personal development plans

switching from blogger to tumblr

2010-09-25T13:08:00.000+01:00

hi folks.

for various reasons –which i shall elaborate on, when you start back again– i've decided to switch the blogging software that we use from blogger to tumblr.

this blog will still remain on the intarwebs as an archive and i'm working on the best way of importing posts from here to the new PDP blog but, in the meantime, if your creative juices are flowing and you're working on a post, can you save it 'til next week and then we'll get it uploaded to the new PDP site.

also, this year we're expanding the PDP blog to include the FD graphic design & advertising and FD jewellery & applied arts courses as well. this should please some of you who've asked us in the past whether you'd be able to see what people on the other pathways are up to.

the new PDP will be at: http://mancol.tumblr.com

cheers!

stíobhart

BBC

2010-09-22T19:20:00.001+01:00

With the big move to Manchester, BBC are going to have a huge amount of opportunities for new jobs. So I thought I would get myself right in there and apply. I had to go through an application, once I was successfully through that stage, I had to complete an online test. It took over 2 hours and had to be done in our seating. It was timed and quite tense if I am being honest. Felt the pressure! Well a few weeks later I received the email explaining I was successful, hoorah! So, now it's just waiting for the right opportunity to open up...

All abroad, the last train home...

2010-09-21T21:28:00.002+01:00

I have been contrastingly thinking about films, docs and animation over the summer (plus placements..) Anyway I was wondering did anyone saw the doc on 14th September, Last Train Home by the talented Lixin Fan.

This documentary was set before the Beijing Olympics 2008 and is based upon migrant family and their each year struggle against other 130 million migrant workers and the rush to get home for Chinese new year.

This captures not just the society hardness of working and living in factories to make money but the camera doesn't stop when the family has arguments, which creates the audience feel a little uncomfortable.

Cyrus - the moooovie

2010-09-16T11:51:00.001+01:00

I took a little trip to Cheltenham this week with work (adidas) and what a very quaint place it is. Very lovely. The Tuesday evening we decided to go the cinema with Cyrus being the chosen film. I'd actually not heard of the film and for some reason the word Cyrus signifies horror to me. I was wrong. It was a comedy and a very good one at that....

To cut a long story short - it's about a guy who meets the woman of his dreams. Her son however has other plans. He doesnt want to lose his mum and so sets out to break them up...

That quick plot makes it seem very cliche and over done but it was acted in such a wonderful and intimate way that it felt like no other film I have seen. It was shot in a very indie style. Hand held cameras and quick zoom ins - almost like a documentary. This made the film seem very real and as if we were watching in on their lives. It was actually extremely effective. The length of the film was perfect. Sometimes a film goes on for that little bit too long. You start looking at your watch wondering when the credits will roll. Not with this one. Another major bonus point for me was Marisa Tomei who plays Molly. She had the most incredible hair. It was big, curly and full of wonderfulness. I found myself falling in love with it more and more with each scene. Super it was. And as for Cyrus - I'd go far enough to say, one of the funniest characters I've watched in a film this year. Timing was spot on, and his facial expressions were epically priceless.

This film ticked off many of my 'you know its a good film when...' boxes;
- I laughed...out loud!!
- I would pay to watch it again.
- I would buy it on dvd.
- I rein-acted some of the scenes with my friends afterwards for sheer comedy.
- I loved each of the characters.
- I remember all of the characters names!!!

I think this could be a marmite film. Audience split down right down the middle of love or hate it. But personally...I am partial to be a bit of marmite!

Physical colour picker pen

2010-09-15T13:37:00.003+01:00

So there must be at least a few of you here who have seen 'Total Recall'? ....remember that scene where the receptionist is using a pen to pick colours from a palette and then painting her finger nails?

Behold.....that future is nigh!

RGB concept colour picker pen

Can you guess what I am thinking?

2010-09-14T11:10:00.002+01:00

Google is always expanding, growing and quite frankly taking over the world. Whenever is there a day that does not include 'yeah I'll google it' or 'I don't know, why don't you google it?' I am rather embarrassed to say that I don't know what we did without Google. I somehow don't think Encarta or the Encyclopaedia CD rom scrubbed up to anything in comparison.

Today as I was using Google, its new feature suddenly forced me to sit back and think. Not only does it give you a drop down list of what you may want, it now also finishes the word off you are saying in grey and the huge list of results updates as you type.

This is very useful yes, however we are taking yet another step to finding things quicker. Everything has to be quicker, easier and simpler. It made me think, will there be a time where we just look at the Google homepage and it can guess what we are thinking?? We have to put our hands on the screen and it will give us suggestions of what we are looking for? It's all getting so fast paced that Google is quicker than we are to think. I find myself competing with Google to write my word down before they can finish my word in grey. I hardly ever win....

The future of Google interests me. I think I would definitely like to delve into this more and find how it evolved over the past few years....maybe I'll google it.

Inspirational Device

2010-09-12T19:32:00.002+01:00

Whenever I have a creative block or need some inspiration I always watch this very, very well animated little film;

Advert?

2010-09-09T21:31:00.000+01:00

Can't work out whether this is highly creative and fun or disturbing?! I dont think it makes me want to buy the drink??

Summer

2010-09-08T19:01:00.000+01:00

Hello folks!
Not long till we are back! Hope you all had a good summer. I havent put much onto the blog over the summer, I have been playing a lot of golf and Ive been in London a lot with adidas, but as any designer I never stop getting creative. So thought I would post a few pieces of work I have done.

My friends dad has a driving services company and he asked me to create his logo and letterhead. I made around 7 variations of this but here is one of them.

For my friends 21st, I created a save the date invite which I think I posted a few weeks ago. Well it was time to create the final thing. We went for the drinks timeline design;

I also did a lot of work for my Secondary Schools PE Department. Every year I do their timetables, posters and other design work for the department. I have included all this in my printed PDP.
I have sent a lot of emails to companies regarding internships but didnt get much positive response. I had one interview with a company which I was offered the job however it wasnt what I wanted. It was far too technical and over an hours drive away so it seemed silly to accept it. The interview however was great experience and it allowed me to collate some of my work together.

I researched into courses for third year too nd I have narrowed it down to 3!

Hope you enjoy your last few weeks off. See you soon in our big shiny new building!!!

completion of work

2010-09-07T18:54:00.000+01:00

URGENT!

you should be aware –because we've told you often enough, in person and through emails– that you cannot pass the first year of your course, unless you have completed all the units.

the deadline for having all work handed in was monday last week, as you were all informed on at least two occasions by email. the absolute latest, down-to-the-wire final deadline ever ever is tomorrow [8th september], before 10am. we are having a meeting with the exam board at MMU later that day, where we pass them the list of names of who has or hasn't completed all units.

anyone who has not completed all units by 10am on 8th sept will FAIL the first year and not be allowed onto the 2nd year!

there is no way round this. it is not anything your tutors have any control over. at least three people we know of still have work outstanding. i will not embarrass anyone, by naming any names here, but if you are one of those three people. you MUST get your work in to us at the fielden park campus by tomorrow before 10am, or you will not be able to enrol for the 2nd year.

Azur and Asmar: A Prince's Quest

2010-09-02T12:57:00.000+01:00

I saw this film last week, it's the kind of film i'd loved to have seen growing up along with other fantasy films like Labyrinth, Krull and The Thief of Baghdad. It's about two guys (one caucasian, the other middle-east asian) who grow up together under the same carer; who tells them stories of an old myth about the Djinn Fairy and how she promised to marry the person who freed her from her glass prison.

The boys become rivals from the get go, each claiming to to seek out the Djinn Fairy and free her. What follows is that journey....

This film is another from director Michel Ocelot, whom also made my previously reviewed film 'Kirikou and the Sorceress'. The style is very much the same, however, this film has been created in 3D and the use of bold colours with almost no shadows at all gives it a vectorised look.

I'd say that it probably wasn't a great film worthy of a dozen awards because it looks pretty good and the story is about average, but this is the kind of film that I would want to show my children. What I really love about Ocelot's work is the message that it carries, both this film and the Kirikou film contain an important (and simple to understand) moral message which the storyline ultimately drives towards, and I hope that he continues to make more films like this in the future.

They are French movies dubbed into English so unfortunately there are other works of his which are available only in the native tongue (without subs) and I hope that the various film councils and committees out there will be able to bring those works to us.
If any of you have access to the Sky Arts channels (they're free channels so should hopefully be on freeview, etc.) then keep an eye out as both 'Azur and Asmar' and 'Kirikou and the Sorceress' are often listed on rotation.

Photogram workshop

2010-09-02T11:43:00.001+01:00

On sunday I went to the 'Noise Lab' in Manchester as a magazine group called 'One Five Eight' were holding a workshop on how to produce photograms, initially I thought I was going to be the only one who turned up as I was sat alone for a while composing my first experimental piece, but when I came out of the dark room after producing my first piece a few more people had arrived.

It was quite fun, there was a good mixture of people my age and also children getting involved and when I was talking with one of the team in the dark room she wasn't sure if there would be enough supplies to last the whole day....in other words it was quite a success.
Essentially we were all sat around a long table with all sorts of items in bowls at its center, marbles, toys, light bulbs, stationary, buttons, and more random things which we could just grab and compose our pieces with and then one-by-one we took our boards (steadily...trying not to wobble the items on top) into the dark room to develop the photogram.

I have done a little work in a dark room before, when I went to college first time around about 10 years ago we had the chance to take a short course from a given list and Photography was one of them. During my time at high school and also this college I had been refused the opportunity to study anything art related because the curriculum forbid both music and art to be studied together and I was forced to choose one....so I jumped at the chance to do some photography. It was a lot of fun taking photos and then developing our negatives into actual prints in a dark room.
Sunday's workshop reminded me of this.....

