Website Done and Dusted

The Baseball Ground website is finally done and dusted and handed in, below is the meada link for NTU computers


http://maeda/~n0220956/

Logo first Drafts

Here are a few of my Logo designs. These are rough designs and not the finished product. My favorite design is the one above, i fell that the design is simple and effective as a logo, although there may be issues with the distortion of the font.

Fixed and Fluid, Design Exercise 6

Above is an example of a fixed and a fluid Website, the fixed one on the left will not move when the screen is minimised and adjusted. The Fluid website on the right will alter to fit to the screen when minimised and adjusted.

Website Design 3

Above is my third design for the look of my website. I am really pleased with how this design has turned out. I really like the background image and colours used, although blue is not a general colour associated with the football team. This shows an example of the gallery page, hopefully this will include a number of images, and will also allow users to leave feedback on the images or just express their memorys of the Baseball Ground.

Website Design 2

Here is my second design for my baseball ground website. This design is simailar to design 1 in terms of layout however aesthetically it is completely different. I have decided to use a black background with the same logo in the background faded. This is an example of how the 'personal experience' page would look, the information on the page is just a quick draft.

Web Page Design 1

Above is the first design i have created for my Baseball Ground website, i designed theis using photoshop. as you can see this is exactly the same layout as the wire frame, however this also contains the images and text. This is a rough design and will be improved upon.

Colour Branding

Below is my rebranding Design for the Red Bull Logo. I decided to change this logo because of the use of 'Red' in the name. I also wanted red bull to look greener, e.g. better for the environment, by using the green and yellow colours, i thought of this because of the bad press the energy drinks companies have been recieving lately.
Here is a Hex colour chart with most of the codes i will need to create my website.

Design Exercise 4 CSS Website

Here are the Css version of my basic website, above you can see the coding that i have used and below you can see the HTML document.

Baseball Ground Video

I have found a video with a bit of information about the Derby County Baseball Ground. It is not completly about the Baseball ground it is more like the area it was built in It is pretty stupid to be fair as it is about football violence and the acting is pretty bad but still it is more information. This video could be useful as it has information about what atmosphere the stadium caused which is quite interesting. Start watching the video 1 min in and continue watching until the 3rd minute. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNOBOqvO938&feature=related

Source: Youtube, and the show is the Real football Factories, the Midlands.

Design Exercise 4 HTML

Design a home page only, in basic HTML and then Exactly the same page in CSS. Include Header/Logo, navigation, a central image, some text, a footer.
Here is My HTML version above.
and below is the code used.

Wire Frame

here is the basic wire frame for my website. The above image shows the homepage and the layout for this is very simple and quite plain although i think that this setup is most effective. Basically the logo and title will be based in the top left corner, as this is generally the first place the user will look. across the top centre is where the navigation links will be horizontally placed. Just below will include a sequence of images of the stadium which will fade into one another. The main content of each page will be below this spread across the page.

Navigation

Above is the navigation bar for my website, these are the 5 pages that will be included in the website. The homepage will include a breif introduction to the purpose of the site. The past page is self explanitory, this will include the history of the stadium explaining club honours and legends such as Brian Clough. The present will include the new stadium and how the football club compares to past nowadays. Personal experience will explain why i decided to choose this as my project and my experience playing in the stadium. and finnaly there is the gallery, this will include images of the stadium past and present, and i also hope to include a wall so that people with other memories can post their thought on the past.

My Personal Space/Building

For our main task in exploring multimedia for the first term we have been asked to create a website based on a personal space or building. I immediatly came up with my idea because this building is very special to me even though i have only visited the place once in my life. I have chosen the Derby County Football Club Baseball Ground, the stadium no longer exists because a new stadium has been built for the football club. This building is very special to me because i had the oppertunity to play football in this stadium before it was demolished in a Year 8 school football final, which we eventually won 1-0 to be crowned the best y8 school team in Derbyshire. It is not only a special place for me because of what happened, it is also because i played with my closest friends at the time, also because the stadium holds so much history and so many honours.

Website 2

www.football.mitoo.co.uk/

Football Mitoo is a website including all types of information on junior football in the uk. this website allows all football teams from all age groups across the country create their own space on the web for their team. Teams submit scores and goalscores onto the website via their club secretary so that regular updates of their leagues can be created. Their is also fixtures and results for each individual football team, and their is also the option of creating player profiles with images of the players. This website is used across the country with most leagues submitting results weekly for the pleasure of not only the players but also the hugely competitive parents.

