Working in Digital Media Week 2

This week we had our first guest speaker, Geraldine Gray. Her topic was about the different types of learning styles and how they differ and affect us in our daily college lives. Apparently in a recent study in the U.K. there are about 60 different ways of categorizing how people learn. To be honest, that sounds a bit far-fetched but who am I to judge, I haven’t even seen the report. Some of the more obvious ones are the channel of learning, the manner of learning, cognition and different personalities. The question asked to us was; “in which manner do we learn new information?”. Personally I learn it best in silence and in my own environment (my cozy little room).

When it comes to listening to lecturers it’s subjective. When Dan Sweeney gives a lecture I seep in everything he says, whereas when Frances Murphy gives a lecture I have a hard time paying attention. I guess it’s all down to the attitude of the lecturer. Dan is just naturally adapted to talking to a large audience, he’s also very confident and avoids abstract means of delivering. So, in a nutshell, it’s all down to the lecturer at hand.

There are 3 learning channels; visual, audio and kinesthetic. In a nutshell it means audio based learners get their information by listening to a lecture and discussing with a group. Visual learners get their information by written notes and viewing slides and diagrams of information during lectures. Kinesthetic get their information through touch, a bit hard to explain but the general idea is that they learn through lab work and actually doing assignments and projects. I consider myself a learner of all 3 channels. I like to listen to the lectures, read through my notes and do my lab work.

It seems personality also plays a big role in how we learn as well. According to these slides the best known method of determining someones personality is through the Myers Briggs MBTI model. A series of questions are asked to determine our personality using eight different aspects; Extroversion or Introversion, Sensing or Intuition, Judging or Perceptive, Thinking or Feeling. I think my final outcome was ENPT, but I seemed to have a connection with nearly all of them. I guess I’m just special then.

In the labs we got a brief to design a book cover that visualizes our hobbies and interests. On illustrator we also tested some of the tools such as the pathfinder and 3D options. We got a brief to design a book cover that visualizes our hobbies and interests. On illustrator we also tested some of the tools such as the pathfinder and 3D options.

Visual Language Week 12

This week we had a history lecture on the origins of type and it’s gradual evolution into today’s more modernized romanistic typeface. Our last assignment was to create a sketch of our face, paying close attention to detail, and afterwards stylizing that sketch using only typefaces and characters. I decided to use a more “characterized” approach to my sketch, paying close attention to some of my facial features, such as the nose, chin, facial hair, glasses, chin, etc.

Here is my sketch and typeface sketch;

Visual Language Week 11

Image 1: I am Popular

This image represents fame and popularity in a few ways.

The most important is that I decided to run an indigo/crimson colour scheme throughout the image to give it a nice royal tone. The crowd was then later blended into the image to represent this celebrities fame and immense popularity. The lens flare was also added to give the image a sense of glamour and give the viewer the idea that they are looking at a “Star”.

Image 2: I am Evil

The main way I decided to portray wickedness and evil with the image was by adding a lot of shadows above and below him, giving off the sense of a mysterious and dangerous character. The image was later manipulated through ‘burning’ to give off a nice harsh contrast and the eyes were manipulated further to give him a nice leering face. Red paint was then smudged onto his cane, hand and mouth for a more sinister effect.

Image 3: I am Wealthy

I intended to portray the celebrity as wealthy by using cliché ideas.

The top hat, monocle, moustasche and darkened suit give off the sense of a classic gentleman with immense wealth. A blurred image of a manson in the background was also put there to help portray how rich he is. The whole image manipulated to give off a sense that the photograph was old and tattered.

The giant diamond was added for comic affected, I hope it worked.

Visual Language Week 10

This week we looked over our semiotics assignment in a little more detail. We also did a recap on the lession of semiotics a bit and then we moved onto our next lession with covered design principle. We studied the more advanced elements of any design such as movement; how a design can convey a sense of motion or message within the design itself. We also studied balance (both symetrical and asymetrical design) and emphasis using different techniques such as colour, location and simplistic design methods.

