Projection mapping

I want a projector it would be so useful, tv movies games jitter but they are so expensive the bulb is just as expensive as the damn projector! This projection mapping is put to very good use looks amazing reminds me of gondrys science of sleep.


Puma Lift. from CCW - Lab on Vimeo.

Some resources that I learned from

http://processing.org/
http://www.cycling74.com/
http://forums.creativecow.net/
http://www.w3schools.com/
http://vector.tutsplus.com/

Evaluation

I found this brief very useful not only from the outcomes from the research but from the actual method that was used to research, it just made it everything seem so much simpler by seeing research as observing then asking questions then answering them, it sounds stupid but it made the whole process of research much easier. The majority of my research was practical; I wanted to learn programs that I thought would be (a) beneficial and (b) necessary for me in the future. I started with Cinema 4d which was the first 3d program I had ever used I learned from resources on the Internet which are quite plentiful and felt that I learned the basic skills, but I would like to further my research into animating with C4D. This was a useful tool to learn and has a much smaller learning curve than Maya and I was thinking of utilising it for one of the YCN briefs. The second program I looked at learning was Max/MSP/Jitter, an audio/ visual patching program I quickly learned that it wasn’t the sort of thing I was after, but I later came back to it for more audio based work that I do outside of viscom. Processing was a program that I had been meaning to get into, I found it a hard process but I started from scratch but its something that I will continue learning. It also made me think about the direction I wanted to go in, I see interaction and interactivity becoming more important and I want to be prepared and have the skills, as its becoming more and more apparent of artists collaborating with programmers. Processing is an ongoing thing for me once I have money ill buy the book instead of having to renew it every 2 weeks. When I was learning these programs I set my self a little goal just to produce a little something, like the c4d characters or the tiny bits of processing it showed me that I was able to teach myself what I wanted to know. From all this research and getting to grips with the software I felt that I was learning so much but I still didn’t have the skills to take it to that next stage and felt like I would be wasting my time just constantly learning for this whole project and not produce anything. The research made me review myself, and where I stand within visual communication, I became concerned about getting work experience and wanted to produce a website combining some of the things I learned from my research. Making my actual website was harder than I thought, I found myself being overly ambitious in the way I wanted to present myself it was a long development but still I gained from it so much, each time I restarted my website I became more confident with web design and understanding code I finally realised in the end when to realise when to stop trying to do something ‘else’ and realise that I didn’t know how to do certain things.
The main thing that this project has provided me with is drive, learning all of this has made me motivated to use these tools for future projects from. My actual website is simple and functional but it made me realise that I didn’t have much work to show and made me more motivated to produce more work outside of college. I haven’t hosted the website because I’m lacking funds because it is the end of term but come Easter it will be up. Looking back at my blog I don’t think I documented my understanding of the technologies well because there was a lot of trial an error and I didn’t screen grab everything I only really documented when I realised I wasn’t happy with what I was doing. I found blogging very useful for this project, it was easy to quickly document links I had found, things that I had read etc.
What became my main rationale for research and development was trying to find where I stand within visual communication and how to become more professional. One of the biggest helps was reading ‘how to be a graphic designer without losing your soul’, it made me realise what I wanted and what I needed to do to get what I want. Although I have wanted to learn all these programs I have realised that I don’t want to sit in front of a computer screen there has been times when I have been looking at my computer screen for more than 10 hours. This made me appreciate drawing more as I was getting slightly depressed by seeing my drawing skills deteriorate but I really enjoyed doing life drawing and doodling more. It made me realise that I have to find a balance between being purely a digital artist and a physical real world designer.
This term I have become more confident with independent study because I know I can teach myself all I need is the resources and I’ve realised that if I get bored or feel like I’m not doing enough, that its my fault because I write my own briefs from now on, I felt like my work flow was smooth this term I didn’t leave things till the last minute like previous briefs but I still didn’t organise my time very efficiently, I was determined to use a diary which I bought but I didn’t use it. Looking back I kind of wished that I had just concentrated on one thing most likely processing, I felt like I have tried to many things and not given enough attention to either of them except dreamweaver.

final website

This is the final design for the website Ive managed to get an icon on there and some processing my blog and some of my work, its made me realise that I dont have that much work to show so its motivated me to make more.