Task, website 1

As one of my first online journal tasks i was asked to find 3 user content driven websites. The first website that i chose was http://www.dontstayin.com/. This website is classed as a social networking site which is based around night clubbing mainly in the UK but also the USA. The main aim of the website is to allow users to review the clubs and club nights they have attended. Users are also encouraged to upload photos and videos to show what the night spots have to offer. The website is extremely useful especially in cases when the club or bar does not own a website, the user can easily read up on any new places they wish to explore.

Logo

Here is my edited version of the logo. I cut out the font and colour of the original shirt image. I have added my own font to the image and changed the background colour to the same as the original website i created so that this could be tested out. I feel this looks neater and more proffesional. I edited using fireworks.

Logo

I have been sent an image of the hockey accosiation logo. However this is only a digital photograph of the logo on a club t-shirt. I am now going to have a go at editing the image to make it look more proffesional for the website. Above is the original image.

Templates

I have now created the template for the website, this consists of tables with a different number of cells on each page, this is based on the amount of information that will be on each page. I have all the information that i need to fill in the JAC, JDC, and JRPC pages so this is what i will get on with immediatly afteer creating the logo for the website.

Changes

After displaying my prototype of the website to the chairman of the company, he then decided to create an example for me to copy, he presented the example in a table form and told me that he would like it in this style. I did not want to start by getting into bad habbits by creating websites in this format however this is what the client wanted and therefore i went through with it. I got given a word document with an exact replica of the homepage, with a particular red and blue themed colour throughout. I began to design the website.

First Basic Design

I have created a first basic design for the website, this is the template that i originally created. I had no idea how the association wanted the websites to look aesthetically, therefore i had a go at how i thought it would look good. I decided against a tabulated structure, because i have been advised against this method throughout my multimedia learning. I decided upon a colour scheme and a menu format. I had asked for information on how Nottinghamshire Hockey Development wanted the website to look however i had no response for a number of weeks, i was also asking for content for the website which was also very tough to recieve. Above is the original version.

Hockey Website Contents

The main aim of the website is to advertise the training academys for under 13, 15, and 17 girls and boys, this will display information on Junior Development Centres (JDC), Juniour Academy Centres (JAC), and Junior Regional Performance Centres (JRPC). This will also include documents such as registration forms so that players or parents can download and send off to the Nottinghamshire Hockey Association. The website includes all contact details and also information on school Hockey Competitions.

Website Oppertunity

I have been offered the oppertunity to create a basic website for the Nottinghamshire County Hockey Association, I will get paid for creating the website and i am going to snap up the offer. This will include updates throughout the year therefore i am employed by them for the year!

Fears Room

The final room in my interactive box will be the fears room. This will include an interactive flash narrative taking the user through my own personal deepest and darkest fears. The aim of the game will be to avoid the fears to win the game. This is very personal to me because i seem to have many fears. I have decided that the fears that i amgoing to be including in the narrative will be snakes, heights, needles, being late, commitments, sharks and depths of the sea.

Enjoyments Room

Storyboard

Door Design

Interactive video design

THE SECOND ROOM IN MY INTERACTIVE BOX WILL BE NAMED MY ENJOYMENTS ROOM. THIS ROOM WILL BE CENTRED AROUND stand up comedy because it is one of my favorite past times at the moment. Here is the design and developments centred around the enjoyments room.. The final image shows the storyboard of this room. This will include a video of my favorite stand up comedy moments including clips of my reactions to the comedy to make the video more personal to me.

Experience/Ambitions Room

This room is the first and most important of the rooms in the interactive box. This will include a whitboard animation mainly describing my life and ambitions from day 1, this will begin in the past with my ambitions of becoming a pro footballer, this will then move on to my past experiences and move into the present day, it will then cross the line of reality and move into my future experiences and ambitions including graduating from university etc. Below is the story board describing what the white board animation will look like

Box Design and Development 2

Above are the final designs for my box, they are both in plan view and i have decided to include 3 rooms containing, enjoyments, fears, and experience/ambitions. The story behind the project is based around the ambitions room. My ambition as a child was to become a proffesional footballer, this is expressed as the unreal down one end of the tunnel, where the avatar can see the football match being played but cannot get onto the pitch, because it is expressed as the unreal, however the avatar can walk up to the other end of the tunnel where reality lies which is present day fears, ambitions and enjoyments. Below is a storyboard of the opening scene.

Box Design and Development

I decided that the box theme would be based around the theme of football, i decided this because the theme of the identities project will be based around ambition and the line between reality and the unreal. Below are the first stages of design of the football tunnel, this will be where the avatar will be based and will also cantain the rooms with all of the interactive items that i will include and explain about later.

