Final Show Pics

 These are some pictures of our courses end of the year show.
The picture to the left was designed to attract people to our show as the oil painting room isn't the easiest place to find

 This wall here contains a wide range all of the sketches, thumbnails and doodles produced throughout the two years, I really liked the idea of everything being so close together as it keeps the viewer interested to find things to look at.

 This wall contains the groups more digital based outcomes, the layout of the work looks okay but the work at the far left end looks a little bit too cramped, I think this being due to how the A3 and A4 pieces have been arranged.

The board here shows all the students from the 2nd year with a bit about themselves and what their plans are once they leave this course.

 This is one of my final pieces for the show. This was made to promote my band 'swear for sin' I used the Typeface bones bummer for most of this, it took me ages to align the vertical type though with tracking so a considerable amount of effort was put into this and I do really like it, I had other designs that I would have preferred to go up but this was put up instead.

Enter Page

This was an enter page that I was going to use for my webpage however i decided to scrap it, however it does look really awesome and very attractive. The two large figures look like dragons even though I never intended for them to look like that.

Progression HND (entry criteria)

I managed to get an MMP to make it onto the HND course for Graphic Design, however I feel I could have done a lot better but the time given to boost are grades is now over, a lot of the work lacking was from the first year, this has affected the final outcome of my grades had I put more into the projects in the first year I would have most likely came through with some distinctions , should or once I am on the HND course I will make sure that I concentrate a lot more and put a lot more effort and dedication into the first year as I realize now how important it is.

contents page

here is a content page that is about me, it shows some of my photography and a brief description of me, you cant read that, long story short it tells my interests which is surreal image manipulation, gore. dark imagery, concept art and photography , in the future at some point i want to design cover imagery for heavy metal bands, im in a heavy metal band myself so I feel I would fit right in.

 Anyway hope you like the layout of it, I added two crop marks don't know why but oh well its harder for people to steal  :D

progression(HNDinterview)

On my interview day I had the interview with Paul Crawley, he seemed to like the work produced he gave comments about the work I had made and asked about certain elements of different pieces that I had created. Paul Crawley is quite an easy person to talk to and you don't feel awkward or intimidated when talking about your work, this I feel helped with coming out with a successful interview, I now need the grades to get on, the requirement is a MMP from my current course so I need to look back at my older projects and get feedback from my tutors on how to improve the grades in my projects. The other form of action I will take is to refer to the course handbook and look at the units I need to improve. The back of the handbook shows all the units and what you need to gain a pass, merit or distinction.

progression 2(portfolio)

In order to have a succesful interview I needed a portfolio of the work that I have created.
I gathered work from my current National Diploma course as this was work that I feel excelled more than the work I have created in the past. When you present your portfolio looked at by a potential employer it has to be a representation of you and your work so presentation is everything, keeping an order on the style of works produced and keeping the work that you presenting looking neat and professional is very important.
I referred to friends and my current tutors for guidance and also to view my portfolio to get regular feedback on the layout and arrangement of it. 
After a while of organizing and improving my portfolio I was finally ready for my interview.

Progression

After this course I plan to further my education in the Graphic Design field as I don't think I am ready just yet to go into the industry, I looked on the internet for various Graphic Design Courses that were going at a higher level than the National Diploma Course that I am doing now, I looked into undergraduate, post-graduate courses and HND courses as these were the next levels up. I wanted to find a place relatively close to home to stay in contact with friends and family.

 Here is one of the courses I looked at, I applied to this course due to the fact that they had a high student rating, so i thought I would give it a try and find out more about the course. I went onto their website to find out more information and also to apply however they didn't describe their course very well and it was very brief to get a full understanding of the course, I applied through the UCAS website as advised by the UCA website but they did not get back to me.

 The other course I applied for was HND at canterbury college, because the head of the HND department had come into our course and gave a detailed description of the course I was interested in finding more about the course an hopefully get onto it. I found out a lot from the talk that Paul Crawley gave and also from two of the HND students, I also got to look at the designs the students were creating and I was quite impressed.

I applied to this course through UCAS after some time HND got back to me with an interview date.

