OUGD406 END OF MODULE EVALUATION

1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

Over the course of the module I have slowly progressed with my software skills. On the recent Its your choice brief I used some of the image sequence skills I had learnt in a workshop. I was able to create a stop motion animation and from this I learnt how to create GIF files with both photos and illustrator layers. This was a very beneficial process and something that will come in handy from now on. I also learnt to work in a group better, the first group project we did proved quite difficult but in the communication is a virus brief we managed to pull it together and produce a large body of work.

2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you devloped and how have they informed your design development process?

Research helped with the briefs, getting a bit of background information on Erik Kessels was useful to see what type of work he was into and producing. Quick sketches have really helped me too. I find I get allot of ideas all at once so I draw as many quick doodles down in my sketch book as I can so I don't forget them. Surveys helped within the group project too to see what the public was into we also created a facebook and twitter page to try and get some feedback from students. But this didn't go as well as planned

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how/will you capitalize on these?

I have been quite experimental in this module mixing it up a bit with different media. I have produced some hand drawn cd covers, Vinyl cut stamps and digital imagery, I think this experimentation has opened my eyes up a bit to the different possibilities available. I usually tend to stick to digital but I have found it can be just as good if not better to produce hand drawn elements of work.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?

One of my main weaknesses would be my design sheets. I feel they are a bit scruffy and could definitely do with some improvement, I need to work on neatness and annotation as this is where I fall down. Another area of weakness would be my photoshop skills. I tried using the program to draw up my animation but found it very difficult to work out the controls so I ended up having to use illustrator again. When I have a bit of time I'm going to try to get to grips with the program as this is a useful piece of kit. I feel fall down in the research area of some of the briefs, with a bit more research I think I would of been able to produce a more well informed outcome, for instance I produced a really non eco friendly set of Recycling stamps and with more research I would of probably known that foiling and vinyl was actually bad for the environment.

5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

1. Research More - This will ensure I am more informed about my project and that I do not make any errors. And produce work with accurate content.
2. Plan my time better - This keeps coming up across all modules and every time I think I've got a bit better, but I can definitely improve on this
3. Neater Design Sheets - my design sheets are a bit scruffy and I have bits and bobs here and there so from now on I will make sure I have more consistency
4. Experiment - with different media, although I tried a few different things, there are other processes I am still wanting to try.
5. Use the library more - For the communication is a virus I used the library but this is really the extent of it. It is a very valuable resource that I need to make better use of.

6. How would you grade yourself on the following areas:

Attendance : 4

Punctuality : 4

Motivation : 4

Commitment : 4

Quality : 3

Quantity : 3
Contribution to the group : 4

ITS YOUR CHOICE - POP ANIMATION REVISIT

After the crit I had I decided to play about with my GIF image again. Andy and Jack thought it would be better to create a digital version of the glass of pop as they thought it was too juddery and too unfinished so after a long while on illustrator and photoshop I have managed to create a new GIF image that I am fairly happy with. It took forever to animate the bubbles as I had to change them all for 23 different layers.

 I started by drawing my glasses on illustrator

 after creating my image I added in loads of invisible lines across the glasses.
on each frame I coloured a section black and added bubbles
until they were full

 After I had prepared all my frames in illustrator I exported my file
into photoshop and went through the same process to make
my GIF image.


FINAL OUTCOME

please click to see it in full effect.




I am really happy with this animation but it was extremely time consuming
next time I create a GIF from digital drawings I will have a better idea what
to do as it was allot of trial and error to find the quick methods.

POP CORN EDIT

I have decided to recreate this video on quick time player 7 as it has
the option to loop the video back and fourth which I feel works better.

but for some reason the loop option does not work online 

SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE

Brief

Select a brief, task, response or product that you have completed as part of the program and improve on it. What will choose & why? How will you improve it and for what reason?

Review all the work, tasks and workshops that you have been involved in since September and identify an opportunity to revisit something that you wish you had more time to complete, could change the decisions that you made or should have researched / developed more thoroughly. You can only select from briefs that you have completed and not those that are currently under development.

Background / Considerations

This brief is offering you the benefit of Hind-sight, a second chance or another attempt. It is a lifeline to revisit and rescue a good idea from a lack of time, a bad decision in an otherwise promising body of work or an opportunity to take an concept / idea / or product further. How will you make the most of this opportunity.

We are not asking you to just re do a brief. Whatever you choose should act as starting point that offers you the chance to develop a substantial exploration of an problem, idea, concept, process. Can you extend your initial ideas into a range of products, a deeper investigation of context / function / format or review your response to a group project.    

Initially I came up with 3 messages I wanted to deliver, 5 ways they need

For this project I have decided to look at the importance of sleep and being on time. The 2 go hand in hand if you don't get enough sleep its hard to get up, and that usually leads to being late. And speaking from experience this is something I can relate to. I have come up with various ideas that link in with the topic, for instance motivational posters to get you out of bed, Pantone tea-bags, mugs etc, Hopefully these sort of deliveries will appeal more to the audience.

