Commedia Dell Arte evaluation.

Commedia dell arte was a mixed little project for me as it was mainly just about following a brief like wind in the willows and there wasn't much in the way of leeway as to what you could do with the design side of the mask. Also i missed doing the development actually with this unit and all the design work that goes with it as it was predominantly just making the mask. However i did actually enjoy making the mask itself as it involved lots of different steps and techniques that i haven't used before like using mod rock, plaster, clay and then finally latex to get the mask to fit tight round the persons face who its was cast off.


The character who i decided to do was the captain. This was because i felt him to have the best characteristics that you could shoe through the masks with long pointy nose and angular features to show that the character is a untrustworthy person. This along side the mask painted red signifies a danger about him. But when i mean danger i mean he is a untrustworthy character.


Overall i feel the mask looks quite professional and could be something you could see in a real Commedia Dell Arte play. I think this is because i tried to make the features as clean and sharp as possible as i am quite good and enjoy using clay.

COMMEDIA DELL ARTE

COMMEDIA DELL ARTE

Commedia Dell Arte is a very popular form of comedy that began in Italy in the 16^th century and further developed during the 16^th – 18^th centuries.  It is believed by historians that it came about due to the political and economic problems during the 16^th century.  The closest translation of the name is “Comedy of Craft”.  It is a form of theatre that features masked characters and was performed by professional comic actors and consequently became the first professional type of theatre.  Each actor made as good as possible each specific role and it is believed that this form of theatre was responsible for start of improvised performances, based on various scenarios by actors/actresses.  The standard of the acting and performance was more important than the subject matter of the play.

The Commedia Dell Arte is very much characterised by the improvisation from a standard plot and the use of stock characters for all plays and different scenarios.  It was of course not completely improvised, a subject matter would be chosen, a basic outline of the plot and characters would be planned and also the characters relationships to each other etc.  Each situation, scene and outcome would be clear but there was always the opportunity for the actors to improvise.  The actors/actresses brought life to their parts and the dialogue between characters was still expected to flow without pause.  Due to the standards expected actors/actress had to seriously study the characters they were playing and this subsequently changed forever the standards of acting.  In fact the very best actors were able to bring their own individuality and brilliance to each part.  The most important roles were always given to the best and most popular actors.  The Commedia Dell Arte helped to introduce the professional actor into Europe.

The stock characters, mentioned above, were often in very traditional costumes and masks.  These stock characters were used in most plays and were represented by specific types, such as, underhand servants, military officers full of bravado, and silly old men.  The comedic storylines were always a funny drama and not very serious and always had a happy ending.  These stock characters were given to the most popular actors and had parts in the play that were really funny, and often had nothing to do with the plot were called “lazzi” and could be such things as acrobatics, wrestling or juggling, somersaults etc, etc.

Performers played on temporary stages, outside around various towns and cities.  They relied more on props than on impressive scenery.  They were funded by the various towns and cities they played in and extra funding collected during the play was by donations “passing the hat”.  This was so anyone could see the performances free of charge. 

Some plays were seen by the upper classes, kings etc – this enabled certain actors to become very well known.  Key to the Commedia Dell Arte’s success was the ability of actors/actresses to become very famous and have great financial success as well as the opportunity to travel.

Mock up designs

Today we have tried to mock up some possible layouts for the artwork thats going to go up on the bus station wall. This has been made harder for the fact when the architect came in he said we now have some spotlights to take into account and need to design the artwork around them. This has mad it a lot harder for designing now as before it was just one rectangle which is a good canvas to work from. But now with the lights being about a quarter of the way in either side and nearly a metre high up. Means it a big design change to avoid them. So now i have mocked up some possible layouts of photoshop to maximise the space we have!

as you can see the lights are rather in the way. However i did think maybe it could all still be one single piece but just cut around the lights, in the same way you would a socket if you were wallpapering. However if not i thing this layout would work really good. Its

evaluation

The project was to basically create you own hoax using image manipulation techniques. So this project was right up my street as i love to do image manipulation projects like this wether it be just for fun or involved in other projects. This is obviously because i want to be a graphic designer so i have a big interest in it.  However i feel i am really strong in using photoshop as i know my way around it quite well after having it for over 7 years. So i dint want to just churn out another photoshop image with somebodies head on somebody else. I wanted it to have a strong back story that could go off in different directions and incorporate lots of different elements.

