Technological Advances

W/c  04/05

This week has been a challenging week; I began finalising my concept for my print designs, before moving on to placing the initial 8 designs onto illustrator. The first 8 designs will form 3 layers over 6 prints, with two layers being identical over all six to create continuity and a base structure of information, and then the third layer showing the individual statistics relating to each hate crime.

The most concerning part of the week was the use of illustrator, as I am not completely comfortable with the programme. Over the years I have used it for different concepts and designs, but never to input statistical information into graphical boxes. Thus my lecturer gave me a 45 minute lesson on how to use illustrator to create my designs ready for exposure. The lesson was a great success and I was able to fly through the layers with new found confidence.

He only mishap was that I input the data for the hate crime statistics in the wrong way round initially, but I noticed this within the first few layers and was able to rectify my mistake quickly and efficiently.

My feelings this week are very overwhelming, panic is beginning to set in as we only have 3 weeks left to go and I still feel I have a lot to get on with. This feeling was slightly calmed by my success on illustrator, which I thought was going to take me all week to master, and so completing my layers within a few hours, filled me with new confidence, making me more driven.

All in all the week has been a good one and I feel more confident and comfortable with the work I still need to complete and I am now very focused on the project.  This new energy I mainly down to feeling more confident with illustrator and even the mistakes I made along the way, added to the good feeling, in that I noticed quickly and was able to change them with no problems.

From the experience this week, I can see how important it is to be comfortable with various technologies and that putting off working with programmes that you are unsure of in not the way to progress efficiently.

With this in mind I believe that I should have spent more time playing around on illustrator, exploring the different tools and having some fun with the various effects. This would have been time well spent, although to be fair, it has been a quick year and my time to explore this was very limited and I must admit I believe I have made the best use of my time over the year to explore what I believe to be the most important aspects of the project.

If I was completing this project again, the only thing I would do differently would be to learn and use illustrator within the first few weeks, giving myself more time to explore the digital options I could create.

A Week About Promotion

W/c 27/04

A busy week this week, I have been continuing to work on my development of my final print, while also preparing my power point for PDP and also finalising and organising all my promotional materials. This has been an exciting project, seeing some of my hard work starting to come together.

 

 

For my promotional materials this week I mounted up my designs on red card, a colour which was incorporated within my designs and echoed my identity. I also finalised my power point portfolio and placed it onto a disk, along with my CV and my Artist’s Statement.

What has also made my week great has been the fact that my new silk screens arrived in the post, allowing me to expose each layer of my design as I need it, without having to wait for them to be stripped and coated again.

This week I am beginning to feel more positive and thinking more about my project, now that PDP has been submitted. I think I am once again at the top of the spiral and I intent to stay there till the end of term.

This week has been a good week, being able to see everything come together and also to see the group as a whole move forward with their work. There is a new lease of life in the class room since we came back and the energy is inspiring.

Of course the best thing to come out of this week is the knowledge that PDP is completed and we can now utilise our time to maximise our personal efficiency.

From my experience this week I have realised how important presentation is and that being organised is a key factor in working towards your goals.

The only think that I would do differently this week, would have been to have designed a more effective disc cover. I was happy with my design, but in reflection I should have incorporated a back design with some key information, although this is something I can work on in the future.

My main focus is now my designs and moving on with my project, in particular projecting my images digitally and then exposing them onto screens ready to print.

 

 

Back To Work

W/c  20/04

This week I returned to college from the Easter break, ready to go. Over the break I had completed my promotional materials and spent a little time working on my design concepts and ideas for the final print. After a discussion with my tutor I began to re develop my ideas and move away from patterns and back towards the importance of the data and the story it tells.

Thus this week’s focus has been on the data and continuing to play with how the data should be presented in the prints, in order to be clearly identified as graphical charts. My considerations include how the data should sit, how it should be mixed and whether or not to add x and y axes, something I had not considered before.

I beginning to feel a little panicked this week about the time scale left till the end of the year and the pieces I wish to submit. This is perhaps not a bad thing as I work more efficiently under pressure and often to a better standard.

From my experience this week I can see that I have expanded my options and have given myself new concepts to consider, which at this stage in the project is both a good and bad thing, making it very important that I resolve my ideas down to one focus over the next week or so ready to print.

The week has also allowed me to realise that there are a great deal of options to work with, when considering how to portray data. I can see how important to understand the data you are working with fully and I can appreciate the time I spent in the earlier stage of the project analysing the data and considering how I wish to portray it.

In conclusion to the week’s activities I believe that I perhaps should have spent more time over the Easter break working on my concept to release some of the pressure that I am now facing. Although as mentioned pressure works well for me and I am confident that I can reach my target and produce the pieces that I intend to for the exhibition.

If I was in this position again, I would perhaps have worked more on my concept earlier and spent some of the Easter break in the college making the most of the resources. Never the less I will continue along my journey and continue to work on.

My Artist Identity

W/c 13/04

Continuing with my promotional materials, I spent this week finalising my designs for my business cards, letter heads and compliment slips. I had already made the decision to work with my record repeat pattern, which I had developed during the first half of the academic year. I had included aspects of this design in my website, using the colour scheme from the design as a base for all my promotional materials.

When developing my business cards I was unsure of whether or not to have a coloured background or not, and so I experimented with both colour options. It was only when working on my letter head and compliment slips that I realised for practicality reasons a white background is most appropriate. Never the less I ordered both options of my business card to ensure that I had the option to incorporate a coloured version during the exhibition should I wish to.

By finishing up my promotional materials and placing the order, I began to feel calmer, this had been something which I had been worrying about for some time and yet when taking on the challenge it appeared relatively simple.

