In the mind of Emilio

DP3 Update - The Dark Star Horses

2012-02-28T09:11:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of updates, been working off the radar , and i haven't had time to to post anything , but worry process has been made with DP3 , and i have finally have someone to work for , I have been tasked with re-designing Shaun's Band website , The Dark Star Horses , the website itself has barely anything to work with , so i will have to sit Shaun down and discuss and describe what his band is about , but other that all the basic coding and layout and pages have been done , still loads to in terms of the design and feel of the website , but here is a very early taster.

Windows 8 Logo - Not A Fan.

2012-02-18T05:53:00.000-08:00

DP3 : Mobilized Website - What exactly is it.

2012-02-17T07:12:00.000-08:00

Mobilised Websites

Today we started looking at mobilised websites for our client project (although I haven’t got a client to work for yet but that is another story) I think it is stupid not to think that mobile design is going tobe the future and is it too farf etched to think that traditional web design for the desktop is dead? (possible research proposal topic). The two main phones I will looking at for this project will be the iPhone4 (if possible the iPhone 4s if I can get my hands on it) and the latest Android phone out there although I not follow Google products as much as I do with Apple , but nevertheless I will give it the same care and attention as I will with the iPhone so let’s look at the stats:

iPhone : Retina Display , 3.5 inch (diagonal) widescreen multi-touch display , 960x640 pixel resloution at 326ppi;

quite a lot to work with , but the plan is to make the site as simple as possible , simplicity is the key.

Unique Logos

2012-02-17T04:17:00.000-08:00

Very Clever Logos , I will take inspiration from these when designing my DP3 Website

DP3 Research

2012-02-16T10:36:00.000-08:00

With Context 2 , done and dusted (i will post the finished work shortly , still debating if am happy enough with it , to warrant putting it online) it is time to move on onto DP3 , although i haven't got a client yet , i would like to make a music website for a site for a band , got a lot of ideas in my mind and i will post them in due time.

Honest Logos

2012-02-15T14:06:00.001-08:00

2012-02-13T15:41:00.001-08:00

Context 2 , Portfolio Update -Final Background Maybe?

2012-02-13T15:27:00.000-08:00

Portfolio Context 2- Background Tests

2012-02-13T14:36:00.000-08:00

More or less done with Context 2 , am just testing out different backgrounds as i am not completely happy with the design aspect , and i will redesign the whole thing once i have submitted it , but by the end of the term should have expanded my knowledge further and will be able to design a even better portfillio website and i am happy with the coding side of things , i have felt that i have more then double my knowledge with HTML and CSS , and i even starting to get to grips with JQuery and Javascript , with is a far cry from me last year , when i had no knowledge at all.

Background Changes

2012-02-13T12:06:00.000-08:00

Don't take into account what the background image text actually says as this is only a test , but I like this , I think i will fade the text even more maybe down to 25% or less , but nevertheless , I like this

Graphic Design Work

2012-02-13T12:04:00.000-08:00

Just Some of the Work I have done in the Past

Context 2 . Portfolio Update. Screen Resolution + Size / Work Development Section. .

2012-02-11T11:28:00.000-08:00

Well I am on track for the Thursday deadline , but i just realized how important you have to take into account other screen sizes , and resolutions , or in other words , i don't know how old the computers are in boots library , but when I loaded it up , everything was messed up , maybe it is fact that the size of the monitor is quite small compared to Waverley or because the computers themselves run IE 6 or 7 , but that wasn't the case as i downloaded chrome and the same screen problem was there , I will include this in my evaluation and hopefully this won't deduct from my final mark , but it is unfortunate setback as I would have liked it to have worked in all browsers and screen sizes , but I guess it is all part of my learning curve as a student and we are set to learn how to optimise websites in every browser.

My Photography , The Lost Files , Brick Lank (Part 2)

2012-02-06T08:04:00.000-08:00

My Photography - The Lost Files. Part 1 Brick Lane

2012-02-03T07:53:00.000-08:00

I would like to show you all my photography , i nice change from the coding and websites. First off the last ever photography project i did , which was very greatly received by my peers at the time, the location was Brick Lane and the task was to show the Hidden Beauty of the Area. This is will be a series i will be running along side my web and graphic , just to show that there is something different to me:

Portfolio Progress

2012-02-03T07:03:00.000-08:00

A nice of example of CSS3 Navigation fade out

Portfolio Update

2012-01-30T04:46:00.000-08:00

Splash page more or less done , simple , clean , effective.

More Soon

Spanky Van Dykes Re Re Re Design

2012-01-30T04:45:00.000-08:00

Although after good feedback , i still wasn't pleased with the final outcome , so as a personal project i am doing ti again for the third time , a good way for me to hone my skills.

More Soon

2012-01-19T09:58:00.000-08:00

Update - Index Page

2012-01-19T09:50:00.000-08:00

I have broken it into sections - Header , Nav , 3 Sections and a Footer

Resturant Re-design. Spanky Van Dykes

2012-01-16T08:54:00.000-08:00

sfor my website re-design i will be doing Spanky Van Dykes , it is a restaurant which i had always admired for its art design and even took inspiration for it in my website design in my first year , i already have some designs in my head , and i will look good , as the current website design i believe doesn't reflect its style. But disaster has stuck , my Photoshop has pack up and i now have to find another copy , which is a nightmare for Mac users. More to Follow

2012-01-09T05:29:00.001-08:00

Fanart at its Finest

2012-01-09T05:17:00.000-08:00

Beautiful Poster by Sawyer Hollenshead

2012-01-07T14:38:00.000-08:00

THE WHOLE ELECTION IN A GRAPHIC

2012-01-07T14:21:00.000-08:00

Interesting work by Andrew Sullivan.

My Website - Font Ideas

2012-01-07T13:29:00.001-08:00

My Website - The First steps

2012-01-07T13:23:00.000-08:00

Below are a few designs that i have in mind for my portfolio , i already have in mind what i want to do for my website but i am still deciding the typography for the site.

