Evaluation

Unit 1 & 3 Evaluation

In those units we were gaining skills in media processes as well as technical skills in different programs as photoshop etc. We were also learning about different parts of it as well as just technical skills.


COLOUR THEORY


What even is a colour theory and what do I understand by it?

Colour theory in visual arts is a body of practical guidance to colour mixing and the visual effects of a specific colour combination.

I would say it’s just basically all the theories and facts about colours. We learned what are different meanings by it and what do they mean. We also learned what specific colours mean to develop our skills in mixing them while we design. I’m 100% sure I’ll use those skills in the future. I have realised that a lot of stuff that we have talked at lessons we use in a daily basis and no one realises that. For example when we buy clothes, we still try to look good and we usually go for the stuff that looks good on us but what is the first thing that we look at? Colours!

We also learned that in photoshop there is a Hex Code which is a number of a colour. Every time you choose a colour in photoshop you have a hex code one the right side of photoshop.

We used apps that I’m looking forward to use in the future. One of them is called Viewfinder app. You just take a picture and after it saves the app automatically shows you what colours are appearing on the picture the most. I think this app is very useful if you want to edit the picture in photoshop afterwards and play with colours. 


TYPOGRAPHY



What is typography? Typography is just different fonts and different type faces, point sizes and line lengths. It came from a Greek word ‘typos’.

We have learned about legibility and readability, which takes us to tracking, leading, and kerning.

Legibility refers to a perception, it’s a function of typeface design

Readability is essentially the way in which the text/typeface is presented.

Leading is the space between the lines

Tracking is the space between the letter forms

Kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between 1 or two characters.

Those are the new words I’ve learned on our lessons. I think they are very important as we use it all the time in photoshop and it’s easier to remember what to do if we know those words. That’s one of the things we have started our course with and we use it. 


POSTER

 
This poster is made by the brushes and fonts I’ve downloaded from brusheezy.com and dafont.com. There is no copyrighted images.

I wanted to do something simple but affective at the same time. I really like starts and the whole vibe around them so I thought that would be a good idea to put them on my poster. I used blue and grey colours because those colours remainds me of sky. I wanted the word moon and full to be different that the whole sentence so I’ve used a different and more affective font. The rest of the sentence is in a very simple and classy font but I think overall it looks so good. I have also added some stars at the top just to add something to the poster so the free space there didn’t go for waste. The little start under the text adds sweetness to the whole poster.

After all there is something I would change in the poster now. I’d change the colour of the moon brush so it doesn’t stand out that much.

I personally think this poster could be on a wall in a a room for a child because it makes me feel peaceful and the message on it is very positive and still includes the sky in it. 

CREATIVE CV

For my creative CV I went for that autumn look. I think it looks lucidly and the tone of the colours and information still keeps it very simple. I’ve added all the information I’d posiblly need on my CV and overall I’m quite happy with it.
The only thing I’d change is to do it in a bit more ‘modern’ way like add more shapes and different symbols.

T-SHIRT DESIGN

For my t-shirt design I went again with a simple but affective idea. It’s basically a square and circle and moon brush. I’ve added a text in French with means to the stars and added small starts at the start and end of it. I’ve also added small stars to project as I thought they would suit the moon look.
I actually really like this design and I think I’ll use my t-shirt a lot of times 😊

OVERALL


I’m sure I have developed a lot skills in photoshop. I didn’t know that much as I know now before I came to that course. We used it on a daily basis and everyone had time to play around with it and do designs and stuff that we wanted ourself. I think I have also learned a lot while we were all talking to each other and when everyone was helping each other.

When Jo was talking to us and explaining everything everything just seemed so easy even tho we were new to this stuff and we didn’t have much knowledge in photoshop.

It’s not only about photoshop, I have learned about colours and all the theories, hex codes that I didn’t have a clue about before.

 In my opinion I did a pretty good job in photoshop. I was struggling with making my own brushes but I’ll get better with it in the future.

I also know that I had a problem with keeping my blog up to date. I’ll be more systematic in the future.

Industry Week

Photoshop

Lately in our course lessons we've been doing a lot of stuff in Photoshop. We got to know a lot of basic stuff as well as how to use different kind of brushes and add effects and some really interesting things. 

The first basic thing we got to know how to pick the sizes of the page. This one is actually the best for me. It's a simple A4 page. 210x297mm @ 300 ppi.

The next thing we got to know was how to add those colours to the background. 

