BBC News website page. Screen shots that form the long BBC News home page. Below are screen shots with labels that describe the various parts of the page, navigation and style.
The news web site follows the same pattern as a TV broadcast news program. Starts off with the latest new and important stories, then continues in various parts such as world neews stories business news, science and technology news, sports and weather. If the user puts in their details they will then be shown ‘local news and weather’
BBC News web site analysis
GamesOnly web site analysis
There are common features between the BBC News site and GamesOnly web sites, both have search and navigation that remains the same at the top of every page. Both have a central area for the ‘copy’ where the main content is placed, and areas to the left and right of the main central panel that expand or reduce depending on how big the web browser window is or the size and settings of the monitor. Both sites contain a lot of images to make the site interesting and easy for users to see what they want to look at and use quickly.
This is my second CD album cover I have improved my skills of image manipulation using Photoshop as the editor. Using layers I included the band member and converted the image to drawing using the effects filter within the graffiti, I experimented with the artistic filters and think this gave the best effect, and still have the band member recognisable. I also improved the distortion to make it more obvious that the band member is being sucked into the box. I also used layers to include the album title and changed the font of the album cover to match in with the font on the poster.
Messages conveyed in the poster
The message that the album cover is delivering to the audience is that it is aimed at a rock and pop franchise. This is because there is a cartoon of a monster on the album cover, this cartoon is brightly coloured and has the effect that it is cool and funky, this is aiming at the pop side of the audience but this carton also fits in with the rock audience as the cartoon looks similar to a demon and a skeleton which is more popular with the rock side of audience as it fits in with their music and it is how a rock audience would like to illustrate themselves.
This album cover has a spooky, horror theme, echoing part of the band name of ‘Nightmare’. The colours are eeire and have a dark side to them, for example the graffiti is used using spray paint, making it look like the background of the wall has been vandalized, show a rebellion to law and society. Again this is what the rock and pop audience would be drawn to. Using this effect of graffiti and colours attracts this type of audience because of the picture and the graffiti used.
The main lead signer is shown being sucked into a box, this shows a horror effect as the main signer has represented that they are going through into a different world through the monsters toy music box. This is also popular with the rock and pop audience, as they enjoy fantasy art work and that there is a different world, this is illustrated through the picture. I have asked some of my peers in class and other people out of college if this is what they see, a high percentage of the people who I asked agreed with the exact feeling and though of the album cover. This shows that the message that I wanted to demonstrate has effectively been pursued as the audience are communicating with the poster, as I wanted them to
Original studio photograph of band member introduced as a layer on to the wall graffiti background.
Poster for album launch
Second poster design I improved with the inclusion of additional relevant information, an insert of the new album cover and accompanying text. Using Photoshop editor I used the clone tool and transparency settings to copy areas of sky to better blend in the area around the hair and head of the band member. There was a pale ‘halo’ which didn’t look quiet right.
Second poster design
Messages conveyed in the poster
The message that the promotional poster is giving off to the audience, is that the poster is more aimed at the pop audience this is because the colours used are more natural and more of what you would see on other pop group posters, this is due to the colours that the majority of pop groups using. I have used these colours to attract more of the pop genre so that the band can promote their name making them more known in the pop culture making them more publicity and a wider audience. I have also put the band member on the pier by the sea as if to say that the band has a peaceful and calmer compared to their last album, this is to give the effect that the album has been toned down. I have still kept with the original rock outfit to make the band member fitting in with the rock genre and audiences. This is also to make the band more known in the rock industry and to symbolize that they are still producing rock music. On the album cover I have still chosen dusk as the night draws on to suggest that it is still dark fitting in with the rock sector, but I have also choseen it with the light and the colour scheme overlaps with the pop industry. The fonts used on the poster suggests that it is still trying to look traditional with the oldergeneration of a rock group as they used a gothic calligraphy type font.
First poster designFirst CD album cover
CD cover design for albumPoster Review and Response
Dose your finished promotional poster meet with the aims of the brief?
I believe I have met with the brief of producing a poster advertising the launch of a new album. It has all the key elements required. Details of the launch, image of the lead band member in an atmospheric setting. Details of what the new album cover looks like and there are icons indicating that it is available for download from iTunes and people can like it or comment upon the album on Facebook. The things that have worked well on my promotional poster is the leading lines, the streaks of the sky the converging parallel lines and planking on the jetty the band member is standing on, they all focus to the centre where the head of the band member is approximately placed, above the horizon where the sky is palest. I think this Is affective because it draws in people’s attention in to the centre of the picture and the main band members face. For fans it is something they will identify and focus upon. For people who are not fans the image of the band member is strong, so it will stand out on the page easily, this also helps to make the band member easer to recognise in a hurry. Other things that have worked well on my promotional poster is the colours used because the colours in the sunset sky (pinks/purples) match in with the colour, clouds and tones of the band member and her skin contrasting with the black leather jacket that has plenty of highlights in similar colours of the sky.
