Week 6, Session 2

Today was our last day in class. We started with an hour of studio work and then we all looked around the other classes. I enjoyed seeing the other classes work and seeing how other people interpreted the same brief as us, everyones work is so unique. I felt that the standard of work was very high and it may have been helpful for us to have interacted with the other classes more before hand in.

We then spent the rest of the class doing studio work. We had a talk to Matt about our brochure and tweaking our website. Everything is coming together and I'm excited to see all of the elements together. We are printing our poster and brochure this afternoon a few days before hand in to leave room for any printing errors but hopefully it will go smoothly.

I have really enjoyed this paper and I have learnt a lot from it and my lecturers. Me and Greta worked well as a team as we both have strengths in different areas. It was daunting to start with and has been lots of work but once you nail down your theme and get everything started everything falls into place.

- Laura

Week 6, Session 1

Today in class was supposed to be the last lesson before hand in but hand in ended up getting extended. In class today we spent the first hour going around and critiquing peoples work. This was helpful but ended up adding a lot of work for only a couple of days left until hand in.

We got quite a few suggestions about what to fix up but we got told that overall it flows cohesively. We spent the following two hours fixing up our work and getting advice from the teachers. This was a good chance to be together and get some final things sorted. Laura and I have been very busy over the last week so needed some face to face time to sort last things out.

I feel confident going into hand in as we have basically finished and are just fixing up some last minute things and recommendations from class. Overall I have enjoyed doing this paper as I have enjoyed working with laura as a partner we bring different skills and work well as a pair. This paper has been a lot more demanding than the other parts but is good to collaborate all the things we have learned.

- Greta

Week 5, Session 2

Today's session was mostly studio time. It was time to refine our work after getting all the feedback from the interim critique yesterday. In this session we were working on making sure all the design elements were cohesive and getting all of the details sorted.

Our hand in has been extended till Friday I found this helpful as we are able to get that last critique on our work in the two classes while still having enough time to act on it. Overall I am feeling really good about our work. I think we work well as a team and everything is coming along how we want it to. I am excited to get our work printed and see the final result. 

- Laura

Week 5, Session 1

It was our last interim presentation in class today. We felt like we had done alot but we had one last thing planned that we were going to stick together that morning and we were not able to so therefore were not able to show the class our brochure all made up so it was quite hard to understand for some people.

Overall the critique went well, it was very helpful having a critique sheet that was so detailed it also was helpful to critique others work because it made you critique your own more harshly. We got quite positive feedback which was good a few of the improvements people told us to make were things that we had already picked up on ourselves or needed to be explained further.

We managed to sit down with matt to discuss the new layout of our brochure. This was very helpful as we didn't know weather to do a long one with quite a lot of information or a very short quick tips one. He was able to give us some ideas of what we could do but overall liked what we had done with the brochure so far. Moving on we just need to pull everything together and get through all the last things ready for hand in. 

I feel that we are well on track and I am feeling good about our work as we have worked hard with it and are still enjoying doing it and working as a team. 

Week 4, Session 2

In today's class we had studio time and the chance to have one on ones with the lecturers.

We spoke to both Klaus and Matt about our work and they both have some conflicting view on our work so we will using our judgement to decide what we think will work best for our designs. Matt gave us lots of tips and tricks for building the website that were really helpful, making sure we try out lots of options and not getting stuck on one idea.

We are currently working on the website and flyer design making sure the design style is cohesive throughout all elements. I'm enjoying using invision and I think it gives us an opportunity to create our website exactly how we want it which may not be possible if we had to code the whole thing. I really enjoy this program and being able to see your website come together so quickly. 

Most of this class was spent doing work and it was good to get a chance to get lots done in class time. The website is well underway and we have got the flyer started. There is lots of work to be done in the next few weeks but Im excited to see where our designs go. 

- Laura

Week 4, Session 1

Today in class we Started with a lecture introducing us to the third year papers on offer. This was helpful to see where we are heading towards.

Todays lesson was mainly studio time so that we could get lots of work done and get a critique from the teachers. We got positive feedback on our work and had to fix up the things that we had already figured out needed fixing when we did a print out.

We feel pretty confident on where we are heading with our work and are heading in the right direction after our latest photo shoot. We feel confident that we are targeting our target audience and that our images are strong.

We still have a lot of work that needs to be done and we will start to work on our flyer and extra media as we have already made a solid start on our website layout.

Week 3, Session 2

Today in class we started in the Pit where we had a lecture about some past examples of other students work to give us an idea about trans media and how we could use it in our work. This was helpful as it gave us a clearer image about what we still needed to achieve.