An interesting protfolio website.


This portfolio website is made using google maps good because it stands out but the functionality is simple, but there is not enough information.

Research Outcome

I think the main problem I had was trying to learn too much, Trying to learn 4/5 programs i didn't concentrate on one program i became a more jack of all trades. But its OK because I learned a lot not just about software but about me as a visual communicator, like how to become more professional and also what I want to do in the future, I realised that I'm a multi platfrom communicator that I do alot of things but not to the highest knowledge yet theres still time to learn.

Research questions.

I saw this CommTech brief as a good opportunity to learn something new and develop some more skills. So it got me thinking about what I would be doing in the near future, I wanted to get away from traditional forms of design. So my first question was.

QUESTION 1 : What will I be doing in 5 years time, what skills will I need?

I knew things were becoming more interactive, things have been for a while but its becoming more mainstream because the technology is becoming more affordable and available. I wanted to be more prepared for the future so I wanted to learn new programs that i thought would be relevant to me in the future. First of all I was thinking of doing a ycn brief and was going to do animation so I thought I would learn Cinema 4d a 3d environment software to create 3d models or animations.

An through my research mainly http://createdigitalmusic.com/ and http://createdigitalmotion.com/ which I check on a daily basis. I decided i wanted to learn processing which is like learning a new language but the things you can do with it visually are amazing. I started learning it from scratch from a book and I'm still learning apparently it can take about 3 years to learn but atleast i started sooner rather than later.

Whilst I was learning programming I had a look at pure data and max msp but decided to leave them for a while and come back later.

All this research was initially preaparation for the competition briefs because I wanted to actually produce some work and get my name out there.

Eventually I became conscious of getting some work experience so I wanted to design a porfolio website to get my name out there, so I saw all the work that i as learning at the beining of the brief as portfolio work and the processing informed my progrmming skills.

QUESTION 2 : How to make a good protfolio website?

This made me think about how i want to represent myself, how do i want to come across to other people in a professional manner. This lead on to question 3.

QUESTION 3 : Identity, who am I as a visual communicator and how to I show this?

I started to read articles and books on how to contact a prospective employer, what attributes a designer needs etc. I think this is what made it hard for me to make my website I keep on constantly changing my idea.

All this research has informed they way I make music.

Before this project I had some knowledge of max/msp and processing but I had never used either I just heard about it or seen projects used with those tools but I decided to have a proper go with maxmsp and its really interesting with what you can do with it and it made go and investigate granular synthesis which led me on to metasynth a synthesiser that makes sound from colours


There is also another program called sound hack which messes around with your audio files. All these things are possible with max/msp but I'm not that good at it yet so its going to be an ongoing thing i want to use it for audio first then move on to using it for visuals. I'm still trawling through the tutorials. But all this learning has made making music more interesting and experimental.

final website design

Now I've decided my final design but ill probably change my mind again! It took me a WHOLE DAY to work out how to do this simple thing I've been trying to make a website for about a month now and I keep on going back to the drawing board so I decided I wanted to make it just simple, but the more simple i make it the harder it is.



All I want is those things to be fixed which they are, but when I put content in it, it messes up! Its really frustrating especially when you have spent alllllllllll day trying to do it and looking at a computer screen.

Painted with action script



Patrick Gunderson

Getting a job.

From reading 'how to be a graphic...' book and from websites like 'behance network' they gave advice on applying for work, by saying STAND OUT send them something tangible, something to grab their attention and I remember seeing this origami toy and thinking it would be really cool business card.




Unbelievable Paper Toy 2 :) - video powered by Metacafe



This is my attempt, just to understand the construction I drew patterns on it, I'm planning on making something worth keeping.



I want to rip my eye balls out.


Im starting to get sick of looking at a computer screen all day I might be going mad. I work on my website (looking at my computer) I have a break I look on the internet ( looking more at a screen) I get away from design so I make some music on logic ( even more looking at a computer) I watch heroes, lost, flight of the conchords, 30 rock , family guy (all on the computer) feel like my brain is melting.

