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LIMBO 15/09/2016

Today I have been asked to firstly make a short research about the graphic desing of the computer game called 'Limbo'. I noticed that the scenery here is created by a range of layers, where the first one is the darkest and rest of them ligher and blurred. It gave effect of depth, making 2D graphic to appeal as if it was 2.5D or 3D.

Shortly after we were shown a tutorial how to do it ourselves and were asked to do so.

I started by renaming the Background Layer to unlock it. Then I stared planning how to desing my 'level. I decided that I want to be original and created a raw sketch of it. The plan was to create 3 Greek-Style statues that were supposed to be platforms, that my character would walk on. Then I added another platform - this time it was just a rock. This way I have created my first layer of the level. Exactly as it was with Limbo, this layer is entirely black.

Then I have created second, third, fourth and fifth layer. As I added these layers I made them a bit more blurred and a bit lighter; last layer was almost entirely blurred and almost white. Those layers created the valley that was supposed to be the 'background' of the level.

As the last thing I have drawn a tree branch in the upper left corner if my level, and then added decorations; stones, grass, a crow and water. Then to make it even more appealing like Limbo I have added the Vignette effect.

This task was not very easy as I do not work with depth and create only two dimnesional images with simple colours or just left black and white. There I had to stay focused on the task and my references (screenshots of the game) and carefully follow the instructions.

The hardest thing to achieve, was to use the bezier handles with the pen tool; I have never used this tool before, and also never tried to make so unnaturaly shaped objects. However, the final image looks very good and I could even try to call it professional.

I made a 'Limbo' level just as it would look in the game, while still keeping my style.

Gallery showing different layers.

Screenshot from the game.

Gallery showing different layers.

Screenshot from the game.

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Motif 20/09/2016

Sebastian Kaczmarczyk

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limbo

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Last lesson deserves to be called interesting as from the very first moment we, students, were asked to create a definition of Graphic Design. After a short debate in small groups we came to a conclusion that everything can be called Graphic Design; starting from the posters in the classroom, layout of the building to the design of a bus that took us here. It all had to be previously designed, so it all is a Graphic Design. I found it very interesting as I have never though this way.

It all was followed by our task to make our own Motif for London Design Festival. We were asked to pair up and think of graphics saying 'This is graphics'. As resources we were given books like A catalog of type Hand Job, which were really fascinating. I have never read such books before - full of different artists' sketchbooks and designs. After reading them I decided that I would like to something similar to things I found inside. One of the designs was a Row, where was a row of Rows.

Motif 20/09/2016

ROW ROW ROW ROW ROW ROW

Motif

Idea of row was taken literally and that is what inspired me to make my own design as it is.

I started by making a small sketch on the piece of paper that teacher gave me. I have written there 'Read Between The Lines'. After knowing Row you probably already know what I planned to do. Yes, literally you had to read between the lines to find that there was something else. 'Seriously, there is a lot of amazing stuff!' to be exact. After consulting that with teacher I took A3 page on which I wrote it again and then took a photo of it.

Today I have sent that photo onto my email and opened it in the Photoshop. My plan was to use the Pen Tool to write all the letter from the photo on the second layer. Unfortunately I found it very difficult to do, so I decided to scrap this idea. Instead I used the Brush tool with the Shift button. It allowed me to create smooth straight lines. Then I just manually created all the needed curves.

After finished this graphic I stared the next stage - putting this on the bag.

I am very satisfied with the result of my work - it looks interesting, fun, modern and catchy. I believe that this design would be quite popular on t-shirts.

Vintage Travel Poster 21/09/2016

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Today I have been asked to make a research about the Vintage Travel Posters and make one. Before starting anything I have written my definitions of Primary Research and Secondary Research.

