My Webpage...in the making

This week we had to design our webpage in Photoshop. Unfortunately, I didn't have my images from the shoot I did in the previous week to work with fro the lesson, so I went ahead and designed the logo and font of my webpage.

I started with my colour scheme, and some random doodles of things relating to mugs and tea, and I ended up with, well, a mug. However, I designed a small teabag on the side of the mug to add a little bit of creativity, and then I added my font next to it. At first, I had a 'blocky' font which didn't look right, so I added a slanted font that resembles handwriting to have the cosy feeling, like when you drink tea.

Overall, this was the - almost - end result:

Focus Groups

Today, we got into focus groups and recorded our discussions about our topic. In this case, we used the Old Spice commercials, and talked about how it affected whether you wanted to buy it or not.

You can watch this video here.

Here we were finding people's opinions on the Old Spice commercial and it's links to the product itself. We found that this focus group enjoyed the commercial and found it successful, but it was hard to tell whether or not they'd actually buy the product, possibly because the lack of availability to smell the product. One even said they wouldn't buy it, and this may be the case for people who don't like spices as the name of the product has Spice included.

Construction Toys Design

Today in interactive, we started to design our construction toys in small groups. In my group, we decided on magnetic tiles that you can construct boxes that have cut out shapes inside, so that when you put it on the LED box included, it makes a shape on the ceiling, like your very own nightlight. It also includes coloured transparent tiles so you can make glowing objects, which makes the toy more suitable for an older age group of 9-12.

We will also design the pieces so they are abiding by health and safety laws and are easy to construct with.

I thought that was this different to other toys on the market, as you have construction toys to build whatever you like using your imagination (for instance, Lego), but nothing that you can really use. Our toy can help with younger children and their building skills, while also the opportunity to create their own night light.

Advertising Campaigns: Examples

Lush

A great example is Lush Cosmetics, as their ethics and charity work is really good. 

Overall, they are involved in three main charity 'pieces': SLush, FunD and other small charity work. 

SLush

SLush fund is where Lush helps to support farmers in poverty-affected areas. The company has over 30 projects in 19 locations to support families and children. One of the products they sell, The Charity Pot, is made from ethically sourced ingredients and 100% (not including VAT) of the profit goes to those projects and funds. From 2007, the company has raised over £7 million in total in SLush.

FunD

FunD is associated with the product 'Fun', and 10p from each bar goes towards building projects for children in under privileged areas. This is started with the tsunami in Japan six years ago, and Lush helped to build playgrounds for the children. 

Other work

Lush also do some work with raising awareness. For instance, when there were people trying to raise awareness about the TTIP situation between US and EU governments, Lush produced a project where 100% of profit went to supporting marching groups and informed buyers of the cause itself. They also charge themselves carbon tax on travel costs and give the money to environmentalist groups.

My Popcorn App

Using tutorials, I have tried to animate an app about popcorn and steam engines. However, though it was going well with the buttons at first, I hadn't managed to get the grip of scripting in Flash.

With the scripting, I had tried to link buttons to other keyframes where I had made other animations to play when the button was clicked. It didn't quite go that way, unfortunately, as I had probably mistyped/misspelt certain actions so the software didn't recognise the instructions I was giving it.

To the right is a screenshot of the scripts I was playing around with. This was for the first button, and I'm sure with some more fiddling around I can find out how to link the buttons to other keyframes. So far, my app just plays the animations on top of the menu, without giving you an option to click or exit anywhere.

I do plan on familiarising myself more with Adobe Flash software so no further projects suffer for it.

Making Our Productions

Today, after being put into groups for our productions, my group and I planned when we would focus on each other's short films. We made a schedule to make sure we were organised in the following four weeks. This schedule includes locations, times and the main 'directors' of the certain project.

This has helped us so far with where we need to be, and if we need to do some extra shooting then we can see easily who's we can work on.

So far, in week two, we have completed Issie's project, but started mine as there was a problem with availability with the science department. However, by tomorrow, we will have filmed Verity's project as that's when the science department is available. So far, we're pretty on track and I can even start editing my footage weeks earlier than I hoped.