Here we have a Gradient Tool. You select that tool and any colours that you want to use and basically play with colours all around the page. 

We also got to know how to crop smaller pictures from the actual picture so it's not affected by cropping it. Its called Elliptical Marquee tool. 

You drag it on the picture then press ctrl j to duplicate the layer of the picture so the actual one still excist. ( you dont delete the big picture you just put it on a different layer). 

How to do the rectangle from this picture? You just use a Rectangular Marquee tool and create a rectangle on your page, after that you put a gradient tool on it and choose any colours you want to use. The you click on the right click on the rectagular and wrap it and move it however you want. 

Here you can see how to add shapes to the picture. 

Over here we added simple and standard shapes into the photoshop. You can add them just by using the tools on the right side of the photoshop and change their sizes at all of the times but we have to remember to add every shape at different layer.

Here in that b&w tool you start with clicking on the image > mode > greyscale. Then you press dont flatten. After that you go to window > history. Then there will be a little box that you'll have to tick and then you go to history brush tool. 

b&w effect

To outline you need to start with opening the layers panel. You have to duplicate the layer and then rename them. You choose the brush tip and colour and create a path around the image.

Here we've put the text and moved it. What you have to do to achieve this is selecting the Horizontal Mask tool. After that you put any text you want on an image. Then you press Ctrl and c to copy the text, and ctrl x to cut it out. Ctrl + v takes the text on another layer. After that you can add shadows and colours as I did on my Disneyland pic.

Polygonal lasso tool

To create your own brush you have to use this polygonal lasso tool. You have to select the lasso tool from the tool panel. Then you just select the cursor on the edge where you want to start and then you trace the cursor all around the element you want to select. Then you need to save the brush and you are ready to use it!

To do a text around the path you have to create a shape you want the text to be in.  Then you go to paths and click the little dot thats at the bottom of the 'path box' and select the text tool. Then you click on the shape and thats it!

TRACKING, LEADING AND KERNING

When you type anything in photoshop you should autimatically have on the right side of your work as you can see on the screenshoot. If you don't have it there is an option in window. 

You just basically select your text and then change its kerning leading and tracking with the mouse. 

To create that shadowy and stretched text you first add any text you want on the page. You then add again the same text in the same font but in a different colour. Then you change its angle to 45 and copy it around 100 times (alt+arrow key). The you press ctrl and e and it takes all of the 100 layers to just one. Then you play with the angle again so you put it in -45. Then you move the text however you want and thats basically the final look.

How to add brushes & fonts to photoshoop?

To add brushes and fonts to photoshop you need to find the best website for you to use. I use brusheezy.com for brushes and dafont.com for fonts. 

You choose any fonts from these websites and then you download them onto your computer. 

With brushes, after downloading them into your computer, you righ click on them and then extract them. To add them onto photoshop, you open the photoshop and select brushes.Then open the window where you can select brushes. After that you should see a circle (settings sign) in the upper right corner and import the brushes. 

With fonts you download them from internet the same as with brushes. Make sure your photoshop is closed while downloading and extracting the fonts.  To add them you have to extract them again (after saving them). Then you right click on them and click install if that version work. In college we used a program to extract the fonts, but there's one other way how could you install them. You click on the start menu > control panel > appearance and personalisation > fonts > right click in the list of fonts and select install new font > then select all the fonts you want and ok. 

CV details & Creative CV

 Me:

Alicja Arcimowicz, 18, Polish

My skills:

I'm good with working in groups and with other people and I also enjoy doing it. I'm as always enthusiastic and trying to make everything more fun as well as I do my job as best as I could.
I can speak two languages: Polish and English.

My interests & ambitions:

I'm interested in photography and journalism. I would like to develop those skills in future as well as now. I'm hoping to get a job in the future including those two topics.

Those are screenshots from a website that I signed up to . It was Barclays website and it basically helps your to find a path what you could do in the future based on what you like.

This is an example of what I'd like to see on my CV. The design of it is so simple but so effective. It also presents by picture what do you do the best and what your passion is. Because the CV is done in a very creative way

 There we have an example of very simple and interesting font. I'd definitely use it as my logo if I would ever have to but it is also a very good idea to have it on your CV. It still shows that you are creative.

For my creative CV I decided to go with autumnish colours. I've used different shades of brown and orange as well as white and beige. 