In the Primary Research a person is supposed to research new areas, subjects or answer questions by themselves without any data collected by somebody else. Primary Research thus might involve an interview, taking a photography, preparing a survey, make an observation or having an experiment. This way of researching allows you to focus on a specific subject ( as you are the one to decide what to research and what to not ), giving you a higher control over the data collecting. However this research usually costs more than the Secondary Research, in which he data you research has been previously collected by someone else. It is most common way of researching thank to the fact, that people just need to check somebody's Primary Research. Secondary Research often involves searching the internet, reading books or newspapers, watching television or reading statistics. Unfortunately this way of researching is not alway accurate - data's quaility vares because its author has not necessarily done it well.

TECHNIQUE / PRIMARY SECONDARY / EVALUATION

PRIMARY RESEARCH is accurate and always specific and relevant to what you need. However it is very time consumings, needs a lot of effort and often costs money.

Interview - this method allows you to get first-hand information from other people.
Photography - this method allows you to get accurate visuals of some object or location. Easy to investigate later.
Experiment - this method gives a high level of understanding about a specific thing. Like checking how many people visit one place.
Drawing - this method allows you to put information in your own style, keeping its feeling. Unlike photography this method is not accurate unless you are a very talented artist.
Observation - this method is similar works the same as drawing, however you do not sketch what you see but write it down or just try to remember it. This method let's you notice more details than photography.

SECONDARY RESEARCH is cheap and do not take much time. On the other hand it is not specific and information you find is not alway relevant or even accurate.

Books (Secondary) - this method is very reliable but takes a lot of time to find information you want.
Newspapers - this method is reliable, however information inside vary - it is not always related to what you are looking for.
Television - this method is quite reliable (depending on the station), however information is not alway available.
Internet - this method allows you to find infromation very quickly, however found information is not always accurate. You always need to compare multiple websites in order to check whether information you found is fake or not.
Statistics - this method is very reliable - actual numbers of visitors allow you to get the idea how popular something is.

Before designing my poster I had to research most popular tourist destinations in the Manchester and select one.

After finishing my research I have completed my Mood Boards and started to finally research Vintage Travel Posters.

Firstly I choose to use the secondary Internet Searching technique by visiting three websites. First, creativebloq (http://www.creativebloq.com/posters/inspiring-examples-vintage-posters-12121442), was not very helpful as not all of the images there were Travel Posters. However, the tenths image, Austria, catched my attention. Its simple but fine style persuaded me to do something similar. I decided that my poster would also involve artistic scenery and people. The only problem was that I did not have any assets; no photos nor camera, so I had to find them. The second website, manchestereveningnews (http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/piccadilly-gardens-petition-clean-up-10978740), contained a photo that I could use as the background. On the last, postermywall (http://www.postermywall.com/index.php/g/vintage-posters#), I have found a retro image of a lady that was not in the same style as Austria, however it would go well with the photo of Piccadily Gardens in the Manchester that I chose.

After finding assets I needed I opened my favourite photo editor - iPiccy and put artistic effect onto the background. Then I have combined both lady and background in the Photoshop and edited again in the iPiccy,

I have started this task by simply looking for those places on the internet. Google proposed places such as Musem of Transport, Manchester Central Library and Piccadilly Gardens. In order to select one I decided to visit them starting from the gardens, which I decided to select as the place for my project from the moment I saw it. Entire place was crowded and full of life - multiple cafes, restaurants were overcrowded. I found gardens quite pretty, unfortunately for me I do now own any camera so I decided to look for a photo with Google. However I have drawn the Piccadily Gardens for my Primary Research:

As part of my Primary Research I have also created a survey in which I asked 5 questions. Results are included below:

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This researching task was not as hard as I have expected - there was no need for interviews, which I feared I would have to do. Thanks to my Secondary Research, in which I have checked different places in the Manchester and then found additional data about them, I have been able to save a lot of time - it would take a few days to check all those places by myself. It would also cost a bit to buses to them. With my Primary Research I was able to ensure that the place I selected to advertise with my poster is popular and that I like it. My survey allowed me to check what is other's favourite place in Manchester and they have chosen Piccadilly Gardens. Because of visiting those Gardens and sketching them I could see with my own eyes why people like it.

