MEDI 322: Collaborative Practise: Intermediate Proposal

Initially my plan was to make a website to both advertise and sell my friend`s custom/ bespoke cake shop. This idea has evolved into making other promotional items such as business cards and also doing the professional photography for the gallery that she would like on her site.

As this is her business she is obviously involved very heavily in the creative side of things in terms of the actual style of the website and has agreed to feed back on a regular basis about how she thinks the website should look. This will be discussed between the two of us since I also would like some creative input. Technically I will also be collaborating with her father who is providing the domain and server space so I will have to communicate with him mainly via emails.

A major change is that my collaborator also would like me to design some graphics for the website in the form of cupcakes to be used as buttons etc. I aim to have the basic coding done before Christmas break and also to have a selection of graphics for my collaborator to feed back on. I would like to use one of these for a place holder so that I can actually get something in the domain space as quickly as possible because time is money and in the retail world it's smart to not waste either, even if the products are to be custom order. Also my collaborator has mentioned that she wanted a blog that tied into her site as she feels this would be a good idea both personally and for her business. This I would need to set up for her, theme, link in and show her how to operate and maintain.

It has been a both a challenge and enjoyable working with a friend, as it makes it difficult to know where the boundaries are and how professional to be. I do think that this will get easier overtime and as the project develops. Also sometime contact issues can arise since organising around two people is always harder than organising around one person, I think this is part of the process though. 

I have a very strong foundation now in terms of the artistic direction of the website so I feel confident that me and my collaborator know where we both stand but obviously we will need to constantly feedback to one another as the project grows and develops. The theme of the site will be very much 50's kitsch as well as obviously cakes. I am looking forward to creating the graphics as well as the actual website but this will be an added challenge. It will need to be fairly closely collaborated on but it also gives massive artistic responsibility for the company so I am effectively helping in the general branding of the business which is fairly huge! 

I also think that is important that we focus on a few photo shoots so that I have a nice selection of images to work with in terms of building a gallery into the site. Also it would be nice to showcase the items in the layout of the actual site itself. I have actually done food photography before so I am actually fairly confident about this area of the work because food photography is enjoyable and I have researched the psychology of how to market the images well. I have just purchased a Canon PowerShot compact camera to complete the photography required. As it shoots in film, my collaborator will have the option to 'vlog' about the creative process of anything relevant to her site.

I am thinking it may be smart to do a bit of market research so that I can really make the website effective. Although in principle the website advertises food, so uses some of the same 'retail psychology' it has to function and look good as the figurehead of a business.  

MEDI 322: Collabrative: Images from Collaborator

Feeding back on the image maps that I made for this project my collaborator sent me some more pictures that she liked. In constantly feeding back and forth like this I feel that we are pinpointing what the website will look like in terms of style. I am going to be sure to theme the heading text(s) in a 50's style and colour code accordingly.
 

MEDI 323: Individual Practise: Elemental Dreamscape Set Version 1

These are my newest Dreamscapes and also the only ones I have done in an actuall set. They are of course elementaly inspired and I have used what I feel about the elemts to influence them. Intrestingly when thinking on what actually shaped my ideas of the elements I came up with two basic things being my Pagan beliefs and notions of elements and also the Legend of Zelda. These two things may not seem to work at all together but it makes perfect sence in my head. I can't exactly remember when my Zelda obssesion started but I know that after playing the N64 title of 'Ocarina of Time' I became hooked. I have litterally grown up with these games. Needless to say they have influenced me hugely. One of the most notable moments for me was learning the creation story of the land called Hyrule where the games most often take place.

Now that I am an adult I can obviously see that the land of Hyrule has similarities to my own ideas, this being the notion of more than one God and especially the notion of Goddesses since the idea of monotheism has never appealed to me even as a child.Over time and the games progression I have come to strongly associate the three Goddesses with the elements of Earth, Fire and Water, also the different zones and quests and battles are normally based around this elements as the core. All of this has lead to a strong association of these three elements with Zelda in my head.

Actually making these is a really enjoyable process. I have layered the images in a very specific way to create the effect I want, I go with what feels right, and what looks right according to the image I have in my head. It`s a very personal process that is not easy to articulate. It`s organic proccess and I will not stop until I have got the image exactly how I want it.

The images as a set rely on the use of symbols and symbolisum to tie them together as a set with a common theme being fairys. Also the key feature that makes them work coheasivly as a set are the 'pearls' or symbols of the three Goddesses.

