Task 5

Tuesday 4th September

Today i began work on task 5. I have dug into it and have already done two plans and the schedule. My plan for next lesson is to continue with research into the product that i want to create packaging for.

Thursday 6th September

Today i put my front cover of the packaging design into motion. I feel good about it. It looks simple at the front but elegant which is the look im going for. It will most likely change several times throughout production as i get picky and bored with it but for now im happy. Here's a view of it, though it's very bad quality.

Thursday 13th September

Today i did the side covers of the box. I researched different designs of paper boxes. The one that i based my design around, i realised this lesson, was measured in inches and not centimetres which is what i originally thought, and subsequently based my covers in centimetres. Changing the box size shouldnt be too difficult though.

Thursday 20th September

Today was spent finishing research task 1. No work was done on task 5. I plan to have it finished by tuesday next week. All assignments MUST be handed in on thursday next week (27th).

Tuesday 25th September

Today was spent drawing designs for the boxes as i had to change my plan from 5 inches to 5 cm, and finally decided on the box instead being 10cmx10cmx2cm. I Still need to make the box lid by thursday and glue the packaging onto it. Other than that, mostly the assignment is all finished.

REVIEW

For task 5, i opted for the chocolate box idea, which would come in small packages in hotels. I quite enjoyed this assignment as it was fun designing something onscreen and printing it off and seeing the idea/design 'in the flesh' put into motion by placing it on the box (which was also my own design and construction). I encountered a few minor problems along the way. I designed the box to suit 5 cm when my original box design was in inches as it was from an american site. After that i re-sized my design to 10cmx10cm. I then designed my own box (10cmx10cmx2cm deep). After that most of the making and designing was smooth sailing. The only thing i would have changed was the material i made the box out of. Paper is just too thin for this type of thing, so i would have used a thin carboard. The other thing i left out was the inside of the box. I designed a 'key' which tells the buyer/hotel guest about the 4 different flavours of the chocolate, but i ran out of time and didn't finish it or print it off and stick it inside the box. I also didnt design any placement/slots/grooves for the chocolates to sit properly in.

Task 4- Graphic Design Company

Thursday 9th August

Today was successful. I finished the first research handout. I also finished the second question of the research task. I have to get the checklist worksheet off the teacher next lesson and that is the only part of the research task that i have left. I did a little more work on my website but as the internet was down for a lot of the lesson i never got very far.

Tuesday 21st August.

Today i re-did the background for the webpage. I encountered quite a few problems and errors with making the background symmetrical. I used the microsoft paint program to make my background. I also realised that my background was difficult to match font colours with. In one part, the image is very light and in other parts is very dark. This means that both bright and dark coloured fonts will not show up well in at least one part of the image. Therefore i highlighted part of the word(s) that fall on the light part and coloured them black. For the rest of the writing i chose a bright red colour. It looks a bit tacky, so i may have to modify it soon.

Below is a picture of my background. As the picture is multiplied when used as a background in frontpage, i modified it to join together with itself.

Thursday 23rd August

Today i decided the background shown at the left would not be suitable for my website and so chose a simple/plain black background. Instead i used the image as the side taskbar background to add a bit of life to the page though i'm unsure whether it looks presentable. Other than that i inserted my logo into the website, and got started on page two of the website. Now that i understand how to do what i wanted to do it won't take much time to complete this task.

Tuesday 28th August

Today i made the finishing touches on my website. I made the edges of the borders look neater and more classy. Im not particularly excited about the way my site has turned out as i had planned it to look much more attention grabbing etc. But my plans did not succeed and i had to change it around quite a bit, discarding almost all elements of the plan i made for the website. Still, i think it looks pretty reasonable, if a bit plain.

Thursday 30th August

Today i continued with little parts of the website that needed fixing. Just little presentation errors or alignment issues. I'm not particularly enthralled when i see my design, nor will anyone else be, but after discarding another layout that i made, it will have to do as i'm running out of time, not to mention patience. Today is the recomended last day to work on this task, and i think i have done quite well. It wont be finished by the end of the lesson, but it will be close, which means i can happily start the next task and when submission comes around i will only have one or two issues to fix up with my website.

Monday 3rd September

Today we made the final touches to our assignments. Mine is as good as finished though i realised only this lesson that we needed to include a photography 'link' within the site to show some of our work throughout this year. This will take me a while longer now that i have to do this.

REVIEW

Task 4 was dissapointing for me because i had finally found inspiration and was determined on what i was going to do. The other tasks, while i did them, i wasn't really creative with them but this one i had a few ideas. None of them worked out well and in the end it turned out plain and boring in my opinion. At first, i designed my own layout. It looked quite ordinary and scrappy as lines did not match up properly. After extensive editing of the layout it worked as i wanted it to, but then came the problem of the colour and pattern of it. It contained a dark solid colour, then in various squares it was white and patterned. This meant that If i chose light font to write on the page, if it overlapped the white patterns it couldn't be seen, but if i chose dark, it couldn't be seen over the dark background. Therefore, i decided to change it to a solid colour all round. It was different tones of blue. And the background was pitch black, with white writing. Then came the problem of the text boxes all not aligning properly and the site looked shabby. I never truly overcame that problem because i ran out of time. But i got it to look halfway decent. All in all in my opinion it was acceptable, but i wanted it to be so much more. Hopefully in the succeeding task 5, i can focus all my inspiration into that.

