elliottancock
elliottancock
Reflective Journal
20 posts
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elliottancock · 4 years ago
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Week 9
The week got off to quite a confusing start I think. We couldn’t find the person who wasn’t in a pair but eventually I was put in a group with Charlie and Elsa. I joined them with a mind map and some research of why people aren’t engaged with politics to try and get to the bottom of the issue. However, they had already started with imagery research and how they wanted it to look which I found slightly confusing as there wasn’t a clear solution of how we’re going to get people engaged with politics. After some discussion, we decided that we should try and focus on the idea that small change will not only directly affect people in their local area but has the possibility to lead to bigger change. After some sketches I thought that a good way to do this is to get people thinking, ‘What would you change about (Falmouth/Exeter/Derby etc...)?’. People can share their responses on a website to start a discussion and therefore directly getting people more involved with politics. The poster design we came up with asked this question and had the link to the website but I feel like the hierarchy wasn’t as strong as it could be. With more time we could’ve simplified the design and made the message clearer as well as thinking more about typography and the foreground.
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elliottancock · 4 years ago
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Week 8
I’ve really enjoyed this brief from sky as I love working with UI and UX. It’s a brief that gave us quite a lot of freedom to do whatever we like which is rare. However it was quite difficult working with a group online as conversation wasn’t as free flowing as it would be in the studio and sometimes you’d have to wait hours for a response to a question in the chat. Despite this, I felt we did fairly well considering it ended up just being Elsa and myself. We decided that Elsa would pursue the UI side of it while I focused on the UX. We did link the two together but had to focus on getting our outcomes done for Friday. The ideas generated were from discussions earlier on in the week and by Friday, the whole project came together nicely.
The waiting room idea took forever to bring to life as I had to chop up one video into six sections to create the walls. Additionally, the camera feature on After Effects was a nightmare to work out and everything kept on glitching. I kept at it though and I think it turned out alright in the end. It communicated our idea well which is all it really needed to do.
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elliottancock · 4 years ago
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Week 7
I finished my project this week and I think overall, I’m happy with it. It’s hard to actually create my idea so I’ve just had to create a video that explains the idea as clearly as possible. If we weren’t in lockdown then it would’ve been fun to bring the project to life - I could still do this in the future. Collecting the recordings was frustrating as people said that they would send them to me but then take days to do it so it got quite stressful towards Monday evening. However this happens in the industry often so it’s just good practice. I’ve ended up using three softwares to visually communicate my idea; Photoshop, After Effects, and Premiere Pro. I used photoshop to create individual layers from one photograph which took ages. This allowed me to create a 3D world with the layers in After Effects. The camera feature allowed me to move forward to create the sense of physically moving. Premiere Pro allowed me to combine all of the videos and edit the audio to fit perfectly with the imagery.
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elliottancock · 4 years ago
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Week 6
I think I’m finally starting to properly see the end result of the project which is quite exciting, there’s just a lot to do. I’m not too sure how I’m going to show my idea as it’s mainly audio based, I may have to merge it with imagery but I’m not sure where from. I’m sure I’ll figure it out. I’ve enjoyed the learning teams as I find myself getting so wrapped up in my own head that having a fresh sets of eyes looking at my work is refreshing and helpful. I’m changing the design slightly (although this isn’t the primary function of the project) which has been backed up by my learning team.
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elliottancock · 4 years ago
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Week 5
This weeks learning team gave me a lot of content I can work with. They enabled me to just step back and remind myself of what I’m trying to achieve. That’s why I’ve started again with the possible outcomes and just got everything out of my head onto paper. This has allowed a fresh start almost and a clear road that I need to follow. At the moment, I’m liking the hidden speakers idea the most of it’s so simple yet effectively communicates the idea of the project well.
I had Abbie’s Premiere Pro lesson this week which is going to help me with projects going forward. I’ve only ever really used After Effects which is very detailed and fiddly so Premiere Pro will hopefully allow me to transfer all these complicated edits into a smooth and simplified work space. The lesson was extremely helpful as Abbie went at a good pace and explained everything very clearly and thoroughly. It was definitely the most useful lesson I’ve had as all the YouTube tutorials go at 100mph, use shortcuts, and don’t explain why they’re doing it.
The topic in textworks was very relevant in today’s world filled with fake news. It was interesting to have a discussion with the seminar group about how they feel about it. I’m not sure I’m going to do this for my dissertation though. I was slightly confused about what I could do for my dissertation as they originally said that we could do anything related to Graphic Design and it should be something we’re interested in but then have been giving all these lectures about big global issues. Martin did say that this is just to give us some ideas though so I think I’m fine.
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elliottancock · 4 years ago
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Week 4
This week I’ve been trying to work out how I actually solve the problem in my project. I’ve had a lot of helpful feedback from the learning team which is pushing me in the right direction. I did lose a bit of interest in the project just because I was getting so confused and annoyed but I’ve tried to stick with it because I’m sure I’ll think of a strong idea soon. I originally thought the telephone box idea was good but quickly realised that it was quite strong enough. I think my problem is that once I’ve thought of an idea, I close my brain off to any other possible ideas which can be very damaging.