I think that skills related to research I have gained today will be very helpful in the near and far future. I also think that I have done very good work today.

LOG

MOOD BOARD

After finishing the first design I have decided to create three more and then select one from all three to create my final design.

First design shows the town hall - a big building with multiple towers and a few rows of windows and two trees in front of it. For this design I have planned to place a big bold MANCHESTER at the bottom. Text would be not separated from the building as it would be just simply put on the grey ground. Trees would use two or three shades of green, while building would be black, brown and grey. Sky would be blue and clock tower, and windows white or black.

Second design shows the Wheel of Manchester. This attraction would be entirely black. As a contradiction to it, the back would use more colours - blue, white and yellow. Text would be put at the bottom. Font would be high and separated from the wheel so it can be easily seen.

Third design shows one of the rivers and a bridge. For this one I would use white sky, white, orange and red details of the bridge and two shades of blue for water. Reflections would be black or use the same colours as the deflected parts. Text would be fancy and put in the middle, while being separated from the water.

References: click to open

Designs.

Click to preview.

In total I have created 12 designs. In order to find which one should be my final design I have asked my fellow classmates to choose which they like the most. 8 out of 11 people have selected the design with the Wheel of Manchester. I think that it is because of the light palette of colours contradicting to the black wheel and also thanks to the high, thin font at the bottom.

Im am slowly coming to the end of this project, as my design looks better and better. In order to make my Wheel as similar to the real one, I have created three layers. Layer at the bottom was the real picture. Second layer was my sketch, and the last layer was for me to draw on. After opening the moodboard I had all references I need accessible at all times.

The first thing that I did, was unfortunatyly very problematic. I could not create elipses that would fit the picture; I did not know how to rotate shapes. At that time I decided to simply draw them. This time my elipses looked simply bad.

Because of that I decided to fill the entire picture in black and then ERASE instead of DRAWING. Thanks to that I was able to create my wheel just as I wanted to. Whatsoever it was very time-consuming and I think that I shall not repeat this process.

For the other one I just have drawn an elipse and then erased what I did not want. I did not fill the entire layer with colour just to save time as less space needs less erasing.

After smoothing my wheel I have started to draw more things. In this stage I have used the same technique I have used at the beginning of year, while creating my Julie Opie portrait. I have simply used the lasso tool around the grey area and then filled it black.

Then I have created the background b adding a few layers. I wanted sky to be blue, but in the end I have selected that is hard to define, whether it is blue or green. I have also added clouds, sun and then shade on the clouds by adding a bit darker tone on them.

In the end I have added text. In order to get the three dimension effect I have placed text three times moving them by just a bit and giving them a different colour. Ones in the front and the back are white, and one in the middle is yellow. I have used the same font for the subheading as I have placed in my mood board. The same comes to all colours used - even the black tone was taken from the mood board.

As the last thing I just have made clouds a bit more visible and moved the sun, while giving it the white tone. Thanks to that my image is clean, readable and entire space is used. But just to be sure I have experimented with the colours in the gallery below.

II have been very surprised by how much this poster changes every time I use different colours. By changing the hue I have been able to give my poster cold, winter feeling but also hot, summer feeling. I could even make it look like a old-fashioned Japanese styled-photo by making sky and sun red.

Whatsoever I have decided to stick with my initial colour set as first idea usually is the best idea.

In order to check how my poster would work in real life, I have created these mockups. First one shows my poster at the airport on the wall. Second one shows the simplier version of my poster as a post card.

Before simplifying my poster I took my time to think what exactly I want to do. I have decided that I want less colours, remove 3D effect from text and also remove subheading as it would be unreadable.

The first thing I did was removing two layers from the heading. I have deleted the middle, golden layer and the white layer from the back. The only thing left was clean Manchester in white.

