Website Is Online!

http://www.grafikus.at/danceblog4/

Group

At first, when I was notified that i was in the web team. I wasn't particularly happy. However looking back as a group i think we worked quite well.

Freyr - As coodinator i think he a good job. He was very good with communication, getting team meetings etc. However at first i think he took the role very OTT, setting us mini research tasks aswell as work we had to do. Again looking back he was very organised and very up to date with everyone's progress.

Jimmy - Jimmy was the most reliable out of all of us. He was always there if you needed him and got on with work all the time.

Dave - Again dave was very well organised, always appearing on skype meetings etc. Always turned up to lesson and always got his work done.

Myself - I think i needed to be more involved. I did the work that was needed. However due to attendence on some occasions i felt my input wasnt involved as much as it could of been.

Overall - I think we did a nice job on the website. Needs a few tweaks but i'd give us a 9/10 :)

Tasks

Freyr (co ordinator) set us tasks for the main focus of the website. He wanted to keep one person on the main CSS, one person for content, one person for resize images - cooperating with video and the final task was to set up/upload videos to the Vimeo account.

Freyr - Finding out content, what they want in website.
Dave - Setting up, uploading videos to Vimeo account
James/ Freyr - Working on main css on wordpress
Luke - Working with video to get images to be uploaded/resized to upload to website.

At first i thought the tasks sounded to easy, however little things like working with wordpress doesnt help due to resrictions and resizing images is very time consuming.

My Draft of website Design

As a group, we had to individually create our own design to the website. I didn't make mine live because I didn't really dedicate time towards discovering what word press is. Here is a powerpoint presentation to show my website mock.

From what I heard this wasn't shown in group discussion when discuss what website to go for.

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=c8a2f0303e285529#!/view.aspx?cid=C8A2F0303E285529&resid=C8A2F0303E285529%21173

Screenshots of what the website would roughly involve.

Website Mock Up

So this is my idea, sticking towards the colour scheme of the Sussex downs Lewes college. This is the Home page, more pages are going to be following.

 Feedback Please?

Research For Wed 21st

So after looking through many wordpress plugins, i've chosen a few that might be useful towards the final website. 

Lightbox Effect

I found this one and it is called "auto thickbox." 

"Auto ThickBox Plus plugin is the improved version of Auto Thickbox plugin, with some extra features.
Clicking on image/text links to images etc, this plugin overlays linked content on the page in simple & fast effects. It's recommended if you want to pop up thumbnails easily in its original size."

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/auto-thickbox-plus/

Facebook Link

This one is called "add link to facebook"

"Automatically add links to posts or pages that are being published to your Facebook wall, pages or groups. Simple one time setup and forget. The way links appear on Facebook can be customized."

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/add-link-to-facebook/

Gallery Page / Video Plugin

This one is "Zoo Effect plugin" 

"Photo Gallery with slideshow function, video players, music and podcast, many templates (players) and powerfull admin to manage your media assets "

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/1-jquery-photo-gallery-slideshow-flash/

 

 

Meeting 14th March

Todays Meeting;
James Jackson - Present
Luke Bladon - Present
Dave Grant - Unknown
Freyr Mervick (Co- ordinator) - Unknown 

Todays team meeting we discussed, word press themes. So the action taken was to get word press templates and edit and customize the CSS. This was to show that we could use wordpress and it also shows that we could edit CSS.

We found out today what the client wants refering to our class branding guidelines, we discussed further questions with Chris to take back to Claire.

Research On Branding Guidelines

One of a key parts to this project is to make our own branding guidelines. However first of all, i needed to know what they were and some examples. This entry is going to be have a few good and a few not so good branding guidelines. 

Bad Examples;

This guideline is from BBC, which i expected to be good considering how big they are. I can understand using two main colours however the block on the white background makes it look a bit plain and amateur. There is so much white space not being used it makes it look like its been made in paint. They have stuck to the same fonts and colour scheme which is key. 

Here are a few more snaps of this PDF. 

 http://issuu.com/bondo/docs/bbci/12

Good One; 

Looking through other branding guidelines, they all stick to two or three colours. When i come across the Skype guidelines book, the front cover seems a bit plain, boring and not very fun. However it all changes by a few words that appear second page. 

"Hello You, You are reading this"

When i red these 6 words, it made me laugh. I got me involved already and is very humerous and makes me want to read more. Which is proberly the best because the whole book changes compared to the front cover. It becomes colourful, fun yet simple.  It sticks to the "Skype" theme. Few screenshots below. 

http://issuu.com/bondo/docs/skype_brand_book_-_think

Today's Meeting Overall

Taken from Freyr's Blog.

Meeting Minutes - Wednesday 29th February 2012
Attending: Freyr (co-ordinator), Dave, James, Luke. 