Current objectives

Currently on my course i am upgrading my projects to get higher grades. I am working on my corporate branding at the moment to design a new logo and create different variations of the thumbnail ideas that i have drawn, I will then go through my typography project which was my weakest project and i need to boost the marks in this project significantly. After that i will refer to my course handbook looking at the units I haven't done so greatly in and try to get merits and distinctions, by doing this I should hopefully be able to reach a merit merit pass grade to go onto HND, however I am going to push higher than MMP and I am aiming for distinctions.

more influencial artists

During the 2 year period of the ND Graphic Design course I have looked at many artists who have produced so much amazing work and some really cool designs. Here is a little list of my favorite artists and designers and my views on them.

Firstly the Illustrator Gerald Scarfe, throughout the whole of my narrative project he was my idol, his work is absolutely amazing and his style is very original that many others have utilized his style in their work.

The works to the left are my favorite pieces from him the top one because the colors used are so dark and so eery also because of the amount of expression shown in the piece, it's very strong and gives of the sense of pain and suffering.

The Teacher was another of my favourites as his characteristics make him very scary, the structure of his body, the long fingers, wide face and lifeless eyes make the teacher very intimidating.

During the narrative i followed the same sort of style emphasizing the features that I wanted to stand out, in doing so I created a very intimidating looking alien.

 In terms of type I really like the work of Stefan Sagmeister and David Carson, during the course of the FMP I found that a mixture of the two were really effective, combining Carson style of layout and typefaces along with Sagmeisters was really nice as they meet in the middle, Carson has some really great type but makes the viewer work an awful lot to find out the message whereas as Sagmeister are are handwritten but he makes the type readable yet busy.

I really like all the different point sizes in this piece, I wish I had seen this piece during the type project as I think the style is wicked, I did however create something very similar to this piece but it was more vintage and had a lot of different typefaces.

While I was trying to come up with poster ideas I was heavily inspired by Whitechapel, Suicide Silence and Behemoth, these are 3 Death Metal bands whose promo posters look really cool and posses a very dark mood. Here is a piece of work from each of them.

I really like this piece, the different angles of the model that the designer has used and Photoshopped to make look machine-like looks wicked. The use of texture is immense I love all the metal and rust textures, it gives the design a darker feel opposed to if it was made to look shiny and new.


I really like the handmade typeface, its very unique to this band and works so well.  The tea-stained background looks really nice too , it makes the image look old. Finally I really like the liquify effect used on the model and on the black strokes coming from the mouth.

This is a real favorite the Photoshop usage is out of this world, I love the script background it makes it look ancient, also the symbology looks really neat, this also adds to that ancient feel, it also makes it seem as though t has meaning as symbols always have meaning and when you see ancient looking writing you feel as though they must have a purpose.

Looking back at the FMP

When I first started the Fmp I set out a number of target these included looking for plenty of inspiration for some really nice style of Heavy metal designs as I wanted my outcomes to be unique and original.
I also wanted to look at a few Photoshop tutorials to learn some image manipulation techniques and to increase my knowledge of Photoshop.

I didn't plan on it but I got really good with type usage as I looked at a really neat artist named Stefan Sagmeister who's work was very original, also i liked how he lays out his type, it's very busy and there's lots going on, this I think makes it interesting.

As the FMP progressed I created heaps of experimentation, this ranged from, image manipulation to what materials I used for creating different textures such as inks, acrylics, oil pastels, watercolors.

I attempted quite a few artist styles. I tried to do an illustration in the same style as H.R Giger however I found it extremely difficult to mimic his style as it was quite realistic even though his works looked very surreal. I really liked Charlie Anderson's style of work too, it wasn't dark or scary but for experimentation purposes it was really nice, he would paint an existing image then collage it up but by painting, so basically he made i look like a collage but without it actually being one.

As my FMP was to promote my band i looked at other bands designs I particularly took to the style of Whitechapel, Suicide Silence and Behemoth as they used a range of photography and image manipulation to produce their work so I went in the same direction and attempted to produce similar outcomes.

I feel that I produced a lot of work especially computer wise, I managed to produce several different poster designs, I completed a really nice type flier where I experimented with various backgrounds also I produced Cd Case Graphics; front cover, back cover and a booklet.

I'm really happy with my outcomes as they look nice, I got a lot of positive feedback on them and I'm glad that I kept to my action plan and followed the targets I set for myself, it has proved to be useful that I independently set my targets as I got what I set for myself done, not only that but because I was motivated and very enthusiastic on this project I was a lot more self driven and I knew what needed to be done.

