Bethany Threadless Graphics

As part of our graphics course this year, we had to create a t-shirt design for a company called ‘Threadless’.  It involved a lot of brainstorming, a lot of Photoshop, and a lot of technical stuff. Here’s how I developed my design;

We had to choose a subculture to create a design for—one that we felt would suit us and other people within a chosen age range—so I chose to design some shirts for ‘Goth’.

We had to go through a process of different techniques on Photoshop, including silhouettes, congestion, mono-printing and typography. All of these components became first ideas, and were then developed into final ideas.

I created all my designs in Photoshop, and then put them onto t-shirts from the Threadless site. We then had to choose one design to put on the student forum for other people to pass a verdict on. This was a great way to improve on our ideas and to get an opinion from the type of people/age range who would buy the tee.

After putting it on the student forum and gaining feedback, I then improved the design by re-designing it. I decided to re-design all the tees to get a broader range of ideas. This made it easier to choose a design to submit to the Threadless site.

After re-designing everything, I then put my chosen tee on a pitch board, and asked 20 members of the general public (mainly in the train station) to pass a verdict on it. Based on the feedback I received, I wrote an evaluation on how to improve and then submitted it to Threadless.

College Rollercoaster

Before we began our Elmfield Marketing project, we got to grips with Stop Motion animation and produced the following videos.


The brief was simple: using stop motion, create a college rollercoaster!



Farai Samunyai, Grant Randall, Nick Smith and Alex Whitehurst



Lindsay Mountford, Ryan Mountford and Dominic Yates

Libby- A2 Art:Attention to Detail

For my A2 project I chose to investigate “attention to detail.”

As it was my last unit I wanted to create a very powerful and meaningful piece of art. I chose to explore disability and how it is portrayed, this is a very personal subject to me as I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) when I was sixteen. MS affects me differently day to day; some days I appear perfectly able bodied where as others days I need to use a wheel chair. So I see and experience the way the world treats you when you are perceived as having a disability. I have lived with MS for almost four years and now felt like I was strong enough to voice my opinions through my 3D artwork. I first looked in to the art of collage as this helped me to create a very personal unseen message which then would run through to further my development.

There are two meanings behind this collage; the first a disabled person looking up at god and asking why them, or god looking down and choosing who is strong enough to cope with a disability.

I now wanted to turn my attention to 3D collage, with the idea that man and machine as one. I made a series of with this theme trying to make the part of the chair and the human figure ambiguous. On all pieces I wanted the wheels to stand out as they tend to be the first thing people see. This tends to trigger one of the following responses, people either completely ignore you or they treat you like you are stupid.

The idea behind the art is that most people will see the wheel chair first and not the person, which is why I used a blank white body to symbolise the ignorance that some people show towards disability. Throughout these past four years I have been in a wheel chair, used crutches, walking sticks a number of things to help me cope but when I have good days when I don’t need any I have been discriminated just because my disability isn’t visible. What most people don’t take into account is the mental side and trust me I have been pushed to my limits, although I have not accepted my illness yet, I can already see that it has made me a better person and I want all viewers to take away my story and hopefully see that world differently without having to go through what I have.

Tori-Gif experiments

These are a range of experiments produced as part of my AS photography. They were produced with photoshop. Some techniques have been more successful as others. I experimented mainly with the speed of the transitions. If you click on them you will see the animation moving.

Jenny-Animated Gifs

This is some experimentationn with animated gifs as part of my AS photography.

Click on them to see them move

BTEC Graphic Design-Moodle Logos

Over the last few weeks BTEC Graphic Design Students have been looking at the branding, design and accessibility of Moodle. This week they have been focusing on the Logo itself and how the branding of Moodle and the college can be integrated.
Over the next week or 2 some of these will be showcased becoming the colleges Moodle logo for the day. Which are your favorites so far and why? Add a comment below.

Craig

Dan

Emily

Emma

Grant

Jack

Josh B

Laura

Mitchell

Rachel

Rebecca

Rebecca R

Ryan

Tasha

Vishal

Zak

Josh J

Btec Level 2 Art and Design

Rachael
I love studying art and design, because I do things that I love doing. We have made sock monkeys which was my best task, I had loads of fun doing that, when we made the sock monkey I learnt how to do different kinds of stitching. The other project I really enjoyed was our animation project and we put our videos on youtube. It was really fun finding out how things are done.

Nathan
One of the units I think I did better than the rest. The unit was about animation and jobs I had to draw an animation 1.30mins long about an art and design job. To start with we experimented with different animation types.