From the experience this week I can say I have learned more about my capabilities and that I should be more confident in myself, rather than doubting my capabilities and putting off activities that I feel less comfortable with. On the down side I am now £40 lighter for ordering my materials.

By completing my promotional materials, I can see how important they are in promoting yourself professionally and ensuring that you give off the right impression. With his in mind I have chosen bright colours as an accent over a white background to show structure, with a little colourful flare.

In conclusion, I has been another testing week for my skill base with technology, but again I have learned a great deal and now feel more confident about these activities in the future.

If I was to complete this task again, I would perhaps work on it earlier, rather than putting it off for so long and try to be more confident in my initial approach.

 

Making Technological Advances

W/c  06/04

This week I focused my attention on my promotional materials, in particular the development of my website. I used the time to take fresh pictures of my current and previous work ready to be uploaded. I also used this time to experiment with the variety of tool sand settings on the wix website to ensure that I was able to maximise the effectiveness of my website and design.

From this I was able to then upload my pictures allowing me to trim and frame them electronically where appropriate. I was also able to add a title for the pieces along with a paragraph discussing concept and medium.

My website development inspired me and gave me a feeling of achievement, as I am not the most technical person and as such I had been very concerned about fully developing my website. In working on my website I began to realise how important it is to continue to develop your skills, particularly with the move in technology over the last 15 years.

 

From the experience I can say that I have learnt a great deal about websites and feel confident enough to continue working on wix and updating my portfolio. The only bad point was the amount of practice and time it took me to learn all the different settings on wix.

From the experience though I have gained a sense of achievement and can now see how important it is to have a website as part of your promotional materials. I can also see why it is included as part of the course, as otherwise I would quite possibly never have developed my own website.

In conclusion, it has been a trying week, but I feel the time spent finishing up and making sure my website is fully functional was well spent, particularly as the deadline for promotional materials looms.

If I was in this position again, I would do exactly the same and work my way through the settings and experimenting, learning the tools before taking on the task.

Learning From The Layers

W/c 30/03

After some consideration over the weekend, I have decided that the map concept perhaps not the most appropriate outcome for me. Thus I have continued to work with wordle this week and layered this over the top of some of my existing prints. This has proved to be very influential over me and I have decided to continue to work within the boundaries of my current experiments for the time being to see where they lead.

As a result of this I feel very driven this week and after some discussions with tutors I feel that I am ready to play with my experiments and use the transparent layers on the tracing paper to devise a plan for my final design. I now feel more confident in my concept and I am looking forward to playing with the layers moving them about to create different styles and effects on the road to selecting the most appropriate solution.

The main highlight of the week has been finding direction from my experiments, which has given me the confidence to move on with my ideas onto the development of a final outcome proposal. On the less positive note, although my experiments were successful in the main, some were less successful due to my colour choice in the final layer, which did not sit well with all the colours from previous layers.  Also the selection of type face for the geographical areas was perhaps not the best choice on reflection, when considered in contrast to the type face selected for the numbers and areas mixed.

Never the less this has given me lots to think about over the break and during my development of my final proposal, allowing me to learn from my mistakes while I still have the opportunity to make changes, making my time spent experimenting invaluable

To conclude, it has been a very interesting week and I have learned a great deal from my experiments, although in reflection I may have noticed some of the issues earlier had I spent a little more time reflecting on colour choice and type facing as I had some with previous designs.  Although to be fair, the colour used in the first 3 layers worked well together and the concept of the 4^th layer was an addition, altering my initial colour scheme selected based on 3 layers.

My plan for the next 2 weeks over the Easter holidays is to begin to plan out and design my final prints and consider the different layers and options which I have, with careful consideration to possible colour options.

 

The Half Way Point

W/c 23/03

We are now almost at the half way stage in the project and as such this week we had our mid module meeting, which involved myself and another two students presenting our project and our concepts so far and having a discussion about them, we were also joined by our lecturer who also provided valuable feedback.

This process proved valuable to all in the group and from the discussion I feel that I have found a new concept for development, which is using maps as a base to print on. By printing onto the maps I can project the data over each geographical area, creating separate data sets and different design layouts to fit the outline.

I was also inspired by the idea that the graphic blocks almost represented buildings, which again links to the idea of location and city views of maps. This has given me a lot to think about over the coming week.

Also this week I began to play with wordle, which I have used to type in my statistics in word form and then using the site to create random patterns with the words. This was great fun and I will continue to experiment with this in the printing room this week, projecting the random words onto acetate to be exposed onto a silk screen.

With the new ideas and concept I have more direction this week and have found a new interest in the project, making me feel very positive and up lifted. The discussion from my mid module review has left me feeling uplifted and determined to find new solutions for my project.

 

It has been a great week so far with positive and critical comments, which have allowed me to expand my ideas and be clearer on what I wish to interoperate.  My experience with wordle has also been great fun and I am looking forward to projecting this into print. On the down side I still feel a little unsure of what form my final outcome will take, but this is something that I am focused on resolving over the next week or so.

 

 

From this week’s experience I can see how important the mid module review is and that as a class we all have some input into each other’s ideas, broadening possible solutions and experiments, we all learn from each other, with our diverse specialisms.

In conclusion of the week’s events, everything has run smoothly and I am looking forward to continuing to develop my ideas. The only thing I would perhaps do differently would be to have experimented with wordle earlier, in order to allow me to print with the wording last week, freeing up more time to consider my new ideas.

Next week I intend to begin to look at the shapes and outlines of the British map and breaking it down into the Stone reports geographical areas.  From this I can then begin to continue with my experimenting with print, using the map outlines as a boundary.