What are the areas for improvement on the promotional poster?
The areas to improve my final product is to ensure that the band member when cut from the studio photograph and placed on to the new background that the area around the face, hair and glasses have the new background showing. If closely inspected there is some hair that has the white studio background showing, also close to the cheek on the left hand side. This should be the pale blue sky background.Other improvements I could make to the promotional poster is to add a drop shadow, and experiment with contrasting colours for some of the text, this is to give an impression of greater depth and helps to give a stronger definition to the text on a mixed colour background. Making it easier to read.This is a big change to my original idea because this picture shown will reach a bigger and wider audience
Dose your promotional poster meet with the aims of the brief?
I believe my promotional poster meets with my brief. I wanted a poster aimed at the pop/rock genre. I have managed to create this by using the atmospheric and moody lighting of the sunset with pastel colours that you would normally see with other traditional folk/pop artists. The band member wearing jeans and casually half wearing half carrying a leather jacket on her shoulder gives a moody rock look. This will also interest the audience who enjoy rock, pop and also people who are interested in fashion
How well does your promotional poster compare with your original ideas?
Compared to my original ideas I thought there would be more brighter colours making the poster look poor like a combined rock and pop poster. On my original ideas I thought that the band member would be wearing more trendy and fashionable clothing making the band known as fashion icons in the pop world. This is also where the band is aimed at. I am happier with my new idea because it incorporates both pop and rock instead of aiming it at just one of the category’s. I also know that this fits in better with my brief
What comments have your peers made about your work on the promotional poster?
The comments that my peers have said about my work are that the colours on the promotional poster makes it a bit hard to see what has been written down. Some of the other comments that my peers have said about the promotional poster is that some of the shadows on the text is in the wrong place so the shadow looks out of place.My peers also said that they liked how I managed to combine the pop and the rock styles together.
How could you improve you work based on the feed back from your peers about the promotional poster?
To improve my promotional poster using the feed back from my peers I will make sure that the writing is clear and easy to read, This would help people understand what has been written easily and quickly. I will also bear in mind the colour of the text as well in case it is hard to read. This will help the audience focus on the text more easily and make the theme of the poster fit in with the rock/pop style
CD Cover Review and Response
Dose your finished CD cover meet with the aims of the brief?
The aim of the brief was for a rock style album cover, this is conveyed by the urban graffiti background. There is some humour as well with the image of the lead band member as a drawing being sucked into the music box. The things that have worked well on my CD cover is the strong image of the band member that has been overlaid on to the background image.The lines off the nose from the mask, the streaks in the sky, the poles in the water all draw the eye to focus on the band member. These are reasons why I chose a graffiti background. The proportions of the size of the band member being a solid feature to focus upon, the face can be clearly seen for fans making her easily recognisable. Enough background visible to give an atmospheric natural environment, opposed to a serious studio shot.
What are the areas of improvement on the CD cover?
The areas I can improve on my CD cover is making the band member look more 3D on the cover. This will be done to make the band member more interesting to look at and look more affective on the CD cover.Other places that I think I can improve my CD cover on is making the colours in the background stand out more to make the graffiti picture look as if it was jumping out at the band member. Doing this would make the graffiti man more fun to look at and would make the album cover more fun and appealing to the audience. Another way I think I can improve my CD cover is by adding In shadows, this could also help the people and characters standout more
Dose your CD cover meet with the aims of the brief?
I have stuck to the aims of the brief so I have made the band member wear rock styled clothing. This is so the band member fits in with the surroundings and doesn’t look out-of-place on the CD cover. I also said that I will be in a skate park for my CD cover photo because you can create lots of different effects and you can capture other people’s thoughts and emotions through the graffiti in the CD cover. I feel that I have stuck to this part of the brief because I have followed the original ideas that I had
How does your CD cover compare with your original ideas
The original brief idea was for a rock/music promotional poster. I have stayed with original concept. The outdoor shots I had originally planned to take at a playground with a band member sitting on a swing, and using slow exposure to introduce some movement. The outdoor shots I did take were in an urban setting with brick wall and wooden fence backgrounds. I experimented with over exposure to introduce a grunge look. I was not satisfied with these images. I did follow and adapt one of my original ideas of mixing a studio shot of the band member superimposed upon a different outdoor background. My original idea for the background was for city streets with graffiti. I changed the idea about the background for something more tranquil and contrasting that better shows the band members face. The final chosen background has strong lines within it to draw the eye to the focal point of the band member. This I feel works better and will be a more appealing image for a wider audience
What comments have your peers made about your CD cover?
