Final Evaluation: Practice with graphics and photography

I think that I did well in the last few months because I don't really enjoy photography work but I tried to involve more of my graphics work so that I enjoyed it more and could produce work that I wanted to. For example, I analyzed the use of logos in the music industry and also in my stop motion animation, I created the ending credits for a video made by my group instead of taking any photos. 

I wasn't use to producing videos the way that I did because at home I prefer to create drawn animations and putting them together to make a video. My favourite camera i used was the flip cam because it was simple and easy to use.

All of the work for my wednesday session was produced onto this blog, this was different for me because I usually work in a sketch book. I prefer to work in a sketch book because I can draw pictures and ideas easily. I think that when I use paper I produce better ideas. However I did enjoy using blogs to produce my work because it meant that it could be checked that i was doing the right thing easier by my tutors. I also like working on a blog because it is neater than a sketch book and can easily be edited and changed.

I feel confident about using blogger, the guide I had to show me how to use it was simple to understand. It has been easy to refer to the work set because I could link my blog to the tutors. This contained what I had to do, the marking criteria and general help about the subject.

Overall I feel okay about this course and I feel I have and will continue produce some good work in the future.

Using Sony HDR FX1Camera

To film my second piece of video practice I used the Sony HDR FX1 Camera. This has many differences from the flip camera. The flip camera is small and easy to use, because of this, I prefer it. However it doesn't have as much capabilities as this camera. It can focus and unfocus, and also zooms in further. However because it is a much bigger camera it is heavy and harder to transport than the simple flip camera. I also had to consider the dangers of using a bigger and more expensive camera. I stayed inside the college because I didn't want to break it outside.

Final Cut Pro

Final cut pro can be use to edit an add sound to a video clip more professionally. This is because there is more control over the sound options than in iMovie


Adding A Soundtrack To Final Cut Pro

To import a soundtrack, drag the folder that the desired soundtrack is in onto the desktop, if not already. From here the folder can be dragged into the Browser tab. To put the soundtrack to a video, open the folder the music is in and drag the desired track onto the timeline.

Most kinds of soundtracks can be used in Final Cut Pro, they just need to be rendered. To render a soundtrack select, Sequence, Render Selection and then Audio.

Adding A Video To Final Cut Pro

Use a Quick Time Movie created and exported from iMovie and save it to the desktop. Drag the video into the viewer or canvas. The video then also appears in the timeline.

The video will more than likely have background sound that is unwanted. To get rid of this highlight the video by selecting it then click modify and select link. This unlinks the video and background sound. Highlight the background sound and press backspace to delete it.

Using The Razor Blade Tool

The razor blade tool is used to cut and crop the video. This is useful for further editing. The razor blade tool is found on the right hand tool bar. Select the razor blade and hover over the desired piece of video footage that needs to either be removed or moved to a new place in the video. 

Removing a piece of the video: Press the backspace on the unwanted piece of video.

Moving a piece of the video to rearrange it: Select the piece of video and drag it to a new place to change the order. This is useful for arranging video footage to fit to the beat of the sound track.

Band Identity: Logo Design

Most bands have some form of logo to identify them. This is because it is easy to recognize a band by their logo, so it is important that it stands out and looks effective. 


A logo for a band should look easily recognizable and relate to themselves and the genre of music that they create. This is because a band logo is usually seen on their albums. The logo should help to represent the genre of music that the band sings.
For example, rock or metal bands commonly use snakes and skulls while pop bands usually use colourful and bright text.


An Example Of Band Logos

Escape The Fate use snakes in their logo and this is effective as it looks interesting and also helps to reflect the rock/metal genre of music they sing. Usually band similar to these use sharp lettering.


It should also look appealing, band logos are commonly used on band merchandise such as t-shirts and badges. An appealing logo would encourage fans to buy their products. It should also look appealing depending on the genre so that people would buy their CD instead of another from a similar band. A logo is more appealing if it looks exciting, interesting and reflects the genre of music through the design.