Overall this project was extremely good I really enjoyed it and accomplished so much.

Fmp Project

All of my finals are complete all I have to create now is a Final Flier design I have one design which involves a compilation of type but I want to make one with some illustration on it so I was thinking I would illustrate one of my bands songs then turn it into a flier design.

This is my type design I have created.
I really like it and i put a lot of effort into it so I'm glad it has come out well.

Fmp project- Possible finals

 I am not set on a final but these are what I have come up with.

This design I like as it has a dark feel, looks eery and also the logo placement between the horns looks really neat.

With feedback from classmates this has been the most popular but they wanted to see more in the background. One suggestion was to add blood splats to it so i will try that and see how it looks and to see if people like it.

 This is my album cover design I have had good feedback from this design and i am set on having this for my final Front cover Album cover Design

For the poster this design was the second most popular so I may use his one as I really like the layout also I am proud of the cross that I made with the heads.











This is the design i came up with for the back cover I really like it as it fits with the design of the front cover also i like the texture effect it makes it look grungy.

FMP Inspiration

these are some of the artist i have been inspired by for some of my poster ideas for my FMP (Final Major Project) The First Artist is Erlend Mork. This is a link to his page. http://erlendmork.com/
I really like his work as it is very dark and quite creepy.

I like the background and also the layout of this image as it relates very closely to what i aim to produce for my poster design..not so much the look of the figure but where the figure is and how its positioned also the lighting on the figure and dark around it is what i am aiming for.

The effects on this face is also something i wish to produce although i don't plan on there being a strong light source coming from the right as i want the face to look very dark with the shots i take.

I couldn't find a lot of information on the artist but he is very talented. However he does only stick to a very dark sinister style i think it would be nice if he came out of his comfort zone and tried to make at least one image bright and colourful it makes the viewer of his work admire his pieces a bit more if they can see he is capable of more than one style.

Another artist whose work i liked is Stephanie Bennett, she works in a very surreal style and her works are quite disturbing but they are definitely really great pieces.
This piece drew my attention the most as i do plan to add blood in my poster and although there is quite a lot of blood in the image, she uses it discretely in each area and doesn't make it look over the top that's what i hope to accomplish when i design my poster and album cover.

FMP Project

My FMP has now started I have chosen to do a Poster and an album cover for my band called Swear 4 Sin. I will also create flyers to promote us. I will be looking into a range of photography with Digital enhancements as this is the style I am going for. I will also be producing a logo and a stylized font.
I hope to produce some really eye catching designs, making them both visually attractive yet quite dark and hope to incorporate a sense of evilness into my outcomes as my bands genre is Death Metal and I want my designs to look like they are promoting that and not anything else.

Narrative Project Finals

 These are my 3 final illustrations for the Narrative project I really like these outcome as they are very dark and sinister looking.
My influence in making these pieces came mainly from the artist Gerald Scarfe, and i think that i have been successful in utilizing his style and making it my own.

The first scene above narrates the scene Horsell Common and the Heat Ray. This is where the Martians first come down and start to wreak havoc.




This is the second scene this Narrates Nathaniel and the Red Weed, which is where the martians have started unleashing a red plague upon Earth.
This scene happens to be my favorite in terms of my outcomes as i feel the image has so much impact and the type and imagery work so well together.

This is my final illustration which is the scene from the Spirit of Man, this is where he martians are draining blood from the people and injecting it into their own veins.

This has been a very good project and i am really pleased with what I've produced.

MTP Experiments

These are experiments where i have used acrylics and inks to make textures i have then put them on photoshop to change the colours and darken them up as these will be used for my Narrative Image Project.

 This MTP experiment has worked really well for editing and has made some really cool effects.

 This has also worked particularly well as it has helped to crate a digital version of The Red Weed

 This is another original.

 This is one of the original acrylic versions.

This is a very dark and eery outcome. I realy like it.

 This is a little over the top but the colours look great.

This would work really nice as a background and as i want a background similar to Gerald Scarfe this is perfect.

 I really like this as it isperect to show a digital version of the red weed

The reason for them being dark is because i am illustrating the War of the Worlds which in  itself is quite Dark.