Copyright © Charlie Graham COBC
Design by Dzignine
Thursday 11 December 2014

Audio Sources and Copyright Types

Creative Commons
Creative commons allows you to share your work with no legal obligations. Make sure it is credited, meaning you credit the person who actually created the product, image etc.


Copyright
Right given to the owner/publisher to protect their media (for example music/audio, graphics/video and software) and stop others using it without their permission.
Types of copyright:
Right to copy - royalty free, creative commons (CC)
No right to copy - Copyrighted protected


Royalty Free
Royalty free is copyrighted material available to use without needing to pay royalties or license fees.


Fair Use
Fair use is using a copyrighted material for a limited purpose such as to comment, criticise or parody. These uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. If your use qualifies as a fair use, it would not be considered an illegal infringement.


http://www.musicbed.com - Attractive, well designed website with a large amount of free and paid audio.


http://www.beatsuite.com - Simple, royalty free audio available. Music and sound FX.


http://www.eccorights.org - Copyright obtaining service. St. Lucia based.


http://www.ppluk.com - Music licensing company


http://www.beatpick.com - Music licensing company

Copyrighted Music Catalogs:
iTunes
Amazon Music
Google Music

Monday 8 December 2014

Flash Shape Tweening

This is my test shape tweening. 


When uploaded as an animated gif, it appears to run much slower than in flash. I am unaware of the reason behind this.
Monday 1 December 2014

Political Poster Process

I first decided to play with some fonts to meet the effect im looking for.


I liked this one, however I thought it may be too bold for my aim.

This one was too messy

I liked this one

Again, too messy.

I did like this one, however I dont think it matches the style for the rest of my poster.

I really like this one, however I think a bold style would be more eye catching




Using a thin, san-serif font creates a modernistic effect.

Using the gap tool I widened the gutter to create more space.

After adding a small box to leave room for a QR code I liked the effect of the poster. I feel its very modern feeling and shows a good use of space, however I feel as if it is missing something. I decided that the percentage design should be changed to make it more legible and look more swiss-inspired.


I decided to turn the percentage on its side and align it using a grid.

When I added the rest of text, I decided a slight greying makes the percentage stand out more.

I aligned everything to a grid to keep it all neat and tidy


I decided to create a swiss-inspired graphic

I then placed it at the bottom of my poster. I felt it worked, however the poster still had no instruction at this point.

I then replaced this image with a QR code, adding text to instruct people to scan it. The code would send people to link with more information about compulsory political education. I liked the look of this, however I wanted to include my graphic somewhere.

I decided to add the graphic behind the text. To make the text legible I had to lower the opacity of the graphic.

I then aligned the text so that it sat on the grid properly.

I decided that moving the text to sit on the grid caused it to look out of line. I nudged the text up so it meets the top of the grid.


I tried to use the swiss-style grid formatting more, however knowledge started to cause issues (due to being too long). I hyphenated the word and moved the "Scan the QR code to find out more" text.

After a peer vote, this design wasnt favourable, however I decided to push it further by formatting the text in a bold style. 

I like this one more, however I still feel that my first design is better and features a better use of whitespace.

Final design













Focus Group




Today we were given a plate of biscuits and were asked to record ourselves whilst we tried them. As we ate them we had to talk about the following:
  • First Impressions
  • Smell
  • Texture
  • Taste
  • Visual Impression
  • Quality and Cost

The recording however was lost and therefore I cannot embed it onto this post. 

These were some of the pros & cons of using this method of Primary Research.



For the discussion of my political poster, I decided on the following discussion points.

  • First impressions
  • Colour scheme
  • Layout
  • Style
  • Appeal
  • Is it convincing?
  • Success?
I also made a short questionnaire in order to gather information about the demographic im interviewing.

My Poster

Tabbi's Poster

Dan's Poster


Abbie's Poster


This is the audio for the focus group we recorded.

Thursday 27 November 2014

Election Connection


Research is the gathering of information needed for a product/type of media. There are many different types of research, all used for gathering different types of information.


  • Secondary Research
    • Research already compiled and organised for you.
  • Primary Research
    • New research carried out to answer a certain question.
  • Audience Research
    • Information about the audiences lifestyle & economy
  • Market Research
    • Research to gather information about target markets
  • Production Research
    • Research to determine what you will need to release the product at end of production


Examples of these are:
  • Secondary Research
    • Books, Internet, Magazines, Previous polls/questionnaires
      • These methods make it easier and faster to gather information, however sometimes cannot be reliable.
  • Primary Research
    • Questionnaires carried out yourself
      • Slower gathering of information, more reliable than secondary research, however questionnaires can sometimes be unreliable (due to people not answering honestly)
  • Audience Research
    • Questionnaires asking people about their lifestyle and economy
      • Useful information about target audiences lifestyle, however shares the same cons as primary research.
  • Market Research
    • Looking at competing products in the market
      • Useful if product is not unique, if product is too similar to others could lead to copyright issues.
  • Production Research
    • Certification, copyrighting,recce’s, risk assessment
      • Needed to legalise product/type of media, can take time but is compulsory.


