Friday 25 November 2011

Voyage Project

For my Voyage Project, I have decided to document the journey of my car and how I have modified it over the past 18 months.
I have gone for an eroded, simple style, keeping all the content in an 800x600 box.

The content will be -

Project
Pictures
Specs
Future
Pics

Preview:



Friday 21 October 2011

Javascriptings....

Turns out I am a viable canvas for delivering knowledge upon. I learnt Javascript, and I understood it! I found it very logical, not easy, but logical nonetheless. I even figured something out!
I made a small number game in which you guess a number and it tells you whether you are too high or too low or spot on. Rather proud of it.

New skill earnt! +10xp.

Friday 14 October 2011

A lengthy break.

Lengthy break is lengthy. I should really keep on top of this blog.
Anyway, we're back! Uni started again about a week ago, so naturally I have a piece of work for you. Website reviews!

Huzzah!

What you need to realise about me is that I am a car nut. I am useless when it comes to working on them, ie, mechanics, simple repairs etc, but I love how a car makes you feel. How it drives, how it looks, what it does. I am a great believer in the theory that a car is a reflection of you.

Anyway, websites!

First up, Mercedes-Benz AMG introducing their new 5.5 litre bi-turbo.

http://www.mercedes-amg.com/#/m157

Those flashy Germans. The site is all in Flash and has some very smart design features. The whole caboodle is laid out like a cube, you use arrows at either side of the page to flick it around and get to different content. It all works very well and it loads very quickly. Slick, I'd call it.
There is a slight problem with a certain part of the content on each 'page' though. The large square, furthest left. On each section, a part of the text is cut off and there no way of getting to it.
With it being Germany, the designer might have been shot already.

It's full of information, though. really crammed full but laid out so well. There are multiple galleries, videos, pictures and facts. Like; Did you know that the 5.5 litre bi-turbo puts out 875nm of torque at 2000rpm? Lovely. They are obviously very proud of their new powerplant.

The website has been optimized well too, you can choose an iPhone/mobile format (even though iPhone doesn't support Flash?), a standard format and a HD format (which is excellent, might I add).

Apart from the odd niggle or two, this has been designed well with user interactivity in mind. Very easy to use, very informative and easy on the eye.

Website Two - Audi A8L 3D.

It's those snazzy Germans again with another clever advertisement/website feature (although I have checked and Volkwagen and Porsche's wesbites are dull and lifeless).
Back to Audi. They've tried to get with the times and try their hand at 3D. Not real 3D, anaglyph 3D where you have to use those comedy red and blue glasses. There's the first problem. For you to be able to view the 3D, you need a pair of these glasses handy. And I didn't. Although you can switch the feature to 2D, but that kind of defeats the point as they've advertised that you can view the site in 3D.
And it takes ages to load in each guise. You can choose low or high bandwidth for both 2D and 3D, but even on the Uni connection which is currently running at 27.8mbps (just checked on speedtest.net), it seems to take an age to load. I have only 2mbps at home as I live in the sticks. I know I won't be usig this website there.
The design is fantastic though! It's laid out very simply and the video features that show a man flying through the air into a big leather seat, then having the Audi in question build itself around him is brilliant. Testament to the designers! You can then spin around the car and see all of the cars features inside and out. Suffice to say, the site is built in Flash.

To conclude, this site is great, but majorly flawed with excessive loading times and low-res content.

Friday 11 March 2011

Interactive Space - Digital Me

I really need to update this more. Apologies, juggling work and a Uni course was harder than I thought it'd be :(

I digress.

My group is currently in the middle of the Interactive Space module in which we have to make an online portfolio, hence the name 'Digital Me'. It has to contain 5 pages and house our work.

I've had a few ideas, naturally. All are minimalistic in design as that's what I like. Simple, easy to use, easy to read and contemporary.

I'd say I've picked up the software and code side of things quite easily. We're using Dreamweaver and I have had a run-in with this in the past. It all ended in tears. But now, I've been taught it properly and all is well!