Task 6 Overview

Business Card of Historical Figure

What is the focal point of your business card?

In my opinion the Name of the individual (Nelson Mandela) stands out well, and is placed relatively central to the card. Also the bold, coloured lines below his name help to bring out the font.

What Job role, or activity does the business card describe?

It describes Mandela's past victories and success in being the president of South Africa.

Is it supposed to be a formal (serious) or informal (casual) business card?

Given that the subject was a serious, major event in history, after doing great things for the country, a serious business card was appropriate for the task.

The final copy must include crop and registration marks to show where the cards are to be cut. Describe how you placed the crop and registration marks on your finished copy.
In Corel Draw it was easy to place the marks on the page. Its almost automatically done for you. Two clicks and you're done.

Why did you choose the colours, graphics, text, layout and style for a business card for your person?

My aim was to make the card aesthetically pleasing without being to 'clever' or making it too busy with too many graphics or colours. Thus, i kept it simple by only using three colours. I used red to underline the font, which i feel brought out the name of the subject pretty well, i used green to create a wall/barrier and show a different section for the details and i used black for the font to make it seem formal. I only used two graphics and they were the south african emblem and the national flag for south africa. These work well in my opinion as it backs up the subject by creating a small bit of visual/image information without words as to what the subject is related to. The font i used (Tw Cen MT Condensed) was formal and elegant, nothing to outrageous, as it would have taken away fromt he sophisticated feel of the subject/card.


This is the finished product.
Note: I have to figure how to save the file in another format, so it will be up soon hopefully.

Task 6

Tuesday 5th June
Today i began research on the next task. We have to produce a business card from an admirable icon/leader.
I chose Nelson Mandela. I filled out the first half of the worksheet this lesson and researched Nelson Mandela.

Thursday 7th June
Today i did some more research. Bookmarked pages that had useful information.
Worked on most of the research task.

Monday 11th June
Today i did my final research.
Gathered up ideas for the business card.

Tuesday 12th June
Today i began work on the business card. I gathered logos from the internet such as the south african flag, and the government logo in case they would be handy in the make up of the card.

Thursday 14th June
Today i got halfway through my historical figure business card.

Monday 18th June
Today i began working on the research task on printing methods. I also continued with the making of the business card.

Tuesday 19th June
Today i started my letter head. I drew up sketches for both the letterhead and the business card for one's own business.
Thursday 21st June
Today the historical figure business card was due. I made the last finishing touches, finally printed it and then submitted it.

Monday 25th June
Today i worked and almost completed my own business card, letterhead and envelope. All i have left to do is finish off the 4th question of the research task. If i have enough time left over i will make a start on the powerpoint but since we only have one lesson left i cant see that happening.

Task 3

Okay so a bit, well extremely behind in posting.
Task 3 is well underway

i'll start from this last lesson and try as i go along to remember what i did on all separate lessons.

Tuesday 22nd May
This lesson i began work on my storyboard. Im still all out of ideas for the animation
Already completed loading sign, and have yet to do my Festive animation, although i imagine that isnt the hardest part of this task.
I have already done the research task.

Thursday 24th May
This lesson i hope to begin work on Corel R.A.V.E with my animation. Therefore i hope to have done my storyboard.

Monday 28th May
This lesson i began work on mu festive animation
This was after doing work on my draft of the storyboard.

Thursday 31st May

This lesson i worked some more on my festive animation.
Had some complications with animating the tree.
Did not get it finished in time so i will have to complete it in my own time.

Tuesday 5th June
Submitted Final copies of the animation.
I could not work out how to put up a picture of my animation.

monday 26th

this lesson i worked more on the concept sketches for the design of my logo.

tuesday 27th march
i worked more on the concept sketches and started on the research task

thursday 29th march
today i plan to do some exercises that will help me become more familiar with corelDRAW
and also possibly start my research task.

i worked on two exercises.

monday 23th april.
today i completed my second concept sketch of the poster.
i began making final changes to the poster.

tuesday 24th april
today i printed another concept sketch for my poster.

thursday 26th april
today was date of submission. There were some hold ups such as the printer not working properly. As a result i could not print out my logo designs. I could not print out my final copy of the poster. It was a somewhat unproductive lesson.

Tuesday 1st May
Today was the day i finished most of the assignment and handed it in. There were still some unfinished parts to it such as the research task. My finished poster ended up looking like this.

This is my Logo Design for Task 1.


EDIT** i could not find how to post the poster onto the blog, as i could not save it in JPEG or GIF format. I will figure it out soon


Review
From this task I learned about techniques to crop, blend and combine shapes and words on a page. I still need to learn more about eye-catching presentation of posters. I need a more interesting logo. I think my poster is suitable for the intended audience because it incorporates bright colours, interesting shapes and bright font. I think it would have been better if it looked a bit more professional, and this was the case in the last task also. I did not finish the task by the due date because there were hold ups with the printer, and also my time management was not great.

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Today i began doing my concept sketches and have nearly finished them.
I did some research on logos on google.com.