New Design

2012-01-06T14:37:00.001-08:00

Hi Guys , so the new design is up , tell me what do you think

2012 - A Year of Change

2012-01-06T13:45:00.000-08:00

Hi Guys , hope you all had a good new years , well i was pleased with my DP3 results , 68% just 2% off a first which is nice , expected much lower to be honest , so what will the second term bring , hopefully i will make i those 9am lectures for one , but in all seriousness i am looking forward to exploring HTML 5 and CSS3 , i have been looking into both and i am excited to get into more in depth , some of the features makes my job as a designer much more easier , such as rounded corners , text rotation and such , just makes my job much more simpler.

ALSO. Finally managed to get a copy of both Photoshop and Dreamweaver for Mac , so am in the process of redesigning of blog , this design is outdated and somewhat childish.

More Soon.

Adobe Edge

2011-12-06T10:32:00.000-08:00

Love the program , will be using much more of its capabilities over xmas.

A F**KING JOKE

2011-12-06T09:34:00.000-08:00

This is nothing DP3 related , but Multimedia as a whole related , and the fact that is it in more or less terms getting scrapped in 2 years times is an absolute joke , i wasn't aware that i was paying £10,000 pounds to get onto an experimental course , because that what it is , they realised that they don't know what they are doing with the course , so scrap it , which gets even more annoyed is that fact that i was convinced to do multimedia over Graphic design because it was the future ....Yeah. I feel sorry for the First Years.

Not Happy - Should have done Graphics.

CHANGES

2011-12-06T05:01:00.000-08:00

So i have decided to scrap the sideways scrolling website and just have the one page scrolling down with 6 div sections or "pages" , i have also scrapped the the header and footer black bars which in hindsight looks like a good idea because it has given the whole project a much more colourful feel , all that i have to do is sort out a few errors with the background and have 2 more javascript elements , the first will be a floating nav bar and the second will be social icons at the bottom of the page

HOLDING ME BACK

2011-12-05T12:19:00.000-08:00

Not being able how to figure out , how to make my website scroll towards the right, is really holding me back from implementing my final javascript element (i already have an animated splash page as my first element) , Giselle has got back to me , and am going in tomorrow afternoon to see her, really annoying as it wasn't for this scrolling element , everything would have be done and i would just adjusting visual elements , but now am getting worried that i would be able to make the deadline , watch this space.

ISSUES ISSUES ISSUES

2011-12-05T10:26:00.000-08:00

Issues , Firstly am having trouble getting my website to scroll towards the right , i have the javascript but i have a horrible feeling that i have coded it all wrong , hope that am wrong but i have emailed giselle (no reply) for help. and i have a few nagging issues such as backgrounds and random question marks popping up. i think i have made a mistake trying to a scrolling website too soon , without fully understanding javascript , life would have been much more simpler if i did a 5 page website , i could have implemented much more animation and effects (using Edge). STRESS STRESS STRESS . and that the deadline is on friday. Need a miracle.

Final Layout

2011-11-21T10:16:00.000-08:00

New Design DP3

2011-11-21T07:44:00.000-08:00

I Decided to change my design again , after reviewing my designs , i feel that the designs are too dark and moody , i will post the new designs later tonight.

2011-11-20T18:59:00.000-08:00

http://lucuma.com.ar/

Beautifully made website , my inspiration.

DP3

2011-11-18T09:13:00.000-08:00

Layout 2 , the one i might go for

DP3

2011-11-17T02:22:00.000-08:00

Rough Design Layout 1

DP3

2011-11-16T11:47:00.000-08:00

sorry fort the lack of activity i have been really busy , with wireframes and gathering the resources needed in order to kick start my project , which will be tomorrow in fact , i have already layout my wireframes , which i will present to Giselle in tomorrows session , and i have been introduced to the code that i need in order to make my scrolling down website and my parents had kindly agreed to send up some old photographs of me as a child and that will be with me shortly, so to sum up i am pretty much on track with everything that i need to do.

Below is my take on a pastiche , a homage to a older design style.

DP3

2011-10-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

Am off and away in terms of DP3 , i have a theme , context and meaning. but first the brief:

Design, build and deploy a minimum five page website that is validated to WC3 standards and includes at least three interactive Javascript routines that enhance the interactive experience.
This phase will test your creativity, basic design understanding and coding competency. They should meet the following criteria:

1.Create at least three elements that use Javascript routines. These should enhance the interactivity of the website. Incorporate these elements within a website that contains a minimum of five XHTML pages.

2. Flash and video can also be incorporated into the design (not essential) but ALL 'swf' files MUST also have the relevant 'FLA' file in a form that can be opened by the version of FLASH available on the university computers in WAV207/105 (i.e.CS5).

3. The total website, including flash elements, should not exceed 5MB (10MB if video included) total file size.

4. Special consideration should be given to image quality. The Java-script and Flash elements should show technical proficiency and where possible, innovative ideas and narrative principles.

5. All elements (HTML and FLASH) should complement and link to each other and be coherent with respect to the overall website design.

So with all that jargon out of the way , let me get started . What am going for , is a website that shows the evolution of yours truly , a sort of online biography , there will be five pages , but they won't be your typical home gallery about etc , they will flow in a timeline , from the day of my birth , throughout school , college , to now and all the juicy bits in-between , i was always going to go down this path but if it haven't seen this image in a magazine then i would have gone down a generic route.

I will go into much much much more detail later on , but for know here are the basics : i will be using three colours: red , black and white and it will be a three coloum page layout. Hopefully my Mother won't might sending me old photos of my childhood.

Evolution of a Designer - Part 1.