Logo Design: Dragon Origin

Final Design

Logo Ident: Final Logo Design

I was happy with my design after I had played around with the layout. I used a Craquelure effect, as this looked most like traditional Japanese art. This is effective because it helps to represent the channel as it relates to Anime. My design looks attractive to both children and teenagers because of the interesting colours and exciting dragon. It is obvious from the name and logo what type of programs will be on the channel because students and my tutor knew straight away. The font helps the design to be more interesting while also relating to the channel.

My design would be flexible on all applications, unlike my initial idea.

I am pleased with my final design.

Logo Design: Dragon Origin

Final Development

Logo Design: Dragon Origin

Colour Scheme And Font

Improved Design

I have used this layout for my idea because it looks attractive and creative. I wanted to next change some of the colour and add some fill effects.

 

I experimented by adding a fill effect to the sun, I wanted to make it look more creative, my first idea was too dark, the second was too light and I liked the third because it was the most red. I wanted the sun to be red as this represents Japan and the red rising sun on its flag. I tried to add a third colour to the effect however it looked like a German flag, so I didn’t use this design.

After experimenting with the colour of the sun, I decided I liked 

the third idea best. I then tried to develop this further by adding more colour to the dragon and wolf. These designs looked too colourful and drew attention away from the sun. I decided that my third Idea was the most creative and relevant design. I next decided to experiment with the fonts, I wanted a more Japanese feel.

Desdemona

I didn’t like this design because it gave the feel of old England, I wanted it to give the feel of Japanese dragons not European.

Shanghai

I really liked this font, it gave a good Japanese feel, it looks more Chinese though.

Nippon Tech

This looked like a modern styled Japanese font, I liked it but it was hard to read.

Last Ninja

This font was another style that gave another Japanese feel, it looked more effective than Shanghai as that gave a more Chinese feel.

Japan

I didn’t like this font at all, it gave my design the look of a logo for a laundrette. I only used this in my designs because of the fonts name.

Logo Design: Dragon Origin

I had to help create a new television channel. I needed to create a name, a logo and an animated television ident. 

Logo Ident: Channel Idea

For my channel idea I have decided to base it on anime and cartoons, this means that the channel will appeal to children and teenagers. I will need to come up with an effective name that represents what kind of programmes will be on the channel. I will also need to create an attractive logo that, along with a moving ident, represents the channel, looks interesting and appeals to the audience.

Here is a list of names for the new channel:

Anime TV

The Red Sun

These names are a bit plain and don’t sound very interesting. I could use a longer, more appealing name.

Red Sun Origin TV

I like this because it clearly describes what the channel is about, however it’s a bit long and complicated, unless I used an acronym like RSO TV.

Red Sun Wolf

Anime Wolf

I like these ideas as I could use a wolf howling at the setting sun for my logo and ident.

Anime Dragon

Dragon Origin

Dragon Origin TV

These names sound good as I could still use the howling wolf idea but I could add a flying Japanese dragon to pass through the red sun.

I am going to use Dragon Origin TV because this represents the type of programmes that will be on this channel. Most or all of the programmes will be anime or anime style. Anime originated from Japan, this is why I used names relating to the Red Rising Sun and Dragons. Japanese dragons are still popular in today’s modern cultures.

Logo Ident: Logo Development

This is my initial design developed onto the computer, I’ve added colour and a sketchy boarder to give it a traditional Japanese Watercolour Art effect.

An example of traditional Japanese art used in modern life such as video games (Left). Also the shape behind the ‘TV’ text was inspired by the image on the right, displaying a Japanese dragon. This is an example of traditional Japanese art, painted in 1897 (Right)

I decided to develop my idea by first experimenting with the positioning of each part of the logo.

 

I tried to find a design that didn’t take up much room so I completely rearranged my design into a more portrait style. I liked my first idea because it wasn’t too close together and still included all the pieces of the logo I wanted. On my second idea I wanted to see if I could make a smaller design. I rearranged it so that it was tighter but I felt this looked too much in one place. I also made my third idea tighter by taking away the wolf. Problem was I liked the wolf and I could imagine it in the animation for the logo ident.

 

 

I tried again without the wolf and modified the design so that it was landscape. This looked successful as it was small and didn’t take up much room. For my fifth idea I put the wolf back in using the same design as before. This looked wrong as it didn’t really fit. I then had to pick an idea to develop the colour, I liked the first idea best but it didn’t look as effective as my third idea. I decided to pick my first idea though because I thought it looked most interesting with the wolf and I imagined that the logo for a television channel wouldn’t really be used on a small application, only on a television screen where it could be large.

