Topic Question

Have settled on a topic question:

What does it mean to create a portfolio and what are the circumstances that necessitate their creation?

I have already found some interesting literature on this topic so I'm collecting all the useful information I can find.

Sam Taylor-Wood

In the midst of gathering materials for my PRP topic I, for some reason, started thinking about some of my favourite artists. One of these is Sam Taylor-Wood, I was lucky enough, to quite by accident, find myself walking around an exhibition of photographs by her whilst in Wellington, New Zealand. The exhibition, in the waterside gallery, was of her series of 'Crying Men' I thought they were fantastic.

What is also interesting about this artist is that she is bringing her work and her style of work into the bracket of Multimedia. She started out specialising in art photography and went on to produce various pieces of film. I just think that she is a good example of an artist utilising technology today to move their work forward.

She was asked my Elton John to make the music video for his song "I Want Love". The making of this video introduced her to the fast pace of the video production world.
Here is the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufbexgPyeJQ&ob=av2n

This video led to other pieces of work between Sam Taylor-Wood and Robert DJ.
The Pietr:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4PjMuIhwdA

She has also created work in video that is mostly done with paint; Still life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIzXWGcb3u0&feature=related

With regards to Web Portfolios, I was unable to find a dedicated website for Sam Taylor Wood, all that I found were exhibition websites etc. I thought this was quite interesting as in these times it is said to be essential for creatives to have an online portfolio or online presence. This led me to think that perhaps for well established artists, it is un-necessary to have an online portfolio?

An interesting video interview can be found here:
http://channel.tate.org.uk/media/25818491001

Development of design

The Parents Section

I have started to develop the parents section of the website, the purpose of this section is so that parents can learn about digital piracy as well as their children, after all their sons or daughters are probably using the household computers and Internet connection to download their software. I feel it is important that they are also informed as to how to download and file share safely and legally.

The idea behind the design of the page was to make it feel light and clear, giving the impression that everything is calm, not scary, and it all clear and easy to understand. It was also important that I keep a consistency within website as a whole.

Therefore I have kept the cityscape at the top of the page but changed the scene to being a day time view of the city:

Still plenty to do but I feel its coming along nicely.

Advise for Parents

I managed to find the PDF that convinced me to add an 'Advise for Parents' section to my website:

http://www.pro-music.org/content/library/pdf-youngpeople-english.pdf

It is provided by Childnet and has a style that I like, I think it is fun and friendly and looks like it has something to do with children whilst not looking too childish. I like the use of colour in it, bold and easy to read.

I will try to use this style when making my parents section.

Something Missing..?

I had a feeling that something was missing from the design of the page. I was on the train heading home for the weekend and I was looking out at all the buildings and old warehouses on the outskirts of each town we went through. I was looking at the texture of what was in front of me, cement, brick, corrugated iron they all made the buildings and streets so much more interesting to look at. That's when I realised that my design was missing a bit of texture. After playing around with a few different things I decided to keep it simple, so the page didn't become too busy, and use a light brickwork pattern on the background of the content area.

I am really pleased with how this now looks so I can concentrate on more on coding the site.

Development of design

I have added a footer to the web page, I think it adds to that grunge/city look, I think it also helps to balance out the page.

Neon Sign Development

I have created the skull and text images in an 'on' and an 'off' state, this is preperation for either the javascript image change or the flash animation which I have decided to get to work on mouse over to make the site a little more interactive.

3D Buildings

Due to some more feedback I have made the buildings at the top 3D which I think sets the image off quite nice. I have also gotten rid of the back of the sign and will make the "Digital Piracy" text part of the sign so they will both flicker. I also tried adding a moon but didnt like the way it looked.

Development of design

At first I was unsure as to which way to have the gradient going but when looking at it and asking other what they thought, I settled on having the lighter tone at the top.

I got some great feedback during today's tutorial on my initial design, they were keen to see me develop this design for my Simulated Client Project.

Some of the things they pointed out was that this design was better for my target audience (11-16 year old) with its grunge/city style. I was advised by my tutor and peers to create some more depth on the page, it was suggested that I do this with a simple gradient - blue to black which I have done and it really brings out the cityscape. I have also added a few stars which add a little bit extra to the overall image of the page.

I intend to make the lights in the buildings change a little and the perhaps the stars to twinkle slightly, I will try to do this with a JavaScript image change or failing that I will use flash. I also want to make the pirate sign less obvious at first but to make it act like a faulty neon sign, so it will light up off and on as if it is broken. I also need to make the back of the sign less obvious.

