Exhibition

Last week (from the 19th to the 22nd) was the date of the college exhibition, which was hosted by Milsom Place in Bath.

Helping to arrange the exhibition and take part in it was a really interesting experience!  I have never done anything like that before and I feel that it was a really interesting and useful thing to take part in.

My main jobs were to design the portal to display interactive work and sort out the takedown on Sunday evening.  The first job was not very difficult but quite time consuming.  I came up with a number of ideas on paper before creating three initial prototypes.  One of these was chosen and I worked on it further, adding extra features and fine-tuning the appearance.  I had it complete with a few days to spare and thought (wrongly) that everything would be smooth and easy after that - which turned out to be a big mistake!  An hour before the opening on the first night of the exhibition we lost the internet connection (which I had paid for, annoyingly!) and there was mass panic. Maybe a slight over-exaggeration there...a couple of students in the centre of Bath were panicking - but there was panic nonetheless!  After talking to the duty manager and trying different locations to connect to the lost connection, we discovered that a nearby business had free wifi and luckily one corner of our top room was just inside their signal - so we moved the Macs and away we went!

The takedown was quite easy and went very smoothly (everything was packed up within half an hour) and the only problem was (and still is) that I had a lot of trouble finding extra transport.  This meant that I still have five of the pictures from the exhibition in my dining room - but these things happen!

Overall I enjoyed arranging and taking part in the exhibition.  It was very informative to have my work used and rated - and as this was my first time receiving criticism from members of the public I will not lie, I did not know how to react at some moments!

For me, I do not think that the exhibition has had any direct bearing on my career - but it has given me some more experience in arranging and planning and has opened my mind up to networking events.  I also am quite happy with the appearance of my portal for the exhibition and believe that it will look good in my portfolio as an example of my work.

Self Directed Project Link List

Here is my link list for the Self Directed Assignment hand in:

Research Links

Initial App Research and Tutorials:

-          http://papermashup.com/html5-geo-location-using-the-google-api/ - Geolocation Example

-          http://www.mobilehtml5.com/post/371921120/tutorial-your-first-mobile-html5-app-the-basics - Mobile App Basics

-          http://developer.practicalecommerce.com/articles/2309-Develop-a-Store-Finder-with-the-Google-Maps-API-Part-7-Driving-Directions - Using Google maps API for directions

-          http://adamzwakk.com/?p=343 – Bus stop locator tutorial

-          http://headwayblog.com/2007/05/30/google-maps-bus-stops/ - Another bus stop location tutorial

-          http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/mobile-web-apps/html5-geolocation/ - Geolocation tutorial (based around iphone)

-          http://www.edumobile.org/iphone/iphone-programming-tutorials/how-to-implement-core-location-and-the-google-xml-weather-api-on-the-iphone/  - Core Location (iphone) and info about weather apps

-          http://www.ehow.com/iphone-maps/ - Page on ehow containing map tutorials (aimed at iPhone)

-          http://genealogy.about.com/od/geography/a/google.htm - Aimed at genealogists but has some relevant info and links to map building sites

-          http://ofps.oreilly.com/titles/9781449383268/ch01_id35816976.html#ch01_id35816966 – O’Reilly books “Building Android Apps with HTML, CSS and Java”.

-          http://senior.ceng.metu.edu.tr/2009/praeda/2009/01/11/how-to-pure-html-android-application/ - Information on containing html5 app for android phones

Geolocation

-          http://diveintohtml5.org/geolocation.html - Dive Into HTML5 website, information on the geolocation API

-          http://papermashup.com/demos/html5-geolocation/ - Google maps and geolocation demo

Geocoding

-          http://www.iphonedevsdk.com/forum/iphone-sdk-development/52235-address-lat-long.html - Core location geocoding

Google maps API Docs (Inc geolocation, directions etc)

-          http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/reference.html - main API ref

-          http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/tutorial.html - google maps’ "hello world" tutorial

-          http://code.google.com/apis/maps/articles/tutorial-iphone.html - Basic iPhone tutorial

-          http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/geocoding/  - Geocoding API