Enployability Skills

Creative Industries - Essential Skills and Qualifications

Journalist

What essential skills you need to be a journalist?

To be a journalist you obviously have to interested in researching stuff and getting to know new things. Videos, Audios, Social Media Engagement are also the stuff that you'll have to be around all the time. The passion for journalism is the most important thing because why would you want to work in an industry that you don't like?

In the actual work you'd obviously need some skills, like your University or College diplomas.
Your GSCE are important as I've said it would be good to have Uni or at least college. Your experience is also so important especially in that job as it's media lecturer one. You'd need some experience as a teacher of media or some kind of journalism.

Typography

What is typography?

Typography is different fonts and different type faces, point sizes and line length.

Typography came from the Greek word 'typos'.
People that produces typography are typesetters and  compositors, journalists, typographers, graphic designers, art directors, comic book artists and graffiti artists.

What are legibility and readability? 

Legibility refers to perception, it's a function of typeface design.

Readability is essentially the way in which the typeface is presented and it refers to compranhasion. 

Leading is the space between lines.

This is how leading works like. If we would not use leading while writing the text would just look messy and bad.

Tracking is the space between the letters forms.

There's an example of tracking. Some words has sometimes needs more to have more space between the letters just to be highlighted but when we continue writing it is important to keep the space between the letters the same. If we wouldn't do that the text would look bad and hard to read. 

no tracking applied - it's good when we use no tracking while writing normal texts without any points we don't want to highlight.

expanded tracking - I'd say I would probably use expended tracking while trying to actually highlight something like a title while writing an essay or something similar. 

condensed tracking - I'd use condensed tracking while writing somryhing

expanded manually 

Kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between 1 or 2 characters.

That's the example of kerning. Kerning just shows us space between two letters. It's similar to tracking but it's just about two letter characters and the space between them. 

All of those types of typography have a really big role in typography world. If we would not use them, our texts would look bad and unreadable. It is especially important for essay's, CV's or any different important kinds of text. 

What are font families?  

Font families are selection of fonts that work well together and compliment each other. They also specify a list of similar and prioritized fonts and generic family names.

The example of font family:

Font families have two types

Serif  is the type of font that has those tiny little lines.
That kind of font is also more traditional and used in invitations or articles and by relevant institutions.
I usually work with Serif type of font because it's more suitable for me and I think it makes your work look more professional and special.

San serif doesn't have those lines (called serif) in its type. It's also more modern that just the simple Serif type. This kind of font is used in magazines for teenagers or TV news.

Poster Analysis Task

This poster is coloured with pastel and calm colours. By looking at it you feel calm and I think that's the message the designer wanted to show us. Every single thing on this picture gives different vibe while looking at it. The pink mountains look peaceful and calm and that's the first thing you look at while looking at the picture. The sky is grey-ish, blue and cloudy which gives the picture a scary and creepy mood. The water that's under mountains is also giving you those vibe but because there's a lot of blue used in the water it shows how deep it is and how makes the whole picture even more interesting. 

This picture is the one I saved from Pinterest. it shows a positive message and gives us positive vibe. The yellow colour in the background isn't the by mistake, because yellow is a happy colour and it reminds us of sun and happiness. The font used in this picture I think is script style of font. It's quite childish but it suits the picture very good.

Gestalt principals

Gestalt is a German word meaning shape or form. This theory was formed by three different German psychologists in the 1920's.

The theory is a psychology concept based on how the human brain reacts to visual perception/ different shapes and how we unconsciously group entities together based of the similarities. 

Types of Gestalt:

Proximity: The Gestalt law of proximity states that objects or shapes that are close to one another appears to be in one group. Even when the shapes are a bit different but they are still close to each other they still are in the same group.  

Clousure: Is when brain perceives forms and figures in their complete appearance despite the absence of one or more parts. 

Continuity: Explains how our brain experiences visual lines of elements that are grouped together.

Similarity: States things which share visual characteristics such as shapes, size, colour

Symmetry: Grouping law that states elements are symmetrical to each other tend to be perceived as a unified group.

Research

WHAT IS RESEARCH? 

• Research is the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.

There's two main types of research: PRIMARY AND SECONDARY 

- Primary research provides direct research that you've done yourself like if you've had a interview with someone.

- Secondary research involves the research that has already existed like looking through magazines, internet. 

There's also different kind of research like:

Quantitative and Qualitative collecting of objective numerical data, features are classified and counted, and statistical models are constructed to analyze and explain the information that has been gathered.

