODUCTION TO DESIGN FUNDAMENTALS: COLOUR

1. I would encourage the first client to use a nice bold blue which suggests the technological characteristic of engineering, and perhaps set it against a light steel grey which relates to construction. If the client preferred more colour in the design I would recommend orange as it is complimentary to blue, and denotes energy and enthusiasm.

2. For the second client I would choose a red umber to reflect the rugged Australian outback, with a sand colour to contrast. I would set the design against black to appeal to the stylish teens.

3. For the drug rehabilitation client I would suggest a calming turquoise blue and white for a clean, peaceful feel. I would warm it with purple to symbolize transformation.

4. A 24-bit colour palette contains 256³ = 16,777,216 colours. This is the most popular setting for computer displays because crt, plasma, led and lcd screens are designed for the RGB colour model, which uses light to display colour. 24 bit RGB is a broad and effective spectrum that includes most colours.

5. The Pantone CMYK process for print can represent 1,114 spot colours. Apparently the number of colours in the spectrum varies.

5. RGB gamut diagram

6. RGB & CMYK gamut.

This diagram suggests that the RGB gamut has a larger range, but some colours do fall outside of the RGB gamut that is included in the CMYK.

7. If a print-based logo were to be used for web application it would need to be converted to RGB.

8. ‘Safe’ colours for DVD are red green and blue??? Graphics with ‘unsafe’ colours apparently have grey fuzzy edges.

9. Some free-to –use online software tools are:

Color Blender Color Scheme Tool

Colour blender helps with creating colour schemes. Choose up 10 colour s hades between the 2 values that you select.

Colormatch Remix Color Scheme Tool

Choose and save colour schemes with 9 colours. You can export colour schemes to Photoshop and Illustrator.

Colour Scheme Chooser

Explore complementary colour schemes and double contrast colour schemes.

11. The BAM colour wheel is based on the model credited to Sir Isaac Newton

12.

RED love valentines day

BLUE depression beyondblue

WHITE peace white doves/poppies

BLACK power Audi A4

YELLOW joy Saab 9-3 convertible

DARK GREEN nature Enviro bags @ Coles

LIME-GREEN youth Nike

CHROME reliable apple.

ORANGE energy juice bar

PINK romance iphone

GREY conservative iphone

PURPLE royal iphone

BROWN earth body shop packaging

13.

· Hue: pure colour

· Lightness: pure colour plus white

· Saturation: intensity of colour

· Tint: a mixture of colour with white

· Shade: a mixture of colour with black

· Tone: how light or dark a colour is

· Gamut: a complete subset of colours which can be accurately represented by an output device

· Warm Colours: reds oranges and some yellows (fire colours)

· Cool Colours: blues and greens (water colours)

· Gradient: a pigment which consists of parallel planes of colour

· Value: the darkness or lightness of a colour, or it’s ‘number’?

· Primary Colours: sets of colours that can be combined to create other colours

· Secondary Colours: the combination of any 2 primary colours

· Tertiary Colours: the combination of primary and secondary colours.

An exercise in adjustment levels and exposure correction in photoshop. I used a photo that was underexposed and used the curves and levels tools to correct it.

finally got those pesky apples done. Not entirely satisfied with the end product...and can only hope to have satisfied the criteria on this one!!

I LOVE elephants! and Chris' link to 'how to eat an elephant' inspires me daily. Having a hectic schedule i occasionaly need reassurance that there are enough hours in the day. Little bits by little bits it will get done. all of it. It may take time but time is there to be taken.

I've decided i don't particularly like cursive 'handwriting' in type, unless it's done well. I found a few examples in a community paper that used this style to advertise products like garage doors and CRANES!! bit feminine me thinks.. The hairdressing ad with the purple type just looked plain tacky. I found the 'Lightning' ad had a semblence of a good idea, but failed to execute with an unbalanced and kinda dodgy typeface (maybe just my opinion but there you go..) The 'coaching' type was just plain BAD in every way! Colour, style, font...it's hard to read and very messy. On the other hand... Coilhouse magazine came thru with the goods (again). Sorry to keep referring to the same resource but it was close at hand and had all the right ingredients (my opinion again?) The Russian Pulp article was a super example of using a socially recognized design element in the typeface...It screams Russian Constructivism and i love it! 'Calaveras de Azucar' is a beautiful example of cursive font, once again relevant to the sociogeographical content of the article about the Mexican festival 'El Dia de los Muertos'. I think typeface needs to be a language in itself to support the words it illustrates, and drawing on historically rich fonts like the Noveau style in the Black Phoenix ad gives substance and credibility to type. The other favourites have an edgy, futuristic feel which compliment the artwork they exist with.

oops. Got a bit carried away with the shoes...nevertheless i did enjoy that one! next up; using a flatbed scanner to tell story. I had a few ideas for this one, mostly involving small toys found in Holli's bedroom. The life and death cycle of a flower is a metaphor for so many things i couldn't resist. All credit to Dave for his inspiration...

For the next assignment i've developed a text print sheet to demonstrate the 'GF halda normal' style type. I quite enjoy the old typewriter style print.

sketching layouts...

using what i've now learned about grids i've put together 3 (rough) layouts. The first is a web page aimed at displaying photographic work. The next is a raffle ticket , and the other a club newsletter. The raffle ticket and newsletter are fairly generic. The main consideration was adhering to grid structures and indicating where text and images would lay. The feedback for the assignment is well noted...adhere to a structure but if you want to make things a little more interesting - break it just a little. I have a feeling this applies to a lot of 'design rules'.

So it appears that in almost all layouts there is a grid structure to some degree...finding a page in a magazine that doesn't conform to a grid is almost impossible. Coilhouse came close. An article on Grant Morrison was the most unconventional in terms of layout design, although the text inevitably provides a little structure.

Further neglect! 2 weeks away with the old folks has left the media assignments well behind schedule. shit.

WHITESPACE. and apples.....

It wasn't hard to find 3 examples of whitespace in advertising... so why did it take so long????
I was enjoying sunny Perth =) that's why...(maybe shoulda packed my scanner and a usb cable!!) so here's the whitespace. The apples are coming.

back from a most inspiring workshop in Geelong. I learned more about photography in 2 days than i did in 3 years at uni!!! i wanna do a workshop every weekend...but i don't think the funds will allow that. Anyhoo, it really got me motivated to do more studio work and apply everything i learned.
Back to School! The media course has been a little neglected, so i spent some time getting back on track today.

so that's a beginning. start at the beginning... and when you get to the end.. stop.

i think i have a lot to learn.

As part of the 3rd assignment task i'm required to discuss the design formula for a chosen layout...i chose this particular magazine simply and purely because it was within arms reach.

I've highlighted sections in yellow and i'll now try to breakdown the design elements.

The FOCUS is on the header text 'digital SLR', due to it's size and it's placement on white space. The second most dominant feature is the camera, which has VOLUME. The blue sections are BALANCED in their distribution and they also provide a CONTRAST due to their colour.
The scattered photos to the right of the camera have both MOVEMENT and REPETITION, and the white borders provide a kind of LINE through the layout...

it has taken a little while to settle back into study mode, and time seems to have vaporized and vanished into the ether...surely it's not april?!

This blog has been created to keep a record of my progress in the Cert.3 in Media at Tas Polytechnic. So far my progress has been sluggish. Even as i write this entry my brain is working in slow motion. Maybe i'll make a cup of tea....

this is a test...