Avatar Design and Development

Here is the design and development stages of my avatar. When designing the avatar i also decided to use the initial thoughts from my mood board therefore i included the adjectives that i used to describe my appearance and my personality. These words were tall, competative and fast. Therefore the appearance of my avatar is obviously tall, andtherfore i decided to portray the competative and quick side to the personality through making the avatar constantly run. the above images show all of the designs and development of the avatar so far.

Logo Design and Development

Here are the designs for my logo for my identities project. I thought about the logo portraying my personality and immedietly my initials came to mind, because there is noting else that can really get more personal to an individual. I also though about using my signature as part of my logo. I decided to experiment with some other ideas that i had in my head including my interests such as sports and watches. I then thought about the mood board that i had created earlier on in the project, so then the idea of strength came to mind, therefore i decided to experiment with the two arms in an arm wrestle, i thought that this could also portray competativeness. I then decided to move on o the city skyline because i had included this im my mood board and also thought that it could portray strength height and could also include my initials, this is the design that i think i will move along to develop further.

Second Life

Today was my first attempt at using second life, at first I was skeptical because I did not like the thought of spending time on a computer to socialize with random strangers. As I began to experiment I first found out that my computer did not have the required graphics card for the experience to work correctly, therefore the screen was very jolty and quite slow. I decided upon the name Willy Lectar and began straight away. I began to walk around the virtual world which is shown in the first image, I then decided to attempt a conversation with someone after 10 minutes exploring the virtual world. I began to talk to one random woman asking her advice on what to generally do In the virtual world, she didn’t seem too sure and then suggested that we should fly!!!! Therefore I began to follow her in the sky and very shortly after decided to log out. At this point I decided that I was not interested in logging in too soon in the future.

Research And Creativity

My creativity over the last few years has mainly been for personal satisfaction but also most of the best work was done for various school projects, mainly during A-Levels. The two main subjects were Art and ICT at which I best showed my creativity. Therefore I first thought that most of the work was for the teachers, but thinking about it the work was actually done for myself because it was me who wanted the qualifications out of the course not the teachers. There has also been cases in which the work was requested, in one particular case with my cousin’s sports shop, I was asked to design and create them a website, this was linked in with one A-Level project.
It has been done in this way because my school projects always took priority over personal projects, and I felt I could get more out of putting more time and effort into my school projects from the qualifications that I would receive. All the work I have done in the past has been decided by me however, I have been guided in different ways by teachers, tutors and family, to which may have made me change my decision.
In the future I would like my creating to be unique and independent, at this stage of my life I feel like I want my creating to be in web design. However this may change over the next couple of years with so many new fields to try at.

Research can help me get to the new places in many different ways, it can give me experience of successful work in specific areas, and it can also help me link other work in with my own for the future. Out of the four starting points I feel most drawn to the “In Front Of” method. I chose this because I feel that when I see other people’s reactions it can help me as it opens new thoughts in different areas. However, individually I am not brilliant at reviewing work, without some basic information or at least one opinion on the work. The method I feel most wary of is the “Behind” method, this sounds the most complicated although it sounds interesting to look into work in more detail, however I do not feel that I would use this method as a first choice. I do not think that any of the staring points are irrelevant; I feel that they could all help in one way or another.

Mood Board 1

Above is the mood board for my Avatar, i thought of 5 adjectives to decribe my personality or appearance. The first word i came up with about my appearance is tall, because i am quite tall, i used the empire state building to symbolise my height. The second word i came up with was fast, i used a cheetah to symbolise my speed, as when i was younger i used to be very quick at running. I then searched the meaning of my name on the internet, most of the websites i found described my name as 'protector' or 'resolute protector' therefore i represented this as a shield. I then struggled to come up with two more words, so i asked my flatmates and i was described as reliable and competative, therefore i represented reliability with the large rock in the background and my competative nature is represented through the boxers.

Practitioner Development

I feel that I do not purposely go out to improve my practitioner development day by day, I think that it happens in everyday activities and it happens without me even realising it. One prime example of this is when I’m listening to music on my ipod, and even more when I’m downloading new music on the computer. I feel that this is useful in many ways, because when I create a project, say for university, which requires a soundtrack I usually manage to think of a perfect fitting soundtrack to add to it, from my music collection. Therefore, I feel that it is important to keep up to date with music as it can always come in useful, most importantly to develop skills. For example, my one shot video required a song which dragged on to portray awkwardness, the song Zorba the Greek immediately popped into my head. I had this ion my music collection, and I had originally discovered the song from a television advert.