Thats why for my hoax i came up with a mysterious killings idea where some campers in the sherwood forest woods were attacked by a unknown creature. That killed them in a mysterious way. So that was my basic idea to start off with. This then ended up sprouting out in lots of different directions, as i ended up doing a government file, police file, autopsy report then the polaroids that i had to do. So as my story built up my original idea kind of changed. I was going to have the secret camera footage that was supposedly found by the government and put in to storage exposed in the newspaper. Although i decided against it actually as i liked the fact it was a bit of a mystery still along with the Manton colliery event that happened over 40 years priory to this. Which all this built up a strong enough story without exposing the mysterious creature.

Overall i feel it has gone very well and looks quite professional like it could actually be a proper mysterious case- or hoax in this case. It has gone quite well from looking into different hoaxes but mainly looking into dyatlov pass incident which was the real life mysterious event that still remains a mystery today. But from reading up about this event it fed and started off my whole story for this project and has given it a really good bases to work from.

photographic evidence.

I have been up to the woods at the top of sparked hill opposite the big lion gates, to stage my murder scene and take photos. I then set up a tent and knock it known, ripped it and trashed it so i looked like something has attacked it. Littered it with clothes, rucksack and added a t-shirt that i painted spots of red to make it look more believable.  For example the top was suppose to have been ripped from one of the boys boys bodies.

 I then photographed the whole scene then the specific items of clothing which will then latter go into the police file and more importantly the government one. To take the pictures i lowerd the image quality from fine to jpeg and set it to the lowest size. This was to make the images from my DSLR look much more old and vintage looking compared to a high quality image.

Polaroid

To get my photographs i have taken to look more like authentic 1970s images i have done a lot of photo editing on them. To get the age look on the images i have tried to play around with different filters, effects and noise to try and get that ruff photo look that i was wanting. After a hour or so playing around i have finally got the look i was aiming for.

to do this i was using this photo as reference. 

So to start i loaded up my image and add a black and white filter- then adjusted the tones of the colors till i was satisfied. This then had given me a base to build up from. 

Now from my base image i added a hue and saturation layer to make the image look a bit more washed out and hazed.

I then added a layer masked and added some exposure around the edges as on old photos like the one i have been looking at they are faded along the edges and corners. 

Now i was nearly done i added a warming photo filter to give it a yellow tinted vintage look which drastically ages your photo. to the filter effect i then added a vertical line effect in so it looked like it had been printed out on a old polaroid. However something wasn't right and it looked like sombody trying to edit a photo to look old. It didn't look authentic enough for my liking and it need to look old but in a subtle way. 

I then added a a speckle effect to the image so it looked battere

d and aged. To do this i had to create a new white layer and added some gaussian noise to it so it looked like this...

Once i had done that i then got the magic wand and selected a area and then deleted it. Which then left lots of speckles over the face. However it needed to be toned down and not so obvious so i added a soft light layer style so it blended in more with the image 

Now finally i was almost happy but i felt it needed like a shinny effect to it where it had a light spot in it. So i basically created a new layer and painted on a white spot that faded out that was then overlaid. 

So once again here is the finish piece. 

Now the only thing left to do now i had my image sorted is to put it into the Polaroid which was 21x 25 cm which was a 1970s size. 

One day project.

