Friday 31 October 2008

A Broad look at Cereal Design

Even though i am designing a soap box i feel that it is still worth looking at cereal boxes to find out what techniques that they use... 

Elements  - When looking at the colours and gradients of these three examples I can say that photography is used a lot more in cereal boxes than there is in soapboxes. Therefore it has a lot more colours due to the vast range in colours. Looking at the colours and gradients in the corn flakes cover I can say that Kellogg’s has kept to the classical colours of the logo on a white background but then adding a bevel and emboss effect to the shapes that create the chicken. Then looking at the chocolaty squares I can see that the design is trying to be kept under the ides that brown equals chocolate. Then when looking for gradients there is very light ones on the tails of the cereal illustrations that gives the effect of flying fast. This effect is the repeated by the tesco brand of rice snaps, along with using a blue background. The way these different designs work with their colours and gradients is very different. This is because with the rice snaps the gradient on the flying rice snaps it gives the effect of the rice flying out of the brown. Where as with the choc squares the gradient tail effect is still used but this time it is as if the squares are flying from the middle of the box. And finally the way that the cornflakes design works is with the bevel and emboss being structured from the right of the page it seems as if the light is shining from the right.

 

Typography -Looking through the design of the cornflakes box I can see that the repetition of colours does not happen a lot because there is only four colours of font. These are black, white, yellow and red. This is a professional technique because by using not too many different colours it is not making the design seem too busy. This analysis is the same for chocolaty squares and rice snaps because they use the same amount of fonts. Looking at the way that coloured typefaces differ from the black text is at the use of coloured text creates a blended look in the design where as the use of black text has a very sharp look in the design for example on the cornflakes box the text corn flakes is very bold text and that is what you see first. Looking at how the logo is strengthened in typography and graphics I can as the with the tesco brand it is just a light blue tone of typography with no graphical used. Where as the logos for Kellogg’s and mornflake have a logo that does not have such a sharp outline where as it is more a curved edge font. But once again there has been no graphical applied to the Kellogg’s but there has been as stroke applied to the mornflake logo. Looking at how many fonts faces are on these boxes I have reviewed the boxes and on average the boxes have around 5 different font faces applied to the box design. Then looking at all boxes and analysing the effects I can see the use of bevel and emboss, stroke, solid colours and gradients.

Thursday 30 October 2008

Ideas

after completing my research i have an ides of what techniques i would like to use....
  • bold fonts 
  • a stroke around a stroke 
  • a gradient in form of a shape 
  • a slogan 
  • resemblance of fabric 
  • bevel and emboss

Wednesday 29 October 2008

Essay


I have completed my essay today and i found that you can analyse a product much better when there is only one thin to look at. i say this because i decided to analyse the typography of Ariel box design and i found that they use some cleaver techniques as far as hiding there design as far as font is concerned. 

Tuesday 28 October 2008

Finished Soap Research

i finished my soap box research and i can say that there are many different techniques used with different designs of soap powder boxes. There ones that i woud like to use myself such as bevel and emboss also stroke   

Monday 27 October 2008

Illustrator Fly outs


Here i have found the fly out illustrstion menu because i find that i keep hunting for tool when using illustrator 

Sunday 26 October 2008

First research, DONE


After getting my first research document out of the way i can say that there are many different techniques used when designing a soap box. There is many use of different fonts but there is also the cleaver way of making identical fonts seem different using different techniques. When it comes to the making of similar swatches it is best to make your own template to use. There is also the technique of using the same colours but in different opacity's to seem a different colour.         

Friday 24 October 2008

Here Come The Holidays, NOT

Over the i plan to get all material work out the way such as the research and essay so that i have got none of that to do the two weeks we have after half term so i can get the box completed.    

Thursday 23 October 2008

Stop Stealing Sheep


To anybody who is thinking of buying stop stealing sheep i would recommend it because it is a very interesing book due to the fact that you are learning the base in which typography was built on. Also it is a very illustrated book so you are being demonstrated what you are reading.  

Dimension

Before i even start my design process i need to know what the dimensions of the box need to be so i though i measure all three and work out an average in CM....

Height x Width x Depth

Surf = 21 x 14 x6
Bold = 21 x 14.7 x 5.8
Daz = 21 x 14.5 x 5.7

Therefore the average is 

21 x 14.4 x 5.833333333333

but i think it is best to round the numbers to whole numbers so when i make the 3D model it will assemble better. Therefore the dimensions will be

21 x 14 x 6 
  

Wednesday 22 October 2008

Good Book

After getting advice about is there any books worth getting i was told to get stop stealing sheep a book on typography. So i ordered last night and got an offer of getting the history of graphic design and hopefully it will be through tomorrow.     