As we each put together our pieces we had to wait until the person currently in the dark room had finished before we could then do our own again, I had put together another wreckless piece whilst waiting for my turn again but because the wait was so long I decided to wipe the board clean and create something properly. At that moment when I was looking for things to use I spotted a toy lion and an image from a video game sprung to mind, so I decided to make a piece relative to that. I quite like how it turned out.

Step Up 3D end credits...

2010-08-21T16:09:00.000+01:00

Me and my girlfriend went to see Step Up 3D (Yeah yeah,I know...tisk tisk) but to my suprise the end credits are pretty insane!The graphics flowing from the dancers is awesome!The colours that are used are quite bold which was brave but the film is quite colourful anyway.

I'm still trying to find out who did the end credits...it's a lost cause so if anyone knows,please let me know!All I know is the film is directed by Jon Chu.

I've always found breakdancing interesting because of the way they move and the positions they get themselves into are abit surreal.It's like they have no spines.I tried to find an example of the end credits sequence but seeing as the film has only been out about 2 weeks I don't think we're going to find one on the internet yet.

Leeds Festival 2010

2010-08-17T18:45:00.000+01:00

Also,I'm off to Leeds Festival next week and will be posting a review or 2 or maybe 3?!?!Who knows!

Anyway,I've already asked Karl if anyone is up for meeting up when I get back in 2 weeks?Go for a few drinks or whatnot?He said he's up for it!

I do not know if anyone will read this as it seems that nobody has posted anything for a while.Shall be in touch anyway!

Hope you're all having a good summer :-)

1st bit of work!

2010-08-17T18:39:00.004+01:00

Gots my first bit of work outside college!

My girlfriends sister is getting married and they've asked me to design their save the date/invites and help with building a website!

:-)

My very own...

2010-07-15T19:57:00.001+01:00

DOMAIN NAME!

www.chrisjcrawley.co.uk

Aren't I special!

I applied it to my Blog.In the middle of editting it all.Don't be suprised that it looks plain right now.Still working on the colours and layout etc etc on Dreamweaver.

Placements etc etc...

2010-07-15T19:50:00.001+01:00

I've just finally got my arse into gear and contacted about 10 studios asking about placements/shadowing and client briefs for the next project!

How's everyone else getting on with all of this?

PS: It was the World Cup's fault for me not doing this earlier...Not mine!Honest :-)

Childhood impacts - Definative cartoons

2010-07-14T15:51:00.000+01:00

I've always believed that the imagery, music and stories that you're subjected to in your early years are an major part of what goes into making up personality, and being a film fan since an early age i've always considered those things to be the original source that ignited my imagination and creativity.

I often like to think back and remember some of the things that I found exciting, inspiring or magical at the time and revisit them to see how I feel about them now. I might do a few posts relating to this on different themes, but my main reason for this post was that I have recently been reminiscing about the old Hanna/ Barbera and Warner Bros. cartoons that I used to watch as a kid and I wanted to narrow down some of my favourites.
Unfortunately they don't seem to show a great deal of the old classics thesedays which I think is a shame because the kids watching cartoons now will be missing out on some of the earliest and greatest animations.....then again, this may just be me being an old geezer.

Anyhoos, in the pursuit of trying to think which was my favourite cartoon I remembered numerous shorts of Tom & Jerry, Bugs Bunny, Popeye, the Donald Duck WWII propaganda cartoons and others. I also recall a favourite which featured a futuristic house with buttons everywhere to activate things....i'm sure Elmer Fudd or Sylvester was in it....

....But....

There are two cartoons in particular which have always remained with me, and I managed to find both on YouTube. I'm not surprised watching them again why I loved them so much, it makes perfect sense.

The first is a Popeye short called 'Big Bad Sinbad' from 1957, and as the title suggests it is themed around Sinbad the Sailor. I realise seeing it now why I liked it so much, i've always loved the old arabian Sinbad movies (,'Thief of Baghdad', etc.) and the cartoon captures the mood (in particular the music) perfectly.

The second is quite possibly my favourite cartoon of all time, it is a Tom & Jerry short from 1945 called 'Mouse in Manhattan' and in fact doesn't feature Tom hardly at all. Watching it again now I feel just as inspired and enchanted as I did all those years ago, and I realise that one of the reasons I love this cartoon so much is because i've always liked the look of New York in the 50s....the styles and sounds relating to films such as 'On the Town', 'How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying' and 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'.
Once scene in particular, the broken candlestick and the dancing with dolls, is one that will always stay with me.

A post for me

2010-07-14T15:01:00.001+01:00

Just to remind me of something I want to look at more and then maybe a review
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/artblog/2008/may/14/art
It is cool though take a gander!

A love letter for you

2010-07-14T14:19:00.003+01:00

No not really, but that is the name for a wicked mural project in Philladelphi. Headed by Steven Powers aka ESPO it is a love letter painted on the walls facing the Market elevated train painted by 40 local and international artists (street/graff) and signwriterS.

It is a brilliant project of cool, typographical signs and street art, creating visually and mentally stimulating messages along a particulary grim and derelict section of trainline. I think hats off to the local Philly authority to have the insight to commission these murals.......apparantly it is mural city! But because of this love of murals they seem to have much less problems with illegal graffiti......this is maybe something the British Transport Police should be looking into.

What is really cool is as well as the obvious influence for the project from 1950's advertising, the messages are quite thought provoking, but the direction of the train travelling has also been taken into consideration and this determines how the typography appears....on the site the pictures of each mural say whther they are best viewed east to west or west ot east. The use of colour is also a big consideration and a lot of thought has been given as which pigments work best and which will be diminish more in the sun. This is something that all graff artists take into consideration...well the good ones anyway. They will consider which paints mix with each other e.g. if you mix belton chrome with molotov piglet pink then it will run!

I think this project gives an insight to the consdierations taken when creating a good mural and how it will interact with the people viewing it and the landcsape it lives in.

Pictures and articles as below....check check it out!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.aloveletterforyou.com/?page_id=198
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/apr/18/graffiti-philadelphia-street-art-signs

Camera???

2010-07-08T18:44:00.000+01:00

Hello people,

Hope you are all enjoying your summer.

Stuuuuuu, I was just wondering whether we can loan out HD camcorders over the summer?

Cheers muchos.

half time!

2010-07-01T09:38:00.000+01:00

well, folks. here we have the final league tables for the end of the year. but remember - it's a course of two halves. so there's plenty of time yet for those of you languishing in the relegation zone to drag yourselves to safety. the girl pemberton-platt done well and has opened up a healthy gap at the top, but it's a tough old game and there's a long way to go yet.

remember folks. it's a marathon [infographic] not a sprint.

Ni hao!

2010-06-25T13:50:00.012+01:00

Hi everyone!

I came back from my trip to China two days ago, and wanted to share with you guys some of my snapshots and tell you a little bit about the experience.

Amazingly, I've managed to beat the jet lag this time, which was a nightmare once I got to China...

My trip was amazing, a great experience that confirmed me they are so many little worlds in the world we live in. Also, it was great to live with a traditional Chinese family (my friend's) because I got to discover so many things about this interesting, yet peculiar culture. Unfortunately, I couldn't communicate with her family, which was sometimes a little bit hard and uncomfortable.

The town my friend lives in is really far from the big city called Shenzhen, therefore probably the 80% of the population who lives there has never seen a foreigner before, so when my friend and I went out to the market or to do some shopping EVERYONE STARED at me, as if I was some kind of weird animal, or a celebrity?...Anyway, I couldn't feel more uncomfortable!!

But then, we went to Hong Kong for the last four days of my journey. And that was beyond amazing! Finally, I felt like I wasn't the only foreigner on earth, it was a relief!

Hong Kong is stunning, the streets are filled with colours, lights, millions of banners and thousands of people from everywhere!

I witnessed the most beautiful night spectacle called 'the light show' which consists of lighting

up all the buildings of the Hong Kong bay accompanied with music (see the picture below). It was breathtaking!!

The weather was boiling and sticky, we couldn't sleep without the air con on, which caused me 3 days of a nose cold...

Anyway, I'm back to Manchester now, yesterday I went out and the weather was just Perfect! I'm finally going home tomorrow and I really can't wait!

Okay then, I think that was pretty much all, I could keep writing for another ten pages but I gotta go, I need to pack (AGAIN!!!) and get everything ready for the Majorcan Summer!!

It was very nice to talk to you guys. I wish you a lovely (and hopefully sunny and warm) summer! See you in September! Xxx

I leave you a small selection of my pictures!

hidden snaps

2010-06-24T12:31:00.002+01:00

hi folks.

great night last night. the boys [and girls] done well. here's some snaps i took last night, just in case anyone's having difficulty remembering:

some more. hot off the presses, from helen's iphone:

Work experience

2010-06-23T00:23:00.002+01:00

Those of you who follow my random amusements on facebrick or twatter might have noticed that I was ever so slightly crapping myself about my interview yesterday regarding some work experience. It went alright....I didn't crap myself.

It's a studio in one of the old 'Cottonopolis' renovated mills in Ancoats going by the name of 'Studio Distract', they seem to focus mostly on 3D animated projects but claim not to specialise in any one medium and they also do film production and interactive work.
When I arrived the team were sat together on a sofa watching TV and the studio owner pulled up a bean bag for me to sit on, in fact they were actually in a production meeting watching back their footage to date (a 3D animation for kids) and he asked if I could just wait and watch until they had finished. It was a good 30-40 minutes that I was sat there but the experience of observing this process was good to see, they were playing through the sequence shot-by-shot and picking out elements that needed to be reworked or tweaked....right down to the very finest of details.
It was just like the presentation days really....

