Independent Practice - ArticulationEmma Wilkinson - Avis

Graphic Design, Year 3

The Force that through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower

This was the first brief of the year and it was to create a video about ourselves showing our likes and dislikes.I chose to do a Flash animation for this project just because I haven’t had much experience with Flash and I thought it would be a good project to practise with. I was happy with the outcome although I learnt it takes a long time to make flash animations so to make it longer and better I would have needed a lot more time.The link the video is:http://emmawilkinsonavis.gdnm.org/2011/10/03/video-monday-3rd-october-2011-211502/

Dogme95

This was the second brief of the year. To create a video in the style of Dogme95, and using the 5 Restrictions. My concept

was focused around technology because that is what most of my independent work is based around. But instead of the pros of technology I have tried to show it in a negative way, just by the time waiting. I have then added in clips of my dog on the beach because I think it contrast really nicely, the freedom of

a dogs life with no troubles against all the technology which in this day is to speed up life,

The link the video is:http://emmawilkinsonavis.gdnm.org/2011/10/20/video-

thursday-20th-october-2011-083622/

Action Research - Sketchbook

To begin this project I started off by making rough ideas and plans for each week in my sketchbook.I knew from the start that the area I wanted to focus on and base the project around, was Web Design.I decided to aim to design and create a website for my brother who is studying photography. I thought this would give me an idea into the extent of work involved in this type of project and it would able me to gain an insight into whether this would be something I would be able to do for my FMP but on a smaller scale.

Logo Development

To begin this project I decided to start off by designing a logo for my brother. I wanted to include his full name; Ollie Wilkinson

- Avis and the word Photography. I also new I wanted it enclosed in some sort of photography related illustration.

I started off by doing some research into photographers logos, and then I started my initial sketch ideas before taking them

into Illustrator to vectorise them.

P H O T O G R A P H YW I L K I N S O N - A V I SO L L I E

P H O T O G R A P H YW I L K I N S O N - A V I SO L L I E

P H O T O G R A P H YW I L K I N S O N - A V I SO L L I E

OLLIE

WILKINSON - AVIS

P H O T O G R A P HY

OLLIE

WILKINSON - AVIS

P H O T O G R A P HY

Research

To start off my website design ideas, I began by looking at other photographers portfolios websites. I wanted to look into the layout of the home page, and also how the gallery works.

Below is a selection of my favourites.

Action

The next step of the action research was to actually start experimenting and creating. So I firstly drew out a few

sketches of website design ideas then I got stuck in creating them.

I did three different designs, 2 of which are just the home page and one where I attempted the gallery and about page as

well. All of which took me around 2 days each.My favourite of the three is the bottom one on this page

with the grid style of images, so I decided to develop this one further.

Websites in Browsers

On the next two pages are the website ideas I created in HTML being shown in web browsers.

Trials

I decided to put this website idea onto a live webserver to see how it worked online. I really liked this idea at the beginning of the project but I have gone off of the idea. I now think its

rather boring and plain. The link to the site is:http://trials.olliewilkinsonavis.co.uk

Research

I decided to research into different jQuery plug-ins for displaying the images on the gallery webpage. I wanted

something different from the normal ‘lightbox’ way of presenting. On this page is a selection of my favourite ones

that I found.The way I wanted to present the images was by thumbnails on the bottom of the screen which can then be enlarged for the

viewer to see the details.

Previous Experience

During the summer I worked in a Web Design company called Wight 365. Over my time there I helped the main Web

Designers and Developers on various websites for companies.Towards the end of my time there they asked me to design

and develop a photo gallery website for a ‘Status Quo’ and ‘Manfreds’ concert that had been on the week before. It

felt really good to be given the chance to do this website on my own and for it to be used. Below are screenshots of the

website. The link to the websites is:http://rockinthedock.co.uk

Experimentation

I have also been experimenting with other ways to create websites

I wanted to look into ‘Wordpress’ as it is a very widely used tool and has a good content management system (CMS) for

the users to upload their own content for their website. I found it a very good tool especially if I was to learn how to design

and develop my own Wordpress themes. The website is still a working progress and a means for me to experiment with. The

link to the website is:http://celiawilkinsonavis.co.uk

Planning Pages

Before I started creating the whole of the website I decided to quickly sketch out plans of what each of the different webpage layouts would look like.