I attended Tim’s workshop which was fun. I enjoyed using the parallel pen to create typography even if it took me 20 minutes to work out how to put the cartridge in. Tim seemed to like my work due to its uniform nature. I think that I like my design to be sleek and uniform, anything messy or untidy tends to be outside of my comfort zone.
Textworks was about humour which I quite enjoyed. Humour is subjective though and I feel that a lot of people that get offended by a lot of humour tend to live their life in misery and always complaining about everyone instead of just living. Some humour is obviously offensive but this can be fine. You need to be able to poke fun at yourself and also make dark or tough situations more light hearted to be able to come out the other side.
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elliottancock · 4 years ago
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Week 3
This week I’ve settled on the problem of the North/South divide. This is because it’s more a problem rather than my own opinion, the narcissistic coffee lovers. This will allow me to properly get into the project now as I know exactly what problem I’m trying to solve. This all came from a useful learning team and chat with Matt which has basically got my head straight and I’m less confused now.
I found textworks interesting as it was about education and how we learn. The case study I read was particularly interesting as it showed that a lot of lessons in life don’t need a teacher. Most of what you learn comes from experience and not being taught. The rise of technology is rapidly changing the way we learn which means education is more accessible but could also become dangerous due to coding.
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elliottancock · 5 years ago
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Week 2
At the beginning of the week I was extremely confused about my idea. This is because it’s not really a big problem, more something I find annoying. I feel like I can’t really combat this. Therefore I found the workshop difficult. This isn’t because the workshop was bad, in fact the complete opposite, but that my poor idea was wasted on it. I did produce some good material though, it just can’t really be used but at least I learnt from this. Matt had a meeting with me afterwards which was really helpful and cleared things up. I really appreciated the chat as it’s got me back on track.
The portfolio review was helpful as the pointers re-assured me that I’m not doing a shocking job of it. The only problem is that I need to take photos of some projects in the studio but that can be done at a later date.
I found textworks this week quite interesting. It kind of felt like we were going over old ground but it did bring up interesting discussions and opinions. It’s made me more aware of the moral issues I may face in becoming a designer. I’m not sure that I’m going to focus on saving the planet as I designer but it will definitely have an effect on decisions I make.
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elliottancock · 5 years ago
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Week 1
I found this week’s workshops quite useful as I was really struggling on coming up with ideas. The tasks within the workshop gave me some great ideas that I’m now excited to pursue. Although it wasn’t ideal communicating over a video call, it was still manageable and was quite interesting to see other peoples ideas and thought processes. I have been a bit confused though as I thought that we were supposed to come up with a brief and many people seem to be trying to solve the problem and designs ways to fix their problems. This may just be people being too specific in how they’re going to solve the problem so I’m just going to stick to what I’m doing.
The design part of textworks was interesting but I found it annoying that I watched the lecture and made notes only for us to go through the whole thing again in the discussion on Thursday. The visual notes is a good idea but I learn best through writing down bullet points so I’m trying to do doodles to accompany them. Once again I found the textworks lecture extremely bias showing offshoring to be bad without highlighting all the good points such as freeing up resources and boosting economies abroad. Also saying that the Mexican boarder is bad because animals can’t migrate when it stops illegal immigrants, smuggling, and trafficking. The points made were good and relevant, but only showed one side to the story.
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elliottancock · 5 years ago
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Week 11
This week has been a case of working out how to reach my audience. Although I believe my brand image works well and successfully tells the brand story, my audience isn’t just going to stumble across Newsea. I’ve been trying to work out how to reach my audience. The workshops earlier in the module have been extremely useful for this as we looked at the audience in far more depth. This means that by doing those workshops, I understand where my audience are likely to shop or what they’re likely to watch. As a result, I now know where to market or advertise my brand to reach my audience. It’s been less designing now and more editing photos to show my marketing. I’ve felt fairly on top of my work but have found myself relaxing at points because of this which can be dangerous. At the same time I’ve been trying to collate all of my work so that there’s not one mad rush at the end to get all the boards and sketchbook ready. This hasn’t been too tricky as I’ve finished Typography so the main focus is now just on getting Brand Experience done.
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elliottancock · 5 years ago
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Week 10
I found the learning team very helpful as it was good to get some other people’s feedback on my work that I had done. I feel that I now have a clear direction to head in which is re-assuring but I don’t want to get too comfortable and fall behind. My brand image is coming together and now I need to look at the ways in which I can reach my audience, perhaps through marketing. Still being able to go into the studio is extremely useful as I can talk to other people more regularly about not only my work but other people’s work which can give me inspiration or directions to head in.
