Digital Diary Logo

Here i have done a digital diary for the logo I created for my media company. It covers 2 variations of the same logo and then an example of the logo sized down to business card size. The program I used for creating the logo was Adobe Illustrator as this works with vector images, which works best for drawings and cartoon styles, makes images that can be easily scaled for different uses and has small output size file.

I started in Illustrator created some simple shapes to compose my logo from. First I made a simple circle with a red fill and no stroke and then made a direct copy of this. The original circle I transform shrank down to a small size, constraining as i went to keep a good shape. The second circle i enlarged and then direct selected one of the anchor points and stretched it out to make a tear drop shape. Next I made a rounded rectangle with white fill and no stroke. I made a direct copy of this shape, by selecting it, holding the alt key and dragging it away. I shrank down this second rectangle using transform and constrain. This gave me the elements seen below.

Next I grouped some of the elements together, such as firstly the large rectangle, with the small circle on top of it and the smaller rectangle above the larger one. To make a camera outline. I then placed this on top of the red tear drop shape and grouped the whole lot together to make a logo. The idea was the tear drop shape is meant to represent a rose petal to go with the name Print Rose Media and the rectangles and smaller circle make up a camera shape to go with media. I had to bring some of the shapes in front of others to get the right look. The finished shape can be seen below.

Next i wanted some text of the company name to go with the logo. So using the text tool I created some simple large text in black of the company name. To personalize this text a bit I selected it all and used to menu option to create outlines from the text. This changes the text into shapes which can then be easily edited. Once I had this option to edit the text individually I ungrouped the text so each letter would be a separate shape. I then changed the colour of three of the letters from black to red, after that  I enlarged two of the letters using constrained transform and placed them in line, so the letter I and letter O combined to make a rose shape. This can be seen below as well as the logo and text combined. 

The original logo looked nice but from my scamps and design brief I wanted to make some variations on this logo to give the client more options to choose from. So creating the same initial shapes as the first logo, made easier by reusable elements, I then gave the rectangles a black stroke to give the shape more of an outline and changed the colouring of the small circle to white instead of red. These elements can be seen below.

I then arranged the shapes as mentioned previously to make a slightly different logo than before. This can be seen below. 

I also wanted to include the company name as text next to this logo. So using the same methods mentioned previously for the text i enlarged two of the letters using constrained transform and then coloured one of the letters the red colour used in the logo. This can be seen below as well as the logo and text together.

I now had two different variations on the logo and the company name text next to it. This can be seen below.

Finally I wanted to see how well the logo worked on one of the most popular formats the business card. So I  looked for the standard UK size of the business card, which was 85x55 mm, and then using the rulers in Illustrator marked out some rectangles in black to that size and tried resizing my logo and text to fit at this size. I tried this with the logo's I have created here and then a few different variations and styles I had a go at. The results can be seen below. On one of them I used text to add a few simple company details and a website. 

I saved the files as ai format  for use on the web and jpeg for use with print. The logos for web use were saved at 72 dpi resolution whereas the ones used for print and presentation were saved at 300 dpi resolution. The lower resolution files are more compressed and can be more easily uploaded and used in web work to take up less bandwidth. Where as the higher resolution files though bigger in size keep all the details and quality for presentation. 

When creating the logo I liked how I managed to try some different variations on my logo to give options. Also I think the colour scheme of the red and the black worked well. I didn't like how i got a bit single minded on an idea and didn't try different company names and styles. Also the logo didn't look too good when I tried to include it on different mediums like my leaflet. If I was to do a logo again i would try to not get too stuck one one idea and try more variation on styles.

Digital Diary Leaflet

Here I have recorded a digital diary of the leaflet I made for my assignment. It was a leaflet to advertise the media company I had created for the project called Print Rose Media. The leaflet was created in Adobe Photoshop using photos I had taken previously on my 3.2 mega pixel smart phone camera. I used Photoshop as this is the best format for working with real photos and images and outputs into a bitmap format.

I started by taking two photos of Manchester I had taken previously. The first photo is from the gardens just outside of the Chetham’s School of Music. I framed this photo to show the light reflecting of the water and the whole scene at the time of the day as the sun was setting. The second photo was of a street in the China Town area, this is my favorite part of the city and this shows the signs and lights and busy nature of the street and culture. As the photos were at this point already printed I scanned them into the computer using a digital scanner at a dpi of 300.