Designing a Webpage

We had to find a product, that we owned, to design a webpage about to sell. I chose a mug from home, which is self-stirring, just because it's a pretty unique product and I can get lots of pictures/videos from it.

For inspiration of the actual webpage, I looked at some other websites on a desktop and on my phone also. Firstly, I looked at merchandise websites, as they usually sell a lot of things like printed mugs. The Dan and Phil Shop was where I took the screenshot. It's a pretty simple website, focusing all of your attention on the products displayed rather than having lots of popups and adverts everywhere. The colour scheme is simple with whites, blacks and greys being used.

Next, I found a website that sells lots of different product, including a wider range of mugs. This website is more colourful, with a bright red banner with sale items, and this is probably because this website has a lot more to sell. There's also more images of the product you're buying, including packaging. There is a colour scheme, besides the banner, of light, pastel-like colours: blue and white. This is a soft look on the website, and there's a lack of adverts.

Finally, I found a website that specialises in selling mugs. It's full of images of the products, that play like a slideshow. Again, the style is minimalistic with colours like white, black and some hints of blue and pink, adding splashes of colour to the page.

On my mobile, there was always a search bar at the top, and the drop down menu was easy to access. Apart from the third website, which was only desktop version, and not mobile.

After some work, I came up with three mobile and desktop wireframes to work from. On all of the desktop designs, I had the idea of having a small video on loop of the self stirring mug in action. I thought this may add interest to the website. I also used a lot of pictures as I personally love pictures and things that are visually pleasing to the eye.

I also worked on the colour scheme, using Adobe Kuler. I used a range of dark colours to pastel-like colours. The colour scheme I like best is probably the one with pastel pinks and blues, because it's soft but still really colourful. This colour harmony is an analogous scheme, and the colours are fairly similar so it's not too bright but not too dull.

Overall, I have narrowed my choice to the three on the left. Next, I need to decide on my designs and then add details like the context of my webpages.  

My Future Decisions

For my future in media, I want to become a writer of some sort. I've always loved writing, and I'd love to combine my love for films and writing to become a scriptwriter.

Firstly, after the course, I will take a year or so out to concentrate on my writing and possibly even travel. Then, I'd like to either further my education in scriptwriting or get experience straightaway. I don't have a solid plan yet, but I don't really want one. I know where I want to be in my career in time, but when or where that is doesn't matter to me.

I haven't looked at university's yet, and I doubt I will for a while. This is because I want to be confident in what I am doing before I take big leaps of faith into it. I don't want to regret anything because I chose a career at the age of eighteen, so I definitely want to have time to reflect on it.

YouTube Vlog Research

Over the Christmas period, we were set a task to set up a presentation of representation of a certain group in media. I chose disabled people, and how often they are represented in films, TV and even music.

I put together a Powerpoint and, alongside it, small notes to read along with it. However, instead of presenting it to the class, we were set another task to present it on film in the style of a video blog.

Firstly, I did some primary research on Youtubers who also vlog. I looked at Zoe Sugg, Dan Howell and GloZell. 

On Dan's channel (danisnotonfire), I saw his videos were mostly clearly spoken; well edited; well lit and also clean from any offensive language. Also, he rises the camera a little above his head so that you get a slight angle of the entire room, and it's really pleasing to the eye.

On Zoe's channel, it was very similar. However, with Zoella's videos there were slight changes like background music, and her backgrounds were a little brighter than Dan's. Also, on her page, she edits the thumbnails so that they match certain seasons, like the picture you see is all of her Christmas videos, which is easy to locate and pretty.

Finally, on GloZell's channel her vlogs were different. She still had a huge amount of subscribers, but her videos were more carefree as she doesn't really care how she looks or sounds. The lighting is completely untouched and some of her videos aren't cut at all. You can also see how she has a theme of big, green writing on her thumbnails, which links to her name GloZell Green.  

With a little secondary research on this website, I saw that Dan and Zoe were highly rated for their vlogs, and, even though GloZell is very popular, she hadn't gotten a mention on the websites I looked on.