In the class we started to go just into pair work which laura and I needed to finalise our plan ready to do a new photo shoot on thursday as from the critique our messages weren't clear enough. We put together a new plan and drew up new thumbnails.

We also had a lecture in the last 30 mins of class time which was super helpful teaching us how to use in-vision. It was a lot easier than we had expected and looks like a fun programme to play with as we can get a lot more of our ideas onto the website without having to code anything.

Overall I feel confident about the class we still have a lot of work needing to still be done but we feel like we are on the right path and should hopefully catch up to speed soon.

Week 3, Session 1

Todays class started with our interim critique. Each group put their posters out on the tables. We left a piece of paper for people to write feedback about our work and the class walked around. I found it really useful to get feedback written down from other students. There were more honest comments about the work that wouldn't have been said if we had to critique in front of the group.

From our feedback people like our visual styles and the combination of illustration and photography but we really need to lock down our target audience to make sure we are attracting the right people with our posters.

After the critique we had a lecture in the pitt about trans-media. We learnt about user interface design and the different types of prototyping we could use for designing our websites. I found this lecture to be very informative and relevant to the assignment and where we are at in the process.

- Laura

Week 2, Session 2

Today's class started with a group lecture. Matt discussed with us how we can show the same idea through many different styles. He used the Animal Farm book covers as an example as the book has been remade with many different styles of covers yet each one still conveys the same message to the viewer. This is something we need to think about when designing our posters.
We were also shown a video 'Team Ball Player Thing' to show us that we can have fun with our projects and really start thinking out of the box. I do think that the time constraints will effect what we are able to create.

We then went back to class and pinned our mood boards up onto the wall. We then all had one on ones with the lecturers. It was really helpful to talk to Matt he helped us to start thinking outside of the box and that we didn't need to be so literal and have an actual surfer on every poster. What symbolises a surfer? How can you represent them without having them literally on the page? Can we use a graphic surfer style?
We had become very confined with our surfer target audience but after talking to Matt we think its a good idea to try one poster design that is for a more general audience and one poster that is aimed towards the surfer community.

I felt like our conversation had sparked a lot of really good ideas and I'm excited to try them out.

- Laura

Week 2, Session 1

Today in class we were split into half based on what subject we had picked. We then started to nail down the ideas and break up the whole idea of the beach clean up day. This was a helpful exercise as it broadened how I was able to look at the topic and gave me many more ideas about how to approach particular target audiences with certain themes.

We then were instructed to thumbnail and come up with a poster that included all the words that we had picked from the list. I really struggle with drawing so I found this quite hard as I had an idea in my head but couldn't put it onto the paper. We critiqued other peoples posters then went back and came up with a whole new range of thumbnails that we could later evolve.

For homework we were needing to come up with 22 thumbnails that were based on a set of the 5 words from the groups we did in class and then we needed to make 4 of them nice to show in class tomorrow.

- Greta

Week 1, Session 2

Today's class started with the analysis of the second Simpsons poster design and then we looked at each groups homework. We had to create a poster that was aimed towards 2 different Simpsons characters. Through the classes discussion it was clear that we all needed to be more conscious in what rhetorical devices we are using in our posters and remembering that we don't need to show the characters/target audiences so literally to represent them.

Next each group began to write up a project plan. This was quite difficult at this stage in the process and a lot more research is needed before we can write this out fully. It was useful to work out what research needed to be done and what was required from us to complete the brief. 

As a class we brainstormed and created word lists on the type of people that would be at both of the events to get an idea of the range of target audiences. This showed how specific we can be when choosing a target audience for our event as there are many dry different types of people that go to the beach. 

For the last half hour of class we had a lecture in the pit where we went over creating mood boards and we could ask questions about the project.

- Laura

Week 1, Session 1

Today was our first class. We were introduced to the idea of Koha and giving back to a cause and our community. In class we were instructed to get into groups of 5 where we were given a list of 4 Simpsons characters and their profiles. We chose to go with comic book guy and start to figure out his demographics and anything extra about him that we could figure out. We then designed a poster that would hopefully advertise to him to come down to the beach for a beach clean up day. This was a challenging task as we had to directly target him through his demographics.

We then had to do this same task with Ned Flanders but we were trying to get him to come to a neighbourhood BBQ this was easier than the first we found. Our homework was to pick 2 more characters that were not that similar and create a third poster.

Overall I feel that this is a very big project incorporating all the things we ave done so far in the year but at least we can share the load with a partner.

- Greta