Sunday, June 26, 2011

History and Theory of Design

This was part of the research that was done during class. (NOTE: This had to be re-posted as something 'spontaneously combusted' the design layout of my Blog after posting this very original post)

WEBSITES

Tutorials

Portfolios:

Alexarts
http://www.alexarts.ru/en/index.html
Greydient
http://www.greydient.com/
FormTroopers
http://www.formtroopers.com/
DigitalMash
http://www.digitalmash.com/
Joe Nyaggah
http://danjodesign.com/

Blogs:

Graphics Design Blog:
http://www.graphicsdesignblog.org/
You The Designer
http://www.youthedesigner.com/
ThinkDesign
http://thinkdesignblog.com/
Veerle's Blog
http://veerle.duoh.com/
David Airey
http://www.davidairey.com

Videos:

YouTube
http://www.youtube.com
Adobe TV:
http://tv.adobe.com

Search Engines:

Google
http://www.google.com
Bing
http://www.bing.com/
Yahoo!
http://au.yahoo.com/?p=us
AltaVista
http://www.altavista.com/
Excite
http://www.excite.com/


PRINT

Magazines:

HOW Magazine
http://www.howdesign.com/GeneralMenu/
Print Magazine
http://www.printmag.com/
I.D. Magazine
http://www.id-mag.com/GeneralMenu/
Communications Arts Magazine
http://www.commerce.commarts.com/aspx/home.aspx?fp=home
Computer Arts Magazine
http://www.computerarts.co.uk/

Books:
Many of these can be found on www.amazon.com

Graphics Design, Referenced: A Visual Guide to the Language, Applications and History of Graphics Design by Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio
http://www.amazon.com/Graphic-Design-Referenced-Language-Applications/dp/1592534473/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308838438&sr=1-9
Contemporary Graphics Design (25) by Peter Fiell and Charlotte Fiell
http://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-Graphic-Design-Peter-Fiell/dp/3836521369/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308838438&sr=1-10
Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills by David Sherwin
http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Workshop-Challenges-Sharpen-Design/dp/1600617972/ref=sr_1_15?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308839423&sr=1-15
Design Elements: A Graphic Style Manual by Timothy Samara
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Elements-Graphic-Style-Manual/dp/1592532616/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308842832&sr=1-1
Graphics Design School, Third Edition by David Dabner
http://www.amazon.com/Graphic-Design-School-Third-Dabner/dp/0471686832/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308842832&sr=1-12

Collection of Designs:

Design is History
http://www.designishistory.com
Design is Kinky
http://www.designiskinky.net

Media (Print and Interactive)
Deviant Art (NOTE: This site is also a collection of designs as well)
http://www.deviantart.com
Get The Glass
http://www.gettheglass.com


PRACTICE

Experimenting
Adobe Illustrator CS5 - Using Adobe Illustrator CS5 & CS5.5
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/illustrator/cs/using/index.html
Adobe Photoshop CS5 - Using Adobe Photoshop CS5 & CS5.5
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/photoshop/cs/using/index.html
Adobe InDesign CS5 - Using Adobe InDesign CS5 & CS5.5
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/indesign/cs/using/index.html

Monday, June 20, 2011

CD Covers - Finished Work

Drakie here,

Now it's the time that I post the CD Covers, this is the finished work of my fictional album cover called 'NOIR':




Page 1 and Page 4 of the CD Booklet




Page 2 & Page 3 of the CD Booklet




Back Cover of the Album




CD Disc Face (in Printable Form)

Compared to the rough concepts, I have kept to the core concepts of the album cover I was coming up with (as mentioned in the Rough Concepts I came up with a Jazz/Blues Album). But as the assessment progress I did had to make some compromises - such as the Saxophone being omitted from the final design.

But apart from that, everything else is essentially unchanged from the concept and shows in the final design. I deliberately kept the use of colour to Greyscale as I felt that using black and white tones are easy to work with.

This is all with nearly 3-4 weeks of painstaking work.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Children's Book Assessment - Final Work (Spreads)

Since the story is done, now onto the Spreads.

The first page is of Pages 1 & 2 (or Sentences 1 & 2) and here is the result of some rather painstaking work (do note what you see was completely created from Illustrator from scratch):




This spread is simply the first two sentences of the storybook, the family bots you can see in the first page wasn't in the original characters, but as you can see in the first page, it is essentially a portrait of all the family bots involved along with the main character, but were simply were added throughout the duration of this assessment. In the second page, it is essentially a cityscape enclosed in a giant dome, the cityscape scene took the longest to create throughout the duration of this assessment.

Here is the spread of Pages 9 & 10 (or Sentences 9 & 10):




Re-using the scenes in these pages from the previous spread saved considerable amount of development time. In the first page of this spread, the cityscape from the previous page is used, but with some alterations to shadows and lighting to reflect the time of day while in the second page of the second spread, the portrait style look is used, but this time using friends of the MC (in which were created in the original character design).

Alright, now my time of reflection of all my efforts into the Storybook, I have to be honest, I did struggle to come up with some concepts, but in the end it came off better than expected

Children's Book Assessment - Final Work (Story)

Drakie here,

After weeks of hard work, I've finally done the Children's Storybook. The first part of this assessment is writing up 16 sentences for the storybook, here how it goes:

1. If I was a robot from Mars...

My family would look very different!


2. If I was a robot from Mars...

We would all live under a giant dome.


3. If I was a robot from Mars...

I would have a great Martian home.


4. If I was a robot from Mars...

I would have a Martian pet named Blog instead of a dog.


5. If I was a robot from Mars...

I would go for a roll instead of a stroll.


6. If I was a robot from Mars...

I would drive around in my hover car.


7. If I was a robot from Mars...

My favourite treat would be chocolate Earth bars.


8. If I was a robot from Mars...

On television I would watch Earthling cartoons.


9. If I was a robot from Mars...

At night I would see two different moons.


10. If I was a robot from Mars...

My friends would all be robots too!


11. If I was a robot from Mars...

I would play in the sand dunes instead of a pool.


12. If I was a robot from Mars...

I would spend my days at robot school.


13. If I was a robot from Mars...

On field trips we would see Martian animals at the zoo.


14. If I was a robot from Mars...

Dust storms would rage for months at a time.


15. If I was a robot from Mars...

In winter it would be very cold but in summer it would be fine.


16. If I was a robot from Mars...

The Earth would see so far away, so I would only want to be a robot from Mars for just one day!