I didn’t find textworks this week very useful and was a distraction from the main brief. The sessions aren’t very engaging which means that I don’t really learn much from them. The cross-references Tim did last year were a lot better as it got us engaged and resulted in me learning. I feel it would be useful to have a similar engaging activity to do for textworks this year for better productivity and more useful learning.
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elliottancock · 5 years ago
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Week 9
The workshop was incredibly useful and I came out of it with plenty of resources and materials. Although it was quite demanding, it gave me a lot of fresh ideas. I did feel that at times I wanted the pace of it to slow down so I could develop some ideas that I came up with and as a result found it quite difficult to make notes and go back over the material to develop it further. The workshop did give me research that was a lot more thorough than I had previously been useful so I’ll take those techniques forward with me. I have at times felt a bit lost with where I should be within my project as we haven’t really had clear instructions on what we’re supposed to be doing. Additionally, I feel like I’ve had to wait for the workshops to carry on with my brief which has been a bit annoying.
This week I just had to edit and finalise the essay. I did find it hard to link Barthes and Conrad’s work to my myth but I think I managed to do it to some level of success. Reading through my essay, I think I may have repeated some elements but I feel like I had to keep on justifying my myth even though it’s fairly self-explanatory. In the end I think that the essay answers most of the questions that they want. I also included my visualisation in my essay because I had done it so why not.
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elliottancock · 5 years ago
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Week 8
Before this weeks workshop, I’ve always researched audience at a very basic level. I found the exercises helpful with properly understanding what my audience will be in a far more thorough way. Finding imagery helped to gain this more in depth knowledge and the diary task, although challenging, helped build a bank of subtle elements of the audience that build a bigger picture. I’ve really enjoyed the audience tasks as I like the marketing side of Graphic Design, understanding who and how I can target the correct audience. After all, design is pretty useless if it’s not aimed at the right audience.
I’ve got a fair chunk of the essay done this week, getting pretty much all of my research typed onto a Word document. I have been struggling to link Red Bull to semiotics and Barthes in a deep and thorough way. I think this will just take some time and I need to come at it fresh next week. My chat with Martin helped but it was only brief due to time constraints.
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elliottancock · 5 years ago
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Week 7
I found it interesting looking under the skin of brands to see what their core values are. It was useful to not only see what kind of values brands hold but also the way they go about showing this in order to engage with their audience. I really enjoyed the lecture about Rapha and it made me excited to eventually work in the industry. The brand values of Rapha were really cool and kind of broke the normally conventions of what a brand is. I couldn’t go to the workshop because I was away but found the online recording of it fairly simple to follow, although I’m sure it would’ve been beneficial to be in the studio for the workshop. It was useful to talk through my essay idea in the seminar and was also useful to get some feedback on it. I found it re-assuring that others found it interesting, not just me. I now feel like I can properly dive into the essay and am looking forward to it.
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elliottancock · 5 years ago
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Week 6
It’s been nice to have a lighter work load but has also been an opportunity to look at the essay. I find Red Bull’s myth really interesting as it separates them from most brands on the planet. They’re not really a drinks brand but instead a marketing brand that uses the drink as their product - they don’t even make it. The connotations associated with the brand are active, cool, and exciting among other things. It’s interesting how this narrative has all been created through the marketing and is miles ahead of any brand similar to itself. There are so many avenues I can go down when looking at Red Bull which is exciting.
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elliottancock · 5 years ago
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Week 5
This week was the most challenging week yet as so many things changed in such a short amount of time. My first draft of the publication was so far from being done so I found it quite daunting that I had under a week to finish it. However I quite enjoyed the challenge and I feel like its good practice for getting into the industry and dealing with tight deadlines. Thankfully Ashley was incredibly helpful in giving me advice and hints on which direction to take my publication in as well as tweeks I should make. I sat down and came up with a system I should stick to which made it a lot easier when designing the publication and also gave it consistency throughout. Printing through InDesign was also quite stressful but once I knew how to do it, it’s actually pretty easy. There are some adjustments that I would like to make to my publication as for some reason the uni’s Indesign slightly adjusted my file so now there’s orphans which is annoying. Additionally, the binding of the publication is pretty poor.
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elliottancock · 5 years ago
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Week 4
Brief: To create the publication
I’ve found it hard to work out where to start because there are so many elements to consider. I thought a good starting point would be to read through all the articles to understand the key points from them. It was after this that I wasn’t sure on whether to do the discover, define, develop, and deliver. Then I realised that I had already done the discover and define already so just needed to make a start on grids, typefaces, colour etc. I feel like my work is a bit all over the place but this is because I need to work out one element of the design to the lead me onto another. I keep on revisiting elements I’ve finalised as I keep on altering them after another part of the design has been changed. It’s seems like it’s all over the place but it’s allowing me to get down my ideas in a way that’s beneficial to me. I feel like I’ve now got a strong overall design for the publication and so next week I just need to tie up all the loose ends and get it done.
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