Next thing was removing the subheading. I had no problems here as I just had to press 'delete' button while selecting this layer. On the other hand I did not which colour to remove. I could not get rid of black tone, as it would be just stupid. I have been thinking about removing the green sky, leaving just white or black background. I have also thought of removing golden shade on the clouds and that is what I have done.

For me it was simply a good idea to remove golden shade after removing golden text.

The last thing I have done was cutting a bit of clouds at the bottom to make my text become more readable. In my poster this text is easy to read even with clouds here, thanks to the golden text, however here both text and clouds use the same tone.

FINAL EVALUATION

It has been already six weeks since I have started working on this project. Those six weeks were full of new experiences and amazing things new to me. After almost two months of researching, planning, reviewing, editing and drawing I have created a fine piece of evidence to support my evaluation.

First two weeks of this project were fully dedicated to my research. During the first session I have spent around three hours reading different pieces of text in order to find and create definition of researching. I have learnt that you can divide researching into two different types; Primary Research and Secondary Research. After some time, I was able to perfectly distinguish them; I could easily give examples, their uses, show differences, their pros and cons and also use these techniques myself.

Thanks to that I have been able to create my own research very productively - because of my knowledge of uses of Two Researches. I have created a survey in which I asked fellow student about their opinion. I have used this technique as it gives a strong portion of others' opinions, when in this project their opinions are the most important factor while creating my poster. I have written so, because my poster had to refer to a place, which people would happily visit. For my Primary Research I have also visited places I would like to see as a tourist. I did so because I believed and my opinion would also matter while planning my poster as I too could be a tourist.

For my Secondary Research I have visited multiple websites and blogs and spent many hours reviewing posters published there. I was looking for the different techniques I could use and also for typical aspects of the Vintage genre.

Soon after my research I have created my initial design, which I created thanks to the knowledge I gained during my researching process. I was happy with my poster at that time, but I have decided that everything can be improved and that improvement creates perfection. It all resulted in creating my mood board - I have gathered here useful information, hints and examples for my future poster. Then I have created twelve more designs. I have created so many designs in order to find out which of my ideas is best. After reviewing all my designs, I have selected one of them with the help of other students.

Soon after I started to create my final poster I have come across my first problems. I had not much experience with Photoshop so I did not know which tools to use and how to use them. Thanks to this project I have been able to widen my knowledge about the software used in the industry as well as getting experience about using it. It is totally different between how you think it works and how it really works. However, as this project gave me new skills, it also allowed me to develop skills that I already had. I have been able to create my image more precisely than usually and to create better effects than ever.

I believe that I met the brief as I have provided all the evidence needed - final image, mock ups and a post card. All work was done before the deadline. My work is also of a very good quality and serves perfectly for the target audience.

If I have been asked to do this project again I would probably gladly accept. I love this project - it gave me a lot of experience and knowledge that I will for sure use in the future. It was also very fun. However, I would do my poster differently. I would like to use different method or devote my work to make it similar to some famous artist's work. I would probably challenge myself to do it better and sooner.

COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT METHODS

For me the best method of researching is the secondary research made in the Internet as it is much easier and cheaper that primary researches like actually going somewhere (and having to pay for bus) or other secondary researches like reading books (information might be outdated and it is not free).

Another method I use is reading newspapers - I read them three times a week. As they are not really reliable source of information (information here is not predictable, often not important or heavily biased). However, thanks to the newspapers I have been able to understand others' point of view on some aspects. This method is just as television but is cheaper. Another quite similar method is interviewing people - it also gives you their opinion, however, it is then time consuming not only for you but also for others.

Vintage

Now (6th of December, 2016) I see how important this work was for me. Thanks to the Motif project I have gained self-confidence, which pushed me forward at hard times during other projects like the Travel Poster.

Also, I have been able to learn many things about the software I did not think of before, like clipping images together. Thanks to this technique I have been able to finish my later work much quicker as I had less editing to do.