2011-10-28T06:45:00.000-07:00

What was i thinking , in every term of the word "Fresher" , if you have no idea what am talking about, it is my designs of the past , especially my blog design , after having sessions with Shaun Blecher on good design , it is clear to see that my designs weren't very good , it's just too cluttered with different elements on the page , and doesn't really have good flow.

some of the randoms elements which on reflection doesn't not make sense

Thank lord am getting Photoshop and Dreamweaver on monday , so the much needed redesign and the transfer over to Wordpress can begin.

Getting the Hang of this

2011-10-27T04:16:00.000-07:00

Another excellent session with Giselle , this time on positioning of elements on the HTML page , just the thing i needed to know , with my design for my website being heavily based on specific DIVS being in a certain place. more on my design to follow.

Brillaint

2011-10-24T08:20:00.000-07:00

2011-10-20T01:27:00.000-07:00

Transfer to Wordpress

2011-10-18T09:24:00.000-07:00

i have decided i will transfer over to Wordpress , is just seems like the better site to be on , and i have may have already found inspiration in terms of design.

What i like about this design , is it clean look , and that fact that you can embed Twitter , Facebook and Youtube on the blog itself makes me think that Wordpress is the way forward, hopefully by christmas , the move will have been completed.

Interaction Design is an Applied Art.

2011-10-18T08:36:00.000-07:00

I can relate to Dan Saffer in terms of being self-taught , in fact most of the programs that i am most sufficient in (such as Photoshop) i self taught but that are many aspects of my growing design repertoire that i can never have taught myself such as the contexts with Jools and Danny , coding (HTML , CSS , DIV and CLASS tags) with Giselle and the mechanics of good design with Shaun , without those fundamental skills , there is no way i can progress as a designer.

"There are lots of good books out there now that, when combined with trying out what they suggest with hands-on work, can give you a foundation you can use for design. But the doing is important; you can read every book in the field and be a terrible designer. You have to practice it, live, preferably with a client and (eventually) with users"

Very very true statement , the way i learnt the skills i picked up before university , was done by sitting down for hours on end , on Photoshop making up designs , not very good designs , but designs nevertheless without those constant hours , i wouldn't have been able to hone my skills , produce a portfolio and get into university.

"I'd say there are two mistakes that new designers make: one is not coming up with enough variations—or, more accurately, not being able to come up with more alternatives. Which is to say, falling in love with one direction and not being able to see others."

Again another thing i am guilty of doing in the past , narrowed mindedness , in the past i would often stick to one design regardless of criticism from others , what i have learnt so far during this course is always have more then one opinion , leave yourself open .

Starting to get into the Groove

2011-10-13T02:19:00.000-07:00

Today was the first time of probably using dreamweaver and i have surprised myself with how quickly i have managed to get back into the groove , hopefully it is a sign of a good year.

New Design + Wordpress?

2011-10-10T08:57:00.001-07:00

So now that we are back up and running , looking at my blog in its current state , it is looking very very dated , so the plan is to completely design my blog from top to bottom , but since am working on a mac now , i need to get my programs sorted out , mainly Photoshop and Dreamweaver so the site redesign is still a way off. Am also looking into the possibility of moving over to Wordpress in the new year , i have heard nothing but good things about it and you change the url of the site , so www.inthemindofemilio.com is coming to a place near you.

2 Design Evaluation - The Planet Zero.

2011-10-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

The Planet Zero is a very unique website , and i assure you won't come across too many like it , its aim is to expose users to world of zero emissions drawing influences from games like Super Mario Galaxy , what makes this site rememberable is because the way the site is designed , kids will marvel at the game-like aspects , all in all learning the advantages of a green zero emissions , parents will also enjoy its charm and appeal.

Again this is another Flash Website so from a personal viewpoint , i believe that HMTL5 is still catching up in terms of popularity , and again i doubt that it will work on the most popular tablet out there , the iPad , which is a same as this website in particular would have been perfect using the motion capabilities of the iPad

2011-10-07T08:19:00.000-07:00

The very slick and simple design makes this website a pleasure to visit time and time again , it doesn't that very much text but then it doesn't need to , it using your senses and emotions in order to engage with the viewer , when you first open the site , you are met with only two colours , black and white and a timeline from 2001 to 2010 , but you scroll over the timeline with your mouse , the dates expand in sync with the musical tones that you probably haven't noticed before ,when you select the date , the musical score changes dramatically

The website itself doesn't use HTML5 , it uses Flash so am guessing it is an older website , but even to this day , it is very impressive , the smooth that run throughout also helps it appeal , there are other little impressive touches aswell , such as the way the little preview photos zoom in when you place the cursor over them, the only problem that i can see is that , since the website is using flash i doubt the site will work on the a tablet as the iPad which is a shame

End of Mod Pres - Ready for Tomorrow.

2011-05-25T08:12:00.001-07:00

End of Module Presentation on Prezi

2011-05-25T08:11:00.000-07:00

Animation - Haunted House from Emile John Sawyer on Vimeo.

My main ideas and intentions that I was trying to express in the project were:

I wanted to improve from the last animation i did (the 30 second ident) so I went the theme of ancient eypt and some elements from the video game Tomb raider and the last revolution , so I wanted to give the viewer the feeling of adventure and mystery

The methods I use to develop my ideas were: (brainstorming, , visual research, storyboards etc)

I used a range of research methods on this project , I first started by doing a visual brainstorm of the ideas I wanted to portray in my animation (those ideas being ancient Egypt and adventure) I then had a look at different youtube videos on 3d animation prop creation and lighting effects , another thing which was helpful was the sessions on Friday ran by Yelena Popova she helped me refine my theme and how the track was shaped.

I took a risk by trying something new. (Explain):

I took a risk this time , by having many other moving parts in my animation , which is something I didn’t do last time around and by having more complex lighting and fog , something which I had to be careful with because of the rendering time , but animation is not really my forte so i was limited by the amount of risks I could take.