Therefore Watching TV is also a useful way of developing practitioner skills. Television adverts express many different methods of getting a message across to an audience, and this is very useful for a Multimedia student like myself. Many adverts nowadays are animated and as of recent many cars companies have expressed their cars in extravagant ways using animation. The methods used are often useful to use in my own independent projects, as their ideas seem to be fresh and new and very useful.

One other method of developing skills is actually making products. On a couple of occasions, I have been asked to create a website for two different organisations. This is a form of independent learning because I had to create a website for the first time all by myself without the help of teachers, tutors and other pupils. I used the internet to develop my skills on creating the websites; online flash tutorials helped me in many ways. This method was probably the most beneficial for me as it helped me create the perfect animations for the websites I created. All the animations I found were free, and accessible to all, which also made life a lot easier.

One final example of independent study is when my younger brother requires help from me with his ICT A-Level work. This has happened many times when he asks me questions that I do not have the answer to, mainly when using flash. However we both try to solve the problem, mainly with trial and error when using flash, or many times we have looked on the online tutorials. This is not independent learning as in the sense of me working on my own, but I feel that it easily fits into the category of me developing my practitioner skills.

Personal Identity

I have begun to start thinking about Personal Identity for my up and coming Identities Project, before i started thinking about the statement in detail i looked up the meaning, this is how Wikipedia described it:

"personal identity refers to the essence of a self-conscious person, that which makes him or her unique. It persists: though a person may change in socially important aspects, such as religious belief, these modifications happen through one single identity."
Wikipedia the goes on to describe:
"The question regarding personal identity has addressed the conditions under which a person at one time is the same person at another time, known as personal continuity. This sort of analysis of personal identity provides a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the identity of the person over time. In the modern philosphy of mind, this concept of personal identity is sometimes referred to as the diachronic problem of personal identity. The synchronic problem is grounded in the question of what features or traits characterize a given person at one time."

I would find it very difficult to describe my personal identity without a great deal of thought. The aspects of me which makes me unnique from every other human being would be my looks, as in my features and my personality. However i do not feel that i am unique through the way that i dress or my interests because there are many other people in the world who will dress in the same clothes as me and have the same taste in music as me etc.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

Since starting my course in multimedia and moving into halls of residence i have found that i am watching films much more regurlarly than when i was at home. This is probably down to the fact that i would rather watch sports at home using SKYtv whereas i do not have that luxary here in Nottingham. I have also found that i am watching more and more animated films, as i feel it is useful to watch these as they have a great relevance with the course.
I have watched animated films since i was very young, the early Disney films such as Lion King, Jungle Book and Robin Hood. I feel that these animation are the best of all time and i find that they will be hard to beat. Other animation blockbusters i have watched that i feel didnt cut it have been Lilo and Stitch, Toy Story 2, The Lion King 2, Walle, Flushed Away the list goes on. I feel that the more modern style of animation has allowed the films look amazingly true to life however i dont feel that they quite reach the standars of the classics that i mentioned earlier. However recently i went to the cinema to see Madagascar: Escampe 2 Africa, the sequel to the first Magagascar movie. I found that this film is the closest that has come to the so called classics of the earlier Disney Films. The film is created by Dreamworks and includes many big movie stars for voiceover, such as Ben Stiller, David Schwimmer, Chris Rock and Sacha Baron Cohen. I found that this was one of the funniest films that i have watched over the last couple of years and is definatly the funniest and most entertaining animated films since my childhood. This modern film diferentiates from the older classic films because it is computer animated, whereas the the likes of The Lion King is drawn animation. This reduces the quality of the films but i feel the drawn animations need more of a stimulating storylinebecause they do not have the graphics and special effects to back it all up if it fails.

Madagascar 2 has a unique stle of character features, unlike all other animated films the animals have dramatically squared off features all over their bodies but mainly in the faces of the animals. This is a unique feature to the Madagascar animals that seperates the graphics from any other modern day animated film. Another point that makes the film different from any other is the contrast in relationships throughout the film. It is quite strange in real life to think that a Lion, Hippo, Zebra and Giraffe would stick around together in one small group, however Madagascar has made this possible. This would be impossible in real life as the Lion is the predetor and the Zebra is the pery, however this is one of the strongest relationships in the film. Not only this but Madagascar allows the food chain to be reversed, for example the lion who is supposed to be king of the jungle seems to be in least command, he is dragged along on the whole trip by the zebra who should be below Alex the lion. Also the penguins who should be near the bottom of the food chain seem to have the greatest command, not only over the other animals but also over the humans that feature in the film. The comedy in the film is cleverly formulated to be highly ammusing to both adults and children I would recomend all ages to watch this film even if you did not enjoy the first one.