Observational that research is without interference or input from the researcher.

Basic, Applied and Developmental the purpose of this research basically tries to discover what is true, it can be called basic research.

Why is so research important and when are we researching? 

When we are working or something we want to be 100% sure that we know what we are talking about and that we are proving our point. We also wouldn't want to lie or tell not real things in our work so I'm sure that's why research is so important. We as always want to get our best work and not lies. I think it's good to do a big research and be sure about our work. 

WE use research in a lot of things. We are literally researching all the time by scrolling through facebook, Instagram, twitter or any different social media sites. Through research we can get a lot of new knowledge in any topics and it can help you to understand things better. If you are interested in any topics for example photography, music or anything else you can also find a lot of stuff to support your dreams and maybe find a way to actually do something with your hobby's.
Through research you can also get new skills in media. You can also learn how to express your bussines better and learn how to get more money from it.
You can also prove your point in researching for truth and lies in internet, sadly not everything you read on the internet is true. 
On internet or magazines you can find a lot of tips that will literally help you with everyday life, it doesn't matter if its about your CV at work, or if your sink broke, I'm sure by doing a good research you'd know everything you wanted to know.  

What have I used research for? 

As I said before we use research all the time and we do it all the time while we are not even thinking about it. 
I use research daily for example, when I need to find like recepies for stuff or i try to find something online.

Colour Theory & Colour Schemes

What is colour theory?


In the visual arts, colour theory is a body of practical guidance to colour mixing and the visual effects of a specific colour combination.


Meanings of different colour theory:

•  complimentary - two colours that are opposite on the colour wheel
•  analogis - three colours that are all next to each other
•  triadic - colours with equal distance apart ( shaped like a triangle at the colour wheel)
•  rectangle - four colours put into complementary pairs
•  square - four colours evenly spaced out into a square shape; best used it you let one clour dominant
•  tetradic - a special variant of dual colour scheme, there is no clear dominance of colour
•  monochromatic - different shades of the same colour

Key words/meanings of colours:

where are they used and why

•  white - light, innocence, purity, safety, godness, fresh
•  grey - dull, moody, glamourous, graceful
•  purple - calm, luxury, royalty, peace, mobility, spirituality
•  black - sadness, authority, power, classy, chromatic
•  yellow - happiness, bright, energetic, creative
•  green - nature, calm, freshness, life, ambition, healing 
•  pink - femine, sweet, girly, cute, playful, healthy, happy, compassion
•  red - sensual, passionate, strong, dangerous, love
•  blue - loyalty, intelligence, faith, trust, trustworthy



HISTORY

Sir Isaac Newton (1706) developed from the concept of refraction (light separating when it hit the prism). Later on he developed this into the colour wheel (often refered to as the 'Hue Wheel')

Jonathan Wolfgang von Goethe (poet) 1810 wanted to explore the perception of colours

“When the eye sees a colour it is immediately excited and it is its nature, spontaneously and of necessity, at one to produce another, which with the original colour, comprehends the whole chromatic scale. '' - his quote

Why do we use colour theory?
It is important while creating stuff like for architects for example. What would they do if there was nothing about colours? They have to know which colours suits each other the most and which looks the best together. Some people can tell that kind off stuff without anything like colour theory just cos they are talented in a way, but I'm sure colour theory is such an important thing in this kind of situation 

Colours are also importsant in daily basis, sometimes we don't even realise when we use it. When we buy clothes, we buy them as we like and how we thing they match each other, when we buy stuff to home we also look how it will look like all together.

Colours are also so important in Logos and brands. That's basically the first thing that we look at. for example why does facebook has a blue logo? Blue colour makes us feel safe and calm so we don't really worry about stuff that we post there and it just basically makes us feel safe there.

Who are Pantone and what they do?
Pantone is a limited liability company headquartered in New Jersey. They match colours used in specyfing printing links. Colour of the year 2019 was Living coral. A lot of companies actually made prooducts in that colour like Apple. Their new iPhone is in colour red which is really similar to the coral one.

What are HEX codes?

Hex codes are the numbers of colour that you see while choosing one on for example photoshoop.
It helps you to remember the colour you used to keep you work nice and clean :)

Viewfinder app

In this app you basically take a picture and it shows what colours  you can see the most. It's very simple to use and it's very helpful while working at photoshop.

There is two different websites we've used to play around with colours.