Once they'd finished this and made a list of things that needed to be done, the various tasks were distributed amongst the team members and then they were off. At which point I had my meeting with the owner, we basically talked about where i'm at and he decided that instead of just spending a week in the studio shadowing people on their current project it would be better for me to be on-call as I explained that i'll be free for most of the time until the 2nd year begins. So what they're going to do is let me know when there is something specific happening on particular days (such as video production, motion capture, animating, etc.) so that I can come in and get involved.....this way I can get a more varied experience into the different areas.
I'm particularly looking forward to seeing the process of motion capturing as this is something i've been trying to find out about recently with little luck, he was telling me about this new kind of sensory suit they use which means that you don't have to mess around with those blobs on all the joints.

I had picked up all my work from college before heading to the studio so he noticed the big folder that I was carrying and asked me if I wanted him to have a look at some stuff, I just showed him one of my work books and some mood boards telling him the process in which we've been working and I asked a few questions in relation to it to see how they as professionals do things....this was pretty interesting and he gave me some pointers which made a lot of sense to me.

So it went pretty well initially and i'm looking forward to getting involved.

Not so sure if i'll be much use with any of the 3D aspects although I think they use After Effects to animate so that could be interesting as i'm quite confident with this now. I am at the moment trying to learn the very basics of 3D though so it could be worthwhile seeing some of the process in action....hopefully if I can get my head around the basics then I may incorporate this into my 2nd year work....where appropriate.

FOXY ZERO BINGO ADVERT

2010-06-14T12:32:00.001+01:00

Has anyone seen the new Foxy Zero Bingo Advert that's been on over the past week or so?

I really like the idea of an animated mindmap.I'm sure I've seen something similar posted on here before?Maybe they got the idea from Youtube because I think that's where I've seen something simlar too.

Good idea with the way they've animated it though.Very creative!

REVIEW: SOCCER AID 2010,ENGLAND vs REST OF THE WORLD (2-2,6-7 PENS)

2010-06-14T12:12:00.006+01:00

Last week I was 1 of the many 65,000 people lucky enough to attend Soccer Aid 2010.The atmosphere was fantastic.They said the atmosphere would be similar to that of the World Cup.I've been watching the World Cup this week and they are indeed correct.The atmosphere was very similar considering we left the match deaf due to the ear wrecking noise of those Vuvuzelas.

We got there and it was heaving inside and outside the stadium.Everyone was jumping about cheering and there was this 'Buzzing' feel to the whole event.Luckily when we went to get our tickets it wasn't too bad as we were one of the first there and had to wait about 15 minutes for the tickets to print.2 minutes after we started queuing though,the queue was outside the door.Good timing some would say.

There was plenty of food to go round with those burger and hotdog vans all over the show outside the stadium and inside the stadium there was the take away 'McDonalds' look-a-like bars which sold alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks and plenty of food.You weren't stuck in the department anyway although the prices were steep which was to be expected in somewhere like Old Trafford so bringing your own food was probably advisable.

Leading out England was Tottenham Hotspurs manager Harry Redknapp followed by the legends that are Bryan Robson and James Corden (both legends in their own right...1 a comedian and the other a former United footballer) and captained by Robbie Williams.Rest of the World was lead by Kenny Dalglish and Ian Rush and captained by the great actor that is Michael Sheen.

ENGLAND SQUAD: Robbie Williams (CPT) David Seaman (GK), Ben Shephard, Nicky Butt, Bradley Walsh, Alan Shearer, Damian Lewis, Jamie Redknapp, Dominic Cooper, Martin Keown, Jonathan Wilkes, Teddy Sheringham, Jamie Theakston (GK), Ricky Hatton, Paddy McGuiness, Olly Murs, Ralf Little

REST OF WORLD SQUAD: Michael Sheen (CPT), Henrik Larsson, Brian Lara, Jens Lehmann (GK), Gethin Jones, Ryan Giggs, Gordon Ramsay, Zinedine Zidane, James Kyson-Lee, Sami Hyypia, Joe Calzaghe, Luis Figo, Mike Myers, Nicky Byrne, Patrick Kielty (GK), Shane Filan, Woody Harrelson, Simon Baker

The match itself was brilliant.To see the likes of Figo and Zidane play the way they do on the pitch was a feeling in itself if you've never seen them play before.You have to hand it to GMTV presenter Ben Shephard,who was on the England squad,after those amazing tackles on Figo and Zidane.I think anyone would love to boast about tackling 2 world class footballers.I know I would.Another classic moment was comedian Patrick Kielty,the Rest of the World goalkeeper,dribbling round Teddy Sheringham and then Sheringham giving him a kick up the arse for it.

Not only was the match entertaining but they also had half time entertainment from some of the top football freestylers of the world juggling the ball and dancing away to music.

I'd say the highlight of the match was the penalty shootout.I lost count of how many penalties were taken...20-25 maybe?My star player would have to be Jamie Theakston who was in Goal from the second half for England.The guy was unstoppable,stopping attempts from the likes of Henrik Larsson and saving about 5 penalties in the shootout with some world class saves.I think Capello might want to re-evaluate his goalkeepers?!

Even though Theakston was a star in goal...England still lost 7-6 on penalties.Woody Harrelson scored the winner for the Rest of the World which in itself was a little bit surreal.

The biggest winner was,however,how the event of Soccer Aid raised over £2 million for Unicef.

apropos of nuffink...

2010-06-12T19:00:00.001+01:00

my mate andy's latest video. pretty funny i reckon:

collecting your work

2010-06-10T12:27:00.002+01:00

calling all first and second years!

2ND YEARS: can you all make an effort to come in and collect your work ASAP [ie. previous projects, sketchbooks etc. - obviously not the stuff you're using for your end of year shows]. as you know, we'll be moving house to fielden park campus during the summer, so any second year work left behind will most likely get binned.

1ST YEARS: we will strive to make sure any 1st year work left behind is taken to fielden with us. but you know how things tend to get lost when you move house. so, for your own piece of mind, it's probably best if you come in and collect it - just to be on the safe side.

cheers!

websites??

2010-06-09T20:32:00.005+01:00

I was thinking that I should go into the real world with my own website but as I don't know anything about this process...where to get one...which one is best....but looking for something I can add flash animation. If anyone got idea where to purchase a site all ideas welcome...thank you.

Also does anyone know if we are in any other days this week or next :?

Top-up failage

2010-06-08T23:23:00.004+01:00

I've been having a little shufty around the video games courses offered by MMU and Salford University over the last few days, and i'm a bit concerned at this stage to be honest. I've e-mailed the course leader of the MMU course to ask for some general advice and offered a little bit of information regarding my situation that he might be able to comment on, the concern is regarding a top-up year.

Based on the information provided on both university's websites, it seems that whilst the first year of the 3 year course covers the general principles of design they also teach a basic grounding in programming. So i'm assuming that they wouldn't accept any foundation students bypassing this and going straight onto the 2nd year.....but i'm not sure which is why i've enquired about it.

I've been looking at some profiles of people on LinkedIn who work in games though and quite a few seem to have come through via other pathways, so it's still all out in the open.

The main concern is that the media courses seem to be focused more towards television broadcasting....a bit too detached from where i'm wanting to be.

Website

2010-06-08T21:50:00.000+01:00

So tonight I have been working super hard on editing my website. I felt that having pages for all the separate parts of my portfolio wasn't working. It didn't look very professional and the images were very small. The resolution therefore was to create a PDF file to download, I think its much more effective and shows off the work a lot better! I also created a media CV - I have been meaning to do this for ages because my other one is loaded with sporting achievements etc. When applying for media jobs, they aren't interested in all that.

I also intend to add a section for 'sketchbook'. However its getting late and if I dont turn my mac off soon, I will never catch any sleep.

So take a look, see if you like the improvements... www.kittypp.tk

Dear everyone...

2010-06-08T20:53:00.004+01:00

Nice to meet you all, hope you all go on to do great things! Kitty and Rob, you'll probably take over the world some day. Sara I'll miss your spanish lovelyness! Carl, you were really cool, I'm gutted I didn't get to talk to you more! And to everyone else, thanks for all being nice people. Teachers too. I hope this course i'm going on is everything I hope it is! Ta raa!!! Sarah-Jayne. X

The lone nut

2010-06-08T16:14:00.004+01:00

Recently I setup a facebook group for Kung Fu film fans in my area of Greater Manchester, it's something that i've been planning on doing for a few years now. The aim is to get a proper group website organised but I am using facebook to rally numbers initially, if it takes off and quite a number of people join then i'm hoping that people will be encouraged to start up screenings and events. But at the moment the numbers aren't growing and no one is passing on the word.

It is quite de-motivating when you don't see the numbers change at all, and also when fans who do join the group don't tell others about it....i've started putting up adverts for it on places like Gumtree and i'm going to hit some of the martial arts film forums and plug it there also. Hopefully that will generate some numbers for it.

However, my brother showed me this video earlier on of why I should persist with it even if the numbers don't grow for a while.....because they will grow eventually.

Watch it, it's quite amazing how the trend catches on after the third person joins in.

oh, and if you know any peeps in the area who are into martial arts movies....do us a favour and tell 'em to join the group. ;)

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=128924747134055&ref=nf

end of year shows

2010-06-08T11:50:00.000+01:00

hi folks.

just to remind you; the second year's show are coming up pretty soon now. please go along if you can and give them a bit of support. remember, this time next year, it'll be you lot!

