Changing horses
Over the last weekend ( 20th and 21st February) I have been looking at the photographic element of my project.
I have now spoken to my course leader on scaling down my project; instead I will provide 17 images and create a flash site that displays the images in a fashion.
Reasons for scaling down:
On Saturday I looked at what I had in images related to this project, most of the images although clearly recording interviews with residents on an estate, merely touched the arguments that I raised in my proposed project. The project itself will have to be an on going project with chapters that identify and add an element of visual anthropology to each chapter.
· The project asks for a minimum of 18 images
o I have over 180 images mostly of parts of the estate Hoodies and community projects.
· Interviews: most of the interviews lack consistency I have been asking wide-ranging questions as if writing a report, without focusing on the visual effect of the project.
· I tend to work alone and like the idea of being able to be creative and fluid, the brief that I originally submitted traps me into having to seek second and third opinions. And I also feel a little embarrassed about my own recently realized pre judgments.
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· I have worked in community development at all levels over the last 12 years, I want to have a coherent body of work that I can put online and in a portfolio without having to argue about content. It would also be good to allow myself to be less anecdotal in my assumptions and have a well evidenced (triangulated ethnography) that records my assumptions over a longer period.
Taking photographs for me usually means turning up with a sketch book and making images, If I am speaking to someone with the intention of taking a photograph; the opportunity to photograph as planned diminishes.
What I mean is that I have interviewed people with the intention of having the air their views inside their homes. Their homes are clean, they are welcoming but, the interviews are far too long and revealing I get tired of not being able to steer arguments in the desired format.
So I will name this series of images (Short project): documentary part one
In this documentary will be a series of 17 images that will look at bonding.
To me this is an attempt to develop the basis for future projects or rather, like a book that introduces characters and their peculiarities.
It is also fair to say that I have spent a large amount of my time photographing to develop my commercial portfolio and this has affected the flow or direction of my short assignment because the time I invest is usually surplus time left over.
I have realize that I need time to;
Reflect and rationalize
Discuss images and get opinions on visual content
Read fresh reports
And chill out a bit.
I have been thinking about changing my project. The reasons are simple. I can’t make my images any thing more than an image, just a notion of truthful representation.
We are all used to consuming images so, whatever I submit as my final project will work. what I was trying to say in documentary one will be lost because all I can display is a subject or object and the topic/subjects chosen is contested.
I should have known where this was heading before I decided to do it. I have decided that the project should reflect something about my readers or my own experiences. Because the only thing that divides us is ego and opportunity.
In images I normally can’t see the truth, I see what the photographer is trying to tell me or what i want to see.
an update of images:
My Business card: cut from the same cloth as my site.
My SITEHow far have I got.
Terms of reference: JC =John Clamp & PJ= Phil Jackson. PS= Photoshop, DW= Dreamweaver. CCBH=
The following notes are extracts from lessons between October 2009 and January 2010.
In our first series of lessons we were encouraged to look at planning our website. For planning we were introduced to two concepts Mood boarding and Mind mapping. Both planning concepts were highly valuable and used together: I managed to visualise and realise the potential for my website.
The sites I used were mind genius where I downloaded a thirty day trial and mapped my mind. As a follow on I am using Microsoft Visio to map stuff; I forgot how useful this process can be.
For mood boarding please see earlier updates. I have also created a wheel story board to assist with site mapping.
What is it all for?
I started the web design course with a clear idea of what I wanted. Over the summer I had worked with a web designer from
A clear service
The website and any promotional material had to have the same text, logo and identical imagery.
At the start of the semester one I drafted a business plan and marketing plan, and between October and February conducted a feasibility study. With the aim of; understanding my local potential clients and their motives for purchasing creative services. During the feasibility study I managed to meet Pr teams and individuals and nick a few ideas from them for my site.
Most of the information learned coincided with what was taught in lessons:
Perhaps the most important thing was that the site should be accessible from Google and anyone typing in north laine packshot would get my page without having to enter hypertext land. I now know that in order to get to the top of the list I should go to http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html. And fill the form in. (Cheers Phil.)
My clients come from all backgrounds, what most of them have in common is language I observed different types of people on a mission to make money pay staff and feed themselves as opposed to have art, run through flowers and read poetry.
My current website is built on the findings that almost all businesses in
What I aim to offer is a:
Creating a root folder:
In JC’s lesson we were urged to concentrate on creating and organising a root folder, unlike FrontPage or web fusion Dreamweaver has to be set up to work correctly and at the heart of the site should be a folder that has the right sized images information. As we were working ob CCBH’s Computer I had to create a root folder on my portable hard drive.
My website.
Before studying Dreamweaver I would only use the application to copy and publish websites it was all too scary. I now can create a website from a blank template and edit it to a good standard.