Some of the unexpected problems I had to solve while working were:

I Didn’t really have any major problems during this project , I followed the instructions clearly and was able to make the building and the track plus the cart with ease , the only problem I had really was the texturing , the editor didn’t want to work for me but this could be a case of me not being experienced with 3DS max.

The decisions and choices I made to help solve these problems were:

Lucky a few of course mates , were more 3DS savvy then I was and I was quick to solve the problems

The things I have learnt from this particular project were: (Specific examples should be cited.)

I have increased my knowledge on 3ds max and I know now how to make basic animations and for that I am thankful.

Areas for improvement , If I were to do this project again I would change or do differently:

If I was able to do this again and had a bit more time on my hands , I would install the software on my home computer and have more effects such as red water below the track to act as blood and a few fire effects , the reasons why I didn’t do this however is because it would take about a week to render which I couldn’t do at Waverly but I could possibly do at home.

A new project that might grow out of my experience maybe:

If was committed and had more of an interest in animation I would defiantly make more mini projects but my future lies in web and graphic design.

2011-05-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

2011-05-11T09:11:00.000-07:00

Back Online

2011-05-11T08:10:00.000-07:00

So after the scare of my desktop catching a virus and me having to make a trip to London to fix this , (resulting in ALL of my computer files wiped , luckily i had all my Multimedia items backed up on my portable hard drive , important lesson learnt at Uni - back up your files) Am i back on track- Sort of.

Animation is still not for me , but i have made progress , all that is left for me to do is attach a camera to the cart and get some lighting going , might make some props but they will be nothing special am afraid.

2011-04-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

A few problems have occurred while trying to do this , there are a few twists on the track and the some the track curves off to one side , something I will have to ask andy to take a look at

2011-04-19T08:29:00.000-07:00

Wireframe.

2011-04-19T08:13:00.000-07:00

The cart is coming along nicely (ish) even though my peers have done much better cart designs , i am quite proud of this.

2011-04-19T07:57:00.000-07:00

Were are into week three of animation and I can safely say that animation is not for me , I just do not get one bit , give me DIV tags and single column website layouts any day of the week , so far into it I hear you ask , not very much , I have design the building and the track (need apply a sweep modifier for the third time after the first track I designed had disappeared and the second track file was corrupted) and I am begging to design my cart but I again my struggling to do that as the instructions on the website are not very clear , and I think video walkthroughs instead of screenshot would be 10x more helpful. I think I need to contact Andy on this one. I am not happy.

2011-04-11T05:08:00.000-07:00

So we are on to our last project for the year , which is 3D Animation and to be honest i have heard nothing but dread from my fellow students concerning this project , As task is as follows: Design, build and animate an amusement park, terror, haunted castle/house ride to fit into the Waverley Theatre with 2-3 scare scenes. It seems simple enough, but there is a lot of work required to get the maximum output from this task.

In the first week, we have learn the basics of building the rollercoaster track, the angles and logistics of the Waverley building , to my surprise I managed to quickly pick the skills needed for this and wasn’t too confused by the end of the session . i have already decided on a theme for my ride , it will be ancient Egypt , thje kind of look i am going for can be best explained in the video below.

2011-03-30T17:33:00.000-07:00

EVALUATION

I wanted the most from this project is to project the type of design ideas that best reflect me as graphic designer, web designer but mostly me as a person; I wanted to use this opportunity to project my best aspects of my skill. I wanted my portfolio to be something unique and not dull and uniform like most of the other online portfolio’s out there. I used a range of research methods on this project , as it the one I wanted to take up for the next two years , I wanted to get as much information as possible , firstly I decided to use a mood board , this enabled me to get my ideas from my head into something more substantial. Second I did primary visual research again , the design idea I wanted to portray in my online portfolio is similar to a well-known gastro-pub near the Newton building , so I went there and took a few photos as a key reference in my designs. I also looked a few YouTube video’s for inspiration, the theme I was looking for is the “hand-drawn” 70’s-80’s retro vibe, so I looked at the music band “Two Door Cinema Club” and their video “I Can Talk” which has a very retro vibe and I tried to use that vibe into my designs.

Trying something new...or at least trying

This where I felt I fall short , even though I wanted to make something new and exciting for the viewer and also me to look , i wasn’t able to manage it in my own opinion and I believe it was down to two things ; one my lack of experience with Dreamweaver and Flash – Some of design ideas , I wanted to do in the first place , I just didn’t have the necessary experience to implement it into my design , others have more experience in Dreamweaver and some Flash and were able to make some impressive designs , and it was the first time were I felt a little out of my depth. Second was time – it dawned on my just

how much detail is needed my creating a good website let alone an excellent one , each element requires something , such as the placement of the navigation bar in accordance with human eye , if I had more time , I would have liked to experiment with different ideas and design layouts , but due to the short time I had to work with plus my lack of experience in Dreamweaver , the design , although it looks good is quite simple in its design layout.

The most I have learnt from this particular project is the amount of detail required in order to make a successful website, every from the where the navigation bar will be placed , what type of typeface will the main content comprise of , will the website require some sort of Flash plug-in , or HMTL5 , so the main thing i have learned from this , is detail is everything in Web. Another thing which has hit , is that I feel that my future does lay in Web but more towards the designing aspect rather than the actual building.

2011-03-13T16:53:00.000-07:00

Been awhile since i updated this thing , so my apologies, it’s just that I have trying to solve this problem that this HTML Coding on my website , I am pretty much done with that thing , it has the same design as before and I am happy with it , the only thing left to do is do that image gallery which am going to ask Giselle to help me with , but the MAIN problem , the problem which is giving me the most stress is simply changing the background image on two of my pages, every time I try to change it , something goes wrong such as all my others pages change to that background image. Giselle managed to do it for my about page and I have followed her techniques no luck, is the only thing which stopping me move forward with the project. other than that I have enjoyed the project , i look forward to taking it next year , if i can get a hang on the basics of DIV TAGS , HMTL , CSS , ID’S And CLASSES then I could excel at it

2011-03-02T10:33:00.000-08:00

Today was a very successful day in terms of my understanding of DIV tags , HTML and CSS. After last week’s Sem , I must admit I was struggling with the coding , as thought i would be , but after talking with Giselle , explained to me that once you get your head about the different type of DIV tags (a total of 5) and the CSS it is really quite simple. Another reason why today was successful for me is because have finally come up with a design with incorporates both the “hand made “feel” with that 70’s retro vibe.