This was a little add on project for one day to give us some extra work experience as you are doing it for a real life client. Just that it is within the college itself. The project was to create artwork to go down in main site to show what the ideal student would be like walking through the doors starting for the first time. So the point of the project was to ideally motivative and inspire people to do well, not patronise them which you have to be careful of. Which i intended to stay well clear of! Because people don't react as well to being told what to do.

For this project then there was no paramiters set by the client and we were free to do what we want, which is good from a design point of view because it gives you a chance to do something interesting. So to start off the glass got into a group and thought of all the subjects that they did at college. E.g Maths, english, p.e, drama and so on and so forth. After this we then put them on pieces of paper and picked them out of a hat to decided who would have which subject. I ended up with Travel and tourism which initial i thought would be quite hard, but after i spent half an hour brain storming and looking at other examples of graphic design work to inspire me. I managed to think of quite a few ideas of what i could do to hopefully inspire somebody. Because with traveling there are loads of quotes out there to inspire people to travel the word, which is what i decided to base it from.

I decided to do my design as plane in which i made a silhouette on photoshop and added inspirational words and phrase to resemble the windows and contour lines. I felt this was really strong as it meant it was bold and eye catching. But served a purpose as i could hide lots of writing in it, but without it having really obvious long boring sentences. So the writing on the page would appear to be very minimal. This gives the poster more of a visual impact and helps to make the poster have more impact as it isn't shouting to the reader! I also think it gives a more interesting view to the page.

these are the variation of designs I did

However  this is the design that i ran with as i felt it was just that little bit more of a less obvious choice to go with having the word fly. In very small letters to almost create a unusual perspective with the plane!

Actual poster national geographic

For the final poster I thought it wouldn't take me to long and it would just be a case of whacking it all together and adjusting it. However when we started working we had very tight perimeters to stick to so everybody's posters had a continuity and flow to them as they were going to go all together on display. Which initial i didnt find very good as i thought my design was really eye catching and bold, however as i was working on creating this fixed layout with fonts, sizes and positioning all to exact points, i found my image did fit in quite nicely as i had to move my image much lower down so you could just see two thirds of the head intend of the full thing. As the writing got in the way and cluttered the page. So i felt it much better to just move the image down so it looked more simplistic so the black and white image and basic text went together.

This i thought looked quite strong and bold and made use of the pure white background. which made the face look like it was a real photoshoot. 

To do this it was actually a already photoshoped image of me that i did with a beard a few weeks back. I used the photo because it looked really professional, had a good lighting, and blank blank background. Which to me this image felt much stronger than the photos i took the week before for it. Also the skin tone and color had already been altered so it looked less blotchy, removed spots and made the skin more pure and vivid looking. 

But i still practised a new technique that dave said to use as its worth knowing different ways to make the skin look clearer and more professional. As for my other image i used a field blur effect that i then removed unwanted bits with the rubber with a low opacity. Which basically gives you the same effect. 

For this technique you had to duplicate the layer 3 times so you have the background layer, lighten layer and darken layer. 

You then have to go on the layer effects and add a lighten effect, to lighten layer, and darken to darken layer. Which you then lower the opacity to 60 and 40 %.

You then have to create a layer mask and use the black paint brush tool to bush out the hardness of the blur until you get a nice looking skin color.

national geographic

Now i have done a image i then had ago at trying to fit it into the style of the national geographic magazines with the bright yellow border. when creating the document i googled what size the magazine was but also how big the borders were so i knew it would be exactly the same as it.

As this was just a practice i didn't bother putting different captions on out extra text. But from this i had a sense of what it would look like for Monday when i go in. Which meant i could get straight on with sorting out the layout and paying more attention to little details. 

National geographic

I was told yesterday we had to do a national geographic poster today, that had a picture of our face which would be manipulated to create a unusual image which is like the style of the magazine. So last night i had a play around with a image that i had, to play around with different effects and distortions to create a unusual image.