Here are my ideas.


This first one was what I really wanted to do, but didn't follow it through as it's a little too advanced for the stage I'm at. I wanted a Flash website, all contained in the middle box and links coming up as and when you need them. I like the design. It's contemporary and simplistic, but just too complicated for me just now. Maybe later.


This is what I want to use. It's made in Photoshop, but is all assembled in Dreamweaver. It will all be contained in the middle 'paper' part and will use sans-serif fonts as they suit me and my tastes. I like the title 'Richard Edwards', the font has turned out well and it looks aged and worn. Kind of like a post-apocalytic fence from the future. That's pretty much summed it up. Need I say more?

Wednesday 16 February 2011

Today's Lecture....

Today, we had something rather different. It wasn't a lecture, as such, it was more of a discussion.
Three groups were in the Lecture Theatre: Multimedia, Design for Film and Television and Costume Design. We were all mixed up into groups of four or five and we had to discuss our current projects; What we did, what was good and bad and if we got stuck at all.
In my group there were two Multimedia students, two Costume Design students and one Design for Film and Televsion student. It was really interesting to see what other Design students were doing, it was strange how similar the courses were! Their work and projects were quite interesting though, one for DfF+TV was titled 'Dreamland' where they had to design a set along that theme in the biggest set they'd ever had to deal with - Set 5 in Carlton Studios.
It was nice to meet some new people, too, it was a fun session!

Herds - The Final Edit!

Here it is! The final! A lot of work went in to this, I'm rather proud of it as it's my first proper film.

Again, embed codes hate me.

http://vimeo.com/19984348

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Film Interpretation Project – Self Evaluation

For my group’s Interpretation, we got the script named ‘Herds’. It was about a slightly odd guy who invites himself into people’s houses, eats their food, ignores the homeowner before getting thrown out. He then moves on to the next house before the film ends.
Each person in the group got a role assigned to them. I got the role of Editor. The editing was done in conjunction with the Director as we thought this was best as there was a lot of footage and a lot of different takes. Overall, it went quite well. The only problem we had was the quality of the film as the Sound and Lighting guys didn’t check the White Balance on the cameras properly, so the footage from one camera was a warm temperature and the other camera was a cold, blue temperature. This made the cuts look very misplaced and unprofessional.  We had to adjust the colours of the footage accordingly to make them look a similar temperature. The lighting was also quite uneven in some areas, giving harsh shadows, but in some places it couldn’t be helped, as the location was quite small.
In editing, we cut the film very quickly to give it some life and to exaggerate the strangeness of the intruder. As a result, the edited film did as we intended it to and it exceeded my expectations as it looked a lot more professional than I thought it was going be.  It’s quick, snappy and the intruder really does look like a mad, effervescent individual because of the fast cuts.
Filming went quite well on the day, but we did have one major problem. The two actors we had hired didn’t turn up. This left us having to act ourselves, so I volunteered to be the homeowner, and the producer volunteered to be the intruder (this worked quite well as he is quite a lively guy anyway, and he has mad hair!). It look us 7 hours to film all the footage as it was only in one location (the Director’s Student Accommodation), so it was quite easy to get all the shots in without having to travel or scout out locations. We all agreed at the end of filming that it all went quite smoothly considering the actor setback. We also agreed that getting the characters across to the new actors would be quite hard as we as a team had discussed what the characters should be like beforehand, quite extensively.  As a result, this saved us time and we got the characters just right. The homeowner was a shy, quite scared and reclusive individual and the intruder was ‘in your face’ and not afraid to help himself to your belongings.
To conclude, I think our film went quite well. We had a few problems to address, but we soon sorted them as we all worked well as a team. We all had similar ideas as to where it should be filmed and what the characters should be like, as well as the film angles and lighting. We got a film that we are all happy with.

The final edit will be posted when it's finished :)