All of these different types of research have different uses, these are some of the main ones:
  • Secondary Research
    • Find out information to reach target market/audience
  • Primary Research
    • Find out information to reach target market/audience
  • Audience Research
    • To find out about target audience to base product on their needs
  • Market Research
    • To find out information about competing products to compete against them and meet audiences wants/needs
  • Production Research
    • To release product legally and safely. To create a satisfactory product for the market


Media/product producers need to carry out this research in order to reach a target market more easily, to compete against competition and to make money.




Monday 24 November 2014

Poster Styles


Futurism
Late 20th century
First from italy
Geometrical shapes, curves, jagged edges
Contrasting colours
David Bomberg - 1890 - 1957
Gino Severini - 1883 - 1956
Primo Conti - 1900 - 1988
Died off mostly due to squabbles or fascist conversion

Soviet Realism
Contains mostly red and yellow colours
Shows power and workers
Hammer and sickle commonly found
Come from Russian revolution

Art Nouveau
Began in 1880’s
Evolved from arts and crafts movement
Became popular at the start of the 20th century
Spread throughout Europe
Recognisable from ‘organic’ swirls
Toulouse-Lautrec and Alphonse Mucha - main players
Influenced structure and design
Found on perfume bottles and herbal tea etc. (usually girly items)

Swiss Style
Switzerland 40/50s
Based on grid system, sometimes tilted 45degrees
Josef Muller-Brockmann
Armin Hofmann
Otl Aicher
Still relevant
Simple modern lines
Block colour
Ikea commonly uses Swiss Style graphics for their communication with their customers (catalogues, advertisements etc)

Bauhaus Style
Beginning of modernism 
WW1&2 era
German school of art closed by nazi authorities
Messy style, often described as contemporary
Fonts follow linear pattern
Usually found using white space and abstract designs




Monday 17 November 2014

Colour


My associations with colour:

  • Red - Anger
  • Yellow - Warning
  • Blue - Calming
  • Green - Natural
  • White -  Minimalistic
  • Black - Dark/hidden
  • Orange - Fruity
  • Pink - Girly
After researching into how different cultures see colours, I came across THIS website.

I find this very interesting as different cultures see colours in a very different way in comparison to people in this country. 
Thursday 13 November 2014

Recce's

Walking round bath to different locations helped me understand the importance of recce's. Looking at the location and checking that it meets all the criteria needed to get the correct effect for the shots is needed.

Recce's require checking of:

  • Access
  • Power availability
  • Safety/risks
  • Sound
  • Lighting
  • Any other limiting factors
Visiting many locations in order to choose the correct one makes this process a lot easier than trying to imagine the locations. 

Genre Research






Hydrough

What it is/does
  • Comes in long tubes
  • Multiple different colours
  • 20 minutes for creation to solidify
  • Just add water to recreate
  • Substance once dried is extremely hard to break
  • Scentless
  • Lots of fun!!


Process

  • Blue background start
  • Blueprint style pattern made
  • Text style imported
  • Title written and centred
  • Hand drawings scanned and imported into illustrator
  • Hand drawings used as template and traced over
  • Ideas changed, hand drawings imported and colours inverted to give the hand drawn blueprint feel.
  • Water drop drawn on illustrator and imported into photoshop.
  • Warp text used to wrap “just add water” round droplet
  • Description written and translucent green box added as background
  • “dries in 20 minutes” text added and formatted correctly to fit



VICE







Pink Analysis

Identify four of the characters that are represented throughout.
How are the representations constructed?
What are these connotations being used?
What statement is the video making?


  1. Little girl
  2. Rapper girl
  3. Gym girl
  4. Driving girl

  1. Stereotypical girl with ponytails. Watching tv and being influenced by what she sees. Realisation at end of clip and returns to stereotypical girl with her toys after watching tv. Same camera shot throughout in a sitting room. Angel and devil on shoulder situation.







  1. Girl with rapper dressed in short skirt etc. Stereotypical for rap music video. Urban background with low angle shot.
















  1. Running machine girl in sports outfit. Watching other woman in gym and feeling self-conscious. Comparing herself to woman. Set in gym background. Range of shots and angles. Depth of field used to highlight the expression on pinks face.
















  1. Girl driving whilst on phone. Bags of shopping next to her. Stereotypical rich american teen. No care for others around her. A close up of her face and a mid shot showing some of the car are used. Designer outfit with coffee in hand and phone in other.


I feel that these connotations are being used to portray “stupid girls”. Slight element of comedy as all characters are obviously a mick take. I feel that the video is trying to make a statement about how stupid some people are. Pink wants to be a role model and doesnt want people to think that she is one of the “stupid girls”.