1) WordPress theme choices
We had all decided on three WordPress themes to discuss, or in James’ case, six.
James chose mostly contemporary themes, with a very clear style based around silhouetting. In his first theme, the buttons would need rounded corners and the body would need a different background. Following on from Monday, his second theme has a large header image space and contemporary text; his next theme needs some colour scheme improvement; all of his theme choices have strong links to silhouettes and header images. Finally his last theme also follows on from Monday, with a jump-out image. His theme choices mostly need colour scheme changes and some element styling. 

Luke’s choice of themes all have very modern clean designs, with header images and nice bright colours. Very clean, contemporary style. His second theme has a full-width header image, but would need some colour changes and possibly typography improvement. His personal favourite is his final theme, with rounded corners, simple to use layout and good header image, also with a ‘call-out’ image. 

Dave’s first theme had a nice header image, and a nice background pattern, but would need some nav bar changes. His second theme was very image heavy, but would need background changes; otherwise perfect layout. His final theme was quite simple, but had a nice grid-based, module layout. His second and final choices looked a lot more like a website than a blog which is what we want to achieve. He also had a couple of other, simpler themes for us to compare. 

2) Theme structure (James)
A brief history of WordPress as a platform. The themes are structured using HTML, but it can to be complicated to find the right bit, although with some work and patience the right parts can be found. The rest is CSS. 

3) Styling themes (Dave)
The theme is mostly styled using one CSS file called style.css. This can be done by FTP/on the desktop or using the in-blog theme editor. Again, the code is quite long and complex, but it’s easy to find. Things which aren’t achievable using CSS can usually be achieved using plug-ins. 

4) Plug-ins (Luke)
Basic overview of plug-ins in general, to add extra richness to a blog. Research into plug-ins which could be useful to us, e.g. Flickr, Vimeo, and YouTube. By using a WordPress plug-in, we can use peer reviews to find the best one to use. Chris suggested WordPress Constructor theme, for easy customisable. 

5) Embedding Video and Images (Freyr)
Freyr said that it wouldn’t be practical for us to host videos locally at all, due mostly to the fact that to upload video to a WordPress blog, one has to pay to use the VideoPress service which costs in excess of £40 per year. Therefore the group agreed that we would use Vimeo to host the client’s videos, pending her acceptance of Vimeo over YouTube as the platform to use. There is an 8MB upload limit for any media hosted on a WP blog, which can be overridden by editing the blog’s PHP code. An easier solution which Freyr suggested was to host all the images on the dance course’s Facebook page, then add them to blog posts using their direct URL. Therefore we can embed high quality images without having to downsample them to meet the 8MB limit, plus they won’t take up any server space. 

6) Theme choice
The group agreed to discuss their overall preference of theme to use.

Reveiw on Research

Jimmy

Likes:

Silouthettes 

thinking out side box - dynamic feel to website

dislikes: 

Whiteness

Nav bar - ties in

Box-e

Luke

Likes: 

Stickie out picture

calm colours for colour scheme

Dislikes: 

Sub headings postioning 

Freyr

Likes: 

Simplicity 

Imagery - Main focus

Dislike:

Dave

Likes: 

Movement 

Dislikes: 

Stuff

Plain

Just a few comments from research :)

WordPress Templates

Another mini task we were set was to find a couple of word press templates that we like. Here's my 3;

http://www.wordpresstemplates.com/demo/?theme=Lilicious

http://www.wordpresstemplates.com/demo/?theme=Body+Building+1

http://www.wordpresstemplates.com/demo/?theme=Travel+1

Co-Ordinators Mini Task

So as non of our team has never really looked at word press properly before. We thought the first thing to do is research upon what it is and we had our own little section to cover and present in our team on wednesday. 

I had the subject of; 

"Luke: research WP plug-ins, how they are implemented and which ones our blog could benefit from"

So plugins can extend WordPress to do almost anything you can imagine. Plugins have many different subjects for many different pieces of software. is a set of software components that adds specific abilities to a larger software application. If supported, plug-ins enable customizing the functionality of an application.

Examples that might be useful; 

 When looking at plugins i think it could make a big difference with social side of things and make it easier to become more compatiable with the different sites. For example; this facebook allows you to automatically add links to published posts or pages to your Facebook wall, pages or groups and more. 

Flickr Show could also be useful.

 Vimeo is also useful

 

the good thing about these is they are peer reveiwed and have ratings/ screenshots etc, so you dont waste time upon finding a "good one." 

Team Web

Okay, So we have just found out the teams and i got chosen for web. Which i'm not to pleased about because it is by far the weakest point of my abilites. However finding out a few more things about the web side, it seems a bit easier. so today we had a meeting to discuss and plan ahead, brainstorming idea's and thinking about where to go next.


What we need - 

• Word press
• Social media activity - youtube channel, Facebook, flickr maybe Vimeo?

