After effects workshop one.

This is how after effects looks when you first open it up. 

If you lose windows click window > workspace > reset 'standard'

To start work select new composition.

Pal is the UK video option. 

These options are more for video rather than animating. 

The page set-up changes slightly once you press OK. 

The number values that are yellow with a dotted line can be changed. 

Once you add something it appears here as a layer. 

You can give the object a certain duration within the timeline. 

If you drag the red line you can quickly see how the graphics will play out. 

To move the object on the screen click and drag it. 

To playback the whole sequence hit the space bar. 

To playback with music these controls are used, this is also the best way to playback. 

To get back to the beginning of the sequence use the home key (arrow pointing to the top left).

To alter the quality of an image select the auto tab. 

By shortening the grey bar you can focus on specific areas so it doesn't play for the whole time when you hit space. 

You can transform a shape by clicking on the arrow next to a layer and the arrow next to a layer and the arrow next to trasnform.

If you click position, move the time bar along the time section and then move the shape it creates a line and drops a new keyframe onto the timeline. 

The keyframe diamond shape is movable by clicking on it and dragging it. 

If you select over the keyframes and press ALT you can drag them closer to each other but keep the sequence, this is useful if you want to make playback shorter and keep what you have done. 

If you press the key with a wave and backward comma on it you can zoom in on certain windows. 

If you click on a layer and press certain keys such as P, certain transformations appear, in this case position. By selecting all layers you can transform them all at once. 

If you select a layer and press I this will bring to you the beginning and O the end. 

The U key opens any animated layers. 

You can click on the anchor points so the shape doesn't juse move in a straight line. 

By clicking the pen tool you can opt to make some of the paths have a point instead of being curved. 

To export the animation click 'add to render queue' > 'format options' > H.246 (suitable for blogs) > 'output to' and then it will go whereever you specify it to. Finally click render. 

Good is... evaluation.

1.  What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them? I have a greater understanding of print as a whole in terms of how certain processes work such as die cutting and foil blocking and I now know how I can apply these to my own work if they are suited to the brief I am working on. I have knowledge of the most suitable print processes to use depending on wether or not I am creating design for mass production or a smaller print job. I haven’t really applied these to my own work in a literal sense but I have proposed them so that if my product was actually created this is how it would be but this shows understanding of the methods and the fact I am able to explore design for print in a mature manner. I have also had my first client interaction during this module with the visit to Team printers. This has been quite important as this year I am likely to be talking to many more clients so I am more aware of how you interact with these people and this is also a company I can add to my contact list for future reference. I also feel as though I have been a lot more experimental throughout this module, trying things that I haven’t really before such as packaging and bag construction. Although this is quite a small factor I feel as though its a step in the right direction. These products have worked quite well within my design work because the results I have got are quite a sophisticated response. One of the quite significant things for myself is that i’ve developed my skills in having conversation with tutors. This has been really useful because it has made me feel more confident with my ideas and I have been given guidence where needed.  2. What approaches to/methods of design production have you developed and how have they informed your design development process? Through the things I learnt about design for print when researching for my booklet, taking part in workshops and also on the print visit I become aware that the colour used is quite important because when the artwork goes to print someone checks over it to make sure the colours are correct because colour can look different on screen to what it does when it is printed out. Due to what I had learnt I made sure to use pantone colours in my design so I knew exactly what I would be getting, this was my starting point in a sense because my artwork is quite simplistic so colour made up for that. Stock also links to the colour and effects how it will look so this was also a massive consideration with my own work because I didn't want the colours to change. Stock has informed my design development because I had to test different types of stock in order to find out which one(s) would work best. Special finishes are also something that I have proposed for most of my final pieces and this has informed my development process in the sense that it would round everything off nicely at the end giving a sophisticated response.  3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these? I have become a lot more experimental with the final pieces I create in terms of the range, instead of just sticking to things such as posters i've worked more with 3D elements throughout this project. To capitalise on this in future I will try and incorporate something new that I haven't tried previously into each project and even if this doesn't work then at least I have experimented with it and learnt a new process. I feel that my final pieces show that my illustrator skills have become stronger because the responses I have created are quite neat and i've also learnt a few new illustrator skills. To capitalise on software skills in general i'm going to try and learn some of the shortcuts I currently do not use, this will make the design process somewhat quicker and will generally be a handy skill to have. Finally, I feel as though confidence shows through my work because a lot of my design previously tended to be on white backgrounds and not very experimental in terms of colour but this time my work seems quite different to the design I was producing last year. This shows confidence in terms of the fact i've been willing to take more a risk and work a little out of my comfort zone. 4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future? I haven't really experimented with stock enough throughout this module because I was creating a range of products i'd automatically thought they should all be on the same stock to link together but this is obviously not the case. My bag and packaging design should be on card rather than cartridge paper to make them a bit more durable  and possibly even of higher quality. In future I will make sure that I experiment a lot more with stock before making a decision about which one I am going to use therefor it won't be a last minute realisation. I also didn't really keep on top of my blogging throughout this module so did chunks of it at a time which meant sometimes I had missed something out or I had forgotten what i'd already done or was yet to do. In future I will blog things as I create them so I can constantly look back on the decisions I made rather than trying to decide why I made them at a later date. A few parts on some of my designs didn't print out properly when it came to my final prints such as there being a gap between letters, although this is not a massive issue it is a bit disappointing because I was sure i'd checked them before transferring them to my memory stick. In future I will re-check this artwork when I bring it up on the mac in the digital dungeon before hitting print. 5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these? - I will blog as I go throughout my project because this will help when I am making design decisions and constantly remind me of why I made certain choices. It will also be less to consider when i'm coming to the end of a module and I can concentrate on final pieces. - I will experiment more with stock when it comes to printing a final design during the project then I can be sure the stock I have chosen is the correct one for the piece I have made and make sure I have plenty of time to re-print onto a different stock if needed. - I will come in more during my studio development time on a friday and saturday because the times I did this during this particular module I got quite a lot done and it made me feel less under pressure because I was making the most of the time I had left to complete my work. - I need to do tasks within the same week that I am given them because during this module I didn't prioritise them as such so when it came to the end of the module they had built up and it took me a while to get through them. - In future I will have my presentation boards printed in the digital dungeon because for this module I printed them in the mac suite in halves and due to the cropping the printer automatically gives around the edge they haven't fit together properly. If I print them in the digital dungeon I am likely to get a better result and will reflect good alongside the rest of my work. 6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas:  (please indicate using an ‘x’)   5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor 1 2 3 4 5 Attendance x Punctuality x Motivation x Commitment x Quantity of work produced x Quality of work produced x Contribution to the group x The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.