12 JUNE - "PUSH" @ the CONTACT THEATRE, OXFORD ROAD.

Is Anyone Out There?

2010-06-08T11:23:00.003+01:00

Peoples have seemingly forgotten its presentation day thingy today. Its 11.25 and its only me and Rob in. I payed £6 to get here today,ON TIME and I really CANT AFFORD IT. So do I wait and waste another hour of my life I wont get back or do I go? I don't even know if we have to come in anymore after today. I'm pretty gutted about this, but as the teachers arnt even saying anything maybe no one cares so maybe i'll just be going then. Bye.

SOCCER AID 2010

2010-06-05T14:16:00.002+01:00

Tomorrow is Soccer Aid 2010 which is held at Old Trafford,THEATRE OF DREAMS!It is going to be rather amazing to see the likes of Zidane,Larsson and Sheringham playing. Hatton and Calzaghe are also playing which should be interesting.What a good day that's going to be.Can't wait! I shall post a review early next week.

REVIEW - IRON MAN 2

2010-06-05T14:15:00.000+01:00

What an amazing film!I'm into my Marvel films at the moment but the Iron Man series is without a doubt my favourite.

Usually in the comics and annuals that you read,Tony Stark is portrayed as this cocky arrogant over confident guy.This is what Robert Downey Jr acts as in the film,but in Iron Man 2 there is a different side to Tony Stark that is revealed.Basically,he is shown to care about things including the world and the very few people that are in his life which is a moralistic thing that people can look up to.

I don't think there are many other actors that could have executed the role of Tony Stark like Robert Downy Jr does.He has this 'cool' look about him with his swagger and attitude and it makes people think "I want to be Robert Downey Jr/Tony Stark!".Well,if it didn't with you,it did with me and a few other people I know.Even girls are saying they want to be 'Iron Woman'.

On another note,if you like your fast paced chases,bullets flying everywhere and explosions like there is no tomorrow with a hint of beautiful women then you're in the right place for that recipe.

In Iron Man 2 Tony Stark feels the pressures of the government,press and the public to hand over his armour for military application.He then embarrasses Justin Hammer for failing to replicate the technology Tony Stark has produced.While all this is happening,the arc reactor that is keeping Tony's heart beating is poisoning his body at the same time with the palladium and slowly killing him.Believing that he is going to die,Tony then goes off the rails and hires Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) as the new CEO of Stark Industries and replaces her with Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson).Tony Stark is then attacked by Ivan Vanko,son of a disgraced scientist who collaborated with Tony Stark's father with the first arc reactor,while racing in Monaco.In a vengeful way Justin Hammer hires Ivan Vanko to help him create an army of 'Iron Drones' to get revenge on Tony Stark at his own 'Stark Expo' where people can show off their new inventions.The 'Stark Expo' idea came from Tony Stark's father.

Tony Stark then decides to get drunk and throw a party in his Iron Man suit where Lt. Colonel James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) puts on the Iron Man Mark II suit and subdues him.Rhodes then takes the Mark II suit to the military where they customise and arm it with heavy weaponary.Disgraced, Stark is approached by Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Samuel L Jackson) who hands him a chest of his father's items to find the cure for his polladium poisoning.In the chest he finds a clue and cures himself by creating a new element.With this new element Stark creates a new arc reactor for his chest.

As this is happening Hammer is showing off his new army of 'Iron Drones' at the Stark Expo captained by Rhodes in the Mark II armour.It is later realised that Ivan Vanko has control of the drones and the Mark II armour.Stark arrives in time to fight off the Drones while Natalie Rushman,actually Natasha Ramanoff of S.H.I.E.L.D. go to find Vanko and take control of the Drones and Rhodes' armour.Rhodes and Stark then destroy all the Drones and take out Vanko.Afterwards S.H.I.E.L.D. tell Stark that they don't want him and don't think he is suitable for them but want him as a consultant.

After the credits it is seen that agent Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D. is driving to a crater in the middle of New Mexico Desert, and then on the phone to Nick Fury saying "Found it!" meaning they've found the hammer of Thor.

Overall I thought it was a good storyline with a beginning,middle and end which is obviously leading to the release of 'Thor',one of the next installments of Marvel films.

Hello

2010-06-05T00:02:00.000+01:00

I'm still ickypoo, and I was wondering what's going on next week?

Heyooo

2010-06-03T10:17:00.002+01:00

Ok, so for a while now, my blogger has been playing silly and not letting me upload files but I am back in business and boy I've been busy....

My friend is turning 21 this year, and has asked me to design her invites. First of all she wants a 'save the date' card to send out. Her theme was 'Forever Young', and as she was born in 1989, I decided to go with a retro theme and create imagery from the 90's. Here is the final piece which will be turned into Fridge Magnets...

A guy I know has a friend who is getting married and he wanted to make their card extra special. He asked if I could draw him the bride and groom if he gave me some specifications, for e.g. trainers and fencing sword etc. He also stated that he wanted them in the style of my Death Becomes Her characters. Here are the final little guys...

Finally, I've got myself back onto the world wide web and got my website up and running. Go have a look and let me know what you think;

www.kittypp.tk

Well its been sweet speaking to you guys again, I've missed you. Xxx

Just a heads up...

2010-06-02T22:46:00.003+01:00

I have a stinking cold!! My throat has been so sore today, and that means for the next two days I'm going to have a horrid cold, if by some miracle my body breaks a habit of a lifetime and I'm wrong, I'll be in tomorrow as good as new! If I'm a no show, I'm bed bound =( S-J

Luther Title Sequence

2010-06-01T21:10:00.002+01:00

Evening blog rats.

I don't know if any of you lot have been watching the excellent new BBC show Luther but it's very good and you should. The last episode is on right now so you're probably too late though. It's a psychological crime thriller and stars as the main character Idris Elba who played Stringer Bell from The Wire, and if you're haven't seen that there's really nothing i can do for you. This is the title sequence. Pretty nice innit.

league tables

2010-06-01T11:56:00.002+01:00

OK - this is a bit belated, as i forgot to do a league table at the end of may. but hopefully with a bit of judicious editing of the post-date, i can shoehorn it neatly into place:

Manufactured Landscapes

2010-06-01T10:53:00.002+01:00

I watched this docu-film yesterday called 'Manufactured Landscapes', it was basically a display of the work by a photographer called Edward Burtynsky who captures scenes affected by technology. Mainly in China.

It's quite an interesting to watch if you get the chance, but if you can't be bothered then i'll just post the intro to the film which is what I found amazing. It's just one continuous shot from one end of a factory to the other showing people working, but it goes on forever....it's like that factory from Indiana Jones which goes on for miles.

I wonder how long it'd take to get to know everyone working here?!

....I realise now why everything has 'Made in China' written on it. WOW.

I just looked this up and it turns out it won a few awards, if you have access to the SKY Arts channel then it's currently doing the rounds on there....so have a ganders.

Also...

2010-05-28T20:43:00.000+01:00

What's happening next week??? And Echi, did it all get sorted?

Hehee

2010-05-28T19:56:00.001+01:00

Just to get all you peoples jealous... I be writing this of my boyfriends iPad! Which I'll probably be using more than him... Mwahahaaaa!

Philips

2010-05-26T19:28:00.000+01:00

Another one you guys may appreciate. I saw an explanation of this advert in the Metro - under the D&AD section and defo wanted to check it out when I got home. Again, insanely brilliant.

And I'm sure you'll now want to watch, the making of.....

Nike Advert

2010-05-24T11:30:00.000+01:00

Even though I am against Nike (I work for adidas) this advert really blew me away. The amount of effort, thought and work that went into creating it is insane. The whole idea behind the advert is about what goes on through players minds when they play football. Will they be a hero in their country or bring mass devastation. There has been a huge buildup to this very long advert, and its finally released. The big problem however, is that one of the players that is featured, Ronaldinho , is not playing in the World Cup anymore. Like it says on the Creative Review website, that makes the advert seem HUGELY out of date immediately. Big companies like this obviously plan months and months in advance for an advert of such size, but this is an example when forward planning is not a good idea!

one for the retro gamers

2010-05-22T13:10:00.000+01:00

apparently it's the 30th anniversary of the release of the original pacman game. if you go to google's main page today, you'll see a playable version of pacman in place of their usual google banner:

infographics revisited

2010-05-18T18:34:00.001+01:00

i just stumbled across this on the intarwebs. a cross between an infographic and a stop-frame animation. i hate to think how long this took to make!

EDIT: i've just discovered there's a whole series of these animations. you can find them here. i love 'em!

THURSDAY AND FRIDAY SESSIONS

2010-05-18T16:22:00.002+01:00

How-do folks.

Just been chatting with Alex and she says we all need to be in Thursday and Friday mornings to find out important stuff about the interactivity of this brief.

See you there blog monkeys.

Much love

x

2010-05-16T16:48:00.002+01:00

This is crazy, pure clever. By a dude called Doug Cunningham, who has taken an album and animated to it, with pure surrealism and some clever ideas and at times a complete leave of reality! I really like the soundtrack and the use of different styles (old hip hop characters) on collage type backgrounds and embedded films. Really cool, you need 45 minutes of pure concentration to give it justice and need to watch it a few times to really appreciate it, but definitely worth a watch. Be warned it has the marmite effect but I am a fan!

Brilliant animation

2010-05-14T16:56:00.000+01:00

No more MMU sessions

2010-05-14T13:30:00.002+01:00

Just for those of you who didn't turn up to this weeks MMU lecture (all of you!), we have now finished our lectures at MMU.