This image was achieved by selecting the features of the face which i then copied and pasted over the top of the original image. I then clicked on the background layre underneath and using the plaster tool got rid of the features to make it just look like skin, as basically the plaster tool is smart and takes in areas of its surrounds and adds a computer generated texture. Which makes it really look like skin. Then finally i re sized the features until they looked more unusual and intriguing. I then just blended it in by rubbing out with a low opacity and used the smudge tool. 

However this image i liked even more which was the a outcome of doing the past image. I just thought it looked much more raw and and like a image you might find on a national geographic poster. 

The Manton beast

Based in 1972

In 1936 extensions to Manton Colliery uncovered a very ancient tunnel complex at the 1000 ft mark.  These tunnels were hand hewn and arched to an apex of only about 4 feet. The mine management notified the police which later contacted the Government, who responded immediately and despatched a team of army engineers. The fully armed engineering team entered the tunnels and disappeared into the gloom. Nothing happened for the next three hours until distant gun fire was heard from the entrance. However after a further one hour waiting Soldiers were orded to guard the entrance but no more was heard from the engineers.

Strangely the tunnel complex was plugged with 30 ft reinforced concrete and that whole section of the mine was gated and locked. No more was said about the incident and the management refused to talk about itRumours started to arise about the issue and what could have happened down there to warrant the huge concrete plug. Some say it was a ancient beast that could date back to around the dinosaur period that has hidden in these huge series of underground tunnels. Which is why it survived the extinction. The myth of this mysterious creature has dated back as far as the robin hood era, as carvings and sketch work has been uncovered before. Although quite battered and ruined they appear to show a some non human like creature climbing out a large whole. These stories though have been lost through time.

This would all have remained a myth were it not for the mine incident, and one other mystery from 1971. Where two friend went on a camping trip to Sherwood Forest near to a MOD restricted area.  They were never seen again. The official report says they died of unexplained circumstances but the case has still remained open. People have come to question what they have actually got in that compound, as previously it was believed to be a government training ground. However questions have been raised as to what they have actually got in that compound or what they use it for. The government said they cant comment on what the compound is used for due to security issues.

What did the Government know about these tunnels and what are they trying to hide?

Moon landing

The moon landing is a really famous event in human history were man land on the moon for the first time. However it leaves people decided on wether or not the event was real or all i big hoax so that america could appeared to have beaten Russia in the space race to land on the moon! As there is no independent footage as all footage was only available through NASA, the whole thing could very easily be faked!

Its believed by some people that the lunar landings were stage and nobody ever made and giant steps for mankind. But instead the a artificial luna set was built deep inside area 51 to stage the whole landing and it is believed filmmaker Stanley Kubrick may have even helped NASA fake the whole things as its proven that technology at the time was able to build a realistic set From the film a space odyssey.  However i am undecided as to wether i believe they landed on the moon or not as both sides have contradicting evidence. 

People say they have seen element in the landing that scientifically not possible for example the waving american flag, which is impossible as in space its a vacuum with no air. However nasa state he was twisting the pole which means as its a vacuum there would be nothing to stop the flag moving either. 

Also no stars were visible from the moon which you would expect to see 

Also shadows cast by the luna rocks cast 2 different shadow in different directions which is impossible as they would have meant to separate light sources. Like what you would find on a movie set.

These are just a few reasons as to why the luna landing are believed to be faked however there are many more reasons. Which some have reasons for and reasons against these claims. But one of the main ones is 3 of the astronauts died during testing which is believe the government murded due to fear they might be exposed. 

dyatlov pass incident.

dyatlov pass is a famous incident that happened on the night of 2nd february 1959 in the northern Ural mountains in Russia, when 9 hikers who were ski trekking across the mountains to reach Otorten. But sadly never made it. They were meant to have completed the expedition by the 12th of February and sent a telegram to let people know of there arrival at the sports club. But after days went by and still nothing was heard about the parties whereabouts a search party was finally sent out. After 6 days of searching they found some horrifying evidence! The tent had been found collapsed, covered in snow and ripped open from the inside out. With items of clothing like bags, clothing and shoes still left inside- which would suggest they left in a panic and with some struggle. They then carried on the search and found the first two bodies frozen near the dead remains of a fire. Who had been found with only there under wear on and no shoes. Which is the real mystery as the temperature would have been around -30degrees with snow fall under foot. So they must have ran out in a real panic. Also they were found under a large tree that had broken branches nearly 5 meters high as if they were trying to escape from something?