-          http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/reference.html#DirectionsRenderer – Help with google maps API Directions Renderer

-          http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/services.html#RenderingDirections – Further help on rendering directions

Help Sites (Stack Overflow etc)

-          http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5533958/google-maps-api-v3-geocode-javascript-if-json-value-exists - Accessing latitude and longitude in JSON response

-          http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2177548/load-json-into-variable - Loading JSON response from google maps API into variable/object

-          http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5729902/getting-a-json-response-into-variable - Loading JSON response into an object in javascript

XML and JSON Tutorials

-          http://www.w3schools.com/dom/dom_nodes_get.asp - XML DOM and Attributes

-          http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/netfxjscript/thread/29a2f351-5bb2-4edd-ac19-c2e4d3b6f4d0 - Parsing XML Info

-          http://binodsuman.blogspot.com/2009/05/parse-xml-response-in-javasript.html - Parsing XML

-          http://think2loud.com/reading-xml-with-jquery/ - Parsing XML using jQuery

Other Research

-          http://jquery.com/ - jQuery homepage

-          http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2010/04/a_pixel_is_not.html - "A pixel is not a pixel" (mobile browser issues)

-          http://www.romdas.com/technical/gps/gps-acc.htm - GPS accuracy

-          http://www.gps-basics.com/faq/q0121.shtml - Factors influencing GPS accuracy

-          http://www.vecteezy.com/Vector-Icons/14975-Free-Google-Maps-Pointer-Icon - Google maps marker image

-          http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2292820/css3-support-in-mobile-browsers - Mobile CSS3 Support

-          http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5834915/html5-form-submission-issue - forms and javascript

-          http://mashable.com/2009/01/15/the-future-of-web-apps/ - Information on the future of web apps and design

-          www.html5canvastutorials.com – HTML5 Canvas tutorials website (used in canvas experiments – on CD)

-          http://happyworm.com/blog/2010/08/23/the-future-of-web-apps-single-page-applications/ - Creating single page tabbed web apps

Final portal design - still needs some tweaking!!

This is my final design for the twenty exhibition portal - it still needs some tweaking and actual text included (currently the text is almost all placeholder stuff)

http://fruitfulcreations.co.uk/exhibition_portal/final_design/

I also created this image between college work sessions - this is a small copy (sized for a 1080p widescreen desktop):

Last portal prototype

This is my last prototype for the college exhibition portal.
Once one is chosen I'll go back through and re-colour, clean up and finish it all!

http://fruitfulcreations.co.uk/exhibition_portal/prototype3/

Back to work!

Interview with Industry Professional

Today I interviewed Gary from Studio 74 Creative Design, a company offering both print and web design services in Midsomer Norton.  I found the conversation very interesting, and it has given me some much needed information to start out freelancing on my own!

I asked him what his position in this business is, and what his job entails - he told me that it is a two man outfit and he is largely a designer, but his job can involve almost anything else involved with the design process, including keeping contact and meeting with clients.

I then asked how difficult he found it to initially break into the industry.  His answer was luck, he said that he had a million and one jobs before he began working in design and just happened to be in the right place at the right time!  Many employers want to see a portfolio and most people coming out of college have similar lists and types of work - but it apparently can help to show ingenuity with things like idea books - these can show what you are capable of doing!  He started off doing very basic work and gradually worked his way up, then set out on his own.

My next question was relating to rates and what to charge - to which he replied "whatever you can get away with!".  He told me that it also depends on your overheads - also generally the more experience/more time you have spent in the industry, the more you can charge for your services, but a good starting point is 15-20 pounds an hour.  He told me that rather than state a per-hour rate, it is often better to charge a set cost for the job, but to specify a cut off point so it cannot be dragged out.

I then went on to ask him about networking and its advantages and he told me that he doesn't actually do very much!  He did suggest that Creative Bath are good for the breakfast events and other activities, but many of the events aren't specifically for designers and you can often end up being one of a minority!