"But Robert, according to my chart we have a speaker coming in from Factory Records next week...."

Oh yeah? ....well, in what felt like a disappointing repetition of last weeks general election we had a vote. Either we come in for the guest talk from Mr. Factory Records....or we stay home and get on with our assignments for Mike (which in translation = skyve). Of course I was screwed over again by my fellow students and I was one of only three people who voted to have the guest. Cheers.

So that's it....bye bye MMU.

Team logo

2010-05-14T11:42:00.002+01:00

Me and Karl for obvious reasons, decided to call our team........."Northern Monkeys" and this is my idea for a team logo! what do you think?

Light Night

2010-05-13T18:06:00.000+01:00

First of all - has anyone elses Blogger change? How do you add photo's now? Hugely appreciate feedback about this...

Back to the blog, check out www.culture.org.uk and have a little look at the Light Night evening. Its being held tomorrow in Liverpool. Its where Liverpool opens up after hours and has a mix of art, performances, music, shopping and culture.

Really seems exciting. You may want to pop down.

Liam Spencer review

2010-05-09T14:42:00.006+01:00

The other day I came across this artist, and hiswork really impressed me.

Liam Spencer was born in Burnley (UK) in 1964.

He studied Fine Art at Manchester Polytechnic, graduating in 19

86. After living and working in Manchester for many years, he came to public attention in 2000, with an exhibition "Urban Panoramas" at the newly opened Lowry arts centre in Salford.

When I first saw his work I just couldn't believe that they were oil paintings. His work is based in paintings of cities, mostly by night.

In my point of view, they are photographs perfectly converted into paintings. I find so interesting the way he didn't miss a detail, i.e. car lights, traffic lights, the wet floor of the street,the colours... It is just unbelievably well done.

He has done paintings of many different cities, including Manchester, New York, China, London and Istanbul.

Twisted Nerve

2010-05-06T00:45:00.002+01:00

I was a bit irritated about todays lecture with Richard Haynes, not regarding the guest himself because I found his talk very interesting and actually quite scary in way...because of how someone with skills like his could be out of work. In particular I found his point about the difference in frame rates at Cosgrove Hall and Aardman quite amazing....

....but I was irritated. Each pathway has had a guess speaker come in and talk about the different challenges they've faced over the years.....Animator, Photographer, Jeweller (took place at Northenden apparently), Graphics....and todays final speaker was a New Media Designer. Or rather....it was meant to be. It wasn't though....it was another animator.

I know that animation is a part of my pathway but this speaker was mainly concerned with animation using plasticine and models....not new media.
Still, I suppose this assignment for Mike will give some idea of the tribulations of a new media designer when I delve in there myself....but it would have been nice to have a guest speaker.

Review Richard Haynes, today's speaker.

2010-05-05T20:01:00.002+01:00

Richard Haynes 05/05/10

Richard Haynes is an animator and illustrator who mainly works in stop-motion animation.
He has always been passionate about drawing and acting, so he thought animation was perfect for him. He did Art in A-levels, and a Foundation Course where he produced a live action film at the end, which helped him helped him entering the Degree course he was applying for: Arts Institute at Bournemouth. There, he specialised in traditional drawn animation (stop-motion). At the end of the Degree he did a final film called The Typewriter - which couldn’t be longer than two minutes.
Richard showed us the rough animation he did on Christmas 2002 and then we saw the final one, made in June 2003.
He sent the film to the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France, and thanks to that he is working in the industry, as he met a producer from Cosgrove Hall.
He told us that the producer liked him because of his way of presenting himself, he pointed the fact that this job it’s all about meeting people.
Cosgrove Hall proposed him to do model animation, which was a challenge for him. He did little animations for kids called: Little Robots. Richard told us that every tiny model cost thousands of pounds!
He worked for them for five years. Now, Cosgrove hall has closed, because of the recession.

Recently he’s been working in Aardman Studios, where he has been working in Shaun the Sheep for 8 months.
Richard said that with Aardman everything was very different because when the contract ended, he knew he had to go find another job.

He showed us some of his showreels, which contained a lot of model animation, such as Shaun the Sheep, The postman Pat, Little Robots, Squidge and the Hardnuts (computer and model animation), etc.
I asked him if he had ever created the puppets, but he said that his work is just focused in acting and performance.

Haynes told us that what he likes about stop-motion animation is its believability, the fact that the characters actually exist, and children love that. So do I!

Mike asked him if he thinks Manchester is a good place for animation development, and Richard said that Manchester has been fantastic for him and that it has a good future in animation. He also said that in the BBC there’s a lot of animation going on.

I enjoyed very much this talk, Richard was very enthusiastic and you could tell he love his job.
I am not sure if I am going to do animation in the future, but this talk made me think of an animation technique I’ve never thought before: model animation, and the fact that you don’t need to be good at drawing to do that.

Noise festival get invovled

2010-05-04T09:39:00.003+01:00

At the weekend I thought it might be time to go through the degree work and sort it, and I came across this postcard advertising the Noise festival.

Heres a little about it:

NOISE Global Creative Community.

NOISE is a global creative community, offering emerging artists their own online galleries to showcase their talents, as well as opportunities to have their work viewed by industry leaders across many disciplines.

NOISE offers a space for artists to shape their own online creative communities, building support networks, and exposing artists to like-minded creatives from around the corner or around the world. NOISE recognises and rewards outstanding talent across many fields of creative endeavour, so NOISE artists benefit from the feedback of their peers and industry professionals.

I don't know if there is an age limit as it says young emerging artists, and on the postcard says 25 and under

anyway its good place to get noticed and its world wide.

la liga - otra vez

2010-05-04T09:16:00.002+01:00

sara has threatened me with a UEFA enquiry, if i dinnae update the league table immediately to reflect the fact she wrote TWO reviews last month and not one. so here ya go:

Creative Boom Liverpool

2010-05-03T19:28:00.002+01:00

Hi guys,

Today I became the Editor of Liverpool Social Boom! Hooray. I am very excited about building the site and making Liverpool a much better city to network in.

http://www.creativeboom.co.uk/liverpool/contributors/

We do advertising on the website. The Creative Boom main website gets over 225,000 hits a month!!! The Liverpool hub is quite recent and so its my goal to make it huge. There are hubs for cities all over the uk, including Birmgingham, Manchester, Cardiff etc.

I would love if you guys could attend the next Social Boom. I know a lot of you have joined the group, for those who havent please do;

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=114862175214553

Doritos Ad

2010-05-03T19:25:00.001+01:00

Like Rob said below, I also decided to create an advert the evening before the deadline. I filmed Thursday eve for an hour and then edited on Friday. At 11.45am we discovered that the deadline was lunch but I finished the edit anyway for my own portfolio. Only a quick little thing but was very fun to make;

league table

2010-05-03T11:37:00.000+01:00

hi folks. it's that time of the month again:

Doritos King of Ads

2010-05-02T17:43:00.002+01:00

Well....if you were in on friday then you probably saw mine and Kitty's gutted faces when we found out that the deadline for the competition was at midday and not midnight as I could have sworn (in fact...I did swear) that i'd seen when I read the brief...twice!

So as you've probably gathered I missed the deadline, I would easily have been on track to submit for midnight but it turns out that when I got home the internet connection was down so I wouldn't have been able to submit it anyhoos.

Even though I didn't get to submit it, this quick project was fun and it has been a bit of stepping stone as it made me test my time planning skills. It's been a confidence booster.

Doritos 'King of Ads' 2010 - unsubmitted piece from Robert Shaw on Vimeo.

After our infographics presentation on Thursday I made my video public on my vimeo account, I couldn't believe it when I logged on today to find that it has already recieved over 3,500 views! ....bonkers!

Virgin Media Shorts

2010-05-01T13:00:00.002+01:00

My fellow bloggers, I know there was some buzz about a comp brief to create a advert but for those who missed out I found out there is a new brief for those passionate media seekers.

Virgin has launched a comp (supported by the uk films council) to find the next best thing since slice bread.

http://www.virginmediashorts.co.uk/

the deadline 28th June so theres loads of time to correct and work on this brief.

Here's what's up for grabs:
12 film makers win a chance to show their work on 214 cinema screens nationwide
1 lucky winner lands £30,000 to make their next film.
1 People's Choice winner takes home thousands of pounds worth of new film kit.
Plus, we reward the college or school with the most entrants with loads of shiny new kit, too.

So enjoy...

MAPS in the Northern Quarter this weekend

2010-05-01T09:11:00.002+01:00

Alright blog rats.

Just a quick heads up for any of you kids wandering what mischief to get in to this weekend.

MAPS is a music and art festival going on in various venues in the N.Q. right now!!!

Here's their artwork.....

And here's some stuff about them....

I went down last year and it was pretty good, loads of new music and artworks and general merriment.

Here's the website....

http://www.myspace.com/mapsfestival

So if you're sat at home twiddling your thumbs and watching repeats of Friends on E4 and wandering what's going wrong with your life STOP NOW!! and get into town.

Reviews

2010-04-30T18:41:00.005+01:00

Two reviews I did about High and Low culture in make up advertising (VRF).

On this first advert, the make-up brand Rimmel London promotes a new lasting finish foundation. For this campaign they have chosen a worldwide model, Kate Moss.

The technique used on this advert is “collage” which gives an informal touch.
The collage is made out of three overlapping photographs of the model; the photos actually look like they have been cut out from a magazine, as they are not properly cut. The product they are selling has the same style, it also look like a cut out.
This effect actually makes me think of a corkboard, where someone has displayed pictures of models and celebrities he likes.