Next i was ready to start in Photoshop. I opened up a new document in A4 size in portrait format. My plan was to create the back of my leaflet in one document, then the front in one document and then bring them together on a new document to create the completed leaflet. So at first i started with the back. I used the rulers in Photoshop to set some guidelines on my work space to help me align my leaflet. Next i brought the first image of the China Town street into Photoshop on a new layer and transformed it to fit into place using the guidelines. This can be seen below.

Next on a new layer I added a layer mask effect to the photo of a red colour hue. I think this worked well as part of the design and tied into the company name and logo designs including the red rose. This can be seen below.

Next on a new layer I added a thin rectangle and coloured it grey to use as a border between the image I would be filling the top of the page with and the text and logos I would be filling the bottom of the page with. I also on a new layer added some white box,s over the image, these would be too include text about the company and the work it does, as well as example images. The guidelines helped me arrange these box,s well. I put the opacity lower on the box,s so the original image could be seen and the design effect kept. These changes can be seen below.

The next step was to take examples of images of work I had done, including logos and posters I had created and restored photos and bring them into the document on a new layer for each. I then arranged the images over some of the white box,s. Fitting two images per box, though in hindsight this looked cluttered and i changed it too one image per box in a later edit. The added images can be seen below.

Then on new layers I added text to the remaining box,s of details about the company and what it does. On each row i alternated the order in which the images and text went to improve the design. I made sure the text and alignment was the same throughout . The text added can be seen below.

Next from using online resources I brought in the logos for web address,s and YouTube on new layers, transform re-sized them and combined them with text to add the website address and the YouTube page details of my media company. This can be seen below.

Finally on a new layer I added text giving the contact details and address  for the media company. I used the guidelines to make sure all these elements at the bottom of the page where aligned well. This completed the back of the leaflet which can be seen below. 

With the back of the leaflet done I moved onto the front. I opened a new document in the same way as before and brought in on a new layer my image of the gardens mentioned above. On the document for the front of my leaflet I again used guidelines to help the design. The first step can be seen below.

To keep the design consistent I added a new layer mask effect for the image and changed the colouring to the same red hue as used on the back. I also on a new layer added the same grey rectangle border. These changes can be seen below.

I then on new layer added the web address for the media company on top of the grey border and using larger text added the company name at the bottom of the page covering the lower part. Using text settings I made the text fill the bottom area. This can be seen below.

This was the front of my leaflet completed too. So to complete the leaflet I opened a new document, this time reversing the values to put it in landscape format and brought into the document on new layers the saved final images of the back and the front of the leaflet. Using guidelines I transformed the images to fit together exactly and each fill half of the page. This creating my final leaflet as can be seen below. 

I saved the files as jpeg. The leaflet here was saved at a resolution of 300 dpi for use for print. I also saved a lower quality resolution version to use as part of a website or online promo The lower resolution file was more compressed and could be easily uploaded and used in web work to take up less bandwidth. Where as the higher resolution files though bigger in size keep all the details and quality for presentation and to use as a printed leaflet. I have included images of the leaflet in a lower and then higher resolution zoomed in below.

For the leaflet I liked how i got to use my own images and I think the clean cut style, alignment and planned design worked well. I didn't like how the images looked a bit cluttered and squashed two per box and I wasn't sure about the font I used on the back text. I tried many different font styles but didn't really find one i was happy with.

If i was to to do the leaflet again I would either change the images on the back so they were only one per box or change the design to incorporate more images and I would work harder on the font and typography used .

Project Full Overview

For our overall assignment over the first level of the course we had to form a multimedia company. Then as that company design a logo, leaflet and then promotional video to represent the company. Along the way we recorded our progress working on these things on a blog and in our sketchbooks.

To start off we had to think about what kind of identity we wanted for our company. This would differ for each of us as we would have different styles, interests and influences. To think about my company I created a mind map for the company identity and what target audience I would be aiming for. These can be seen below. These ideas would influence the style for the logo, leaflet and video.

The Logo

The first thing I had to do before designing a logo was some research. I had obviously seen logos in use in everyday products and advertising all over the place but hadn't broken them down and seen what worked and didn't and what styles worked for what kind of product. So I started by finding some existing logos and deconstructing them. I detailed this in my sketch book, noting what I liked about them and didn't, what style they used and what product they were for.  From this and more research I found they were some clear guidelines and set rules for the best way to design logos. Examples being ones such as do not use more than three colours and that text should be kept simple and readable.