Using what we just learned we were tasked with describing various move posters that were handed out into teams. The poster me and my colleague were tasked to describe was Grindhouse/Deathproof. It had all the trademarks of vintage poster design such as a really busy yet symetrically balanced contrast between the white and red. It also had few elements of movement and isolation with the car and female on the front.

Visual Language Week 9

You may have noticed something strange.

No, I haven’t jump weeks,. No.7 and 8 were off due to the midterm and a conference during those weeks.

Now that I’m finally back I can finally start some work again, fantastic. This week we went over last lectures notes because we haven’t been in for so long. We are now starting on your new assignment which will incorporate semiotics. Basically in a nutshell, semiotics means the message that is conveyed by images. Our assignment is to find a celebrity image and convey 3 personalities and emotions with that single image. I chose Ian McKellen for this job, Go Gandalf!

Visual Language Week 6

Classes were non-existent this week because we were busy with a little trip to the arts museum.

I’ll be very blunt here and admit the majority of the “artwork” were a load of rubbish and didn’t even deserve to be in there. Luckily there were a few pieces that I thought were great and I chose these three to be part of my report. Funny enough two out of three of them were more like sketches than actual finished pieces, but that of course is subjective and personally I enjoy sketches more.

I had another assignment that day for Stephen but I’ll leave that report for my Digital Photo. entry.

The three pieces I chose from the Trip are;

- “Flowers Diaghilev” by Elizabeth Peyton.

I really enjoy this etching by Peyton. The free flowing ‘raw’ feeling I get from this piece is simply fantastic.

- “Image of Samuel Beckett” by Louis Le Brocquy.

A sketch of the irishman Samuel Becket by Le Brocquy. I found the striking facial features in this piece simply amazing.

- “We Don’t Want To See Blood” by Camile Souter.

Lastly, I chose this piece for it’s smudged coloring. I thought the message conveyed in this way was easily recognizable.

Visual Language Week 5

We went over some more stuff about color this week, including some pretty nifty optical illusions. We also began working on Photoshop (finally!) with some tutorials on how the marque tools work. Just having a bit of fun cutting and pasting pictures of fruit around to make a face. We also went over some image formats in this weeks lecture, learning about jpegs, gifs and pngs and which one is best to use in certain circumstances.

Niamh did bring up that the next lecture will be postponed in favour of a trip down to the national arts museum in Dublin city. We’re asked to write up a blog post of our visit so I’ll have that up by the weekend.

Visual Language Week 4

Oh my goodness…

This week was a bit hectic without a doubt.

We started our lecture on colour theory and how different colours portray different emotions and on top of that how, for some people, some colours are related to different sounds and instruments. Onto the practical classes we got to stick up our drawings together on the wall… you know what that means? It means I have finally completed my 60 pieces! Below are just two more examples that I took a quick shot of.

Enjoy.

Visual Language Week 3

This week we covered more bases on design.

During the lectures we went over the concepts of Dots and Lines and how simple motions can completely convey a different message within your designs. We also went over textures and patterns including some lovely wallpaper designs from the famous William Morris.

Continuing assessment on the 60 pieces of design is still on. I’ve only managed to pull 15 out of my head this whole week and I have another week to try and get 45 more before the deadline hits, so no more messing around now.

Here’s my favourite piece so far: Mona Lisa in a Bag!

Visual Language Week 2

Well… week no.2 has reared it’s ugly head and has given me one of the most tedious and interesting assignments I have ever seen.

Our objective is to pick a subject (ant, gum-ball machine, plastic bag, sun, etc.) and visually represent it on our A6 sketch pads. Now heres the catch; we need to drive out 60 pieces of visual representation.

Oh boy…

I’ve managed 4 different pieces now in class and have the whole lovely weekend to manage at least 20. I doubt i’ll have much to do this weekend other than college work and fixing my bloody bike! Haha. I’ll see if I can post some up here over the weekend to give you a clue of how this is going to look like in the end.

During the lecture on the other hand we went over some design principles including form, space and negative space. We also went over some studies of cubism including some examples of Picasso’s work.