After days passed more and more bodies were found. Some under 4 meters of snow fall that were found up towards were the tent was found as if it was a fail attempt to reach safety back at the tent. However the story get stranger as some bodies were found with no injuries and had basically died due to the cold temperatures. While others had died due to extensive trauma. As one was found with fatal skull fractures and 2 others found with fatal chest injuries. That experts say is the result of a extreme force such as what you would find in a car crash. But how would they get the such injuries like that? Finally there was one body found with horrified external injuries, as they were found face down with cut out eyes, tongue, lips along with parts of their face missing.


But what made them leave the confines of their tent is still a mystery. Soviet authorities stated they died "due to a unknown compelling force" as to today they still don't know what really happened on the fateful night due to the lack of evidence. however what we do know is something drove them out of that tent, but there are some theories out there which range from a avalanche, to extraterrestrial life or soviet military accident the was covered up. As the place was know for parachute mines being tested by the government around the time the hikers was there. The hikers were just in the wrong place wrong time, but these hypothesis would correspond with injuries they received. People think the events were just a big cover up as journalists got hold of inquest reports that said the tent wasn't erected properly which is something experienced hikers like them would not have done.


Although these are just theories and nobody knows what really happened that night, however i think i believe more in the government cover up due to the fact evidence was released in 1990 which is a long time to wait, also some evidence was missing. Which would suggest the Russian military had a involvement of some kind want to hide what really happened.

The spot the hikers were killed was named dyatlov pass after the parties leader Igor Dyatlov!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident

mechanism research

This is a simple design sketch of a mechanism that i have found on google that could possibly go inside the mask. It works in the same way of the previous video did - however this is just to operate the eye mechanism and not all of the others like mouth, eyelashes and eye brows. 

The reason why i am not going to do all the mechanisms is for a few reasons. One because it makes the design really compacted, more difficult to operate, Higher risk of something breaking and also if the design was to be made it wouldn't be very cost effective as it would take a lot of engineering to make.

I have looked at this just to uses as a basis that i can build up from and make more advanced 

alice and wonderland

I have had a big break from lesson time doing the alice and wonderland project with going on trips, uni vista and half term. So have got a bit out of it with what i am doing- other than the bits i have done at home. However I now have new ideas from looking at the university work with what sort of artwork i can do because i feel i have moved away slightly with this project as to what i am good at, and that i like. So now i am going to start again with what approach i am  taking to this by stripping it down to the bare bones and building from that. By using lots of white space contrasting between positive and negative energy. This way it makes your work stand out a lot more because it frames it.

theory

Heres a theroy i found that i thought was just worth putting on here...
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Headings and other text having the same level of importance should be the same font size.
Avoid excessive text. (Poster should have roughly 20% text, 40% figures, 40% space)
Text and figures should be legible from around 5-7 feet away (or roughly 1.5m to 2m) (see our text size suggestions below)
Leave breathing space around your text.
Do not use a different font type to highlight important points - otherwise the fluency and flow of your sentence can appear disrupted.
Do not use all UPPER CASE type in your posters. It can make the material difficult to read.
Use the bold face or italics or combinations to emphasize words and phrases.


Left-align text. Using fully justified text will create large gaps between some words and make it difficult to read.

plan

This week basically i am going to just crack on with trying to produce and plan a advertisement posters. But trying to consider the needs of the brief. Hopefully by the end of the lesson or week i will have a poster in which i can then judge where t go from there.

alice and wonderland plan and reflection!