My design

The Home Page

About Page

Above are two examples of the background images I created for my online portfolio, as you can I have left out the text because i will be adding that at a later date , also with link buttons also.

2011-02-20T17:51:00.001-08:00

2011-02-20T17:50:00.000-08:00

This is the second re-design from the first design I did and already I like it better, it shows off a little more skill then before, and lots more personality, in this version I have tried to make the website seem more “hand-made” that why i have decided to include the hand drawn pictures and the typeface which is Akbar, again gives it the made from hand feel, but this early design is not without its flaws. I think the main section of the screen is rather too busy with the cartoon drawings, ad the is a lot of negative space behind the text (the white background) something which I will have to fix up in the re-designs.

When i tweaked with the levels abit ,alomst giving it a 1970's feel

At the moment am at a crossroads, I want that handmade feeling , but i am getting more and more impressed and inspired by the that “1970’s” feel , I think the best way to descried the kind of style i am going for is design of Spanky Van Dyke’s.

– a bar/bistro that is opposite the Newton building at Nottingham Trent university , it has that organic feel , but combined with a real 70’s American retro feeling something right out of Saturday Night Fever., it is one of my favourites bars in Notts and I recommend anyone to pop in and take a look. Another inspiration i have had is the two music videos from “I can talk” by “Two Door Cinema Club” and “Hello” by Martin Solveig & Dragonette both of which give me the feeling of 70’s Europe.

2011-02-20T13:31:00.000-08:00

Here I have started to plan what my website will look like, and already I am feeling that creative and perfectionist inch, this is my first design and I fully expect to change my mind about 705050 times before I finally reach my final design choice, bad way to go about stuff I know, but it is the only way I know.

This first design is rather simple in my mind; it has a background image which a Gaussian blur will be applied to. , a navigation bar towards the left hand side, which contains the following links (About, Portfolio, Video, Blog, Contact) a mini about page on the upper left hand side of the blurred background image) my full named will be on the lower right hand side of the blurred background image , and a footer containing all the necessary information (copyright etc)/ when I first thought of this design in my head I thought it was a good solid design , it had simple lines and a easy to use interface. Then it hit that this design is the same as every other website out there. There was nothing which says personality.

2011-02-20T08:28:00.000-08:00

We have started interactive spaces today and this is where I believe my future career lies , it combines graphic design (which i love) with wed design (which I am interested in) okay the coding might be an issues , and is bound to give me sleepless night I bring it on I say. So toady lecture was very interesting, and I was surprised to learn that they are over 1 trillion web pages currently online, so one of the key things I took from the lecture was to make your website unique , the average user only spends 2.5 seconds on a web page , so not long to make an impression.

To help ease into this project we have been told to create a mood board , something which best describes our interests , personalities and feelings , i found it useful and a stepping board to best show off my style.

2011-02-16T20:06:00.000-08:00

Pre Production.

At the start of the Moving Image module we were told that we were to be given scripts that were written by Jools, We were handed a script entitled “Herds” (what this title has to do with the actual film i will never know). Herds is the tale of a Character named Monty who invites himself into the houses of unfortunate flat dwellers , investigates their cupboards and fridges , eats their food , before either leaving or most times being thrown out. He dusts himself off being moving on. At the start of the production each of us were given a role (Director , Editor , Sound , Camera , Lighting etc) I was given the of role of Sound , and at the start I was quite pleased with it , as I always had an interest in sound design. The Pre production phrase went very well in my opinion, Dan (Producer) kept everything in order, filled out all the necessary sheets and forms and generally I found his role , especially in this pre production stage to be very good indeed, the Other members all seemed to know what they were doing ,which is a nice change from last year.

Production.

Unfortunately this is the stage where we had the most problems , mostly whilst principal photography took place , to start with the two actors will for lack of a better word “hired” didn’t show up , when contacted both of them said they have both forgot a 3hours lecture that they have the same day but were available later at 3pm. A poor excuse, so it was up to the editor and producer to take up the roles which to be fair to them did a fantastic job , so it worked out quite well, one other thing which pleased the was quality of the location which was silent ,(which is good for me in the sound department so every little sound was picked up by the camera) and had enough space in order to place lighting rigs ; lighting in general was fairly good , but sometimes it was uneven so it gave the film uneven and harsh shadows , we filmed using two cameras , allow easier editing and looked very professional , complete with over the shoulder shots for both actors , again at this stage I was quite pleased with production.

Post Production

It was it this stage were i realized that my pathway didn’t lay with moving image , it’s not of team , which were great , it’s just that i feel i didn’t have my creative inputted onto the film and I didn’t feel i was contributing much to the cause , all though I did fulfilled my sound duties , I just wanted to have my say over every little creative decision, such as the hue of the film , the titles , the typecast etc , and that’s where i realized that my love for graphic and web design and everything that comes with it , although I believe the film came out very well , any problems that occurred during the production , was swiftly dealt with , we believe that the film portrays Jools script perfectly and on a personal idea , am glad my idea of having the booming/muffled soundtrack came out every well on film.

2011-02-16T20:02:00.001-08:00

2011-02-16T19:56:00.000-08:00

2011-02-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

2011-02-11T10:52:00.000-08:00

So after a long day trying to get a muffle effect in Soundbooth , It came to me that Sony Vegas had to desired effect i wanted to get - Come home and try to Download it only to find i can't.