Good is... printed final pieces.

Overall I am very pleased with the way my final pieces have come out once printed. However after going through the print process I have become more aware that the packaging and bag would probably work better on card rather than cartridge paper because they would be a lot more durable and maybe even come across as being higher quality. When considering my stock I thought more about keeping the same throughout all pieces when this doesn't necessarily have to be the case because the colours used keep them together. This is something I could always re-visit in my own time to see if my thoughts are correct. I faced an issue when printing in the mac suite with the laser printers where the area in which the Apple logo was placed would come out a slightly different black to the actual background, this however seems to have resolved itself when printing in the digital dungeon as these printers are of higher quality. Seeing a collective shot of all my products together shows me that the evolution poster still works well as part of the series because the other products still contain a fair amount of white on them and the font chosen links them together too. The packaging and the bag compliment each other well when printed in the same colour as though the consumer would have bought the orange iPod. One of the main factors that ties them together is the cut out of the screen area even though both are slightly different with one being just an empty space. The fact the cut out of the screen for the bag is so large isn't an issue at all because the packaging fits below this so won't fall out. Seeing the posters side by side also works really well and in particular this is because two of them have the logo and text etc in the same place and the middle one is slightly higher so it means there is some kind of pattern. Although this is a good feature it's not of huge importance when they would be put 'out there' because they would never been seen together. 

Good is... final presentation boards.

These are the final presentation boards I created in order for someone to be able to understand the 'story' behind my final products. I created boards of what I think is most important in terms of understanding my story and as this is the first time i've ever made presentation boards I don't think I have done too badly because people should be able to understand where some of my ideas came from in order to get my final pieces and also the context that these things would appear in. Keeping my presentation boards quite minimalist too has come from the idea that my final pieces are quite minimalist because I'd like everything to work together as a whole project. 

These are images of my printed presentation boards. For future reference I am likely to print these boards A2 because in this case I have printed two A3 sheets but due to the border created when you print a single sheet they don't quite meet up properly in the middle.  

Good is... posters in context.

