Reflection

 This term I created a new website and new project 'Still Mortality'. On the website, I quite enjoyed recreating this and choosing a different image for my homepage.  The homepage image came from 'The Army of Dolls' project and I thought this was appropriate as the images were created entirely digitally and the doll in the lake I do think really works with a good rule of thirds and colour scheme that suits my site and my work. 

I chose Playfair Display font and used this throughout - I chose this as, although it may look a little formal and 'old-fashioned' I perhaps and both of those things so this was a good decision and it does work well on the site and is sans serif and easily readable. 

On the portfolio page with my book, it is embedded from Blurb and you can flip through the pages however it still does not expand in the correct manner on the page.  With that in mind, I added a button to Blurb and here you reach the sale page where you can preview at full page and buy the book.  I was not completely happy with this and I could make it into a flipbook in a different form in the future as I would like this to be more responsive and user-friendly.  I also like doing this on Blurb as I like to get the hard copy and have a real book, also I like it that it is out in the world as it should be.  It is for sale and can be easily found.

The project itself Still Mortality was actually more fraught with issues. I intended to use the Polaroid however I soon realised I could not get the images I wanted using this method with the text that I intended. I then chose to use an older Olympus and took a set of images however the card corrupted and the camera itself (a poor Olympus E-3) was stuttering towards death with a red blinking eye that would go off so after declaring the camera officially dead and being unable to uncorrupt the card I decided to shoot them again on the Olympus Mark II - I do think these were not quite what I wanted still but time was ticking and decisions needed to be made!

Finally, I decided to use images from my university time as it was about time and other images from different times interspersed with the new images.   The text was all new and I thought the text was actually stronger than the images in places. This certainly is not my favourite piece of work and I do think I would have not necessarily published if it was not for this deadline.  I am hoping next term I going to create some far more interesting pieces as part of my work here.  However, as much as I am critical of 'Still Mortality' it did meet the goals I set out and was completed in a timely manner and published so that it was successful.

Final Website Updates with Still Mortality

 I finalised my project book on Blurb adding the original images.  On Blurb I added this for sale and bought a hardcopy version of the book.  

This is how the final page looked on my website

On the button you can go to Blurb see the full page book and buy the book. I also added back to the portfolio button.

In addition, I added some other pages of past work to my site

I added another book 'The Quietus' and a film 'Uncertain Times' plus links to previous paid writing on line about photography.

I then checked the mobile view most the issues here seemed to be text size and alignment so I decreased the text size on each portfolio page, I realigned centrally the buttons and title and also I decreased text size on buttons.  I saved and then republished all changes.

I will test my website again on my mobile and on different devices just to check there are no further issues.  For the moment I do think that this is up-to-date and completed for this term at least!

Project Production: Process Two

 The additional images were from other Olympus cameras across much time I will go through some of the production of these images here.

The image above I found and I believe I took it at the time of covid, I found the original date of 15th February 2021.  This was taken on an Olympus SH-2, wide aperture using natural light from my bedroom windows means a low ISO was needed.  I can see I am wearing a mask, plastic gloves which represented the time alone not touching anyone, trying not to get infected.  This was a sad and terrible time, it was an 'absurd reality'.

This image was taken when I was a student (1997-2000), I was doing an elective in fine art and I created a book with these prints.  I don't know the original settings now, but it was using an Olympus SLR that my father had given to me for university - I took all my images on this throughout. This was processed in the darkroom.

This image was taken on 18th April 2022 on an urban landscape shoot with students - it was near my flat in town - I just quite liked it.  This was taken with my Mark II fast shutter, F6.3 fairly wide aperture.  

The front cover image is a layered image I found that I had made from my student card image and the student card image I used on the About Me.  I chose to do this as this was me when I was you, a young student.  I enjoyed these past and present images and the book and I felt this was a fitting end, at the beginning

I uploaded the final book to Blurb from Bookwright and I paid for this so now it is embedded into my site and is for sale on Blurb.  I will update my gallery pages with this as well.

Project Production Process One: Things Images

 In this post I will just go through the production of the images of things - these will be the images I will use in my photo/text book.  In the end, I used my Olympus EM-10, Mark II.  I used a combination of techniques and settings which I will go through here. I began by making a contact sheet which I completed on Photoshop just by going to 'File' in the top menu then 'Automate' and 'Contact Sheet'.  When the dialog box opened I chose my file from my desktop and clicked 'OK'.

The 'things ' here are not usually how I work as they are more random than I would like however these are domestic items that I live with everyday and so they made sense in conjunction with the text I produced.  I was creating my book on Blurb so I have bookwright software on my computer and I had already created the mock up so I just needed to replace the images with my own.

Here is the first one I used the camera and camera settings are above as can be seen I used a wide aperture and fairly slow shutter, I was also shooting using a film grain filter to create a more moody look. I like the silent words and deafened ears and you imagine this with the headless women.

The second image I used from this set again with the same camera a wide aperture again but not as wide as the previous image and a slightly faster shutter as there was more distance here and I needed this to be sharp - I used the same film grain look.  The little creatures here have various items around the use these make me smile they sit above my desk, I bought them in a small shop in Angouleme, France- the big head was the top of a bubble bath.

The one above is pinned to my pinboard and contains instructions not to be revived or kept alive by machines signed off by a doctor.  Similar settings as above and I also added a slight vignette effect to draw attention to the centre. 