Logo Design: Final Design

Final Design

I was finally happy with my design after I played around with the layout and added a drop shadow effect. My design now looked clean, colourful, modern, creative and attractive. The layout and banner helped my design look clean because it was held together tidily. The use of the banner and logo image helped to make it colourful and not too outrageous. I had found and effective text that looked modern. The banner was improved with an effective boarder to make it look creative. And I used a drop shadow, improved the layout, to finally make my design attractive. I had also made it look professional and effective.

My design could be used effectively on all applications and could be used in colour, black and white, small and large. Also the banner could be used effectively as the colour could change representing a department in the college

.

Logo Design: Finalizing The Design

Improved Design

My design was almost finished. I now had a good design that was clean, colourful, modern and Creative, but I felt I could still put more into it. I decided id have a play about with some effects and move the layout around a bit, just something to add a bit more to it and make it attractive.

I played around with the banner and moved the image around a bit, making only a few subtle changes left me dissatisfied.

Then I made a dramatic change to the banner by resizing it, this looked more effective as it was more attractive. The layout had defiantly improved from the original designs. I liked the shape too, because it wasn’t just a plain rectangle, it had a creative and innovative boarder to the banner. Like before, I liked the layout with the image above the logotype but it just wasn’t flexible enough to be used on all applications. I couldn’t see it working when it was small. The rest of the finalisation was based on a landscape logo, mainly experimenting and picking out what I liked best.

Logo Design: Boarder Effects

Improved Design

I was starting to like my design because looked clean, colourful and modern. Now I wanted to add something to help improve my design further and make it more attractive and creative. I decided Id make it more creative by adding an effective boarder.

I had an experiment with each of the boarder effects on the banner, I came up with some impressive ideas that looked very creative, and so I ended up picking out my favorite.

I liked the idea of this boarder, it defiantly looked creative and added more colour. I decided to develop this further by using the negative space to create a different boarder than the fist. My second idea looked more effective because it wasn’t over powering with colour.

 

I experimented with more boarders in case I could find a better idea. I tried making the boarder negative space again but this looked too subtle, I wanted something very creative but not too colourful.  With this in mind I decided to use a different shade of green on the border. I liked this and it did look creative.

I tried a completely different effect and decided to try my design without a banner, I used a white paintbrush to make the logotype look shiny, this made my design look more modern than creative and I had already decided it looked good with a banner.

Video Techniques

Panning
Panning is a technique used in filming, it means when the camera follows something moving. This is useful for filming car chases, people running ect.
Tilt
The camera moves up or down on the same axis.
Zoom And Zoom Techniques
Zooming is when the camera focuses closely on an object or something else without moving the camera.
Wide Angle
The term wide angle in filming means, when the camera is filming a large landscape.

Logo Design: Fonts

Logo Designs: Fonts

Improved Design

This design now looked clean and colourful. I wanted to add something modern to my design using to font. I wanted my design to look modern so that the college looked up to date and appealed to new students.

Apple Casual

This design didn’t look modern so I didn’t like it, I also felt that it would only appeal to the younger generation of students.

Bauhaus 93

This design also didn’t work because it gave the feel of an Art and Design College, like the Bauhaus and because of this it didn’t appeal to all students.

ASO

I liked this idea, the font made it look modern, I also like the idea of the ‘g’ hanging below the banner because it looked stylish. The letter ‘B’ also helped to make the design look fresh and unique.

Union City Blue

This idea looked too modern, it looked better if it was to suit a space museum or something else, so this didn’t feel right.

Bank Gothic

I still felt unhappy with my previous designs so I went for a completely different approach. I even changed the colour of the logotype to black because I felt yellow wasn’t neat enough.

 I was pleased with this as it looked fresh and modern. I used two different sizes for the logotype, the word ‘ Burton’ was made bigger and bolder, while college was smaller but the spacing between the letters was greater so that the word together was the same length as ‘Burton’. This made the design look neater and more modern.

