Snow Flakes!

Snow Flake Project

This first screenshot is the first step in making a Snow Flake in Photoshop

You first make a single straight line, then add random shapes (ideally ones that rotate without looking weird).

Once you have put a few shapes together, you can then merge them together (so it's easier for you).

Next, you simply duplicate the layer you just made, then merge the new layer and the old one together; just make sure you don't merge the background layer with the shape you've made so far.

 Following the last step, duplicate the layer

Then rotate it 90 degrees, so it looks like the screenshot below.

Next, merge those layers together and like last time rotate the image (after duplicating it), but make sure to rotate the images 45 degrees instead of 90.
There you go! You have a shape that round about represents a snow flake, if you wanted; you could make the image bigger, have more shapes on it or do pretty much what ever you wanted.

Media Website Evaluation

Media Website Evalution

Level 2 create media website

I was set the task of creating a website for all my work on Level 2 creative media.

I created an account on http://www.wix.com/, and started thinking about what kinda things I would put on my website.
I could add some of the pictures I took whilst on the Harry Potter trip, also if I can find the diagram I made outlining the basic concept of a camera, what it looks like and the different buttons you can press to set things like the ISO, shutter speed, aperture and exposure.
I also had to look at three media professionals (a film director, a fashion designer and a professional illustrator)  look at their websites and criticize their website, explaining what is good and what is bad about it.

Film Director's Website:

George Lucas's Website (http://www.lucasfilm.com/).
The first page you come to seems quite simplistic, giving you clear directions to where you might want to go, also there are links on the first page to different clips, as well as a link to applying for a job in their company (careers), finding out more about Lucasfilm (Titled: Our  Story when you click the link "About"), there is a link to all the films that Lucasfilm has taken part in i.e.:

• Indiana Jones
• Star Wars
• Strange Magic
• American Graffiti

There is also a like on the main page called "What we do", which is a page that explains everything what they do as a company, these are the following:

• Game Development, 
• Skywalker Sound
• ILM
• Animation
• Products (where you can buy special Lucasfilm Merchandise).

All of the categories above do not seem to have any links leading to external sources/ websites.

This appears un-usual but this could be a way to keep people from leaving the page quickly and persuaded to look at everything on there, but there is a link to social media on the page (Facebook) that appear to be the only external leading link.

Fashion Designer's Website:

Jeremy Hackett's Website (http://www.hackett.com/gb/)

The first page you come to (the Home Page), seems a lot more complex than the last one I saw, so many more buttons to press, so many things to look at; you'd have to have a specific thing you're looking for because you could get easily lost in the website if you didn't.

The first thing you notice (straight away) is the pictures scrolling across the page (from right to left), generally, the main purpose of this feature is to draw the user's eye to that specific part of the page.

I also notice that when you change the size of the window on your computer, the layout of the webpage changes too, I really like this because you can do other things while you are doing cloth shopping.

There is a section for Junior and Kids wear as well so that it serves more than one group of people.

Also there are links to the the following things:

• Men
• Accessories
• Collections
• Hackett Lifestyle
• Sponsorship

There are a lot of pictures of products that the store sells, Links to like/ follow them on Social Media and also a link to sign up for exclusive news and events, a link called "about us", "customer services" and "In-store services".

There are links to external websites (mainly social media) these are the only external leading links, but there is one external leading link that could distract customers into something different the link is to YouTube, this is the only let-down I can see in this website as they could loose customers because they got distracted by YouTube, even though the chances of this happening are very unlikely.

Fine Artists's Website

Samantha Payne's website (http://www.samanthapaynepainting.com/)
The home page is very, very simplistic, there are only three buttons on this page, The home page button and a main image in the background (which you can click on, this will bring up a window where you can view all the images that cycle in the background at your own pace), a button that goes to her Portfolio, button that goes to "About".

When you click the "Portfolio" button it comes up with a grid like form layout with all different paintings also one of the things I noticed on this page was that when you clicked on an image in the background, you can view it when it enlarges and view all the other images from this too if you so wish, a lot of the images are real-life based, with paintings titled "Mum", "Dave", "Pete", "Barbados" etc.

When you click the "About" button, you are taken to another very simplistic page, giving a basic outline of the person, their contact details and links to external websites (Facebook and "bgallery.co.uk").

Templates

As a template for my website, I decided to choose the following template because it was quite easy to adapt to what I wanted, the general layout of the webite was good; and I make it look unique by adding my own pictures (taken off Google), added different text to it (to make it more orriginal)... obiously, I've added my own work into the website as I should have; but I have added eight images instead of the suggested two images....
I also have five grapical images as well, to really show off what I've done.
Also, I have added the two videos as required by the brief.