Christmas Work

http://n0220956.deviantart.com/art/What-Drink-Are-You-109549648

During the christmas period my brother asked me for some help with his Applied ICT A-Level coursework. This involved him creating a website for the local pub at which he works on a part time basis. The website was to be made in flash and he had an idea about a page for the websitewhich would involve a short questionnaire, at which would determine what kind of drink you were. He was having major problems with this because he did not fully understand how to use movie clips correctly. therefore above is the link to the section of the website i helped him create. All the link shows is the single movie clip on one of the pages it is not the full website, as i did not help him with any other sections apart from linking all the pages up.

Punch-Drunk Love

Having been suggested by Roma Patel to watch the film Punch-Drunk Love during one of the complimenting colours lectures, I had chance to watch it over the Christmas period. In addition, the fact that Adam Sandler is one of my favourite actors now gave me the drive to watch it as he is the main character in the film. Right from the start of the film I noticed that the film could be based around colours because the title screen is clearly expressing the contrasting colours of red and blue on a colour spectrum.
Immediately when the two main characters meet (Adam Sandler and Emily Watson) we notice that they have the same colour contrast on their clothing. Sandler has a blue suit on which he remains wearing throughout the film and Watson has a bright red dress on. The producer always makes this contrast clear by the was he positions the characters face to face at each side of the screen. The coloured clothing could have many different meanings although I believe that the blue suit is expressing the personality of Adam Sandler’s Character, this personality is warm and friendly most of the time although a cold violent angry side of his personality is regularly expressed to show the issues that he has with himself and his family. In a complete contrast, Emily Watson’s character is warm and friendly ass the time, this is expressed through the bright red clothing that she regularly wears throughout the film. There is also the contrast of their personalities, which becomes insignificant as they fall in love throughout the film.
Finally, the film has small animations, which regularly get thrown in to skip through to different other scenes. These animations also contain the two contrasting colours of red and blue, this shows that the contrast of colours and personalities are one of the main themes throughout the film.

Narrative Project

http://n0220956.deviantart.com/art/Wembley-106035451

The link above shows the finished results of my interactive narrative project. This was created using macromedia flash, and it called Wembley. The basic idea behind the project is to take the user on a journey where they have to make their own personal decisions to achieve certain outcomes. There are two possible outcomes at which the users can achieve, either a win or lose, there are two of each of the win and the lose outcomes in total. The theme of the interactive narrative is of course football, I chose this theme because it is of particular interest to me, I also thought about actually playing the game myself and realised that it is completely based on decisions and actions. These real life decisions and actions determine if a tackle is completed perfectly, or a foul is committed, these reflect on whether the decision is a win or a lose.

The interactive narrative includes images, animation, sound and text. The images I used for my interactive narrative are what I managed to find on Google, these images had to be of the specific player in the same or a similar shirt. As I was half was through completing the project it was pointed out to me the risk of copyright. However I made changes to the shirts and the logos using Photoshop, and I was told that this would not be too much of a problem as the brief did not include publishing the narrative, it was only to present it. I created all the animations myself, all of the animations are very basic and suite each frame perfectly for the theme. The sound I used for the interactive narrative reflect the mood of the outcome, if the player wins the game there are cheers, if the player loses the game boo’s can be heard. There is also the sound effect of a football being kicked, this sound plays whenever a link is clicked on, this adds a more realistic element to the game. The text is the most important part of the narrative as this explains the choices, which determines the user’s decisions. The user interaction is one of the most important elements of the flash narrative, this is because the user has to make the decisions, therefore it is important for the narrative to be simple, and clear to use, I feel that I have managed to achieve this on a reasonable scale.

During planning and creating the interactive flash narrative, I spent most of my time in the computer room with other multimedia students. One of the members of my seminar group asked me if I knew why his links were not working correctly, I noticed that he was not using instance names and therefore his problem was easily revolved. I was also helped by one of my classmates at finding specific sound clips for my narrative, which was very helpful. Although this was not group work many of my group had time to help one another and work together on the project.

Overall I feel that I have created a good flash narrative, I feel that it is entertaining for all types of people even if they are not interested in football. I feel that I could have spent a lot more time on the narrative, if we had of had more time to do it in. We had around a week to plan and complete the project so in some places it is slightly rushed, although overall I am happy with my interactive narrative.