Tuesday 21 October 2008

learning illustrator



I feel that i am grasping the techniques with illustrator, but there is one thing with learning techniques and that is i find it better when i have a demonstration and then a hand out because i fin having the information infront of me helps because i can go back and recap in the imfomation    

Monday 20 October 2008

Soap People - good photos

to all the people who are researching soap i have found a sales site that offers good sized photos for analysis


Sunday 19 October 2008

The Logic Behind The Scanning

There was a logic behind so much time scanning, this was because i felt that if i cut up the boxes i may need the same part twice therefore if i had scanned them into a digital file i could use them as many times as i wanted     

Friday 17 October 2008

3 Hours Scanning

Today I spent three hours scanning the products that i brought at the supermarket. The reason i took so long doing this was because after cutting the boxes up into there separate sides, then i decided to scan them at higher res than needed so i could zoom in when it come to looking at the prints.      

Wednesday 15 October 2008

Starting Research For Soap Box

After being given the the brief yesterday i thought that i should start to find boxes last night at the supermarket. I found that as far as cereal is concerned with the higher brands they tend to have mascots and well designed logos. Where as with the supermarkets own they tend to use photographs because they are trying to save money on designing the product therefor by using photos they are showing the customers the quality of the product. Where as with the soap boxes there was a mixture of the use of just graphics and graphics with photos across the high brand soaps.

Tuesday 14 October 2008

My Choice

After analysing the brief and looking at the different designs on the net i have decided to design a soap box. But after looking at images available online i think that it is best that i go and buy the products so that i have the product in hand to analyse this will also let me work out the dimensions of the product box to then use in the creation of my box.     

Friday 10 October 2008

Finished




After spending time completing my QTVR I feel that if I had some more time I could correct more of the finer details of the PSD. When I look back on the whole project I feel that I kept every thing under control as far as the different elements of the project. I feel by getting the essay out of the way early on I only had the QTVR and blog to do. Also I have found that by keeping a blog I can look back on how my project has gone.

 

As far as the combing the images has gone I can say that I have learnt new techniques as well as improving techniques that I already had. I found that throughout the project I had to keep going back and correcting mistakes that I had not noticed, this is because I felt that you look at the images so long you don’t notice small mistakes.  So that when it comes to viewing in the QTVR you then notice them. This is where the naming of the files come in handy as well because by saving separate file for different stages of the image you can go back on yourself. I also found it useful to put a small description in brackets so that when I look at the PSD files I know what one to go back to. There was also the use of Realviz because when saving your final image as a JPG even if one end is one pixel out of line, when it comes to creating the QTVR the end is very easy to notice.       


Thursday 9 October 2008

DVD Cover


I feel that i have nearly finished my QTVR now, i just feel that it might still be a good idea to create a DVD cover and after being told what we had to put on the cover i have had to edit my previous design.

Wednesday 8 October 2008

Naming Files


I have found that when it comes to naming the PSD files it is all very well naming them with numbers, but i have found it useful to also place a word or two to describe the process within that file in brackets beside the coding. Therefor when it comes to coming back to the files after a length of time you can remember what you were doing within that file.  

Tuesday 7 October 2008

Thought I Was Finished,But Wait

After compleating my QTVR i sat down and reviewed the images and i identfied that ther were some mistakes that needed fixing. therefor i plan to fix these results and then use the process of adding audio

Monday 6 October 2008

Ross Wordhouse - Best Piece


This image was taken by Ross Wordhouse and is a shot of Sparks Lake and South Sister and was taken on the 4th of July 2003. The subject matter of this photo is that of a mountain with a lake and show in the foreground. This image will have a large depth of field so that the mountain and rocks are still in focus. Also this is an image that has been constructed from a number of photos taken every 30◦ so that when the image is assembled it creates a panoramic image. When I look at this photo of Ross’s it makes me think we should appreciate the views that we have because sooner or later they could be gone may that be because of global warming or war. When I look at these photos it makes me think of the artist Phillip Bartlett series of mountain panoramic photos. The artwork of Ross has inspired me to take the photos at just the right time because the way in which the clouds are lined up so well makes the photo so much better. This has given me an idea at a site along Seaford seafront where I can try his techniques.