3 Messages I want to deliver

3 Problems

Here is a design sheet I drew up outlining some of my ideas for my Sleep Kit

I am thinking about create some sort of sleep survival kit which helps graphics
students to have a good nights sleep and also get into college on
time in the morning to sign in .

 

OUGD406 Final Crit

The final crit was fairly helpful. They liked my documentation of work and also my illustrator work. I think I am heading in the right direction with my work but I just need to be more consistent and thorough. Some areas for improvement were mentioned. For instance I need to blog more of my development work for the 'its your choice' brief. Another are I'm falling back on is with my design sheets and development. 

I think from this feedback I have learned I need to revisit a few of the briefs to get them all up to speed, and make sure my design process is clear and there is examples of development work.

POP ANIMATION

Fizzy Pop Idea

The first Idea I tried was a hand drawn fizzy pop stop motion, firstly i drew out my word pop in the style of some drinking glasses, every time i drew a bit more liquid I took a photo, I used hole punch cut-outs to re-create the bubbles in the drink. Unfortunately half way through the process my camera battery ran out. which made getting the camera back into position was quite difficult. If I were to do it again I would make sure I had a sturdier tripod as I had a real bodge set up to suspend the camera over the paper.

FIZZY POP GIF

Pop Corn Idea

Originally I wanted to create a hand drawn stop motion video, but after creating the fizzy pop animation I felt it was lacking quality. I found it was hard to produce it to a high quality. So I thought it would be nice to use actually items. For my popcorn Idea I bought some kernels and popped half of them. I laid out the kernels into the word pop one by one to create a sequence of photos in which the kernels popped into actual popcorn. After a full day of trying to work out how to make a GIF image I finally succeed. The GIF contains 70 photos showing the progression of type based on the word pop. I think I have communicated the message well in a fun and playful way. It was also a very beneficial process as I now know how to make videos and GIF images.

POP CORN GIF

Creating the GIF Images


To make the GIF images I opened up all the photos in Photoshop in separate layers but in the same document. 

Once I had all the photos in order I opened up the animation panel

then in the animation options menu I clicked on the make frames
from layers option

Once all my layers had been converted to frames I selected 
them all in the animation panel

I changed the frame time and also made sure it was on a
continuous loop.

 Finally to save the file as a GIF I used the save for 
web and devices option

 

Crit Feed Back 

From the crit I found Jack and Andy was happy with my Stop Motion Video's they suggested trying to create a digital version of the fizzy pop animation. I think this is definitely something I will have ago at. This should make it look steady and neat. I can probably create this using scree shots as I alter the image.

Its Your Choice

BRIEF

Select a brief, task, response or product that you have completed as part of the programme and improve on it. What will choose & why? How will you improve it and for what reason?

Review all the work, tasks and workshops that you have been involved in since September and identify an opportunity to revisit something that you wish you had more time to complete, could change the decisions that you made or should have researched / developed more thoroughly. You can only select from briefs that you have completed and not those that are currently under development.

Background / Considerations

What we are asking you to do is simple - that doesn't make it easy.

This brief is offering you the benefit of Hind-sight, a second chance or another attempt. It is a lifeline to revisit and rescue a good idea from a lack of time, a bad decision in an otherwise promising body of work or an opportunity to take an concept / idea / or product further. How will you make the most of this opportunity.

We are not asking you to just re do a brief. Whatever you choose should act as starting point that offers you the chance to develop a substantial exploration of an problem, idea, concept, process. Can you extend your initial ideas into a range of products, a deeper investigation of context / function / format or review your response to a group project.  

For this brief I have decided to look at one of the first briefs we were given ALPHABET SOUP//VISUAL THINKING. In this brief we were each given a word and we had to create a set, series or sequence of 10 letter-forms that relate to our given word. I decided to look at things the word represented. After the image sequence seminar we had the other day I was really keen on the idea of creating a stop motion animation. I drew up a few ideas for the animation with various concepts. Originally I wanted to link all the ideas into one big animation but I don't think that is plausible so I will concentrate on looking at them separately.

Here are my initial Ideas for the animation:

POP Possibilities

Fizzy Pop

Bubble Wrap

Pop Corn

Pop Tarts

POP music

Pop font

Bubbles Popping

Animation Story Boards
 

My favorite idea  was the pop corn. I think this is the most
inventive and playful, I Think it would be fun to do it with
real popcorn 

 I also quite like the idea of fizzy pop although it could be hard to 
animate the bubbles well.

As much as I like the idea of a champagne bottle popping
I think it would be quite difficult to animate to a good quality

I like the idea of using actual bubble wrap. 

I went to the post office the other day however

they were currently out of stock

Image Sequence

To start with I created a stills folder and a destination folder. In Photoshop I created an action in order to correct the series of photos. I opened the image first, then resized it then saved them in a separate folder and closed it.

When resizing I made sure the Resolution was 72 and the width 720

 Pal is UK video Format

To resize all my images I used Automate - Batch - then I opened the images.

 Once all my photos had been resized I opened Quick time player 7  to create my video.