The comments that my peers have made about my work are that the band member doesn’t look 3D on the CD cover. They also say that this makes it look less affective on the cover. Other comments that my peers have made about my work is that it looks bold and colourful. My peers have also said that the title is too small and hard to read in a hurry
How could you improve your CD cover based on the feedback from your peers?
The improvements that I could make to the CD cover are to make the band member more 3D. I will make the model more 3D by making the band member larger and adding a shadow. Other improvements that my peers have suggested are making the title bigger. I will do this by changing the font size of the title and this will make it easer for them to read.
Were there any technical and creative choices made during the production process of the CD cover and the promotional poster, which would you change on reflection?
There were technical and creative choices made during the process of creating the CD cover although if I was to recreate this again I would still use Photoshop. This is because I am confidant with this program and all of the functions in it. Also I feel that this gives the finished product a professional finish
OverallHow have your application of digital graphic design skills met with the brief?
With The CD cover and the promotional poster I have had to over lap photos to give the band member a more interesting backgrounds. This also helps to make the CD cover and promotional poster more appealing to look at. Other things I have had to use is text and text styles this is to make the information on the poster and the CD cover more appealing and fun to look at. On the CD cover and the promotional poster I have used lots of different layers to create a build up of images. This will make the images more bold and easer to separate the individual layers. This will hep with my original idea because you could clearly see the layers of the background and the band member.
what props i would use using the ideas from the mood board insertion The Concept
The concept I have chosen is an album cover/art work for a rock/pop band. The band I have in mind is a rock band in the style of Paramore a contemporary alternative/prog rock band. The ideas I have are images of the band member or members wearing rock style clothing, this will be predominantly black or dark coloured clothing, but with a few bright highlight items of clothing, ‘Goth’ style slightly over the top to give a theatrical performance. I am considering several ideas for the environment to shot the photographs a dark forest, a playground with a band members sitting on a swing or standing nearby with the swing moving in shot. Sitting on a skateboard park that has highly coloured graffiti.
The photographic techniques required
The outside shots I will experiment with slow shutter speeds to try and capture the swing moving slightly blurred in motion, and wide aperture to give narrow depth of field. I will take several shots with the swing in various positions so that I have a choice of where I merge the image of the band member on to the image of the swing. The photo shot of the forest and trees I will be shooting up towards the sky to get a featureless sky with high contrasting or silhouettes of the tree branches. When I blend the images together I will take care to frame and leave space in the overall composition for the album title to be added or other promotional wording. If the overall composition looks too busy, I can overlay a transparency layer to lighten the picture so any words required for a poster will standout. An alternative idea is to have an image, a blended photograph for the background, with and image of just the head of the band member superimposed on top.
The face maybe in grey tones to blend in with the background with strong highlight in colour features such as the eyes or lips. To do this I will need to use photographic editing software such as PhotoShop. I also might try some PhotoShop effects to slightly distort or ‘melt’ some or all of the image or face. To take the indoor photographs of the band member I will take a series of portrait face photos, experiment with strong side, top lighting, or lighting from below the chin up on to the face to create strong shadows on the face and around the eyes. I will also be using strong lighting direct onto the face to create a more flat or featureless, ghostly face. I will also take some head and shoulder plus full body shots standing in casual poses that I will experiment cutting into the various backgrounds with PhotoShop.
Why these Images will be suitable
The images I plan to create will be suitable because they follow a style of imagery that is often used for this style of promotional material and familiar to the target audience. The prominent use of the band member will be a source of recognition to followers of the band, and to show what the band member looks like to potential new fans. The art work will also appeal to followers of this type of music that may not have heard the music before, but will get visual impression that they can identify with. The clothing to be worn will be stylish, but there will be no words on the clothing that could cause offense. The band member will be dressed therefore no issues of nudity. It is intended that the band member is the sole person in the artwork, so there is no consent for permission to photograph people or cars with registration plates shown will not be required.
Ideas and Inspiration
The collage of images of album covers I have used for ideas and inspiration. They nearly all contain pictures of the band members. The Avril Lavigne, Michael Jackson and Pink covers all feature close up pictures of the face with strong lighting. The image for ‘Fall Out Boy’, the boy with the stripes is the inspiration for the melting face. The other images show the members of the band posing in stereotypical rock poses to the camera. The album cover for ‘5 seconds of summer’ shows the band standing against a graffiti wall and the picture then has graffiti on top applied using a graphic package. I have based the idea of the graffiti skateboard park around this image.
How a camera works for all cameras is the light image travels through the lens. The lens focus on the object being photographed and the lens also projects the image onto the back plate of the camera through a small hole called the apature. There is a shutter mechanism that opens and closes quickly to allow the image to be projected on to the back plate. The camera takes the picture when the shutter release button is pressed. The back plate is where the image is captured, either by sensors that are light sensitive in digital cameras, or a photosensitive emulsion for film cameras.
