Tuesday 17 March 2015

Blog posts ideas- aim for between 60-80 posts incl evaluations

INDIVIDUAL POSTS

A reflective summary of the problems faced in group work

Reflection on process of making artwork- CHOICES made

Individual Evaluation of progress in editing and decisions/revisions made

Reflection on audience response- peer assessment last week

Changes made in response to audience feedback/response

Friday 27 February 2015

Website research

IMPORTANT - you can do your website as a GROUP - BUT you MUST produce at least 2 pages each - the quality of your pages will be marked for you as an individual. You must therefore say which pages you personally created AND you MUST make sure you keep the style the same across the whole site. If you can't agree on the style, do a website each.

The key to attaining top marks in this task has a few elements:
1. Investigate (generally) how websites work, their conventions and how the audience use/read them

2. Look at a variety of websites for bands/artists to see what their sites are like. Focus on:
     a. Content - what pages do they have? what items are included?
     b. Purpose - what are they trying to achieve? Think about PROMOTION and SALES and who is creating/maintaining the site - there's much to say about institution here (i.e. record companies and PR firms who represent artists)
     c. Information - what information is given? how often is it updated?
     d. MUSIC - in terms of their 'product' (music/videos), what is available to you as a fan - what is not available and why not - for example, think about the ability of the audience to copy and download but also think about how an artist might 'win' favour by offering some things for free...and balance this against what is freely available on YOUTUBE etc? It's worth looking into merchandising as well - remember this unit is music promotion (not just music video).
     e. Style - this is very important and sort of has two 'strands'
          i. The style of the website across all the pages - how does this fit with the brand image of the artist? Genre of artist? this is about the BAND/ARTIST
          ii. The style of the website as a web page (i.e. not specifically as a music site) - colours, tabs, design layout - how is it mapped out? this is about the LAYOUT
     f. Navigation ease - how do you find your way around? how easy is it to use? what is easiest to access (and why)?

3. Trajectories and Traversals - navigation. How you plan your site - is it deep or wide? How easy is it to find things? How do you plan for the audience to use your site? How did your test audience actually use the site? Theorist here is Jay Lemke.

4. Look at other student websites - here are some links to good examples

Small Town America - on Wix
The XYZs - on Wix
Absynth - on Wix

5. Use WIX to design yours (or if you must you can use iWeb which we have tutorials for/Miss can teach you). iWeb is simple drag and drop so not really first choice, WIX is already online and will enable more flashy, moving gizmos etc. Make sure IT WORKS FULLY and how you use it and what is where is CLEAR to the audience (and not just you) so TEST TEST TEST! Keep screenshots and copies in case things go wrong and to show progress in design

6. Make the effort to learn/use Photoshop (Elements in Rm57) to make great backgrounds/backdrops, or even make poster backgrounds in GLOGSTER and then export and import into WIX - basically USE EVERYTHING AVAILABLE to you - mix and match!

The documents available to you on Teaching Resources are as follows:

Audience reading of web pages:
Eye Tracking
F-shaped pattern web reading
How audiences use the internet ANSWERS
Lazy Eyes Slate Magazine

Music Specific Web Stuff:
Web Design for musicians, bands and music groups 
Example music websites aut12

Mistakes in Design:
Biggest Mistakes in Web Design

Categorising the Audience:
Categorising Your Audience philosophe

Web Design - how to - basics (overview, use of colour, layers and navigation):
How to use iWeb landscape
Web Design Beginning
Web Design Map - an example of a flat plan for a website

Testing and Researching support:
Investigatewebpagesfillinsheet
Audience feedback on website 

But as always, use these as a starting point and find your own information by following your own research journey and don't forget you must BLOG your research, thoughts, plans and progress as well as writing about your website in detail in your evaluation.

Thursday 26 February 2015

Digipack Research 5th March Thursday




Also use Disk Wizard for templates.
Research Homework expected for 5th Thursday March
4 blog posts on artists/bands who may be an inspiration for your own Digipack design.
Blog posts on Font design.
Blog posts on pictures you have captured for design.
Blog posts on initial sketches and experiments.
Blog post on codes and conventions of a Digipack- what do we expect to see on a digipack

Monday 26 January 2015

Deadline 27th Tuesday 2015- blogging

Deadline:

Remember the deadline for updating your INDIVIDUAL and GROUP Blogs is Tuesday 27th January.

Refer to your targets from the Self-Assessment exercise.

See you at Parent's Evening

Wednesday 3 December 2014

EXEMPLAR Digipacks and Research

This is exemplar work from Madihah Culasy (2013) - Her research is clear and presented using multimedia forms and her DIgipack is superb, with stills being taken on the same day as shooting the video.

FIND IT HERE

EXEMPLAR Digipacks

This is from Katy Williamson (2014)




This is from Nicola Evans (2014)