This helped me decide that I wanted a clean, well lit, nicely cut video (or try to, at least) for my own vlog.

Colour in Adobe

In Adobe, there are two colour 'types' which are CMYK and RGB. RGB stands for Red, Green, Blue, and these are the primary colours, so colours in Adobe can be shown with how much/little of that primary colours are used, and these colours are used in signs, banners, television screens, etc. CMYK is Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black which are the primary colours of pigment.

Colour Types

Monochromatic colour scheme is similar colours but varied in shade and intensity. In Adobe Kuler, you can try different colours and schemes to find the perfect one.




 An analogous colour scheme is where the colours are next to each other in the colour circle, and evenly distributed. This makes the colours 'flow' nicely together.



Complementary is a simple yet effective colour scheme, where the colours involved are opposite each other in the colour circle. These colours are good at balancing each other, so the red used, for example, isn't too harsh and the green isn't too light.




Finally, there's the triad colour scheme, which is like a triangle's points in the colour wheel. These colours are evenly spaced and add a nice balance to the colour scheme.



Using colour schemes in Photoshop

In Photoshop, we had to create a weather 'app', or at least a home page for it. Based on the work we had done previously on colour we had to choose our own colour scheme to suit the theme of our 'app'.

I decided to go with a pastel-like theme, with a analogous theme because I liked the nice 'flow' of colours that suited each other well.

My end result turned out like this:

It took a while to make, but I learned a lot of new skills with Photoshop, like how to make icons, how to use font styles properly and how to use inner/drop shadows in shapes and/or fonts. I like my colour scheme as it links with the weather type (rain = blue), but it's also bright and colourful.

Communication Theories

Hypodermic Needle Theory

An example of a communication theory is the hypodermic needle theory.

Maslow's Needs Theory

In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it has five stages: physiological, safety, belonging, esteem and self-realisation. In this hierarchy, the bottom is the most important, but you must have all of the section to 'move up' the hierarchy. 

For instance, to gain safety you must eat, sleep and, well, survive. To gain belonging, you must eat and sleep, but also have security of health and property, etc. To gain esteem you must sleep, eat, have security, but also have friendship and family, etc. And it goes on so forth, until you reach self-realisation with things such as morality, creativity, spontaneity, etc.

Uses and Gratification Theory

This is a theory where there are four uses of media for a person, and they are listed below:

1. Entertainment and Diversion 

This is when you watch videos or read articles for your own entertainment values, or to create a diversion from whatever might be happening in your life (e.g. procrastination).

2. Information and Surveillance 

This is where you want to gain knowledge and see what's going on in the world through media.

3. Personal identity 

This is where you read certain articles or like certain pictures and build a personality from it, like, for example, someone may like to read infographics whereas another may like to share cat memes.

4. Personal relationships 

This is staying in touch with certain people through social media, and it helps you connect with people more.

Music and my moods

I have three moods, generally, and in those moods my taste in music changes slightly.

1. Sad, upset.

Mayday Parade (Terrible Things, Stay, Miserable At Best), Watsky (Dedicated to Christina Li, Tiny Glowing Screens), Parachute (Always and Forever).

2. Angry.

Mayday Parade (Shot Across a Bow, and the really loud ones), Simple Plan (You Suck At Love), Go Radio (Go To Hell).

3. Really, really cheesy.

The Cab (Endlessly, Vegas Skies), Justin Bieber (Sorry, What Do You Mean), Kat Dahila (I Think I'm In Love), 21 Pilots (Can't Help Falling In Love).

Mostly, I just listen to Mayday Parade because they're awesome, and other random stuff depending on these (and other) moods. 

Making Buttons

In the previous lesson, we learned how to create 'buttons' using Flash software. These 'buttons' can be created for interactive menus, and a short animation will appear and start as your mouse scrolls over it. The example we had to demonstrate was a popcorn button.


My final piece, so far, looks like this (to the left):

When you click the button, it successfully 'pops' open. Next, I need to link the buttons to other sequences so it creates a small interactive app that is informative yet 'fun'.