Next I made another mind map in my sketch book representing the logo I was going to design. Thinking of ideas of things such as what colours I would use, how I would relate it to a media company, what it would include. From this it gave me the base to make my first few scamps in my sketch book. Once I had made these designs I deconstructed them, asking what my class mates thought of them and annotating points I thought were important. From this I then narrowed these initial scamps down into some final designs also in my sketch book and was then ready to go to the computers.

For the designs I used the college Mac computers and the Adobe Illustrator program. This is as it is the best choice to use for vector images and that’s what the logo was going to be. When creating the designs in Illustrator I kept mostly to my original designs but tried a few slight variations in colour and design. The final logos in big and then business card style can be seen below. I tried two main different styles for the logo, with slight colour variations in both.

The logo design overall went pretty well. I managed to get two styles of logos finished and try them in different colour schemes to give plenty of options. They also are kept quite simple, clean and scalable. This means they could be used in many different formats such as on business cards, posters, websites etc. I also liked how I managed to have fun with a few changes in Illustrator such as on the text using the O if rose and I of media to make a rose shape. These are things that weren't always in my initial designs but the program allowed me a flexibility to try a few new things.

There are ways I could have improved the logo. Looking back and seeing the logo in different sizes I don’t think I like the look of the designs and having worked more in Illustrator more now think I could have done much better. I also think I could have made different styles for the logo; I went for a more corporate style and would have liked to add more personality in an arty, fun or urban style etc. I got caught up in a singular vision in the design process and this kept me bogged down and didn't allow me to see where different styles may have taken me later on.

If I was designing a logo again I would try more than one style as well as more than one design. I would keep more of an open mind and flexible in the design process  and also get more feedback in the design process from others as this would help me to see a broader range of ideas.

The Leaflet

The next item to promote our media company was an advertising leaflet for it. The process for this in a lot of ways was similar to the design for the logo. Starting off with research I found existing leaflets and deconstructed them in terms of their layout, content, style and font in my sketch book. From this I could see what I liked and didn't and what style I might like to use in my leaflet.

After this I made a mind map in my sketch book, thinking of ideas for content, styles, colours and fonts.  I tried to learn lessons from the logo and try a few different styles.  I wanted to use my own taken pictures in the leaflet so this gave me time to think about what photos I had taken and which would work well in relation to my media company and advertising it.  From this I made some designs of scamps in my sketch books for designs for the leaflet. These as well as considering what I had thought about in my mind map allowed me to consider the layout I wanted. From these scamps I got some basic feedback from other class members and came too two final designs. One had a more professional style and one a more artistic style. The inclusion of my photos gave both styles more of a personal style and look though and I was pleased about that. I was then ready to go to the computers.

For the designs I used the college Macs and the Adobe Photoshop program. I also used jpeg photos I had taken transferred from my phone to the computers. I used Photoshop as I would be editing the photos I had taken to incorporate them in the leaflet.  In the end of my two original designs I only managed to complete one fully, but I think it turned out well and the final work can be seen below.

I think the leaflet design went well on the whole.  I ended up with a design that I think looked professional and clean cut. The photos I had taken of Manchester looked good and tied in to the theme I was going for of being local and a part of the up and coming North West design scene. They didn't need a lot of effects or editing and worked as good source material to build the rest around. Also from previous lessons I remembered learning about the right way to use the rulers and align your work and after putting effort into this when designing I think this showed.

There are ways I could have improved the leaflet. I had some trouble on the typography and struggled to find a font I was happy with and I though matched the piece and in the end I think the font I settled on detracts from the professional look. Also I would have liked with more time to have finished my second design from my leaflet too as this had a different style and would have given more overall options to choose from at the end. Also I wanted as content on my leaflet to include some example of my work but in the spaces I provided for these they looked a little squashed in. Finally as had to leave out the logo I had created previously from the piece as stated before I was not entirely happy with it and think it took away from the design.

If I was designing a leaflet again I would make sure I finished designs in multiple styles to give more options. I would make sure I was working on better source material to create from to begin with such as a better logo designs. I would also make sure my layout fit all the elements so they could be seen well and work with the design.