The typography used for the slogan Foundation stays put, colour holds true is also very informal, it looks like a label. Usually this kind of display typography has a black background; here they have chosen to put a red one to make the label stand out. When I look at the advert the first thing I spot is the slogan and the product which is at the foreground.
The other slogan Face the day is wordplay, as face has two different meanings, face as confront and face as features, and the second one is obviously associated with the foundation. I think what they want to promote is a foundation aimed at self-assured girls. Kate moss’s poses and look confirm that, in my point of view she’s a hard-featured woman and on the photos she always looks strong and self-assured. The clear message they want to come across is, “if you want to have a London look such as Kate moss, buy this Foundation”.

Also, the box that contains a description about the product is not very remarkable. It’s located on the left corner of the advert, and the size of the typeface is really small, and I think it would be the last thing I would look at. Even The brand Rimmel London is so much more noticeable than that, which is why I think they have displayed the description box just on top of the brand, so when you look at the brand you immediately spot the box.

On the second advert, Dior Skin promotes a foundation called Nude Natural Glow Hydrating Make-up. The image of the campaign is the Italian actress Monica Bellucci.

The advert looks simple. Just two elements are put together on a black background, the model and the product. It’s not an elaborate advert.
Since the model and the product fill all the space, the advert has a straightforward message.

There’s a lack of slogan or text explaining the product, or even the name of the foundation; everything you need to know about the product is on the bottle, which is on a bigger scale for the customer to be able to read.

Monica Bellucci appears to be nude, such as is stated in the name of the foundation, Nude.
On the picture she seems to be sat down and just a part of her shoulder and leg are showing, she insinuates but doesn’t show anything, which gives an elegant effect.
She stares at the viewer with her deep and suggestive look, which she uses to convince the customer to buy the product.

The lighting is really smooth on Monica Bellucci’s body, she seems to have a spot light behind her, which makes her hair looks luminous and the contour is very sharp, that makes her stand out from the black background. The product also has a smooth light that clearly defines it; we can guess what the materials of the bottle are, glass and shiny metal.

These two different adverts clearly reflect High and Low Culture.
Rimmel London’s advert is directly aimed at teenagers and is more casual and edgy. The composition looks a little bit too overcharged, too many things are put together and you don’t know which one to look at first.
Dior’s advert, would be more aimed at women, it wants to reach an older and more sophisticated public.
The advert has a finished look; it’s pure and denotes perfection. No slogan or text is needed, when the customers buy Dior products they perfectly know what they are buying, whereas in Rimmel’s campaign there’s a lot of text going on explaining why you should buy this product.
Also the name of Dior’s foundation is much more elaborated and appears to be much more luxurious: Nude Natural Glow Hydrating Make-up, whereas Rimmel’s one is more straightforward: New lasting finish foundation.
The style of the bottle also makes a noticeable difference. Dior’s bottle is delicate, luxurious and elegant. Whereas Rimmel’s bottle is made out of bendable plastic, also it seem to be small which comes handy if you want to put it in your hand bag.

In my point of view, the boundaries between High and Low Culture are quite clear in these two selected brands. However, in Rimmel’s advert they could become a little bit blurred, because this brand has chosen a very well-known British model to promote their product, which could reflect High Culture. Apart from that I can’t see any element of Low Culture in Dior’s advert.

Contextual studies sessions

2010-04-29T00:14:00.002+01:00

Just a heads up for people considering a few weren't at todays guest lecture (which was a graphic designer by the way, a change from the scheduled jeweller) that next weeks session will be a New Media designer.....and also Dave Haslam (if he can be arsed coming in).

Please also note that due to a miscalculation in room bookings we will be having our lectures in room 101 probably until the end of the year now, this room is just to the right of the escalators when you climb the main stairs. It's pretty small, but the desks are actually parallel to the floor unlike those wonky ones upstairs.....

- Doritos update: Less than two days to go, i'm in pre-production but going for a very basic look so I should be animating tomorrow. At this point it's looking very unlikely that i'll do it in time.....

Doritos King of Ads

2010-04-28T00:58:00.002+01:00

Just a heads up for anyone who is still interested in this thing, the deadline is midnight (or rather, a second before midnight....pedantic bleeder!) this Friday so if you're submitting something then you'd better get that zimmer cracking!

I tied up all my loose ends for certain other project last night at 3am so I only read the Doritos brief for the first time this morning, I really wish I would've done something proper for this a while ago because a few of us were viewing some of this years entries earlier on and there aren't actually all that many which really stand out. I'm still viewing the latest entries at the moment in their different categories but so far it seems that the vast majority of submissions haven't even bothered the read the brief....which is a bit of a shame considering that 30% of the marks come from sticking to the brief.

Kitty pointed this one out to me and I think all of us were agreed that this is the best one that we've seen so far, it's very creative and but i'm still not sure that it stuck to the brief. There must be some absolute crackers out there surely?

It also appears that a lot of people are going down the amateur video shoot feel in their living rooms to mimic the 2008 winning entry. Poor show old bean, poor show.

I'm going to try and produce something for it depending on how the week goes, I did some research today and also took into account the celebrity judges panel and what I think they might be looking for individually. I have one or two ideas so I will try to rack my brain and get one of those into order tomorrow, a 29 second storyboard shouldn't take too long.....which would leave me Thursday and Friday.
Will I do it? .....hmmmm.

Presentation box

2010-04-28T00:41:00.003+01:00

A little pre-presentation teaser for you. This is a box I made for my infographics brief, it's styled on the old 80s Atari game boxes to catch the eye of those who remember them.

Essentially the same imagery as my presentation board but displayed in a different way, allowing for a choice within different environments. And also introducing an interactive element for people to browse the product at their will.

adidas

2010-04-27T17:05:00.004+01:00

Apologies for the radio silence this past week. I’ve been in London at the Marathon Exbo with adidas. I’m a foot specialist on the running team there and I had an amazing week! I managed to get a few quick snaps of the set up to write a review about the visual design.

I arrived on the Tuesday and got straight to setting up. When you attend places like these, you completely take for granted the amount of effort that has gone into creating the look. We had to do everything from, dressing the mannequins to putting the adidas stickers on all of the boards etc. It took a good 48 hours to finish but it looked super when it was all done. We had a massive space, and the designers had to make sure it all matched and that it created an iconic look and feel to adidas. The ways in which it did this was;
- the colours. There was a common feel of blues, greens and blacks. This gave the exbo a very futuristic look. Which I think was to make adidas look modern and up to date with all the latest technology (which we are!!)
- the typography. adidas uses the same typography over everything which again emphasizes the iconic look for the brand. The font is very simple, bold and easily legible. It also has connotations of fun and youth. Again, these are all words that adidas would also use to describe their brand.
- the shapes. There were so many shapes and movement in the set up which made it look extremely exciting and interesting for people who walked past, for e.g. the footwear circle, the micoach stand etc. It wasn’t just a basic set up with footwear and apparrel laid out. If anything, it looked more like an obstacle course which obviously fits in with the sporting genre.
- Extra props. They were little extras that added to the overall look of the place, for e.g. colourful bean bags, bright wardrobe boxes. These may seem small but they definitely made the whole room seem much brighter and fun.

We also had a blank wall which was for kids to write on, and on the other side of the room was a bigger wall for adults to write their ‘impossible is nothing’ quotes. This was hugely popular. To the point were people were lining up to write on it, and the doodles went all the way around the room instead of just on one board. This shows how popular interaction is. People love to get involved and place their mark.

Micoach is adidas’ new personal coach system which plays live audio feedback into your ear when you run. This particular product had its own stand and feel to it. There were big tv screens projecting a film throughout the day. Using mixed media like this made the audience more involved and again made adidas seem much more hip and up to date.

I felt very proud to be part of such a great design set up. There were a few points I wanted to put down of things that I appreciated. The little things that people forget but as designers we need to remember;

the stickers for all the logos
the colour of the floor and the material, for e.g. carpet? Wood? etc
the interaction for people
the banners
everything overhead
the colours
the shapes of the furniture
seating
lighting
signage, for e.g. ‘pay here’. Different ways to present this.

I really enjoyed my week, and I loved our set up. Visual Merchandiser? Mmm...too many possibilities of careers.

STUDENTS - 8 TUTORS - 0

2010-04-27T12:57:00.003+01:00

I'm referring, of course, to the number of students from our group who came in to school today compared to the number of tutors. I didn't actually count the students that came in but i'm guessing it was about 8, but the number of tutors was definitely ZERO.

Attendance must improve tutor folk, or the lunatics will take over the asylum....

SAVE OUR DYING KIND ROLF HARRIS..

2010-04-26T16:10:00.003+01:00

Rolf Harris attacks the Government for failing to support animators
The cartoonist Rolf Harris has attacked the Government for failing to support the British animation industry.