Ross Wordhouse - Panoramic Artist




In 1992 Ross left Plymouth with a degree of Fine Art to travel and peruse a career. Ross ended up at a snowboard site producing freelance illustration of the snowboard industry and a snowboard film production for High Cascade Snowboard Camp. Then in 1997 the business fell apart and Ross had to find new means of employment. Two years later Ross meets his future business partner and wife. One year later Ross and his wife decide to run an advertising agency called Wordhouse Creative. Work starts to flood in but Ross felt that his creative needs were not being filled. Therefore he brought himself a panoramic camera from Ebay and perused a hobby in panoramic photography. As you can see he has a love for nature and nature photography. This is because as a young child Ross’s parents showed him how you should respect and enjoy nature during there many numbers of trips trip’s across America. That is what reflected in his panoramic landscape photography to show the respect and enjoyment he experienced as a young boy. The reason that Ross decided to specialise in panoramic photography is because he feels that it is the only format makes you feel like you are actually there, standing at the beautiful scene.

Ross adds "the human eyes see panoramic naturally when they view a scene; I just wanted to use the same format that we see with our own eyes".


Techniques Used

Now I have completed my QTVR to a certain degree I just need to analyze them to see if there is any further problems. I now look back at my techniques used ...
  • Layer Mask
  • Gradient Tool
  • Clone Stamp
  • Warp
  • Distort
  • Blur Tool
  • Editing Audio Using QuickTime
  • Creating a Loop on the audio
  • Merging Audio and QTVR
looking back at the techniques used i feel that i have developed skills that i already knew further and i have learnt new skills that i can use in the future.

Sunday 5 October 2008

Essay

After writing my essay i have found out many different facts about QTVR and the different techniques used.  These are techniques such as the two different ways of presenting the QTVR, the first is cylindrical by using a row of images that have been taken on a tripod in a 360 degree fashion. The second is by using the same technique but by taking a top and bottom image to create a cubic image. There is also the info about the kind of photos that you can take, because you are not just limited to interior and landscapes you can also photograph objects that have been placed on a turntable.          

Saturday 4 October 2008

Realviz Problems

After my first try of creating my QTVR of all three i can say that the ends of the images must be inline. The reason that i know this is because when i swaped the images in photoshop i found that the ends were out of line. The reason that i think this happened was because when i was taking the images with the tripod my lens may have looked even but the camera was mounted wonky.

Nearly Finished

After spending most of the day creating my QTVR's i can say that i am pleased with how my images look so far. There are small edits that i need to complete the image. After swaping my images i feel that my images will merge very well when it comes to using realviz.

Friday 3 October 2008

Panoramic Artist That Interests Me




Bob Schneider was born in New York and he then decided to moved to the Bay Area in Northern California so that he could take his education that one step further my at the University of California, in Berkeley. Once he had completed his education he worked in the Aerospace and Electronics Industry as an Electro- Mechanical Designer. This is where he became interested in photography due to the fact that it played a large role in his designing job. Bob Schneider then decided to study photography as a full time student at The Glenn Fishback – School of Photography in Sacramento, California. After studying for a year Bob ventured Freelance Photography specialising in anything from ballet to sports, portraiture, photo illustration, weddings, products, and scenic images. For several years Bob work as a freelance photographer specalising in scenic and nature Images until family reasons forced him back into the electronics trade.In 1997 Bob decided to go on a photographic adventure to the California coast to practice panoramic photography. As far as digital photography is concearned Bob feels that digital technology has given the carrear that is photography more flexibility and has given photographers more time to do what they do best , and that is taking photographs.

Bob Schneider has a saying and that is …

"Images seen with our eyes, are recorded in our minds,then captured for time…by the Art of Photography"

Thursday 2 October 2008

Idea Developement

After thinking about my ideas and deciding to stay wit mu church and holy grounds theme it has come to my attention that after finding out that sound can be attached to the QTVR i could attach music such as holy songs to my QTVR. Then from what i have herd form a classmate and viewing online the music can be set on a loop to replay.

Wednesday 1 October 2008

Going OK But It Is Getting Complicated

I have been working on my images but the stitching is starting to very fiddly and complicated. This is because where i change the angel of the camera on the tripod the shape of objects changes as i move round the location. this means that i am going to have to use tools such as worp and distort but sometimes this still cause me some problems. This is because when i use these tools sometimes it changes the shape of and object the other side of the image.