(a) i need to get out (but i dont wanna spend money, im broke)

(b) ive started to draw more which is good because I was getting depressed at how my drawing skills have detiriated but it gets me away from the screen!

redesign


Another redesign I seem to not be satisfied this is like the millionth time now but again i don't like this aesthetically i do but im not happy with the functionality so im going to start again, again.

I read a book and it was worth it.

I finished reading this and I have to say this has been very useful to me, not only for this project but for send and receive and life in general, its given me focus and drive it helped me understand where I stand and where I want to stand in the world of visual communication. This book isn't just for graphic designers as i don't really consider myself one it can relate to anyone in the area of 'design' or the creative industry. especially with all this credit crunch worries of whether I'll have a decent job in a couple of years. The interviews with practicing designers and masters were very insightful even the parts in the book about starting your own studio and employing other people helped me understand a lot. Will definitely read it again a must read. Its pretty much is like the lessons for $69 but free because i got it from the library!

site re-design


The divs in this are dragable but after it doeant work when you put images inside the divs because hte images drag so you need a space to drag, it just isnt practicle and it took me a long time to realise so I need to go back to the drawing board.

Roel wouters

I think this guy is amazing, his brother is also just as good. And his website is great! really interactive and interesting confusing sometimes but still great.



It made research what it was and its java script called drag and drop. I'm getting better with the java script language from processing. I'm rethinking my website design I want to make it more interactive and maybe incorporate this drag and drop into my website.

identity

the website is going to be a representation of myself , so it made me thing about how I market myself and my identity and logo etc so Ive decided to design a logo for myself.



I like the put era one with the symbols the most but I'm still not satisfied with results its something im still going to work on although I would like a logo on my website

Work Work

This was my initial design for a website very simple, I worked out how to put my blogger blog into my website with rss to javascript and i used a flickr button to that viewers can keep up to date with what i am doing.



This is the basic layout of how my projects would be displayed, I learned how to iframe to put websites/objects inside divs.


because I have been learning processing I was determined to put some processing in my website, as I'm becoming more interested in interactivity. It took me 2 weeks to work out how to put processing on my website, how depressing is that and it was really simple as well!


Inspiration.

I'm constantly on the tinternet looking at websites and consciously and subconsciously evaluating them, firstly whether it looks good, it has to attract my eye first but thats not good enough if it doesn't function well, so functionality is second, then obviously content.

I prefer websites that are constantly updated, so I go back more often.

For this part I'm just going to look at the competition, other designers and communicators websites.

http://www.katemoross.com/
I really like her website, its simple functional and easy to navigate, all the nesessary information is there. I like that she has a blog on her front page that keeps you up to date with whats shes doing.

http://www.villagegreenstudio.com
Another simple website, purely a portfolio website I like the way the menues are displayed when links are clicked.

http://frenden.com/
An illustrators website, looks like a blog and inorder to see all the work (although impressive) you have to sift through his whole blog like site. This is a good and bad thing, if you just wanted to see the work its alot of effort, although if you sift thought it you learn how he works and how he creates his pieces which was valuable.

http://www.christophehuet.com/

A photographers website, made in flash, i dont really like flash websites, its impressive but I dont think it suits what I want to do also I dont want to learn action scripting right now.

http://daito.ws/
Although its in japanese, he is a artist programer vj dj ice cream maker and harp constructor, website is ok might be better if could understand it but it looks too much like a blog.

http://eleanorhardwick.com/
another photographer simple and effective portfolio site.

From this im getting a rough idea of what i want my website to look like, I want a blog that caneasily be updated. I likethe idea of keeping it simple.

website research

I'm always unconsciously and consciously analysing websites that I visit some work some don't.
There are a few things i have to consider do I want a really impressive website or do I want to keep it simple as possible and just have my work on there. But to consider this I have to understand myself as a visual communicator, and I have been getting more interested in interactivity and I would like my website to stand out.

progression.

At the moment I'm very concerned about getting work experience, and I was looking at a graphic designers blogsite the other day and there was a link for work experience, he was asking for interns and the way he was going to select these interns was to check links to their websites. Although I've tried to make a portfolio website I never got around to finishing it, so I've decided to do the ycn briefs i my own time and concentrate on creating a portfolio website for myself. All the research and learning that i have been doing can feed into my website, for work reasons and for practical reasons as in I understand java script from using processing.