BEN AND JERRY'S WEBSITE

LOVE IT

http://www.benjerry.co.uk/

Everything from start to finish on this site is fun to look at or interact with ENJOY

Neon Design

I have been playing around with the Neon sign design a little bit, adapting the color scheme etc.

Design Ideas

When I first thought about a design for a website about Piracy I could'nt get the image of a cartoon pirate and a sandcastle out of my head, as fun as it was to try to draw a pirate (of which I failed miserably) I thought that this sort of image would be quite patronising to children aged 11-16.

Then when I was clearing out some leaflets I had managed to collect over the past couple of weeks I came across one which had an image of a skull.

This image got me thinking about using the pirate skull and crossbones image and it also got me thinking about displaying the website with this image as a neon light. I took a look at the website that was connected with the leaflet.

Baa Bar

 I thought that this website was really interesting, I liked how they used the different tones of black and grey together to create a composition. So my second idea was to have the skull and crossbones symbol, which I changed to skull and swords, as a neon sign that you might find at the side of a desert road or on some dark back street which lead to a city.

This image reminded me of leading to Vegas, neon signs in the desert, it plays on the idea that playing with piracy is like playing with the law.

I also wanted to develop another idea I have which was to play on the whole British police theme, after all piracy is breaking the law. so how could I use this idea of UK police branding and make it look appealing to young people as a website?

 For me to be able to develop any ideas further I need to gather my text content for the website, then I will know how many pages I will need for the site and will be able to design for that.

I quickly thought about having a section of the site for parents to be able to get information about piracy so that they will feel confident in what their children are accessing through the home computer. I found some websites that have given me information designed for parents and teachers so i have been able to look at what sort of advise they are being given and how it has been put across.

Research

With my target audience in mind I have looked to see if there are any websites that have been created already for this purpose (to inform people of a high school age about piracy)

This first ones I found were pages within larger websites which explained piracy but more for the purpose of how the company stood with regards to it.

These two seemed to have a theme or consistancy about them with was nice but again, didnt look at my target audience (or if they do I dont find them engaging enough for them)

This last one has the look of being made for kids which is great, the theme is all there, there is a fun navigation and the text at the top grabs you but ones you start reading the content you soon realise it was not intended to be read by children.

I will create a site that looks like it for 11-16 year olds but also reads like it is for 11-16 year olds, not so much to lecture but to inform.

Simulated Client Project

Initial Thoughts

When given the brief for this three week project I thought, keep it straight, keep it simple so I want to create a website that informs people about piracy.

When thinking further about my project I realised that this an extremely broad subject to cover, so I need to narrow it down some. I have done this by thinking about who my target audience will be. I thought about what i know about people who create or use pirated software, music, films or whatever, I thought that most of these people are my peers, non of which want to be lectured about piracy as by now they all know how it works. then I thought about other people I know who are copying films and music without realising they were breaking the law.

I knew someone who was over 60 and had been shown how to download films old and new and burn them to disks, this person thought this was fantastic as they could create DVDs for the grand kids to watch as they came to visit even before the films had made it to the cinema. They had an idea that doing this was wrong but no idea that doing this was illegal.

I then thought about high school age people (11-16) who regularly download music from all sort of places legal and illegal. I imagine again that these people at some point have been shown how to do this and have just continued to do so to increase their music collection. I am sure that many of these kids know that what they are doing is wrong but how many of them know it is Illegal. People tend to have wrong on one side and illegal on the other and sometimes forget to merge the two.

The Beginning of the End

Well its in at the deep end at the minute I guess. I've been introduced to the final year of my degree at Trent and the first project has already got me up at 10pm working (and its only the 3rd day!!)

This year will be broken up into three main parts; Client, PRP and good old SPP.

The Client part is then consists of two projects, the first of which will tie me up for the first 3 weeks. This is the Simulated Client Project which is to create a short Multimedia piece that informs or illustrates Piracy. This gives me time to secure my Live client project which will be a website for a chain of pastry shops in Romania.

I am still unsure at this time of the schedule for the PRP section, although I need to have my subject approved by my tutor. I am hoping to look at Portfolio Websites and the different requirements for different disciplines.

The SPP modules for this year are aimed to get us thinking about life after uni, one involves looking at portfolios and the other applying for various positions. More on this at a later date.