I used a couple more images from this set but these are good example and the technical details that are quite similar for the additional images used.

I believe these images work quite well and enhance the text that has been produced.

Website: UX Testing & Feedback

 I created a UX Testing and Feedback form that I added to my website so that I could test and get feedback before assessment.  I will go through the questions and responses here

Here, I got a mixed response to the website design therefore I do need to consider whether this needs to be altered - what I think I may do it wait for more responses to gauge whether there is a design issue

Mostly a good response but there does seem to be an issue with the flipbook and this maybe why the responses in some cases are as the flipbook did not work - at present the book is not published and this could be the issue as the link for the mock up was just a practice - I intend to publish the completed work this weekend with the final images and this should fix the book issues.

Mostly people thought this was good and I also got a just 'okay' from one respondent therefore I will relook at the about section - I had a look below and reread and considered this section - I am unsure exactly what people do not like however this could be just a personal subjective view - I will have a further think about this though

The portfolio design is mostly good however again the book itself was not working so this response is expected at this stage. 

As above this is still a work in progress!

I was quite pleased that the responses here were all good/excellent as the contact page can be a little boring and I am hoping that it is at least well designed and a pleasure to use. 

This was mostly excellent/good and all the social links are clearly working so this very good

Again really pleased with this feedback as it means the site as a whole works and people are enjoying it!

All respondents used a desktop so I do need to test the mobile view further 

Really liked these comments as it was true the tree was overlapping the writing and by subheading had misaligned - I have now fixed this and attached the subheading to the header so it does not move and in the editor I have moved the quotation so that it does not overlap the tree.

I thank everyone who has given me feedback as this has been really useful and I will continue to get more feedback and hopefully make this website the best it can be. 

Photoshop Graphic Design Concept Board

 I was creating a Graphic design concept board for my project 'Owl Publishing'  I began by create a canvas by clicking on 'File and then 'New' in the top menu on Photoshop and then I went to the dialog box clicked on 'Print' and 'view all presets' and then clicked on A4.  I chose portrait orientation, 300ppi resolution for high quality and then just a white background.

I wanted to design the background so I wanted something not too distracting so I chose a pale abstract design from Unsplash.  I then open this in Photoshop.  Went to 'Select' and then Select All' in the top menu and the 'Edit' and 'Copy'  I then went back to my original canvas and clicked on 'Edit' and 'Paste'.  I then used the transform controls to move the design over the whole canvas and then lowered the opacity to 75%.  I then added a title and subtitle using the text tool from the left hand menu.  I clicked into the canvas and I used Footlight MT Light 60pts for the Titles and the same font at Footlight MT Light 48pts for the subtitle

I then added a logo I had made on Adobe express by opening this file with removed background to Photoshop and again using Select All and copy and paste into the design. I placed this in the top right hand corner. 

I then added my image using the same method as above and used transform tools and gridlines on the page to place this correctly in a position that I thought would make this work as a layout.

I then added my main bost of text just by going back to the Text tool and ensuring that the font and the size worked in on the board. 

I made three boards in total with the idea I can really sell this brand through brand story and logo design

I quite liked the brand story here and if I was completing this as my project I would have a more diverse range of logo designs for the publishing company that I could showcase to the client.

Photoshop Concept Board/Flipbook

 Today I created a fashion concept board using Photoshop for my fashion Collection 'Dandy 'Rock'

I began by creating a canvas, I clicked on 'File' and then 'New' in the top menu on Photoshop and then I went to the dialog box clicked on 'Print' and 'view all presets' and then clicked on A4.  I chose portrait orientation, 300ppi resolution for high quality and then just a white background.

I wanted to design the back ground and my collection had a orange colour in the design so I went unsplash and chose an orange abstract image.  I then open this in Photoshop.  Went to 'Select' and then Select All' in the top menu and the 'Edit' and 'Copy'  I then went back to my original canvas and clicked on 'Edit' and 'Paste'.  I then used the transform controls to move the design over the whole canvas and then lowered the opacity to 75%.  I then added a title and subtitle using the text tool from the left hand menu.  I clicked into the canvas and I used Stencil Regular font at 48pts for the Titles and the same font at 24pts for the subtitle

I then added a logo I had made on Adobe express by opening this file with removed background to Photoshop and again using Select All and copy and paste into the design. I placed this in the top right hand corner. 

I then added my image using the same method as above and used transform tools and gridlines on the page to place this correctly in a position that I thought would make this work as a layout.

I then added the main boy of text that describes my concept using the same stencil font at 18pts.

I downloaded and saved this as both a psd file and a jpeg so that I could edit and use easily.

I was quite happy with this design and concept and if I was creating this I wanted to use this still of illustration as I think it is simple and expressive and would be a consistent illustrative style to appeal to the target audience/fashion buyers. 

In class we also practiced adding a flipbook to the website - at present my computer is not working well so I will add this later at home.

Production: First Draft of Photo/Text Book

 I began my production by writing the words to my text book and then thinking about layout and the kind of images I wanted to use in this small project.  I opened Blurb and created a small square book.  I used the layouts and added text and images where I wanted them.  I used the 'Lora' font throughout.  I have saved the project and exported a pdf proof just to review this.  All the words here are my own, the images are all copyright free and I am just using these as a mock up example.

The draft here is okay, this does give the sense of what I want to achieve.  I will be working on the production of images shortly.