Published: 7:30AM BST 06 Apr 2010
The cartoonist Rolf Harris has attacked the Government for failing to support the British animation industry.
Harris, the Australian television presenter is widely remembered for shows including Rolf Harris's Cartoon Time on BBC One, said the Government was failing to protect the “rich heritage and wealth of talent in animation in the UK”.
Although the British animation workforce is one of the most recognisable worldwide, with successes including Thomas the Tank Engine, Bob the Builderand Wallace and Gromit, the industry has halved in the last five years.
Harris, who turned 80 last week, said: “I feel I have an empathy with those working in animation, probably because my first job on television was drawing cartoons and, later, one of the most fulfilling programmes I did was ‘Rolf’s Cartoon Club’.
“It saddens me to learn from my friends in the animation industry that business is disappearing overseas, due to lack of Government support here. There is such a rich heritage and wealth of talent in animation in the UK.
“Many other countries give tax support in this area and it’s a great shame that more isn’t being done here in the way of tax incentives to match those given to the film industry. Let’s enable the home grown UK animation businesses to compete internationally.”
Animation production in England has fallen from 84 per cent to 28 per cent in the last five years, although the world’s animation industry has risen to an estimated 70 billion pounds, according to Screen Digest.
Harris, is patron of the newly formed group Animation UK, a new campaign to preserve British animation, joins a growing call to protect British children’s programmes.
One per cent of the 113,000 hours of children’s programmes broadcast last year were new commissions made in Britain, according to a recent report by the House of Lords which expressed concern at the increase in imported programmes on British television.
Oli Hyatt, chairman of Animation UK, “As a child, I used to love Bagpuss, The Magic Roundabout and The Wombles. As a country we are great at producing children’s animation. But over the last five years, over 50 per cent of the industry has dissapreared because it is so much cheaper to commission animators outside of the UK, like India and the US. Unless some action is taken, here’s a real risk of British animation disappearing altogether, which would be a big loss culturally and economically.”
The organisation has called for tax breaks, like those in Ireland and Canada, and a Government-backed animation fund.
Save English animation
SIR – The English animation industry is at a tipping point: it either survives or dies.
Thomas and Friends, Bob the Builder, Noddy and Wallace & Gromit are all programmes that have turned England into a recognised centre for animation. However, within a matter of years, we will not be producing any such fantastic properties as a result of tax breaks and government incentives in other countries.
As a group of broadcasters, production companies and animators, we are calling for the Government to put English animation on a level playing field with the rest of the world. We must remain competitive and change must come soon, before talent leaks abroad, taking the industry with it.
The Government spends millions on educating some of the best talent the industry has, only for them to ply their trade abroad, lured away by the promise of jobs. Animation has contributed millions to the British economy. As an industry that has a heritage that we can be proud of, it would be unforgivable for it to disappear from England.
The Government has the ability to save the industry. It has already put in place a system to support film-making; it can do the same for animation. We hope that come 2012, the year of the Cultural Olympiad, we still have an animation industry we can be proud of.
Oli Hyatt
Founder, Blue Zoo Productions
Gregg Lynn
Managing Director, Chapman Entertainment
Howard Litton
Managing Director, Nickelodeon UK
Miles Bullough
Head of Broadcast, Aardman Animations
Jeff Dunn
CEO, HIT Entertainment

Documentary about the History of Pixar Animation

2010-04-25T22:21:00.002+01:00

Documentary about the History of Pixar Animation and a look at the First Years of the Pixar Animation Studio.

http://www.icefilms.info/ip.php?v=103059&

HOMAGE OR STEALING

2010-04-25T17:31:00.002+01:00

SIMBA/KIMBA

You may remember the Great Disney picture, Lion King of 1994 and you all must have been excited to meet all this fresh new characters unless you was living in 1960's Japan watching the animated series. Kimba the White Lion then your probably thinking...... wait a minute.....

see the comparisons on the video below ......

TOON THOUGHTS ! ANIMATED MOVIE PREVIEW 2010

2010-04-25T02:49:00.010+01:00

SHREK Forever After seems to be getting Bad ratings...Already..... in the USA

I Remember SHREK AND SHREK TWO vividly in my mind but hardly remember Shrek Three..all i remember is Justin Timberlake was a voiceover , right ?

what happened to the series..?

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON - doing well in the states. i watched it two times on the IMAX at Odeon. and i loved the movie..The story....the character design...even the score in the movie was great...............the way there used 3D wAs ALSO Top-notch..especially on the Dragon Sequences and the Final Battle With the Queen Dragon at the end..VISUALDELIGHT..but...except the ending which kinda left me freaked out just the last 2mins....

Dreamworks are also releasing a new movie - called MegaMind-- Ive seen the trailer and it looks alright to me. i love the voice-over of the main supervillian, Megamind, hence the title of the movie and he is voiced by Will Ferell....... Brad pitt will play a super hero called Metro-Man MegaMind's nemisis and Tina Fey will reportedly play as star reporter Roxanne Ritchi and Jonah Hill is playing a character called Titan. the movie will be similar to Monsters vs Aliens from my sources..

Disney's New Fairytale is called Tangled..a new name which Disney has said that there want to try to appeal to "BOYS" ...hahaha...good luck with that...will be hard when you are based on a fairytale called Rapunzel when everybody knows thats a princess movie. however i will give it a chance. i like the prince in this and i think hes got a good personality going about him so ill look out for this one.

i did like the Disney's The Princess and the Frog that was released a while back. loved the characters, the settings and scenery of New Orleans and i especially loved the Villian in this movie who is called Dr Facilier and the Prince of the Story, Prince Naveed , was also a great character in the movie.

Monsters Inc looks like its having a sequel.. I liked the First one so i hope there do well with the sequel.. and speaking of sequels..in just a few months. Toy Story 3 will be in our screens. im looking forward to it.. new story..new challenges..new characters and new jokes to laugh about..i can't wait.

PICKS FOR BEST ANIMATED FEATURE 2010. at this very moment. How to Train your Dragon wins hands down....................... 98% on Rotten Tomatoes review Site............

I LOVE What dreamworks has done with this movie and it deserves all the praise it deserves...

no-matter how much money Shrek makes, the critics judge if it deserves universal praise and from the looks of things. it may flop but you never know.. that's the magic of show business. it may win people than first thought........e.g James Cameron's Avatar....... All lies on how Toy Story 3 does, (and not to forget Megamind and Tangled thats coming up) it has had a cult following for about a decade now..and it has a real chance to impress so I hope it doesn't pull a Shrek this time because I want Toy Story 3 to do well...

P.S Why wont there be a Incredibles Sequel-- i'm begging ya...lol...

2010-04-24T19:52:00.002+01:00

If two of the biggest companies want to offer you a job in there department..which would you go to?

( Based on the company's films in the last 10 years)

Walt Disney Animation Studios

Dreamworks Animation Studios

Guess who?

2010-04-22T15:46:00.003+01:00

ok peeps, since all my project files were at home I didn't really have much to do today....well, apart from research for the new brief....or stuff for Mike....but lets face it, it's the transition period....we can't be arsed!

Anyhoos....I thought i'd have a bash at the air-brushing thing, i've not done it since our lecture with Stio. Peeps kept coming round seeing what I was doing and trying to guess whose face I was re-arranging.....so for those of you who weren't here today.....

"Can you guess what it is yet?"

Culture Popped

2010-04-22T09:40:00.003+01:00

Check this out kids.

It's a great blog filled with all manner of cultural mash-ups, from Star Wars propaganda posters to the trust-worthiness of beards.

Have a good scroll through coz there's stuff added everyday so there's LOADS of stuff on there, you're gauranteed to find smething to float your boat!

http://culturepopped.blogspot.com/

Global Warming

2010-04-21T07:48:00.003+01:00

Hello all, as you probably imagine I'm still in Spain, because of the volcano! I'm not gonna say it isn't nice to have a few more extra days at home, but well the truth is I hate missing college and specially missing the beginning of a new project.

Anyway, over the Easter break I've been working very hard on my infographics, and here is a proof of it (I think...).

As I said to Alex and Stíobhart I'm gonna post the animation so you can see I've done the work on time (sorry I couldn't post it before but I didn't have access to the internet till now!)

Ok..here it is..just enjoy it :) Hope you like it!

Global Warming from Sara Llompart on Vimeo.

NEW BRIEF - GROUP GANTT CHART!

2010-04-20T12:22:00.003+01:00

Picture of the group Gantt chart we did with Dave for the new brief "Manchester Postcards".

The Princess And The Bee

2010-04-17T02:33:00.005+01:00

An idea that popped into my head...

Original Sketch...

After my first go with the Wacom...

ALL HAVE A LOOK

2010-04-15T17:09:00.000+01:00

http://www.creativeboom.co.uk/liverpool/2010/04/15/social-boom-networking-launches-in-liverpool/?utm_source=Creative+Boom+Liverpool&utm_medium=twitter

Would be super great if any of you guys could attend! Let me know.

Errrm....

2010-04-14T15:16:00.003+01:00

Ok, so I know i should probably have this sorted by now but i haven't so SHUT UP ALRIGHT!!!!

Please let me know which of these styles you like the most---

THANK YOU!!

x

STIOBHART - OK so it wasn't 15 mins but not bad!!!!

2010-04-14T14:23:00.002+01:00

It turned out the clock on the microwave was faster than the clock on my phone, so 15 minutes was not an accurate time. So i decided to time it on the stopwatch on my phone on the way home. Here is my recorded time. OK!!!

Poster boards

2010-04-13T13:20:00.000+01:00

These are my poster boards to go with the Marathon Training inforgraphic (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kACLdMiOUn0). They are printed on sweeeet glossy paper and mounted on board. They look beautiful.

I also created a downloadable PDF file with all the hints and tips I mention in the animation for people who want to keep a little wee copy for themselves!

Did I ever mention I am always early...

2010-04-13T09:31:00.002+01:00

I managed to finish my animation on Sunday after hours of tedious work! I popped it on youtube to get thoughts back from friends and family etc and apart from Rob whose comment states 'the narrator sounds like a wierdo ;)', the feedback was really positive. I have also sent the link to Runners World to see whether they would like to use it for their website;

I'm now just working on some post production work, I am designing a PDF file which would go with the animation that people could download with all the hints I mentioned in the animation!

sigh

2010-04-13T08:39:00.000+01:00

Creative Block :(

2010-04-13T01:34:00.003+01:00

I wish I had done one on how to cook a steak, bake a cake, in fact anything other than Robin Hood Tax!!!!!