I started of by drawing on to acetate with marker and scanning into Photoshop. I edited the drawing in Photoshop then imported them into Windows Movie Maker added a title and credits and then uploaded the animation to YouTube.

 I liked this unit in many ways it got me being creative and independent making my own work  

Kiya
In art I have made many things for the project but my favourite task was making the sock monster/monkeys. I had to design a monster/monkey and make it, it was fun making. Making the body, arms, legs, and ears then stuffing it with cotton wool then sowing it together to make a monster/monkey. Making clothes for the sock monster/monkey was funny to make. This is the end result of this project.  

 

Chris-Light painting in photography

The project "Connected images" I decided to go down the route of light painting and I really like work by Twin Cities Brightest (who creates images using slow shutter speed with a range of lights) and work by Dentsu London, this work used an IPAD to create 3D light appearing to hover in the picture like a holograph. 

I tried lots of ways to make the images, like orthographic views of the side of each letter made on pro-desktop but the volume of letters was too much to work with.

 I quickly moved on from this to the view from the front of the letter this work much better because the curves were smooth and they actually looked like letters. At this point I was testing light levels in rooms, playing with the depth of field and where to put the lettering on the picture. I strung all the images together on windows movie makes so that I could easily move from one letter on a MP4 to another without interruption after a few dozen attempts in several locations with different light levels I found some great images in the corner of my room which supplied a well lit area which was not too bright when the exposure was left open to make the photos.

Josh-Phone Advertising BTEC Graphics

Part of our Graphic work this year we had to design phone adverts for the "N Shape Phone".

This is how I developed my final design. I started of by taking the picture of the phone and headphones in a back pocket. I used a macro lens from far away in order to the blurred effect for the background. I then brought up the contrast to make the colours richer and more vibrant. I then copied the layer and edited the image so that only the darkest bits would show. I did this my changing the threshold and then selecting a white colour range so I was left with only the black. Placing this over the top of my original image gives it allot more depth. I wanted my design to contain some eye catching text that would make potential buyer want to purchase the phone. The phrase “more money for your pocket” tells you that by buying this phone you will be saving money. I put the words “more money” in different coloured text as I want that to be the first thing people read which would interest someone straight away. I chose this particular type of font as it is often associated with text language, also using text like spelling “4 ur”. The main selling point of the phone is the free music downloads which I have also tried to make a main focus point. By placing the text in a box the eye is more drawn towards it as it shows it is something of importance.

For this design I took some my ideas from my billboard design such as the text and the use of headphones to communicate music. I started of by adding a black to grey gradient background. I then added my picture of a phone with the headphones coming out of the sides. Next I added flourishes over and around the phone to make it look more dynamic and exciting. Next I added contouring circles which I made in illustrator and copied into Photoshop. Finally I added my text and logo. For the text I wanted it to mean something to someone who might be reading it and make them feel like this phone is saving them money. However I put the words Free, music and download in a bigger font and different colour to draw the eye to them 3 words, being the phones main selling point.

From peer assessment I learnt that there was a bit to much text in my first advertisement so I had to rethink my design. I still used to same image with the same flourishes but changed the text. The first thing you notice when you look at this is the word “free” in big capitals. This would draw in potential buyers. The add still contains all of the information needed, the name of the phone and its main selling point “free music downloads”. I think that this advertisement worked really well and the colour scheme I used makes it bold and bright making it stand out whilst still being easy of the eye to read and interpret. All of the information can be absorbed at a glance.

Amy-A2 Product Design

For my A2 Product Design project I chose something a bit different to the usual architecture projects and decided to go for a textiles project. I was inspired by a local cheerleading squad, Momentum Surge, to design a training gear for their weekly practices. They already have a uniform worn for competition and performances, but the uniforms are very expensive so they need something to wear for practice which makes them feel like a squad. The training uniform should coincide with the competition uniform, by featuring similar colours and styles. Below is a photograph of one of the squads’ uniforms, and an example of why the training gear needs to allow for a full range of movement.

I am still working on a range of different designs and am in regular communication with the client to get feedback on what they like. I have also done some card models to feature the clothes on to gain a better idea of what the garments would look like on the figure of a person.

I’m also working on designing a logo to feature on the gear, so that it is identifiable to the squad. I’ve been using Adobe Illustrator to do this, and have come up with a variety of designs which I will pitch to the client to get feedback on which one they most like.