Today i am going to develop one of my ideas from when i was doing automatic idea generation, so that i have a more finished article. Not that, that will be my finished piece however it gives me a platform to base more idea generation off and shows me how i work to my brief. So today i am going to design a poster to advertise for the mad hatters tea party.

evaluations website

For this project i decided to have a go at trying to do something that i wasn't so familiar or confident with, to come out of my comfort zone. So i decided to design my own website for my magazine company OWT,  as i was trying to treat the project as if this was a real company and magazine. Magazine companies usually try to reach people of a at least to platforms, with a website being one. So that was my reasoning behind doing a website.

As for the my final finished design i am really very proud of it and feel i have done a good job to say its my first real attempt at making a website. Although its not a website thats all coded and you don't get a liquid adaptive view with it, so people can see it to scale no matter what the device. Its still given me a good sense to what it could be like. However you can still see what it would look like as i have designed it to fit my laptop screen, which you can preview the size as if it was live. Also with the website i dint feel it was worth me putting on an account so people could by things like my magazine because it would have been a hell of a lot of work and it wouldn't have improved the overall look of my website. Obviously if this project  was to stretch on longer or i was designing this website for a real company then you would put an account on there.

I feel my website really represents my magazine well and follows the same in house style, with the striped back, bold and simplistic look. For example when you first open the page you are instantly greeted with bold black and white photography, to try and engage the viewer as quickly as possible! It then is a rotating banner which shows then brighter colored images so you get a contrast of styles.

As for the rest of the magazine i have tried to keep it as simple and raw as possible to give the most visual impact. You can see this most with my about page- which is intend for the readers of the magazine to find out a bit extra about AWT. But when you click onto the page you are greeted by a blank canvas with the word 'about' in small Futura text. This i feel was a big gamble as you could have looked and thought it just looks bland and blank, however i feel it does the opposite with the white space actually drawing your eye in! Leaving more room for imaginative thinking.

As for the rest of the page i have tried to use a minimum amount of text using more photographic imagery to give more visual impact for the website. I also did't put loads of writing on as from my own experience of going on websites, i get bored and switch off if theres loads of text. Which i find if there is less it keeps me more engaged for longer. This is a view i have used throughout my website!

Overall i am very pleased with the look of my website and i have enjoyed doing it as i have had to learn new skills, and try and work my way round software i haven't used before. Which is hard as like with photoshop i know what i am doing and can move around it really quickly. But with this everything takes you 5 x as long because you have to look around to find the right button, look at tutorials and then work it out from there. However towards the end of making my website i now feel much more confident in using it.

advertising.

I have had a think about wether or not to put advertising on my website, and what companies would suit the companies ethos and values. Obviously advertising earns you money from the website, but i don't want the website to feel to corporate like its just a advertising campaign to earn a bit more money. However i have tried adding some advertising banners to my website, but i just don't feel it looks right for the company, with the magazine having the style of being as simple and as raw as possible.

However i have tried using the a topman advertising poster and a MTV gif as i feel the two companies follow the same values even though the two are totally different. As Topman also has a very simplistic feel to the brand and the clothing- like my magazine. But mtv has a very fun and good outlook on life which i want to portray through my work.

New stye.

I have decided to go for a new style with my work now after having a play around at home with different colors, layouts and fonts but just using whatever images i had on my laptop to use as a draft piece. However i now feel that its quite eye catching to look at and has a very simplistic view that i like. So from now on i am going to try and design the actual website based around this layout and style.

As you can see its very simple using hardly any color on any of the pages, but i think i looks much more intriguing to look at and bold to look at with the black and white images standing out from the page. Unlike my previous pages that sunk into the page.

axure tutorial

I have looked at a tutorial to see how to do a photo gallery that you can go through manually when you click arrows. But also so when you get to the end it loops back around. However from looking at the tutorial it works in ruffly the same way as what the rotating banner does other than you have to link it to the buttons when you are setting up the state of the dynamic panel.

http://www.axure.com/learn/dynamic-panels/basic/photo-carousel-tutorial

I want to do a photo gallery as i thought it is a nice way of showing your artwork for people to look at. 