Brillant. Below you can find some Production Shots of Project Intruder filming on the day.

2011-02-11T08:12:00.000-08:00

Trying to edit a sound file for the film , all am trying to do is muffle the sound so that it seems that its coming from somewhere , but trying to Soundbooth CS5 is a nightmare , it just seems overly complicated , i saw a video on Youtube which has the ffect i want but that was using Sony Vegas m which looks like i will have to download that Tonight. Nightmare

2011-02-11T05:42:00.000-08:00

We are coming to the end our moving image assignment and it has been a eye opening experience into the world of film and film production , On the day of Principal photography we were faced with different troubles along the day , firstly both actors deciding not to show up and giving poor excuses such as not remembering that they had a three hour lecture which they simply forgot about , leaving Daniel and Richard to pose as actors , which both of them did a brilliant job considering , during actual filming nothing much went wrong , the location (Manor Villages) worked out perfectly for the film , another thing which worked went and lighting and sound , the film was well lighted and the halls was near silent at the time , so everything picked up well on the camera , making my task somewhat easier .

So with the Principal sound , sounding OK , I turned my attention to additional sound effects such as ambient music , I wanted the music to muffled in the background , so that the audience knows that there is a party happening somewhere in the halls but not quite sure where , I like to call it the “booming” soundtrack . the only decision I had to make is what type of music to use , in the end I decided to go with dub step as the base would work nicely with the mise en scene that University halls portray.

After talking to Deborah , she wanted more atmopshere into the film , such people running around Halls and such , just to give the audience a sense of where they are.

2011-01-31T07:25:00.000-08:00

Today I begin my research into my visual essay due later this year , I already know what I want to do next year , which is web design , the main reason being that it incorporates the other passion that I have ; graphic design , I love the idea of creating exactly what you want from starch , if you mix that with the interactivity of web design , then you have the potential of creating something special every single time , and this is where the visual essay comes into play , I have create the essay which visually shows my passion for both mediums. I started research into isotope international picture language. There was a exhibition at the V&A museum in London , so i decided to take a look.

Isotype is a method of showing social, technological, biological and historical connections in pictorial form. It was first known as the Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics between 1925 and 1934. The founding director of this museum, Otto Neurath, was the initiator and chief theorist of the Vienna Method. The term Isotype was applied to the method around 1935, after its key practitioners were forced to leave Vienna by the rise of Austrian fascism.

The first rule of Isotype is that greater quantities are not represented by an enlarged pictogram but by a greater number of the same-sized pictogram. In Neurath’s view, variation in size does not allow accurate comparison (what is to be compared – height/length or area?) whereas repeated pictograms, which always represent a fixed value within a certain chart, can be counted if necessary. Isotype pictograms almost never depicted things in perspective in order to preserve this clarity, and there were other guidelines for graphic configuration and use of colour. The best exposition of Isotype technique remains Otto Neurath’s book International picture language (1936).

Visual education” was always the prime motive behind Isotype, which was worked out in exhibitions and books designed to inform ordinary citizens (including schoolchildren) about their place in the world. It was never intended to replace verbal language; it was a “helping language” always accompanied by verbal elements. Otto Neurath realized that it could never be a fully developed language, so instead he called it a “language-like technique”.

What i can take from this is how pictures , images , symbols can be used to represent information instead of words, this vitally important in the whole of web and graphic design , and more and more innovative web sites are using less and less words just using images , sounds , emotion to interact with the costumer.

2011-01-26T06:40:00.000-08:00

The program i decided to use for sound editing will be audacity. Audacity is a free software, cross-platform digital audio editor and recording application. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and BSD. Audacity was created by Dominic Mazzoni while he was a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University. Mazzoni now works at Google, but is still the main developer and maintainer of Audacity, with help from many others around the world. The latest release of Audacity is 1.3.12, a beta, released on 1 April 2010.As of 29 October 2010, it was the 10th most popular download from SourceForge.net, with 72 million downloads. Audacity won the SourceForge.net 2007 Community Choice Award for Best Project for Multimedia.

I have had previous experience with the program when i used to make mini animation films a few years back , since it is the easiest to use it would only make sense for me to use the program.

2011-01-26T06:19:00.000-08:00

Thought i would give you an update on how things are coming with the project and it is a case of so far so good, all the roles have been sorted and we have a schedule to go by, giving dates and times. The title of the script we have been given is called “Herds” and it tells the story of a mysterious character who turns up to the front door of another character, and begins to rummage through his apartment. What we have decided to do is set up an online blog , (http://projectintruder.blogspot.com/) this way all the crew member can have their input at any time of the day/night , we also have an online script which can edited by any crew member below is an example of this: (The yellow text is my input)

1 EXT. DOORSTEP. NIGHT 1

TITLE: Herds

Knocking on the door MONTY skips from foot to foot - What am thinking of is a loud and booming bang , to really show that yes , we know somewhere is there , but the tone of the bang would portray to the audience that he is not just your regular visitor .

As AGNEW opens the door Monty slips past him, entering
Maybe this should happen really quickly and make Agnew seem so confused that he just goes along with it
What am thinking here is some abietant background noise , so if we are filming in halls , we could have some playing some music from thier room , so its more of a - for a lack of a better word- "booming" sound.

MONTY
Bloody hell you took your time. It's a bit
quiet though better be early than be late,
never got into the fashionably late bullshit
did you?
Camera following them to the kitchen
With Monty clearly just walking quickly past. Agnew stood at the door for a second before following acting shocked.

AGNEW
Who are you here for?

MONTY
No reason we can't crack these open though is
there?

Monty holds the bag up and clinks the bottles together - bottles of wine , maybe? , easiser to distingush on film then cans of beer.