Website - 

•  Profiles
• Outline of course
• Blog
• Gallery
• Previous students successes after the course
• List of famous artists
• Section for the show
• Showreel

Enquires

In order for us to be successful we must communicate with other groups, allowing them to know what we need from them while finding out what they need from us.

Video 

• What photo's to take
• What recordings we need

Graphics

• How big will the logo be on the website
• What images can they produce for us to make the website look appealing

Live client

• What name do they want on the website (we hard their students were brainstorming) 
• What branding guidelines will they like

 

So We had the head of dance come in and explain us about the FDA dance course and her ideas. Heres my note taking from the session. Here are a couple of things that are key from the talk.

- She wanted to point out that it is a new course

- She wants posters/flyers/e-flyers/website and showreel

- She explained how different contempory dance is to any other dance.

- she wanted to make clear there are big names coming to see the shoes

- She wanted links for social activity

We find out who’s in what group in the next couple of days. Looking forward to it.

Brief

You have been commissioned by the FdA Contemporary Dance – Lewes, to create a range of promotional material for the promotion of their course and major show at the beginning of June 2012.  This is a live assignment, i.e. the commission is real and the Dance Department will use the material deemed suitable and good enough quality in their promotions campaign.  Your client is Claire Coleman, course leader for FdA Contemporary Dance There is a wide range of material you can create for the client, covering the following:- At least one Style Guide each, including a logo design plus colour swatches and font choices to be presented as Branding Guidelines, to be used across the whole range of media solutions. Website design for FdA Contemporary Dance – Lewes based on the WordPress CMS and focusing on the restyling of an existing ‘free’ wordpress template. Social media activity (e.g. YouTube channel, Flickr images, etc) Showreel using existing client content (video and still images) as well as your own filmed sequences. Documentary style short film, using filmed interviews with students and teaching staff/trainers, documenting how a show is put together. Note: Filming to be arranges at times and locations to suit clients needs. The aim of the Client Brief assignment is that you undertake a professional Digital Media Design project, work as a member of a team and interact professionally with a client.  You will negotiate a brief with the client that meets their needs, and fulfills this brief within the resources and time available.  There is a briefing from the client on Wed 22nd  February and you are pitching your proposals in response to this on Wed 7th March.  Throughout this project, you need to be flexible, liaise and correspond with the client and respond to their wishes and their feedback.  There is a mix of group work and individual areas of responsibility in this project.

Re-Design

After drawing up a few idea's i've chosen one on in particular. It's based upon a "sum" and the fact that they wanted the product brand to show it is sugar free and that is one of the key selling points! The whole point i'm trying to get across is that the fact the drink is "made with love, pure fruit, water and thats it." When having a go at some random stuff on photoshop, i decided to go for the "cut out" look and make it look like sort of ameteur (with blue tac, pins and staples.)

Feel Good Company Idea

This is my first attempt, which i did in 10 -15 mins. Just to get an idea what it would look like. After trying a very variations this roughly what it would look like. After this i found it wasnt strong enough to become a poster and seemed more a movie clip/advert.

After, i redesigned my idea (further drawings in sketchbook)

Ideas

I've drawn a few idea's in my sketchbook and just generally "mocking" them up!

Feel Good Company

Feel Good Drinks Co is an independent soft drinks company based in the United Kingdom. It was originally founded by three executives from Coca Cola UK, and the products are now sold in over 20,000 outlets in 14 different countries, including in supermarkets and bars. The current theme is simple animations with fruit however the brief says it wants to be a bit more grown up so i might have to change that around.

ESPN

ESPN is one of the biggest sports channels around. ESPN started in America, Hence why they want it to be as big over here. ESPN has many media types already ranging from Facebook, Radio, App, Youtube account and Twitter. All of the media types all stick to the same colour scheme and same logo. However, I dont know weather this makes it bland and boring but it then does get reconizned everywhere.

Pitch

 

This is my pitch.After the feedback from the class. I'm going to with feel good drinks. People are gave me further feedback.

Chosen Briefs

 

&

YCN Brief

"YCN is a design agency, which describes itself as ‘Producing work across all media and representing the finest creative people for commissions and collaborations’. They say of themselves that ‘YCN today produces advertising, design and other creative communications in all media; both for its own projects and ventures, and on behalf its various clients’. They are a ‘group of designers, art directors, developers, writers, illustrators and project managers work together at 72 Rivington Street in London’.  (http://agency.ycnonline.com/)  They also run an annual competition which offers students the chance to fulfill creative briefs from a range of high profile clients and enter that work in a competition. ‘The YCN Student Awards shine a light on new creative talent, and centre on a collection of live creative briefs’.  (http://awards.ycnonline.com/)"

My Reaction

Looking at the briefs within the YCN brief, there are quite a good range of different things that can be made. There are a couple that stick out more then others. I think some of first idea's are good however things you have to consider, that is if its video you dont want to make it look scrappy (unless your going for that look.) So posters and still media are proberly the best thing to go for.