Promotional Video

The final thing was to create a promotional video to advertise our media company. Like the past parts before it, this all started with research. We researched various promo videos online, ones with different styles, for different products and using different shooting styles. Having not done any film work before I also needed to learn the different types of shots and effects you can use whilst filming to recognize them being used in existing videos and adapt them myself in my video.  

Next was again to do a mind map for the video. Thinking of ideas of content for the video, shot styles, music I wanted to use etc. This lead to a further breakdown in a pre-production pack which included storyboards, a shot list, a shooting schedule, a production location sheet, a resource list and a risk assessment sheet. Only when all this had been figured out could shooting begin. Shooting was done over one day with a production team of me and three other class members. The details of all the pre-production and then filming can be seen in previous blog posts.

After filming the footage was given to me as separate video files for each scene to be then edited into the final video. The editing was done over a process of a few weeks and was done using the program of Final Cut Pro. This was used as it is a well-known easy to use editing program that gives professional quality. Over the editing I cut the footage and put it into order, changed the sound levels on certain parts, added effects such as footage in footage and titles. I also added external graphics of work I have done and a music track soundtrack to go over the parts of the video without dialogue. The final video can be seen below.

After completing the videos for ourselves, we watched them back as a class and filled in some review sheets on each other’s video, marking them on things such as shots used, editing, effects, sound recorded, soundtrack and more.

I liked the final video that was completed. I managed to experiment with different shot types and effects when shooting and they all worked well. The video had a flow and kept pretty close to the storyboard it was set by. I also managed to include examples of my work in the video. From the feedback from the review sheets I found other class mates also liked my video commenting on the effects, soundtrack and managing to incorporate my logo in there.

There are ways I could have improved the video. At one point in the video I have made a mistake in the editing and the sound level drops too quickly and this makes it obvious, I should have eased the change in and looked more professional. Also the end screen graphics though giving contact details looks a little unprofessional and more time could have been taken on this In the scenes where I am using different video equipment I wish I had used other actors here as with me in all the scenes it doesn't look like a company but rather an individual. Finally I did a lot of the dialogue improvised and for parts I should have scripted and prepared more to look more confident when speaking.

If making another video I would double check all editing to avoid any small mistakes. Make sure all elements and graphics going into the video are high quality to begin with. If there was to be any dialogue included I would also make sure if I was reading it I was more prepared and confident.

Conclusion

In conclusion though there was a lot of mistakes I made along the way and ways my work could have been improved I had a lot of fun designing and producing all three parts of the project and I learned a lot of skills I am taking onto level 2 and hopefully into the job market. 

Final Project Evaluation

After finishing the three parts of the first level project I have gone back over the work and evaluated it from a mix of reviews from my class mates and my own views.

First there was the creation of the logo for our multimedia company, here are the final designs:

In these designs I managed to make two different designs and tried these designs first in different colours, then in different sizes such as business card sizes. The logo managed to be scaled down to this size well. Also from these designs I tried a few different styles of design for the text and I liked how these turned out, such as using the o of rose and the I of media to make a rose.

Though there were some areas I think could be improved in the logo design. I think I could have done the overall design of the logo better, in hindsight and when transferring the logo into different mediums such as using it for the leaflet for example I have found I don't like the design. An idea might have been to make a range of logo styles, I went for a corporate style, but think I should have also tried styles such as more personal, fun or artistic. In designing the logo I got stuck in one vision for my design instead of considering more alternatives, but I can learn from this for next time.

Then there was the creation of the promotional leaflet for our multimedia company, here are the final designs:

I like how the final design ended up for my leaflet, I think I managed to produce a professional, clean cut design. The photos I had taken of Manchester worked well on there own and didn't need too many effects and changing to add to the overall effect and style. From previous work I tried applying alignment and on the leaflet used design rulers and spacing for best effect. This helped with a more professional look in the finished leaflet.

There are still some areas that I think can be improved on the leaflet though. The typography on the leaflet back gave me some problems and even after trying many type styles I didn't find one I was entirely happy with and still think it looks a little unprofessional. Also after learning from the logo work I wanted to try some of my different designs from the scamps I created in my sketch book and might go back and make some further designs. In the final design I also think some of the pictures of my work included ended up a little bit stretched to fit in the aligned design, I might make a second version with one picture per box instead of two. Finally as a cross over from the logo design, the logo I previously created I wasn't entirely happy with and I was reluctant to include it in this leaflet along  side the company name.