2 INT. KITCHEN. NIGHT 2

Monty and Agnew sit at the table. They are drinking beer
Agnew taking small sips, clearly not at ease with the situation. Frowns at Monty regularly.
Perhaps a moment of awkward slience with only the out of range background "booming" music can be heard.

MONTY
Not a lot in the way of snacks at this party
Searching the cupboards, possibly on tiptoes, not the fridge yet. Don't really want repeating actions/shots.
Banging of shutting cupboards
AGNEW
Is there a party? Lads don't tell me anything. Had work after lectures so...

MONTY
Where's everybody else?
Turns around on his heel before asking, clearly not listening to Agnew with his back to him beforehand.

AGNEW
I'll text them now. Are you ~~a mate of Johnny~~ Johnny's mate then?
Agnew rummages around in his pocket and pulls out his phone. Then looks up to ask the question.
Sounds of keys in the pocket maybe , rustling of crunched up paper.
MONTY
Don't know Johnny
Agnew looks down at his phone again. Then up again to say...

as you can see everyone is already edit or have there input in some way or another . the sound program i have decided to use is audacity.

2011-01-20T09:44:00.000-08:00

So we are back and i start off with the subject which i the most issues with, Film. But this time it is a little bit different from what we did last term , this time , we have been given a script and each been given roles within our group such as director , editor , producer etc etc, i believe that this gives better structure to the whole project as member cannot say , i wasn’t such on what to do and still “cash” when the final product is finish. My role is the sound designer. Sound design is the process of specifying, acquiring and manipulating audio elements. It is employed in a variety of disciplines including film, theatre, music recording, live music performance, and computer game software development. Sound design most commonly involves the manipulation of previously composed audio, such as previously recorded music and sound effects. In some instances it may also involve the composition or manipulation of audio to create a desired effect or mood. A sound designer is one who practices the art of sound design.

My main requirements are:

– Door knock

- Monty flicks on the stereo to enlighten the mood, so a techno unsigned track would be handy.

- Possibly a button switch sound.

- Fridge door opening/closing

- Cupboard doors opening and closing.

- Front door opening and shutting

2011-01-20T04:07:00.000-08:00

Blog under re-construction.

If your wondering why I haven’t been posting since we have gotten back Is because I am under the process of completely redesigning my blog , and it is a time taking process , I don’t want to give away too much , but I have been inspired by the old 8 and 16bit era of gaming back in the during the 80 and early 90’s , and due to me being a bit of a perfectionist I want to get right into every single way , I should get it done hopefully by the end of the week.

2010-12-08T09:49:00.000-08:00

"Ghost" Emile's Final edit. from Emile John Sawyer on Vimeo.

After getting feedback and generally not being pleased with thew final product , i decided to look back to the drawing broad and re-re-edit my final one shot film , this time i added music to the film and after looking at youtube tutorials i figured out how to change the hue to give the film that blue look i wanted to achieve in the first place,

2010-12-03T11:57:00.000-08:00

Untitled from Emile John Sawyer on Vimeo.

2010-12-03T09:46:00.000-08:00

FINISHED

This is my final edit of our one shot film group film entitled, “Ghost” , at the moment it has no sound the reason being that I am trying to find the right sound track to put into the film , the film was directed by me , the camera man was Ollie and the actress was MG , and Rob was the Runner. We wanted to go along with a ghost looking at her own grave narrative because we thought it provided an interesting concept and after researching several Japanese films as aswell as popular American film such as “The Ring” this is the route we wanted to go down, overall my experience on this project has been mixed, we were the smallest group (4) and we came up with some great ideas but since our crew was so small compared to the other groups we couldn’t film or think big. We tried to get other people outside to come along to help but to no avail , But apart from the actual filming and group work , I feel that I have a better understanding with film as a concept then ever before , I lot of consideration goes into the littlest of details , camera angles , camera position , lighting , where the actors stand , the inspiration behind your idea , it counts towards making the film in your vision , something which I have never took into account , even in my short film animation days , until now. If I had more time I would look more into colour grading as I feel that I could have made this short one shot film look much better then it does, but since the deadline and final presentation was so close. I felt rushed in the process of editing this short film. DP2 will be a completely different story in terms of the visual aspect of my future films.

"Ghost" One Shot Final Edit - NO SOUND from Emile John Sawyer on Vimeo.

2010-11-29T09:44:00.000-08:00

2010-11-29T01:20:00.000-08:00

Working with animation has been hot and cold to be perfectly honest , at the beginning with the jelly text I thought it would be simple to animate (which it still is ) but once we got give the jelly head task , that is when the problem started to appear , and by the last week i was really really struggling , even up to the point where i was scared of using the program , after revaluating...

... my design , I feel that now have a hold on the animation project and my studio ident – I think .

So my first design although simple , didn’t really do it for in terms of the visual appeal , so i decided to make a risky move and re-design the whole thing from starch and changing the name of the ident from “Emilio TV” to “JJ Network”.

So when i was designing the new indent I decided to make the words chrome using the material editor available on 3DS max , I achieved this by using the raytrace and bit map features , the chrome gives the scene a very nice feel ,but after I animated the indent , I felt that the area surrounding the indent was rather plain , so I wanted to play around with the lighting to give it a more dynamic view , so i decided to add Omni lightning which using globe light in order to add a realistic feel to the indent and it give a depth which it lack before.

2010-11-29T00:59:00.000-08:00

The last in our 3 week tasks and this is time it is one shot film , even though my mind and heart is set on Interactive Spaces , i was always interested in doing experimenting in film and shorts , ever since i used to make short animation films using a game/program called “The Movies” which allowed you to make films using pre-animated scenes , although the game did not sell well , which led to Lionhead studios – the developer of the game withdrawing support to it from 2009 , but the game gain a strong cult following and members sooned started up their own website dedicated to it , Tmunderground.com (although nower days it is open to other animation software such as iclone and the more recent Moviestorm) for better examples of the possibilities capable with the game take look at these made by other members of the site.