The amount of light that enters the camera is governed by two functions, the apature, the size of the hole and the shutter speed, how fast the image is projected on to the camera to the back plate.
How DSLR Camera works
Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) work in the way described above. There are however some refinements. The DSLR has a view finder that ‘looks down’ through the lens that will take the photograph. The image comes in through the front of the camera and is focused be one or more lenses. The path the image takes is yellow on the diagram above. There is a mirror that lies in the path between the lens and the back plate (Blue), this is so that the image through the lens is projected up reflects through a prism so the photographer can see what the camera can see, can frame and focus the camera accurately via the viewfinder. The viewfinder will also display additional information such as the apature, shutter speed, areas that the camera has taken light meter readings. If the camera lens is set to autofocus, the areas the camera has identified as points to focus upon such as peoples faces.
DSLR have interchangeable lenses. The lens can be swapped by the photographer for the most appropriate lens for the subject they are wanting to photograph. The lenses range from wide angle with a short focal length. These are great for taking pictures that you want to see a wide shot, get a lot of background and have good detail, ideal for big landscape shots, or when standing close to an object and you want a lot of the surrounding background included. Long focal length ideal for taking shots of things that you want to focus in upon. Long focal length compresses the focal distance so that less items will be in focus, these are ideal for portrait work or taking photographs of objects that you want to study, and put the background out of focus.
Another method of influencing the depth of filed is the size of the apature. The smaller the apature (bigger the f-stop number eg. f16) the greater the depth of field. The larger the apature (smaller the f-stop number eg.f5.6), the shallower the depth of field.
The lens contains one or more precision ground optical lenses to allow focusing or zooming (telephoto) on to the photographic subject, and cause minimum of distortion or loss of light. Telephoto/zoom lens has the flexibility to magnify or zoom-in in on subjects.
The lens contains the aperture (Grey), the aperture is the hole along the barrel of the lens which the light travels through to get to the digital sensors. The aperture is a method controlling the amount of light that strikes the back plate and also affects the depth of field. The size of the apature isvari able and can be opened up wide or made tiny like a pin whole. The smaller the apature (bigger the f-stop number eg. f16) the greater the depth of field, but less light is passed through the apature. The larger the apature (smaller the f-stop number eg.f5.6), the shallower the depth of field, but a greater amount of light passes through the apature.
To compensate for the small amount of light that passes through a smaller apature, the shutter speed will be slower. For larger apatures the large amount of light is restricted by a faster shutter speed.
The back plate of a DSLR consists of digital sensors. The sensors detect red, blue and green light, the sensors are tightly packed and the number of sensors is indicated by the number of mega pixels a camera has. The sensors convert the light/image that is projected in to digital pixel information that can be used to produce quality photographic images in a variety of digital image formats such as JPEG, RAW TIFF.
The sensors in the camera also are sophisticated and can be used to help the photographer take the optimal picture with such features as autofocus, auto-aperture selection for spot light meter reading, or overall image light metering, image stabilisation to reduce effects such as camera shake.
The DSLR will store the photographs to SD card or cables can be attached from the camera to a computer to store pictures immediately.
The DSLR also has a LCD (Liquid Crystal Dispaly) on the back of the camera where information is displayed about the camera settings. Menu button to access and change settings via the LCD such as volume, grids overlayed upon viewfinder or LCD, set the quality of the image to be stored, duration of self timer, the exposure compensation.
Self Timer release button, Mode selector for auto-everything through to manual everything (focus, apature, shutter speed), Exposure compensation button to override the automatic settings of the camera. A view button to review photographs, delete button to remove rubbish pictures.Flash On/Off/Automatic button
Compact Digital Cameras,
Typically these cameras are pocket cameras with many features.
On/Off switch, built in flash, Lens (could be fixed, most are now zoom) that retracts into the body and a protective shutter closes to protect the lens when the power is switched off. Shutter release button. LCD (Liquid Crystal Dispaly) on the back of the camera where the image is displayed, Mode selector (autofocus plus a series of preset funtions). Zoom switch to zoom in or out of the scence/subject. Menu button to access and change settings via the LCD such as volume, grids overlayed upon LCD, quality of image to be stored, duration of self timer. Flash On/Off/Automatic button, Self Timer release button, macro mode button for close-up photographs, Exposure compensation button to override the automatic settings of the camera, View button to review photographs, delete button to remove rubbish pictures.
Digital cameras store the image as JPEG (.jpg) file format or raw TIFF format depending what the camera supports. The file formats can then be transferred to a printer or PC for immediate printing or if transferred to a PC the photographs can be edited or manipulated before printing. The simplest image editing such as removing ‘red eye’ from a picture of a face taken with a flash, through to correcting of distortion, changing colour saturation, hues or contrast, or the application of effects and filters available in many photo editing software packages.
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