Camera Shots and Editing Practice

I used a Flip Video Camera to practice getting different shots. The Flip Video Camera is a small easy to use camera with zoom functions and high quality recordings. This camera can be used effectively on a tripod, taking good panning shots. However it isn't very useful for changing the focus length as it doesn't have this function.


I used the camera, a tripod and iMovie to create a short video. I did this by first filming different shots outside the college. When taking shots I waited ten seconds after pressing play to leave time for the camera to steady and time for editing later. I also took about three takes for each shots so that i could use the best take when editing. Any piece of footage that I didn't need would be edited out later. 
My first shot was a tilt shot from high to low, I zoomed in on this shot so that there was more detail on the sculpture. The term 'tilt shot' in filming means the camera moves up and down on the same axis without moving left or right. The term 'zoom' means the camera is focusing on something closer than normal without moving from the original spot the shot was taken. My next shot was a pan from right to left. The term 'pan shot' means that the camera is moving from left to right or right to left. I then practiced doing another tilt shot but this was from low to high. I finished with a pan shot from left to right. When I was filming I was careful about health and safety. I didn't film on the path so that the tripod wasn't a hazard to anybody walking past. Also I was careful that the area i was working on was level so that the camera didn't fall over or sink into the wet ground.


Once I had my footage I uploaded it to the computer and used iMovie to edit and put together what I had done.
I did this by importing the separate videos from the camera.

I then selected the piece of footage I wanted from each clip by highlighting the bit i wanted. I then dragged it into the video.




















Once the video had been put together and I was happy with it, I then selected 'Share' and exported it as a QuickTime Movie. This then gives the option to change advanced settings such as sound quality and screen quality. These settings can be changed depending on whether the video is going to be higher quality or faster export. After changing these options to what I wanted I named it and then saved it.

Logo Design: Colour Scheme

Logo Designs: Colour Scheme

Improved Design

I settled with this design because looked clean and, because of the banner, I could move on to create a design that was colourful and attractive. That was what I was going to experiment with next. However I was still unhappy with the design because it still didn’t look creative or modern, I would later improve this using the font and adding effects.

I took many wild attempts at making my designs look colourful. I used different schemes until I found one that worked by looking effective and colourful.

I started by adding a fill effect to the original colour scheme and changing the font colour to make it readable. I decided this looked too outrages and abandoned that idea. Next I created a unique and colourful design using a bright colour scheme.  I quite liked this idea but I felt it would only appeal to female students. So I next decided to use colours that would appeal both male and female students. I came up with a blue scheme which I developed using a fill effect. I like this idea as it looked creative but instead of settling for one design I carried on developing my ides.

 

I decided to go with a new approach and make part of my logo transparent, this was an attempt to make my design look creative but I felt it didn’t work because the logo didn’t stand out enough and it wasn’t as colourful as I hoped. I decided that the green banner was a good idea so I used that and made the logo image stand out by making it colourful, using completely different colours than any shade of green. To make it more colourful, I added a fill effect t the banner, the effect was very subtle so that it didn’t look too outrageous like my previous idea.

Logo Design: Layout

For the band identity project I will be required to create a logo for the band so I decided to use one of my other designs for inspiration and help. I decided to design a logo for my college.

Logo Designs: Layout

I developed one of my original designs onto the computer using Adobe Illustrator. This was so I could change the layout and improve my design. I put no thought into the colour scheme or font at this stage because I was concentrating on the layout.


These are developed ideas from my initial designs from my graphic design sketch book.

This was an improved design from my original idea. I payed more attention to the sculpture outside the college and used it in my design. Once I had this created on the computer I toggled around with the basic layout. 

I first tried arranging the logotype and image. I wasn’t too sure whether I liked the whole sculpture in my design so I tried many ideas without it. I decided that it looked tidy without it.

I liked the idea of the image above the logotype so I further developed the design using a border around the text. I thought this improved the design, as it looked creative and unique. After experimenting with this idea I decided to create one that was more flexible and could be used over a greater range of applications as I couldn’t see this one working on student ID’s as it lost effectiveness when it was small.

I created a design that had a landscape layout, this was so it could be used on small applications and not take up much room while still being large enough to look effective. I preferred the layouts using the banner as this helped the design look clean while adding more colour.