I heart Liverpool

2010-04-12T14:12:00.001+01:00

Taking some photographs for a new Music Mag for Liverpool. It's just getting started, will let you know when the first edition says hello! Here are a few snaps from today; (all rights reserved to Kitty Pemberton-Platt)

I love Liverpool...no really, I do!

This last one is just for fun...

Sketchbook

2010-04-12T14:04:00.002+01:00

Here a few pages from my sketchbook, for the infographics brief! I think I've cracked getting my sketchbook style into the animation piece.

Flash - Will it endure?

2010-04-11T13:25:00.002+01:00

I've been hearing a lot about the forthcoming HTML 5 lately, and how it is supposedly going to retire Flash in terms of its career in web design. What makes me wonder is....will Flash still continue to be developed if only for the sake of animation and applet creation?

I remember back when Flash came onto the scene, we were on dial-up internet at the time and any website at all which used it didn't just take a long time to load (even images at that time took minutes to appear).....it completely crashed the computer. I hated it so much back then because browsing the internet was like playing russian roulette, trying to avoid the websites that may lead to another 15 minutes restarting the system. But as time went on and things improved we were able to see bits and bobs of it in action....I still remember the matrix-style animation which had everyone amazed with what could be done with it, especially when it became 3D towards the end.

And although it's been around 10 years since then, and technology has sky-rocketed into the age of gaming and social networking....Flash is something, in terms of web design, which still doesn't seem to have made it....with many web designers shunning it for its poor user accessability and choosing to keep their sites low key using languages such as Javascript, CSS and HTML to code them.
Whilst some sites can use Flash quite effectively and end up with a really stunning website, others still crowd their pages with it and even now it can still take a while to load them.

Even with plugins installed and updated every so often, I sometimes still come across flash websites which refuse to load. The deciding factor, however, may lie within portable media devices such as mobile internet technology and iPod/iPad gadgets where few (if any) flash websites will display at all.

....which is where HMTL 5 comes in.

HTML 5 is the latest version of the common web language which most people have at least a little bit of knowledge of, even this blog post has used it, I never imagined that the HTML short course that I took in the late 90s would still be of such use today. And yet what i'm hearing lately could very well help me to understand the other programming languages used in games development which i've never been able to get my head around.

Basically the new version of HMTL will apparently have the capability to be able to display Flash-like elements, but without the need of a dedicated plugin, meaning that designers could create flashy, creative, interactive websites without comprimising uesrs not having the ability to view them. It will also mean that these websites would be viewable on all mobile and iPod-like technology, all-in-all making Flash unnecessary in the world of web design.

Another thing that I have been shown with regards to HTML 5 is its abilities for games development, whole 3D games of the past having been re-created using just HTML! I think that this could very well mean another great surge in independant games development amongst individuals.

Although this is just the hype i've been given, whether it will eventually live up to this remains to be seen. But I do wonder what future Flash has in the next few years to come....
I don't think that it should be completely forgotten as its uses span more than just web design, if it were not for the effective use of Flash I wouldn't have had the success that I had in my Japanese studies recently.

I don't really know the ins and outs, but from what i'm hearing it's looking like a bright future for web design. But is it the end of the road for Flash?

Problems with Flash

2010-04-10T21:31:00.002+01:00

Ok, so over Easter I have worked a lot on my animation with Flash, and now I call the software FLASH CRASH!!

Because of the amount of images in my animation it kept crashing every few minutes so here are a few things I did to slightly improve it;

- decrease the size of my images in Photoshop. (its quite time consuming but saved me a lot of crashes)
- worked from a external harddrive a lot of the time.
- I created a new project file for every few scenes - seems silly but it worked.
- Press the 'eye' button on the folders you arent using, so they are invisible on the screen, it saves Flash from having an overload trying to put all the images on the screen.
- every hour or so give the laptop a rest - it works well after a little sleep or restart.

I think that's it! I have had quite the problem with it over Easter so unfortunately I can't go back and make tiny little changes which I wanted to but overall I am pleased!! Only got a bit left to do :) yaya!

Hope everyone else is well, see you Tuesday!

Stir Fry!!

2010-04-10T09:18:00.005+01:00

My house love Stir Frys! We pretty much rock at cooking a mean stir fry. One thing I am always mesmerised by, is the colours inside the pan, aswell as the smell.
A few nights ago I decided to whack out my camera and take a few snaps. I had a bit of a dentist nightmare yesterday so I cant eat for a few days, so looking at this pic is slightly torturous!! But I thought I would share just one of the images with you guys, it may get your Japanese Taste buds tingling...This image hasnt been edited either - thats just how beautiful it naturally is.

New Dr Who - UNT - title sequence

2010-04-09T02:04:00.004+01:00

As some peeps may be aware from the advertising all about the place, this Easter saw the arrival of the new Dr Who, Matt Smith, and from what i've been hearing since....it sounds like he is already a favourite of the experts.

I am not a die-hard fan myself and I have never seen any of the episodes from the 60s or 80s era, but in the mid-90s the BBC started showing re-runs of the 70s shows which spanned the era of both John Pertwee and the ever popular Tom Baker....so I watched these aswell as the movies with Peter Cushing which used to be on TV quite often.
When the new era came about with the introduction of (local lad!) Christopher Eccleston I watched the first few episodes to see what it was like and i've kept watching since, I was a bit dubious about David Tennant's portrayal at first but likened to it later on with the thought that it gave the character more depth.

I know a few hardcore Dr Who fans whom I wouldn't dare give my own opinion to.....they can get quite violent about their passion......and up until recently they had been telling me how David Tennant's portrayal was up there with the best of them. But it sounds like the creators have hit the right note with the latest Doctor because after only the pilot episode screened just last week they are telling me that Matt Smith's Dr Who portrayal is already the best ever.

I myself wasn't expecting much based on what i'd seen before watching it, but I was actually really impressed with the way they had wrote this particular episode to bring in the new Doctor.
But what I wasn't so sure of was the change in the opening title sequence.

The opening for the previous series was very modern and quirky, I thought it was ok and it fit the mood of the series fairly well.

And with the new sequence they have changed the typography to give it a feel of the original series....which again ties in with this new characters traditional image, the nice use of the letters to make up the tardis in the sequence is quite a nice feature. But i'm not sure about the sequence as a whole, the music seems to be lacking something which underwhelms the piece.....and the graphics look a bit too clean and perhaps not chaotic enough. What do you think?

My mam watched this with me and she actually thinks it's much better, purely because "there's no flashing in this one".

Review - How to Train your dragon

2010-04-06T23:46:00.005+01:00

Went to see this film today with Louis and we both loved it! It had all the elements of a beautifully filmed live film and they realised this amazingly with animation. It had ambience, great lighting and a believability......I was completely drawn in. Of course it did help having the 3D element and it was in fact the first film I have seen in 3D that actually worked. I have found that a lot of films have been brought out in 3D and it has been pointless and unnecessary, but the whole element of speed and flying was definitely enhanced wonderfully through the element of 3D.

The dragons, were amazing, me and Louis came away wanting a pet one, they were shown to have cat like qualities and the use of eyes as a point of communication was very effective. It is all about the eyes!!!! There is a lovely part when they make friends as seen on the clip above, and the dragon decides to share his food with the boy. It uses alternative communication brilliantly and reminded me of when you feed a baby and have to use head gestures to get the point across. Such a simple idea, but it makes me wonder would I have thought about that! There is such a lot to take into consideration to make a piece beautiful.....I need to watch more films....is that possible!!!!!

I am a bit of a sucker for a tale of mythology and action and a all ends well tale, but even without this I loved the film, because I think you would have to have a hard unchildlike heart to not be drawn in. It had all the style of a film epic with great panoramic views and music and it showed how far and fast CG is moving. My favourite moment was when there had been a massive explosion and the ash flew around the cinema, the lighting was low and the sound almost completely silent and the ash was floating around your head. It was tres tres cool!!!!

So a definite thumbs up for this film....go see!

A film made just for me!!!!!

2010-04-06T23:37:00.003+01:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_lMihSKkgA

It won't allow me to embed but check it out a full length animation in 3D about OWLS!!!!!....."Legend of the Guardians" and it even comes out the day before my birthday....made for me. Check the link and you will know what I am talking about! So exciting!

Happy Easter all xx

And another thing....

2010-04-06T17:32:00.001+01:00

Here's another thing i done recently.

The other week my mate asked me to make a quick poster for his band who were playing at the Academy supporting The Automatic. It was not to be printed, only to go on the band's facebook/ myspace page. He asked me on the day of the gig, so i did a quick one just with 'Tonight, Academy 3' on it, and used a photo i'd taken at a previous gig. He seemed to like it and by way of payment got me into the gig free (ordinarily 15 quid), in to the bar he runs - Sound Control - free (ordinarily a fiver) and got me numerous free Jack Daniels (estimated value 30 to 40 quids). So I was pretty pleased. Does that count as paid work? I like to think so.

A thing i've been doing...

2010-04-06T16:49:00.002+01:00

Alright blog monkeys. Here's a thing I've been doing. I was meaning to take some pictures of Shelley getting bigger for ages and didn't get round to it because of all the house stuff i've been doing, but finally took some the other week. I've been playing around with a couple in photoshop since. Here's one for you to have a peek at.