MefuneAkira's Saimaya

chatNoir's Death in Venice.

After we were introduced to one shot film and soon put into our groups, which includes me, Ollie, Rob and MG. At first we decided to film a sort horror film using the tunnel in the Arboretum, but we soon changed our idea completely after we found out that so many groups were using the same location, this name we wanted to go with the idea of a ghost visiting her own grave, we placed our actress (MG) in front of her own grave (named Emma Marsh) and she leaves into the background and eventually fades away. This is what my other crew member Ollie had to say on the project:

his films causes the audience to be unsure as to whether the character visiting the gravestone is the ghost of the buried or a younger relative with the same name, and contributes successfully to the eerie feel we aimed to create. I feel that this short film project was successful, bearing in mind that it was a first attempt. We achieved our goal in terms of what type of mood and thoughts we wanted to plant in the audience’s minds. One small think I would change given a larger budget was a more intricate support system for the camera as the shot slightly shaky using a tripod without moving support.

2010-11-05T12:27:00.000-07:00

I Wanted to go down a rather abstract look to my interactive space project, in terms of look, feel and styling , so I choose to focus on camera angles , hue , saturation , brightness and contrast, as a consequence the design formalism leans more towards a graphic style, limited palette and maybe even a s

ense of negative space. I also wanted implement space and proportion, so in some of my photos you can see elements of extreme close up's using my camera super Marco feature and in other photo's such as the stairs , the scope is much wider.

An example of the different camera angles.

The main thing i took from the classes before I fully got to work on this project , was how I was going to represent the visual drama on the screen , so when doing this , I wan

ted to have a contrast (e.g. from small to large , from high to low contrast etc) Like i had stated before , I wanted to focus more in the look of the project then the narrative at first , so that’s why the story is rather plain hence the title :”Mundane” The story is basic just you the user taking down some washing , later on when revise this idea I will focus a lot more on the narrative.

Two shots from my finished project with the "Futura" Font.

I wanted to experiment with network and tree hierarchies and also way finding when I first started this project, but although this is the case in the first few screens due to me not using Dreamweaver before i was at first overwhelmed with the HTML coding (something which i haven’t used also) by the end of the narrative the user will follows a liner path. But now that i fully understand on how to use Dreamweaver and HTML coding , i am now at the stage where i can follow my original l idea and having a much more complicated narrative with multiple wayfinders and branching narratives.

On reflection i am pleased with this project at this moment in time in terms of visuals (even though i planned to re-do this project the way i wanted to do in the first place) i partially like the typography used here. The font i used on this project was called “futura” , this font really worked well with my images and i wanted to experiment more with this font , but unfortunately when I tired to download this font at home it was brought to me that i could only buy this font from adobe , to say i was disappointed would be an understatement , so for my next version of this project i have to try and find a typeface which works well with my images but i can also find online when I continue the project at home.

2010-10-29T10:57:00.000-07:00

So after the 3 weeks of doing interactive space , we are now moving on to the method which has scared me the most since I have started multimedia at NTU – 3D Animation. But after the first session with Andrew, I have been really surprised at how simple the program is , once you learn the basics , now I am really looking forward to getting more into the program. So let’s start with the brief – we have been told to make a 30 second ident animation for our very own cable station that holds audience interest in the interval between show slots , we have to use 3DS max and Adobe premier pro to design , build and animation.

So here we have a rough layout of the 30 ident that i what , as you can see it is simple in its design and layout but this will allow to focus more on the individual aspects of the animation (where and how the letters will fall , angle of the camera etc etc)

Image Meaning and Composition

2010-10-27T10:07:00.000-07:00

After this week’s seminar, i recently came across the rule of thirds, which states an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections. Proponents of the technique claim that aligning a subject with these points creates more tension, energy and interest in the composition than simply centring the subject would. This is something which I never come across before when taking photographs or filming but in terms of ratio, proportion and balance, I guess it makes sense to follow them for a more coherent design.

The Rule of Thirds when appiled to my images.

I was interested with the history of design also, and a good example of this is the swastika – once an decorative Hindu item now over time , the swastika is normally associated with Nazi Germany , just one example of how imagery is used to convey meaning.

2010-10-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

Here i wanted to talk in detail more about my final interactive space project i have entitled "Mundane".
Setting: the setting I have choose for this particular project is my halls of residence (Manor Villages) , starting from my bedroom , the corridor , the main corridor and stair access and the laundry room , the reason I choose this is because I wanted to familiarize the user in an environment that they could all find themselves in.

Characters: the main character involved is the user i.e. you , so the story is being told from a first person view or POV , the reason why I have choose this to display the narrative is because I wanted the user to feel engaged with the surroundings plus I feel that the best stories are told them the first person view.

Mood: this is where i wanted to really display my skills with a camera and editing skills in Photoshop, whatever I take a photo, I always feel the need to experiment with them , no matter what the subject , I think this urge comes inspiration taken from German expressionists , whom used to experiment widely with painted shadows and weird and unique camera angles. For me i wanted to experiment with light and dark shadows, that’s why my interactive space is more experiential with shapes and shadows rather than a interesting plot hence the reason why i have called this project “Mundane”

so far i have nearly done with the project , just having to link the images up in Dreamweaver and then email them to simon which shouldn't take more then a week. I will keep you all Posted.

My Multimedia

2010-10-20T07:26:00.000-07:00

It was back in 2008 and i was just browsing the various channels on sky and then I came across Coldplay’s “Strawberry Swing” and my mind was blown, having being brainwashed with various and rather clichéd music videos consisting of flashy light shows , my eyes were greeted with the pleasure of watching this video , at the time i didn’t know what technique they used , but after the whiteboard animation workshop, am guessing they have used some sort of stop motion animation which with the amount of visual stimuli per frame , must have been very time consuming.