Website Review

I have been looking at into websites which are specifically designed to help relevant designers get themselves noticed in the industry. I came upon a new website while researching into designers called 'Dribbble' www.dribbble.com, this particular website began as a side project before becoming a small, profitable company helping to share talent, connect with designers around the globe and give job opportunities. Its headquarters are based in Salem, Massachusetts.  
Dribbble is now one of the go-to websites while starting as a young designer. It is able to offer us a lot, broadcasting screenshots of our work, to gain recognition but also providing a well needed job vacancies page, which you can refine results to your own location to see what jobs are currently available. However the downside is the website adds a charge of $350 for only 30 days use.
This website allowed me to search into designers and look into what current work is being produced, I did find much inspiration that I will take forward in creating my works.

Metaphors in Art

Following on from the given session where we looked into metaphors being used in TV adverts such as Lloyds TSB adverts and Evain Water adverts, I will be finding a design piece or relevant advert to discuss and analyse the metaphor it uses. The Lloyds TSB animation adverts are a very effective metaphor using the train to represent individuals life journeys, which along the way Lloyds will support anyone's needs. Trains are easily accessible by all, giving reference to the way in which Lloyds work. 

                                       

With my specialism looking at graphic design I chose to look into how advertisement pieces for magazines use metaphors. This particular advertisement for the Nina Ricci perfume like most perfume ads revolves around selling their product through the use of metaphorical imagery. An overall concept behind the Nina Ricci perfume ad is to provoke the senses, closely linking smell to taste, sight and colour. Focusing firstly on the use of taste, the idea of the bottle and imagery being based on apples it immediately makes sweet come to mind, which red apples in particular are associated with. Now for sight, when taking a first glance the imagery is magical with the hint of innocence and the colour tone, being very light and simple gives a sense of the smell being fresh. The type font for the advertisement is the final element which can be used as a metaphor 

Yorkshire Sculpture Park Review

       

I am writing a review on the artist Barbara Hepworth and her work that is displayed at the Sculpture Park, after visiting on 25th September. The piece is titled 'Family of Man' which she created as one of her later pieces in the 1970s. 

Barbara Hepworth was one of the first well known woman sculpture artist who created contemporary pieces using traditional methods. She studied at both the Leeds School of Art and The Royal Art College of London, before travelling to gain influence and experience. Artists such as Henry Moore and Ben Nicholas played a huge part in her works.

This particular Art work 'Family of Man' is a 9 piece exhibition, made from bronze, which due to its individuality of the pieces is known to explore into different stages of life/humanity. The set begins with 'Young Girl' ending with 'Ancestors' giving a feel of adding maturaty and depth to each age. The piece also takes influence from her childhood, travelling with her father seeing scenes of working industrial towns and grand landscapes along the way. She wanted her Art to fulfill a landscape, changing the way it's seen in all seasons. 

This piece captured my attention at first based on it's quite simple use of organic shapes and dull colouring, however understanding the meaning and influences make it tell a story. Just the title of the piece is interesting, using the word 'man' could be meaning mankind, what is it? what happens within? which is what she is trying to show. I also like how the sculptures are all individual to their age, building up with more layers, representing how a persons maturity and life experience grows. 

 

Evaluation

In this project we were asked to explore Digital media and create up to six final pieces using Digital software based around the theme given, which was 'Take a Closer Look'. I feel I have achieved what the brief asked us to produce as I have combined traditional image making with digital media to a high standard and have ended with five final designs to present. The designs also explore into the graphic design field of typography which was another element we had to cover within the project. Lastly we were asked to make a portfolio to present our work in which is to a professional standard. I feel I also achieved this mostly independently and have connected the simplicity of my final designs with the use of white space and light colours in my portfolio. For the theme I chose to take a closer look into the world of Ballet as it gave me two powerful opposing sides. I felt that a lot of peoples opinions on ballet was the stereo typical graceful, elegant and effortless dance that makes them look beautiful. However beneath the surface it is not all beauty as this form of dance is physically and mentally damaging to the body such as the main body part they use, their feet. 

Throughtout the project I researched into designers that inspired me and designers that use digital media in their works. The main two that stood out and helped me most were Samantha Hahn and Olly Moss. Samantha Hahn's work influenced me the most and can be seen in my work as she produces watercolour images traditionally and also transfers them to vector images. My inspiration for the style of my imagery can see a connection to the ink works and silhouette works of Olly Moss as I chose to use a simple line drawing with a minimal amount if detail that still looks effective. the research I did has helped towards my work and allowed more to understand more if how digital media works and what imagery designers are producing using certain methods. 

The main softwares I have used in this project have been Photoshop, Indesign and finally Illustrator being the one I have produced my final designs in. I think I worked successfully transferring to traditional art into digital media using the combination of Photoshop and Illustrator together. I was quite confident before starting this project on my skills in both illustrator and Indesign as I had used them previously however I did learn how to use the live trace tool on illustrator as a new skill. I have also built upon my skills in Photoshop by understanding to rastersize a layer, add filters to images and edit images using adjustment tools. I built up skills in two more digital media softwares that I aphasnt used before which was the Wacom Graphics tablet and the software Brushes and Sketchbook Pro available to iPads. I feel I picked up these working method quickly and was able to experiment confidentially with them during this project. 

Although I feel happy with the final pieces I have created to submit and my electronic portfolio presents them well as a high standard, I think if I had more time there is improvements I would make. My final designs are quite simplistic which does match the subject matter however I feel I could have furthered the experiment using the tablet to paint my images which would of added more substance and detail. I had problems creating the exported flash animation of my portfolios and they are still adding double pages whent they should only be single. Overall I feel the project suited by abilities in design and has pushed my skills in digital media. 

Final Portfolio Layout, Adjusted

This is the final layout view of one of my final portfolios after I used the redesigned image. I feel changing the image was a wise decision as it connects better the other designs and fits to the page properly.

Image Development

                                   

I chose to fully redesign my first image to allow it to connect with the others when it is presentated on the Indesign portfolio. Using the same method of a watercolour based image I will then scan in and convert it to a vector based image. The drawing needed to focus on certain point and have cut off to be able to fit to the page, however I did not want to lose too much of the image as I feel the word 'elegance' connects with the leg lines and costume of the stereo typical ballerina. I settled on this simple drawing of a ballet stance just focusing on the legs and feet which is what my theme follows.

Analysis of Portfolio Layout

I attempted to make the original image match with the others by cropping it down and moving it to the top edge however it did not successfully work as the image doesn't have a suitable point to focus on and there is not enough detail within the foot and leg to stand out on its own.