This layout also inspired me to use space as the main theme on my website... manly because I've always liked space and wanted to do it as a thmem because then it would look unique.
It would compliment my work in the way that the layout and the way that users can easily nevigate thorugh the website, also, I like the fact that you can have a little logo on the side if you choose to.
As already stated, I will add pictures of space to the background, add different ways to display my work to the main frame of the website and include a space for users to give feedback if they choose to also, although this was not stated in the main brief I  decided to add it anyway; to help me understand wah t people are looking for in a website.

Peer review.

As part of my project, I have to get feedback off students about my website: the things I could improve on and the things that are already good about it.


The first student that I talked to was Linda Ozola; she said that she liked my website, but she didn't like the the size of my font, they said: "Your writing should be bigger", but overall the response was positive, she also liked the backgrounds on my website that I had chosen too because they were "Spacey", meaning they had the general .

This reveiw was from Kaza Brookbanks:

"Home page: the text boxes have a white background tot hem which don't give it a good look
the scrolling images are good but not sure if you can fix it or not but has that odd grey on side to side
on bottom text you don't have to say is "(like a portfolio)"
there was no point for the ewp text box
 
about page: it has that odd white background on the text box but you explained what you needed to explain
 
contact page: has a sort of basic look but still has everything it needs
photos: you explain the point of the creatures section but maybe add more sections of your work also remove the numbers under the photos and maybe explain each image
 
Videography: you explained well and clear of each video 
Graphic design: is explained well and clear but maybe explain what is each picture like what were they for".


I find this feedback very helpful, now I know some of the things I might need to take extra care on; for example not having logos on my webpage, not having white text boxes and making sure that certain things are in the right.
http://danielsemakula89.wix.com/epicwebsite

Tutor Feedback
"Beautiful!" what you could do if you had to continue the project on another, say; six weeks- you could make a tutorial on one of the things you made, this draws people into your website because then they become interested in the work that you're doing. (These aren't the exact words the tutor spoke but they are as close as I can get to it seen as my memory isn't that good.

Creative Media Website Proposal

Creative Media Website Proposal

I was asked to make a website (on https://www.wix.com/)choose whether I was going to put Photography, graphics or both into my website.

My website is going to have more graphics than anything, so that is my choice.

Also, I had to choose between a website that looked good, but didn't have very a user good interface (how the user interacts with the website) or had a good user interface but didn't looked more basic.

I decide to go for looks more than user interface, because I find that easier to do.

The first think I did was go onto Wix.com 

Then I created a new account.

First, I decided to choose backgrounds for all the pages on my website, the images are below:

I start off with a plane and simple layout to start off with, then I am going to personalize it so that it's the way I like it.

First thing I did was change the logos on the lefty hand side of the webpage to my own.
This is the logo I decided to make, "EWP stands for Epic Web Pages"

From there I started creating the home page, where a box displaying one or more pictures from each subject, I also added a nice text box welcoming users onto my webpage and a little text box below explaining the purpose of my webpage.

Next, I proceeded onto the second page, the "About" page, this page is all about explaining who you are, why you created the webpage, what the webpage is all about and also a  section "Contact"

The screenshot above is one of the About section of the website.
Below is a screenshot of the "Contact" section of the website which is under the about tab on the main navigation panel at the top of the website, this is a section that people can use to contact me if they have any feedback to give; or if they just want to say hello, the choice- it's just a shame that I can't filter things that are inappropriate/ racist or otherwise condescending towards, also I decided to add a section where they have to put an e-mail address so that I can contact them if they decide to do something stupid also I put my contact details like phone number, e-mail address and other pieces of information that might be necessary so that people have enough ways to get in contact if they wish to.

Next I decided to start on the Photography side of my course, I chose eight of my best images what I'd display on a slide show in the photography part of my website.

It turned out to be quite a pain because there weren't a lot of pictures to choose from (mainly because they were all quite bad), but luckily I found 6 decent images to use... I used a combination of pictures from Stonebridge City Farm and some other images from different projects that I have taken part in, for example when I did the "Film Noir" project and also a little view over Nottingham as part of a project I unfortunately forgot.

Next, I focused my efforts on the Videography side of my website, I added the two films that me and the teams that I were put into; they are also on YouTube as well (I created my own YouTube channel so that I could do this), the screenshot of the page in my website is below:

As you may also see, I have created a little description below each of the videos, describing what they were about and a nice title just at the top of each video to show what each one was (as you should).
I also laid it out so that the more resent one was at the top and the bottom was the least resent.

The next thing that I did was start on the last page in my website, the graphic design part.
I decided to create a slide show of different pieces that I have created whilst on Photoshop.
I've put a description below the slide show to tell people a little more about what the pictures are about.
The five pieces of work are from my 2D game project, I will also have a few screenshots from the development of the website too, as this also part of my graphic design course 

The link to my website is below:
http://danielsemakula89.wix.com/epicwebsite

Please feel free to take a look at the final product that I have made, all the little tweaks that I have made are in there too.
I feel like anything else needs to be added to my website at this time, I will change anything if/when I need to.