I originally took my own photo of a bus stop in Leeds but realised the poster area size wasn't big enough so I got the image above from google images and then added my own design on to it. The poster series (of three posters) would be placed in bus stops all over the world to advertise the iPod retro and Appleexpo to as many consumers as possible in order to gather interest. The design would work really well on this scale due to its simplicity and it can be sized up and down easily depending on the particular bus stop. 

This is not the actual context of the evolution poster, this is just an example of the scale in which I would have the poster. This particular photo of the billboard is taken by myself in Leeds. This billboard sized image would be placed in the backdrop of the stand that the product would be being sold at, at the Appleexpo. I would want it on such a large scale because then consumers will see it from a distance and wondered what it is so it's likely to draw them in. This is another design that will work both large and smaller because its so simplistic. 

Good is... revised final pieces.

All final pieces have been created using Pantone colours from the Pantone solid colour book. 

When it came to the final crit I made a few of the changes I had time for that were given to me within the feedback. These changes were, changing the background to black, making the iPods have an actual screen image and including some sort of reason as to why my product is being launched. I would still apply the same special finishes and use the same stock as I proposed with my original final pieces (cartridge paper) apart from one slight change to the bag design because I altered the back of it. 

The posters would be printed on cartridge paper and have a matt varnish applied to them so that they seem a bit more high quality yet not too much as they won't really be interacted with in the sense that you touch them. I have added actual screens to the iPods using a screen layout for the iPod that I found on google images, to make this a bit less uniform I have changed the hue/saturation of each of the screens to match that of the iPod colour. I feel they look a lot more real with this screen added because the consumer will be able to imagine more what it would look like in real life and how you can interact with it. It also shows that the iPod is actually a full colour version like they are currently. I've also added a tag line to my poster of "celebrating 10 years of the iPod" since creating the particular design above because I needed more reasoning as to why I was launching this iPod and they have actually been around for ten years so the launch of a new one can mark this occasion. The black background works really well with the iPod imagery because it looks a little more sophisticated and the colours stand off from this really clearly.  

The change made to this particular product was using the back of the bag to place the back of the iPod on. This solved the issue I was having of where best to place the text in a way that suited the rest of the layout. The logo and text work really well on the back of the iPod because this information is typically found on the back of an actual iPod anyway and it means it doesn't look as though i'm trying to fit too much information on to the front of the bag. The back of the bag where the iPod back design is would be foil blocked and this is because the back of an actual iPod is shiny metal so it will make it more obvious why I decided to place this information here. Using foil blocking will also give the bag a high quality, sophisticated looking finish that something described as 'limited edition' should have. The front of the iPod on the bag would still be spot varnished as I proposed previously to make this area seem almost real too and the bag would be die cut once the design was printed. 

The black background has also benefited the barcodes and other symbols I placed on the back of my packaging because they now blend in instead of being these block sections. The background has also benefited the actual iPod design because as with the posters the colours on the iPod imagery become quite bold and vibrant. The imagery on the front of the packaging would still be spot varnished as I proposed previously and the text would be foil blocked to continue with this idea of high quality, limited edition packaging. Also as proposed previously the packaging would be die cut once printed, scoring along edges that need to be folded and cutting the shape out of the stock and then hand made up. 

The only product I didn't change as such in terms of the colour scheme was the iPod evolution poster. My reason for keeping this the same was because when I applied a black background it seemed as though there was far too much black on the page and it was quite over-whelming. The information also became not necessarily as easy to interpret because the design didn't seem as easy to look at it, it was too harsh on the eye and it's really important that it captures the attention of the audience. I had however, originally stated that I want to keep this design as simplistic as possible and using a minimalistic approach is the best way to do this. I would still apply a spot varnish to the apple and the paths in order for them to stand out and capture the audiences attention with the glint they are likely to have. 

Typography workshop.

This session was about layout and how typography can be used in order to create the perfect or ideal layout. We explored kerning, leading and general page organisation to give greater understanding of how important page layout is. 

Use the body of text so it fits the column. 10.7pt

Copy the same text changing the point size down one each time and then altering the leading to make it fit the column. third reads best. 

Copying the text across 1, 2, 3 and 4 columns and deciding which is best to read. Third is best as theres usually six words to a line. 

Fitting a page to two columns.

Adding the picture to the page. 

Trying to make the picture as big as possible attempt one. 

Trying to make the picture as big as possible attempt two. 

Using three columns. 

Taking a column of text away to see what affect this has. 

Using everything we have learnt during this workshop to create our own page layout.