My penultimate question was if there are any common cons or pitfalls that I should look out for in the industry.  One that immediately came to mind was people pulling out halfway through on long jobs - the solution to this that he suggested was to charge 50% up front for bigger jobs.  This gives both the designer and client an incentive to make sure that the job is completed.

And finally I asked if it was better to advertise or have business cards.  He told me that business cards are often very cheap to have printed, and it can be helpful to keep some about in case a job or potential client comes up - but the best advertising is by word of mouth and is often better than other types!

Busy busy bee!

I've had a busy day or two!  Close to finishing most of my work now!  Spent last night and some of this morning working on some prototype designs for the exhibition portal, here's my two ideas at the moment:

http://fruitfulcreations.co.uk/exhibition_portal/prototype1/
http://fruitfulcreations.co.uk/exhibition_portal/prototype2/

Such original names ey?  Prototype 1 and Prototype 2!  Wow, outside the box!

To offset the disturbing un-imagey-ness of my blog this week, here's two versions of a funny thing I created in illustrator from a design I made a while ago now, it's going to go on the back of a set of playing cards in UV reactive ink...when I can afford it!!

Right...back to work!

Freelance work

I did have some freelance work lined up - the work I bid on was editing photos!  Unfortunately, when I found out more about the job, I decided to decline for moral reasons.  Without going into specifics, the client wanted some photos doctored, and the nature of the doctoring made me wonder if the activity was perhaps supporting a mental/personal issue, or possibly something less legal.  I thought hard about it, and decided to withdraw my bid/services.
Back to looking!!

Re Skinned App

I have re-skinned my html5 app - tested and it works quite nicely on phones and PC alike - I have constrained it to phone-like proportions even on PC (as it isn't intended for pc and doesn't work as well due to ip-based location being terrible!)
So here is the current re-skinned version complete with much more smooth and curvy looking logo!

Final submissions for design contest

Spent most of the afternoon/evening doing work for college, set aside an hour to finish these designs for the design competition I entered on 99designs - so here are my two submissions (the only difference is text positioning)

Star Test Render

A further design I've been working on for the design competition - the brief given was very vague but thankly my first submission prompted some comments and they uploaded so more images for me to look at - this is a test render of something I've spent an hour or so working on for that this evening.
Turns out that they may be looking for something more towards tribal art - something which I've been doing for years!
Now I really should go to bed - still feeling quite ill with this bloody cold ¬.¬

Competition Entry :)

I entered a competition on 99Designs today - it was to create designs for the front and back of cheerleading contests in america (admittedly not my usual sort of subject matter, but I found myself browsing the competitions with few or no entries and the brief jumped out at me*).
Here's the entry:

 

Here's the link to my 99designs page - unfortunately as this entry was for a closed competition, this design won't be in there, but a previous entry from a competition is!  (Unfortunately not a winning entry)

My 99Designs Profile Folio

Right!  Back to work on essays and projects!

Edit:  I almost forgot, I have also applied for this freelance job, which was advertised on the freelance.net website:  http://www.freelancers.net/freelance-jobs-creative/201104/34257.html (so fingers crossed!)

*not literally that would break the laws of physics....gah...stuff jumping out of computer screens...what do you take me for!!

Pretty much finished! :)

"IT LIVES!  MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Well that's what I'd be saying if I was Victor Frankenstein, but I'm not, so I'm not.
I have, however, pretty much finished my app!  I've called it "Take Me Home!" and it's now live on my site here:

http://fruitfulcreations.co.uk/takemehome/ 

There are a couple of things that need tweaking - I need to save the logo in a web-safe format and colour set for one thing...and need to test it on more smartphones! (in theory it should work on anything that can parse html5...but knowing how web design usually pans out I don't really want to chance it without testing first!!)

While I'm at it, there is altogether too much text in this blog right now and far too few images!  So here are some photoshop jobbies I've done in the last week or so to offset things a little :P (anything to take my mind off javascript to be honest!)

Woop Woop!