Finally there was the filming and editing of a promotional video for the media company, here is the final video:

After completing the videos for ourselves, we watched them back as a class and filled in some review sheets on each others video, marking them on things such as shots used, editing, effects, sound recorded, soundtrack and more. From the comments I got back from these sheets people liked the use of video effects, the soundtrack and the way I managed to incorporate my logo in the video. Myself I was pleased the video gave me the chance to use different shot types in the filming and some different effects in the editing and I think this comes across well in the video. From keeping to my original storyboards mainly the video kept a general flow to it. I am also pleased I managed to include some examples of my work so far in there.

Looking back on the finished video there's still definitely some changes I would have made. At some parts when the video switched from non dialogue to dialogue scenes the soundtrack is dropped to allow the talking to be heard, but this is done too suddenly and stand outs, more work with key frames would have improved this. In the dialogue sections I also wish I had made a script for it and practiced it, as I seem a little unsure in my words on film. In the section where it cuts to myself using different video equipment I wish I had used more of my filming crew for this, so it looked more like a media company than just an individual project with just me in all of the scenes. Finally I think the end screen though getting the information across of the name and contact details for the company looks a little unprofessional.

I am hoping to improve from the things we've done and learn for level 2.

Final Promo Video

After finally completing the edit of my video here is the final video exported in quicktime and uploaded to youtube:

Please watch it and give any comments on here of what you think, so I can improve for this and future videos.


The soundtrack is a track from the band the Go Team called, Feel Good By Numbers:

Editing Third Week

In this third week of editing I have been adding some examples of my work and then a sound track and effects to my video.

From my original pre-production I wanted to add some examples of my work into a scene where the camera zooms over my shoulder and then focuses on the screen. From this I wanted to make it look as if the images where actually being shown on the screen of the computer. After trying a few different ideas with this, such as resizing the images and changing the opacity of the top image to make it blend in to the screen I decided that the contrast between the original jpeg images and the video I am trying to blend them into was just too different and it couldn't be done well without major editing of the images before importing them. So as a new idea I cut from the video scene of the screen and then went to a slideshow of the images in a sequence, I then changed the opacity of the images a little to make them look less white and bright and go better in the sequence of the film. The files were originally brought into Final Cut Pro by saving them from Illustrator and Photoshop as jpeg files and them importing them in and finally placing them in the video timeline.

After that I wanted to add sound to the sections of my video without dialogue. Adding a music track for the non dialogue scenes and then sound effects to a scene in the video where I speed up my typing for comedy effect. The sound files I found as mp3 files from the internet, I then imported them into Final Cut Pro and placed them in a audio channel below the video, cutting the track where appropriate.

Editing

After getting back the raw footage from my video shoot, last week and this week I have been editing. I started off by receiving separate video files for each scene shot. To begin with these were all imported into Final Cut Pro the program we are using to edit our promo videos. From here I checked each of these videos one by one in the player to remind myself what the scenes comprised of. To help myself later when I wanted to make them into a time line and reorder the scenes to match my pre-production I then renamed all the separate scenes. Then I dragged them onto the timeline in Final Cut in the right order, the rest of my first week time was spent cutting the scenes, getting rid of any excess footage. There was extra filmed footage before and after some of the scenes where we were getting into position, checking the angle, checking the sound etc and some scenes were filmed that were not needed in the final timeline.

For the second week I focused on adding extra titles and effects. Starting off I took two of the separate video clips that were imported in to Final Cut and placed one above the other in the timeline. This allowed me to do a video in video effect that was planned in my timeline. I set some key frames at the start and end of the video in video so I could make the video zoom into a frame and at the end shrink away at the end. Then I added some text titles at the beginning of the video to introduce it. This is done in a similar way with text being placed above the video clip in the timeline. I experimented with some of the texts when adding, trying scrolling text and text in a typewriter style. Also I made a screen picture in Illustrator showing the company logo and some contact details to import and show at the end of the video.

There's still some effects id like to add, I want to add some music and sound effects to parts of the video and  I want to add some examples of media work I have done as embedded pictures in the video.

Here are some pictures of the video and timeline in Final Cut Pro.