Heres what mine looks like...

Website design stage

I have now gone on to azure and stated playing around with it trying to get to grips with how to use it, and seeing which layouts could work. So this is my first design for the homepage i have done. All the pages aren't linked up or complete but from doing the homepage that sets the bar and tone throughout the website so it is very key. I have tried to make the website look bold and eye catching but still keep it in the style of the magazine, which to me i think it has done. However as much as i like this with the bright yellow contrasted on the grey background, i just feel like its lacking something. I cant quite put my finger on what it is, but i just feel it could be much stronger.

It has all the right elements like a logo, menu bar, drop down menu bar and it is pined to the browser, but there is still a element missing. Which i am going to go away and have a think about, with a view to coming back with a fresh pair of eyes and re designing!

axure tutorials

I have just looked at a tutorial on how to make a rotating banner using axure as i really didnt know how to do it, and it is much more complex to to do than linking pages up which i managed to sort out my self. 

http://www.axure.com/c/forum/6-x-tips-tricks-examples/4608-axure-slideshow-examples-carousel-gallery-rotating-banner-marquee-image-picture-example.html

Heres the tutorials i have looked at for how to do it as theres different ways to do to, But the way i did it was you have to make a box and change it into a dynamic panel which you can then add different states into it with the pictures you want. You then have to add a things like a wait and a new case state. So when the page loads it rotates around. 

P&Co website

This is a website i have noticed when looking for clothes for my holiday. However it stood out for me for its simple, bold design which flowed really nicely from page to page. I think this is because it has extremely strong photography that stands out with the really pure white back ground, that compliments each other well. This means that you get a simplistic look, but not bland as theres only a real fine line between the two. 

So something like this is what i plan my website to be like, so i am going to use it as inspiration to base mine from.

Heres a link to the website...  http://pand.co

These are some little parts that i like especially...

I liked with this the fact that when you opened up the website you are met y photography as it immediately grabs your attention making you want to navigate around the site to see more. Unlike some websites that load up and look drab, unstylish or are hard to navigate round which makes me just go back and click on another link!

Having pictures in between short and sweet paragraphs is also a little feature i like. Its not a major thing but it makes the page much more easy to read and flow through. 

Using axure

I have been thinking about what software i could use to do design my website on as i am not intending for it to be a finish piece to go live obviously. However i want to be able to get a sense of what the website would look like if it was to be but also so if it was in the real world i could send it off to a web designer to be coded up.

So i have now decided to use the Axure software instead of the dreamweaver like i was originally thinking about because i think it would take far to long to design as its more complicated software that involves coding.  Unlike the azure program which is much more simplified and user friendly to use and just looks at the design element of it.

Evaluation

Overall i feel the alice and wonderland project has had its ups and downs really. Going from not liking the project at the start to starting to get my head round it and liking it. Then again to not liking it and losing my style and sense of what i wanted to achieve with the project, which isn't good as the whole point of the unit is to develop and realising your own personal style. This is to make sure you are definitely in the right area of art. Which i definitely knew anyway but after doing this year at college and this project i am certain now about the field i want to go into.