The process is like any other applications I just have to know where to access pages, and how to insert new pages.
For my website I have created the page in PS and then made slices of areas that I will later use as buttons or rollovers. After making slices I export scripts to WPG on CS4.
Before buying brilliant Dreamweaver 3 I used this site for info: http://www.entheosweb.com/photoshop/slice.asp
The naming of files is crucial at this pint and I also save all work regularly.
Notes November 2009
Page properties
I have yet to use this feature of Dreamweaver. I am simply commenting on it as an entire lesson was dedicated to it.
Setting page properties is a method of setting the:
To access the page properties dialog box I went to: Modify menu and clicked on Page properties in the menu at the left side of the dialog box is a list of items that I can modify such as, headings, links and encoding. Each menu item opens anew dialog box.
FORMATING PARAGRAPH TEXT
In JC’s lesson we were taught how to format paragraph texts and images we made a simple website saved the root folder to our portable hard drives (AS MUCH OF THE EARLIER WORK STORED ON COMPUTERS WAS REMOVED) and created a simple page in Dreamweaver. We were asked to come up with Title and to reformat an image of a Dog in Photoshop and import it to the site. We imported the proper way we selected insert, opened the folder the image was saved to and then selected the image. I have an easier way I go to the application that holds the image and copy the image, I then go to Dreamweaver and past it into the page. Both JC and PJ have stressed that images had to be saved in a specific format. At home I use Photoshop seven, I reduce the images in Corel photoX2, but on CS3 I can save as PNG or WPG. In our new site we formatted the text by clicking the format button, we aligned the text and we worked on line spacing. The result is inserted below……
My Mock up gallery: i aim to have a maximum of five images on each title tab.
image from website work in progress
Rollover
For my site I have created a rollover bar. It’s really simple I go to the insert tab pint to image objects and then click rollover a dialog box appears and I can then set the rollover effects. This feature is common on all web design applications.
> Web design Update 4
This post summarises work undertaken in my web design studies but before I begin, I have to comment on a server I was shown the other day called Mad Mimi. Mad Mimi is a mail generator that holds a hundred emails and can be timed to mail out monthly for a year. I have made an access database that can mail out, telephone, manage accounts and remind me of things. I wonder if I could get a script to ling Mad Mimi to Access.
This is the logo to my site. It took ages to make and I found the process quite difficult because I could not visualise an image even though I played around in Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and illustrator and at home
on word pat and Corel. With my tutors help I managed to get this design by going online and creating it in a site called box kit. The logo is printed on my cards, website and letterheads.
Grunge design layouts all the rage in
I often see websites with seventies wallpaper look or that are lavishly embellished. After spending a lesson working with grunge images and illustrator I realised that a web designer must put a lot of energy and thought into designing this stuff. I put about four hours in and came up with this image of a wardrobe traced out in corel trace and tiled as a background.the photo is my own.
an image taken for a local retailer. I have scanned the image in Corel trace for a vector background. I have created many styles of websites in Photoshop and Dreamweaver since the start of this course. The Photoshop layout is easy and one exported to Dreamweaver the editing and addition of text is simple. On all sites there is an issue with a space at the top. I COULD GO INTO GREAT DETAIL. BUT ALL OF THE ANSWERS ARE IN A BOOK CALLED BRILLIANT Adobe DREAMWEAVER CS3. Here are a series of designs; including a site that I am designing for a company called Adept
Current website for local business related services I am working on a website for general photography.
December 09 website designed to go intoCD business cards with gallery hyperlinked in.
A team of professionals from Camden council have asked me to make a website for their consultancy service. this is one of the website drafts that i have submitted to them.
samples form other attempts can be viewed in earlier blog updates.
I have started to create a new website. The website will observe the three click rule and have:
To understand the processes and practicalities of web design we had to mood board, this process meant taking samples of sites, fonts, colours, layout etc. at first the thought of mood boarding felt quite childish, like making hand paintings or painting with shaped potatoes however, the process was quite illuminating. I could understand almost instantly how to achieve certain effects and layouts that I once thought impossible simply by looking at how shapes and colour is used in web design.
Wireframing
This exercise focused on bringing a website together on paper and we were given additional information and urged to look at information sites such as www.smashingmagazine.com. This site has loads of information on how to use Photoshop and online servers such as word press. After wireframing my idea I came up with the following draft for my website. Wire framing is pretty useful in retouching and general planning for design.
In today’s lesson JC gave us and overview of the web and its uses, I also realised the importance of making sure that furniture and images are at the right resolution for upload. Using Photoshop we were taught a simple method for reducing the size of photographs without reducing its quality. Before being taught to save for web I would use the export for tool in light room or Blue horizon or a really old programme called
Dreamweaver. Using Dreamweaver we were shown a simple exercise for inputting text and graphics.
