Website research (Hartnoll's Guitar shop)

This site isn't very attractive and looks rather tacky. It looks as if it was made a long time ago in very basic and simple way. The logo is just simply text and doesn't have much creativity to it. The tabs are very basic and old. They are similar to something I used a long time ago using an old version of Dreamweaver. The site lacks any modern style or sleekness.

Website research (Bungie.net)

The first site I am going to review for my research is a site called Bungie.net. They are very well known game developers, most famous for their highly praised and successful Halo game series. The link takes you directly to their lastest Halo game section, Halo Reach. They have a very good community and are very dedicated to their game and community. After releasing their lastest game they stay very connected to them, listening to fans and their criticism, keeping up to date with any problems or anything that unbalances the game for players, usually correcting. They are very dedicated to the multiplayer of their game, always changing things to make it more enjoyable for players. They multiplayer consists of game modes, to which the player chooses according to their liking and enjoyment, Bungie often add new game modes for players enjoyment.
On their site, they have a very detailed database of all games played online, which can be viewed on their site, being able to view players and their stats. The site even uses something called 'Heatmaps', which actually shows a top down view of the maps, and highlighting areas where most overall kills/deaths are and even detail for what weapons used. Bungie have a fantastic site, with some much depth and detail, and are very community friendly.

Logo

Slice tool and use of dreamweaver

Today, I had a demo no how to use the slice tool in photoshop, this allowed me to select whatever I wanted on The image. When the web page was opened from how it was originally set. It was positioned at the top left of the screen, small and with a white background. In dreamweaver I was able to change the background colour to black and also to move it into the centre, so now when the web page was opened, it was in the centre of the web page with a matching black background. These are examples how it looked before and after:

Speech Bubble

Using flash, we learnt how to make call outs(speech bubbles). Simply using the oval tool, we created the body of the speech bubble(also being able to edit the stroke size, to make the bubble lines bigger). Now using the line tool we can create the tail, protruding from the bubble. We then played around using the selection tool, selecting the tail and moving it around. Lastly we simply enter text onto the speech bubble.

Wall rubbings

In a group, we went around the college finding different surfaces to rub over with a graphite stick. 

Photography induction

We had an induction into photography, we went through the nikon D40, how to hold the camera and how to use it. We went through how to format the camera. We were shown how the aperture works with the camera and how it affects pictures taken. We were shown how apperture can affect the focus and what the camera is focused on, the higher the aperture, the more it blurs the surroundings around what the camera is focused on. The lower the aperture, the more it focuses on everything in the camera's site. We were also shown how shutter speed works.

Panoramic 360 view

We went outside the college, found a spot to take pictures and took eleven photos, 360 turn snapshots on the spot, which was then used in a programme called ArcSoft Panorama maker. Adding the selected photos, they were put in order and then stitched together, now the images were together and could be turned in a 360 direction.

Exit through the gift shop review.

This is a documentary film about an interesting French artist called Thierry Guetta. For many years of his life, Thierry would record footage of his daily life every single day. One day he came across his brother doing space invader art. To this day, Thierry took a great interest in street artists are started to travel with them, recording all the time. Eventually following much larger, well known artists such as Banksy himself. Even though he filmed all the time, he had no specific direction or purpose of his filming, other than filming as his usual hobby. (unfinished)

Roy Christie: Graffiti art and its culture.

Roy Christie came to our college to talk to us about Graffiti art, its culture and his life with Graffiti art. Roy started Graffiti when he was eight years old, since then he has become a professional Graffiti artist and he intends to remain so, as I quote "I will never give up Graffiti art". Roy has painted walls all over the United Kingdom. Roy told us that part of the Graffiti art culture, is the Hip-Hop music that comes hand in hand with it. Roy showed us a video of a B-boy, which was part of a street dancers, mainly break dancing, showing us how their dance reflects the the music and Graffiti art together.
During our sessions with Roy, he also introduced some graffiti art, shapes and how to draw them, even though I didn't do well at all with this, it was still and interesting experience and was great having him at our lesson.
Personally, I think Roy's work is very creative, he puts alot of passion into his work, and I think his art is pleasant to look at. To me Graffiti can be very creative. But like some Graffiti, it can be unattractive and poorly done. Usually it comes across as distastefulness vandalism. But when you get Graffiti artists like Roy, they put alot of passion and effort into their work, with outcome becoming something you can truly call ART.
Below is a link to a video of some work Roy and his friends did in plymouth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_HsQzk2FTM

8 Ball

Today we learnt different techniques on how to make a pool ball. We started by attempting to make the pool ball from scratch without any guide or help, purely to test our own knowledge and skills. Then we followed the demo to make another pool ball following the technique shown. Basically we just used a gradient background, and then used lots of layers to separate each bit of the ball, and also with the shadow.

Website Proposal

Design proposal

For this unit I want to redesign a music shop called Hartnoll's guitar shop, http://www.hartnollguitars.co.uk/ because I feel the shop could be more inspirational and eye catching. I feel that the site has little effort put in towards it in some areas, such as the description of products being basic and can actually be seen identically on other music shops. Considering they sell some very dear products, it would be ideal to have maybe a bit more info on the product, so people can understand the product they’re buying better.

Good points about the site are that it's actually a good music shop to buy products from, they have quite a good selection and have a wide variety easier to navigate, the tabs are neatly listed on the side of the webpage which makes finding that certain product you’re looking for much easier. The site is fairly community friendly, having customer comments on the right side of the website in a separate column.

Bad points are, there are occasionally a few hiccups here and there which can ruin the view of the site, and look a bit tacky. Could probably use better images whether for product examples or for icons. Product description could be better for some products as it can explain something which can be seen on any site, and doesn’t give much input or personal store input on the product, as a lot of products are over hundred pounds, so it would be to get a better idea of what you’re buying, so you don’t become disappointed. I feel the layout is poorly done and the colour scheme is unattractive


I think maybe having online guitar lessons, maybe just basic lessons and possibly a (song)tabs section.