As for the individual images they do differ quite a bit. The earth image most notably is the only dreamscape to have a solid background image in so far as the image on the lowest layer isnt opaque at all. Having said that I never actually want a clear background to be visible in the images, in the earth picture alone there are leaves, trees, parts of a forest and parched earth to add depth of feild and draw you in. The idea is that you keep finding things when you take anouther look or stare longer or change the angle at which your looking at the image so this negates the idea of foreground and background as and in fact space as being solid or fixed in some way. The images should flow and move as you look into it should feel almost as if they are a life unto themselves. 'Dreamscapes' are meant echo my thoughts, feelings, memories and dreams, the things that make me who i am they have to become `the space of the imaginary` or 'pictures of the unreal'.

Such as the earth image is solid the water and fire are lot less solid. Water in its very nature is clear so I wanted the layers to reflect this yet also keep the vidid blue and greens that I think of when I see water. The water and fire are a lot less 'overgrown' than the earth with the fire image probably being the most sparce in terms of 'life' with the only things really populating fire being mythical beasts such as dragons and the like. The water image however is subtly teeming with life as I would say water is the main life blood of the planet likewise with the earth image since I accociate earth with growth and trees. In the earth picture a notable feature is that I wanted lots of faces to reflect my belief in the 'Green Man' faces in the leaves and children of the woods.

I am very pleased with this set! I think they turned out very well!

MEDI 323: Individual Practise: Autumn Dreamscape...

Ok so I really tried to push the idea of unrealestate in this picture to the limit. Some of the images used are infact my own photographs and the main leaf pattern is the scanned image of some leaves from a really old workbook of mine. Its not so much that I am not happy with this image but I do think it has to many ideas in it and although they do work I don't feel it is as cohesive as the other dreamscapes.

I wanted this to reflect EVERYTHING that I assosiate or remember or feel when I think about autumn. Although it hits the mark I think that everything together maybe overloads it somehow. Since there is my online gaming self worked through the image and also my pagan assotiations I am thinking that I need to find better balance between these elements that make up my thoughts and feelings to work the images a little better.

MEDI 323: Individual Practise: I had a Dream about Orca...

No really. I had this crazy dream about Orca. The basics of this dream was that I was swimming with Orca, in a kind of semi ruined underwater city, I say semi ruined because bits of it were and bits of it were like New York city at night... all high tech and glowing like something from Tron. So it was kind of like a futeristic Ecco game with Orca's instead of dolphins although I am sure there were some dolphin in the background and I verry much remember a crab on the ocean floor. It was a sort of underwater atlantis but the topside of the city was full of skyscrapers. I remember it being very pretty.

So you may be wondering why on earth I have written down a dream. Well it inspired me. How could I photograph the dream and keep a memory of it? I can't so I thought I would do the next best thing and make a Dreamscape. Obviously it will never be exactly what I saw in my dream but it pretty much sums it up.

None of the stock used is mine owing to the rather obscure nature of my dream. However the stock photos are only what I could find using google search.

I am increadibly pleased with this Dreamscape since it sums up an experiance that I would have otherwise very quickly been forgotten. Also visually I think it is very pleasing!

MEDI 317: Extended Dissertation: Internet Research Experiment

Having been part of an internet community since the age of thirteen I thought that I would have a go at creating a topic in the subforum 'Internet Culture and Memes' and see what the actuall inhabitance of the internet thought about it so to speak.

Here are the results:  I ran this poll for ten days so that It would be more controlled. I aim to run more of these polls and collect the data. 

 

MEDI322: Collaborative Practice: Mood Maps

I thought that mood maps would be a good place to start with the collaboration. I have produced a general mood map for the website covering themes and colours and I aim to discuss it and make notes on it with the person I am collaborating.  I made it in word so that I could combine text and images easily. I have tried to make it engaging and pictoral so that the person I am doing this project with will find it easy to use and also so that they can see where I think their website is comming from. Making this was easier in some respects due to the fact that we know eachouther however she did give me a few ideas of what inspired her; this being the 1950's style and colourings, pastels and obviously cakes. Also since she makes bespoke 'baby towers' I thought I would include something baby related as it may be a good idea to theme the page they are on.

I have also made a mood map more focused on the websites and the actuall design and layout side of things I have pre-catagorised the examples I have found due to the fact that we went though a few examples breifly together and largely agreed on what makes a website good and bad. However I intend to have a discussion about it and have notes of specifically what works and what doesn't.

I have also inculded a table of colours that I can use with the colour wheels on the general mood map for pinpointing the best colours for the theme of the website. This will also enable  me to get the hex codes.

I will email the word documents to the person I am collaborating with or if she prefers I will copy or print her ones. Also if she requests a copy of them after we have annotated them then I shall give her a copy aswell. I will be scanning them in once annotated.