‘Mockingbird’

The images to the right are screenshots of my plans for the website, they are done in ‘Mockingbird’,

‘Mockingbird’ is an online tool/ program for putting together website wire frames.

It involves no HTML or coding and is simply jut a drag and drop approach.

It is so helpful for planning the different pages and working out what works best in which position.

The link to this saved project on Mockingbird is:https://gomockingbird.com/mockingbird/#4s5j3e1

Planning- ‘Mockingbird’

Above are more screenshots from ‘Mockingbird’ of the various other webpages that I was planning. Such as the

gallery/ photography page, the about me section and the contact page.

Finished Website

This is my final, finished portfolio website. The link to the website is:http://olliewilkinsonavis.co.uk/

Evaluation:

Through working on this Action Research Brief I feel I have learnt a lot of technical skills and feel I have more knowledge of web

design.

The skills that I have learnt and refined during this semester such as HTML, CSS, jQuery etc are going to be so valuable to me if I

pursue a future in Web Design and I really feel that without this action research brief I wouldn’t have had the time or patience

to just learn it through reading a book. By actually putting it into practise and making mistakes and correcting them I have got a

much deeper understand of it all.

I have decided that the skills I need to learn in the future are jQuery and Javascript as I feel these are the main programming

languages that bring the most flexibility and originality to the web.

Overall this past semester has been my favourite of the past 3 years. Just because we have been given such freedom

to do exactly what we want and want interests us which is really exciting because sometimes in past briefs I have had no

motivation if the project doesn’t interest me, and as a result haven’t done as well as I should.

FMP Proposal:

For my FMP I am going to be doing a full design and development of a building companies website.

It will be a live brief and I will speak to the client every 2 weeks to get feedback and their opinion of the designs I am doing.

I will also speak to them about aspects of the build such as how they want their content managed such as a Content

Management System, and whether they want functions such as a price list for prospective clients to see or a booking form etc. I will do all of this before I start the initial design ideas so I know

what needs to be on each page.

My initial research will be into building companies websites that are already on the internet to gain an insight into what sort of

information needs to be in it.

The company I am doing the website for is called ‘T Wyeth Construction’ and is an Isle of Wight based company. They

already have an existing logo and colour scheme which they wish to keep. So I will be sticking with that and focusing my time

on the design and development of the website. They have also asked for some print based items such as letterheads and

invoice templates.

From working on this Action Research brief I have realised I am going to have to account for quite a long time of actually

building the website. The time it took to completely finish this website was 2 weeks and in comparison it is going to be a

much longer project so I am going to give myself 6 of the 12 weeks to do the actual build. The rest of the time is for the

design and research.

References:

Magazines & Newspapers:

Computer Arts Magazine.Net MagazineWeb Designer MagazineObserver MagazineLayers MagazineDigital Arts Magazine

Websites:

www.w3schools.comwww.vimeo.vo.ukwww.youtube.co.ukwww.jquery.comwww.gomockingbird.co.ukwww.wight365.co.ukwww.dynamicdrive.co.ukwww.csszengarden.comwww.cssplay.comwww.smashingmagazine.comwww.netmagazine.co.ukwww.computerarts.co.ukwww.wordpress.com

Books:

HTML, XHTML and CSS Bible. (2010) Steven M. SchaferBrilliant HTML and CSS. (2008) James A BrannanZEN of CSS Design. (2005) Dave SheaThe Principles of Beautiful Web Design. (2010) Jason Beaird