But now i am at the end of the project i feel i have stayed true to the design philosophy i have, work that i personal find eye catching and bold but still taking into consideration the alice and wonderland theme. But twisting it and manipulating into a design style that i like and is the work i would want to do in the future. This style is simplistic, bold eye catching and makes people question what it is about. Which is what i have done with my final design poster i feel. Initially you are grabbed by that really vibrant, bright yellow then hit by that contrast of the dark black tea pot, which for me really stands out! With underneath is the sentence time for tea? Which i have deliberately done in small text to confuse the viewer as normally the main bit of text would usually be in prime view in big block capital letters. However this is the total opposite to what you would expect. Which is why it links into alice and wonderland as i have tried to go down the route of a feeling you get with it and not focus too much on the physical elements of it. So originally it was going to be called mad hatters tea party but for me it just felt to obvious so i change it to the teepee tea tent, which to me sounds like something you could find in the alice and wonderland story. It also used the use of thee and alliteration to give the sentence more power to make up and compensate for its physical presence on the page. Also to make the poster still have a professional edge to it so it is recognisable that you are trying to sell a service and product to people. I included the company logo and small caption in the bottom right which says stop for a cup of tea at the teepee tea tent. So it has a raw honest impression on the potential customer which people like.


I feel the design is strong due to the fact i have incorporated strong design and sales elements from doing extensive research into things like Doyle Dane Bernbach's work with vw, bauhaus and propaganda which i can see elements of each with in it.

animatronic ideas

I have watched this video to try and see how i could possibly do my animatronics in my own wind in the willows head. The design i was thinking of is similar to this just a bit more simplified down for ease of use and reliablity. This video has really helped me get to terms with how i could possibly do my design but also, how it would work. I know it doesn't show you how to make it, but that is irrelevant as i can work out and do my own design, so that it fits inside my badger head. Also with this head as it is a puppet it doesn't have to worry about actually fitting a real person inside it and giving them a place to see out of it.


This design though is very good and effective as it means you can have lots of different elements and movements in your head. With a single simple operating system. So the user is free to still move around as it only takes one hand to use.

The captain

The Character i am doing out of comedy dell'arte is the captaino- who is a boastful bully who is full of bravado. However this is all a act as he is really a coward.

Costume and mask 

The captinos mask was very fierce looking with raised angular eye brows that looked like they were glaring at you. But also it has that long pointy nose so he can appear to be more manly than he really is and his bristly moustache which are said to look like iron spikes. Originally the masks were skin colored however i have seen different coloured ones like red and brown and even black. So i think i am going to pick a colour like red as it is going to make someone look powerful and dangerous even though they aren't necessarily.

black stripe tea pot

This is the design i like best for a advertisement poster go up around the festival as i know it is very simple but it does two very fundamentally important jobs. Which is grab your attention, and then puzzle you slightly which consequently stirs up your curiosity, making you want to find out more! This particular design has been inspired by a few different things like the vw adverts, propaganda and the graphic design show at nottingham. As a lot of there work were stripped back and broken down into a raw basic form, that is the exact style that attracts me. This poster i have done reminds me of the taxi driver poster as thats also very simple as has the same color scheme as the one i have gone for. 

The design has arose  through past designs and development i have done with tea cups and tea pots, experiment what size, color, position and composition it would have that have led to this. The tea pot  was done by getting a photograph of a pot, uploading it into photoshop and creating a simple silhouette shape of it. I then opened a new document up in photoshop and did a simple gradient. 

I then go into filters, distort then wave. I  then click on square and adjust the setting accordingly till i was happy with the stripe pattern. 

Now i had the done that i got the tea pot silhouette and overplayed the pattern on it and deleted the surrounding area. 

I then added this into the poster with the bright yellow and added a wave effect to give it a more unusual twist, and make it more unusual looking with a bit of interest. 

Then obviously i added the simple caption time for tea? which i feel is really power full and needs nothing more or nothing less. As you then question yourself in your mind, thinking do i want a tea? Which means that you are already getting your audience to interact with the poster subliminally. Then your eyes move down to the logo and the tea tent name.


Overall i feel the design is very strong and your eyes are immediately drawn to that bold black tea cup on the bright yellow background that really stands out on the page. Which is important as this poster needs to catch peoples attention from at least 10 feet away while they are walking around the festival. Thats also why this poster is done to super A1 size which is 61x91 cm and is the size they use for things like movie posters in cinemas.