I think I'm starting to get the hang of this now!
I've been trying to learn from the google API examples/recommended code while keeping it my own (obviously a lot of the rendering and direction finding code is largely google tutorial based though) and now it sort of works!
Need to finish the little bits of code that need doing, then I'm going to sit here with a smartphone next to me for an hour or two and try and get the formatting right so it looks nice and sexy!
Without further ado:
http://fruitfulcreations.co.uk/geoloc_2/AddDirections3.html

It now resolves your position, geocodes your typed destination and then renders the map - I placed the call for the route calculator function in the first part of the map rendering code because it seemed more logical than attaching it to another button.  Unfortunately two are required - if there is an issue with the geocoding or geolocation queries they may return slowly or not at all - if they returned slowly and everything was on one button the map/route calculator (which relies on variables populated with that data) would not fire and would possibly produce an error.
I will be linking up the second one so it will only display if the geolocator/geocode works if this turns out to be possible though! :)

Happy times!!

Quick morning edit!

Here's that map app (ha that rhymes) with a map showing - currently will be centered on the position resolved as your current location (which if you're on a PC is almost definitely incorrect, but it's made for smartphones!).
Now that I've gone quite delightfully mad, hopefully by the end of today I can have the directions working! :D

http://fruitfulcreations.co.uk/geoloc_2/AddMap3.html

Geolocation and Geocoding

This week I have mostly been working on...the joys of geolocation, geocoding and geomyheadisexploding.
It's so research and coding intensive!  So far I've had to learn the basics of parsing json data, a wee introduction into XML parsing (before I abandoned that line of enquiry) and all sorts of fun things involving the google maps api (and associated stuffs).
On the bright side, check out my working prototype! (No map yet, just your positioning data!)

http://fruitfulcreations.co.uk/html5_geo/WorkingTextPrototype.html

Right, now I've gone insane...off to go lick the wallpaper now!  BYE!

Freelance work - Party Flyer(s)

Today I have created some fliers for a local party later this month, parodying a well known psy-trance evening in bristol called "tribe of frog".
In order to fulfill this request, the parody logo had to be very close to the original - this took quite some time experimenting with fine details (I had to render each letter individually and then rasterise them and edit small parts where letters joined etc).
The client was present through much of the process and was quite happy with the finished product!
The first image is the main print, and the second is the front for the double sided copies (the back for double-sided being the first image!)
Here are the images:

Game Design Render from Blender

These are renders of my orange brights style character, I rendered images from a few different angles, and then rendered a video - which rendered at around a frame a minute...for eighty frames!  Not good!!
May still need a little work though!

More video work

I just realised I haven't posted here in over a week!!
Was ill through a lot of last week, so didn't get much done - have been working on editing together a prototype version of the FDA promo videos for Helen, although Alex seems to have more of a flair for the editing side of things than me - he's done most of the positioning/cutting, I've mainly been helping out with the overlay and animating the names etc - during the next few days I will be handling customising the youTube channel and doing any other bits that need doing while lending a hand on the editing where I can - it does seem like quite a difficult job to do for more than one person!
This whole placement project has been a mahoosive learning curve!!  Started with very little actual knowledge of making videos in this sense, and now (a month and a half later) although my knowledge of the subject isn't exactly universal it's definitely much more concise than it was before!!

The youtube channel is here: http://www.youtube.com/user/fdavids1 have a clicky and take a look at the prototype copies if you like!  THEY AREN'T FINISHED!! :P

Another test render

In the process of creating my final character for the blender project - spent most of today making this one!!  It isn't finished, I still need to finish the shapes, add string, animate the propellor and texture it all!  But here's how it's going so far:

more blender funge!

created another little test render using blender today...don't think i'd be able to submit this one to the competition in the brief though, it looks a little too evil...

Haca Presentation

I'm not really in the habit of blogging presentations and the such, but I'm happy with how this one is looking (if a little dubious about presenting it and how that will go).  The brief specified that I should think about different media when presenting - so I decided to attempt a paper based presentation.
As it was a presentation of my visual research, I decided to create a set of images - similar to powerpoint slides - that I could put in front of the class (on a table?).  It's looking like I may have to back it up with a powerpoint, or maybe transfer the images to one...not sure yet, but here we go! (may seem irrelevant as I haven't included the cue sheet that I made for myself with what I will be talking about to each slide!!)

Enjoy!

A little bit of html 5 experimentation

One of the things on my todo list at the moment (alongside placement and assignment work at least) is to make the "work" section of my website look much nicer and neater.
Follow this link for an experiment I am working on to make the images section a lot less clunky looking (as that flickr plugin is useful but looks terrible!).
It is a really simple piece of javascript - it creates the normal function to display images etc on the canvas, but the function is set up to be passed a variable.  Each different button passes a different number, which is added to a variable containing the path and basic filename with the extension.  This means that each time a list item is clicked the canvas redraws with the relevant image.
I eventually intend for this bit of script to also:
-As preloading images would present an issue for load time, a loading animation and script
-Hold a caption
-Be clickable and use document-write to open a large version of each image

I am also going to use a very similar format (using video tags instead of canvas) to clean up the video section of my portfolio also.

Time for bed now...too tired.

Meetings and Craziness!

Had another meeting today, confirmed lots of fun things with Helen, like our rough schedule and the time we have remaining, along with the other ideas etc about the videos.
Unfortunately the time we wanted to book the studio is not available, so I've got us pencilled in for different times which are unfortunately later in the evening - if it turns out not to be ok it's only pencilled in!! :P
Ahh there's so much more involved with this project than just a bit of video...if only it was that simple!
Mustn't grumble though!!

I have now fixed the google chrome issue with my website - it turned out to be something really simple in my CSS that was causing a conflict in chrome...which is now done!  But that does mean that now it is visible I really need to find a nice clean jScript slideshow for the videos/movies (as the flickr one looks horrible and my video page is just a page full of videos with the dreaded scrolling!!).

Fun times!!

Work work work!

Spent the first half of today working on my research essay for the Historical and Critical Appreciation (I think that's what HACA stands for!).  I spent a few hours knee deep in the web reading about homogeny of design (think: IKEA) and finding designers who actively oppose globalization (think: Banksy).
Then I had a meeting with Helen Foley about the placement project, lots of discussion there about locations - I had a quick look in the glass and jewellery workshops with her, both locations seem quite positive and usable!
Then I cracked on working at making a prototype of what the video layout could look like - needs a lot of work and we will all be putting forwards our ideas in a meeting tomorrow - here it is:

It's supposed to be in a different aspect ratio (it's a 1080p hd image) so ignore its squishy appearance!!
Now I'm going to go pull my hair out on the wonderful bus journey back to Midsomer Norton!

Blender work and Placement insanity!!

I discovered today that the placement I am doing (although it is at the college) needs to be treated the same way as a full placement - ie I should be working full stop on that and not on other college work.  I wondered why the workload seemed quite insane, needing to spend 8 hours a day for 10 days on it makes complete sense, and I'm starting to wonder if I should be keeping a work diary!
So far we have:
Recorded the Principal talking about the fda courses in general
Created some sketches to show the overall look (will be making some prototypes tomorrow)
Walked around the main college building looking for suitable locations for filming
Had several meetings between ourselves and Helen Foley (who is in charge of us on this placement)

I have also been learning to use blender (which is a 3D modelling and animation program) and today I created this little nugget of random while learning to animate:

Anyway, that is all for now as it is Valentines Day and I want to spend some time with my other half!

Research time!

I've been working on research for my self directed project and turned up this really useful list for anyone else who needs to use html5 in web or app development - also a bit of CSS and jQuery in there too! :)
http://designshack.co.uk/articles/css/holiday-wish-list-15-web-design-books-youll-want-for-christmas

I also turned up the recently unveiled html5 logo!

I'm not totally convinced by the style or appearance of the logo!  Visually, I like the logo - it is simple, easy to remember and is bright and catches the eye.  My issue is that as a logo for such a forward looking specification, the bulky, sharp appearance seems quite "retro" reminding me of the logos and designs I used to see on old cardboard boxes holding engineering and scientific tools from the 60's and 70's.

Anyway back to spending masses on html5 books... ¬.¬