CREATIVE INDUSTRIES- MY INTERESTS:
So far, I have studied and have learnt different subject areas and made projects for each creative areas in the first year as Illustration, Graphics Design, Animation, Photography, Visual communication, 3D art and Video effects. After exploring and understanding all different subject areas, I would say I have got interested in Graphic design, Visual effects and Animation.
GRAPHIC DESIGN:
In Graphics there are different areas as a Web designer, Brand identity, Creative, Art director, Photoshop Artist, layout artist etc. I am interested in continuing my career in Graphics designing but I don’t want to work only in one area as I want to work so it would be good to say Creative or Visual designer to carry different interests and work on them as well at the same time.
CREATIVE DESIGNER:
BASIC JOB DESCRIPTION FOR CREATIVE/VISUAL DESIGNER:
- Experience in visual and media creative industry at least 2 or 3 years minimum.
- Advanced knowledge of the latest design tools including Adobe Creative Suite
- Experience in print design is a plus
- Excellent visual, verbal, and written communication skills
- Ability to think and design from concept to finish independently.
- Strong understanding of design principles and colour theory.
- Can collaborate within a team of artists.
- Strong time management skills.
PROGRAM KNOWLEDGE:
- Understand the limitations of web technologies including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Angular, etc.
- Proficiency with Adobe Creative Cloud, Bohemian Sketch, and prototyping tools, such as InVision and/or Axure.
COMPANIES ON ISLAND:
ISLE OF MAN ADVERTISING AND PR:
Isle of man advertising and the public relation is a company of different media opportunities working together as a part of the company. This company is a full-service communications agency offering integrated public relations, graphics and digital design and website development services in the Isle of Man, Channel Islands and other international business centres.
I had my work experience with Isle of Man advertising company and it was really good to work for a week and to understand how it feels to work in the real world and people and real-life projects, I was been given different projects including the areas I was interested in and it was a great experience for me to work on their own projects. So It would be great if I would get a job or work experience in this company as I have worked before and know all the team members and manager and this company have a great professional environment to work in.
FREELANCERS ON ISLAND:
JENNIFER GROOSE (GRAPHICS DESIGNER):
Jennifer Groose studied from Isle Of Man college and she had done a foundation course in Art and design, after that she moved to Liverpool for her Degree, she did her graduation with Textiles and 3D designing. After that, she didn’t find any job related to her education. She started her first job working in an office, after working there for few months she didn’t want to continue that job so she started finding and applying for jobs online and by CV to different companies but she didn’t get any job related to her work and then she found Buzz company, they deal with marketing but at that time they needed someone for designing and she went to Buzz and she actually got place working and learning at the same design. She didn’t know much about Graphics design and someone there helped her learn and develop her skills in Graphics. After that, she worked for 2 more companies and after that, she decides to build up her own business doing Graphic Design. That’s how she has built her own business.
TRIS GELL CREATIVE:
Tris Gell Creative is exactly offering the type of work I am interested in. The company is owned by Tris Gell, as she works as multi-disciplined, freelance graphic designer and creative consultant with over 15 year’s commercial experience. She deals with different areas as Printing, Graphics Designing, Digital Media, Branding and Identity, Copywriting, Video and Animation and Photography and there are different areas to these parts as well like Posters and Displays, Advertising, World Photography, local photography and so on. This place is working on all the different areas of media I am interested in so great If I would get a chance.
Questionnaire and contacting people from industries:
- I created an online questionnaire to send to people and industries on island.
- It was also a good way to maintain a good relationship with people working as freelancers and companies on island.
WEBSITE DESIGN EXAMPLES:
- Minimal design makes the content look elegant and simple.
- Less content on the main page.
- The typography style and colour perfectly matching with the image in the background.
- The aim of the website which is wrist watch business or brand is perfectly highlighting on the main page.
- The use of graphical elements in a simple way making the website stand out.
- The colour and typography is alright but in my opinion i prefer the size of the font more big.
- There should be typography included with the symbols rather than having only small symbols together on the top right.
- The layout design is minimal and graphics based.
- The less amount of content is making the website stand out.
- The colours used in the background are not too dark or light but in a neutral balance and nice to eye.
- I quite like the use of pixel based design for the characters.
- The only thing I would prefer for this website is the better style of font for the sub heading which is in Italic style but for me it is hard to read if you looking at the website on small screen and also the white colour used making it harder to read at first.
VISUAL EFFECTS (POST-PRODUCTION):
Visual effects artists create imagery that is either impractical or impossible to film. VFX artists combine traditional animation and fine art techniques with cutting-edge technologies, including motion capture, digital fabrication, and computer rendering.
MY INTEREST:
POST-PRODUCTION:
- VFX and Simulation
The job of an FX artist revolves around adding simulated elements to a film that seamlessly exist in the director’s world. At any given time, an FX artist could be working on things like destruction, fire, liquids, smoke, and particle simulations. They will often work alongside the animators to ensure natural movement of colliding FX elements.
- Lighting and Rendering:
A lighting artist, or multiple lighting artists, strategically place lights throughout the 3D scene to ensure light color, intensity, and shadows match up with the originally shot piece. Each sequence of frames is rendered out from the needed camera angles and handed off to the compositor.
- Compositing and Editing:
This is the final step of the visual effects pipeline. A compositor takes all the elements of the film and layers them on top of each other. They use elements like color correction, masking and other tricks to create the illusion that all elements naturally belong together.
SKILLS REQUIRED:
- A degree from an accredited institution in arts or design, such as painting, photography, drawing, illustration, design, or computer animation.
- Knowledge of Photography, Composition and lighting conditions.
- Compositors need great communication skills along with a keen eye for detail and a commitment to hard work.
PROGRAM KNOWLEDGE:
- Shake and After Effects
- Adobe Photoshop
- Maya
- Nuke
- Combustion
- Inferno
- Flame
- Amino
- Opus
- 2D and 3D animation software
INDUSTRIES ON ISLAND:
BLUE OLIVE PRODUCTION:
Based in the beautiful Isle of Man, Blue Olive Productions has been creating high-quality, engaging video content since 2010.They are a full-service video production company that specialises in Corporate Videos, Business Promos, Events Media, Community Projects and Wedding Videos.
GREENLIGHT TV:
Greenlight TV is an independent production company with extensive facilities and experience. Past work includes TT coverage, TT documentaries, British Rally Championship coverage.
COOL EDIT PRODUCTION :
Cool Edit Production Limited is a production facility based on the Isle of Man. Cool Edit offers creative filming and editing for events, adverts, online, digital marketing and broadcast.
WORKING AS A FREELANCER:
IMPORTANCE OF WEBSITE DESIGN:
- Website design is one of the most important part of every website for a business and an individual because design is the first thing that people are going to see first on the website and website’s design often provides the first impression customers have of a company or a brand.
- A great design is transparent that help to reflect your motives to your clients and give them a reason to visit your website.
- Design plays an important role in the success of a website, without adequate web design, all boring web pages are not boring. No matter whether it is a personal website or a company, web design plays an important role.
- Good website design needs a wide range of professionals having expertise in different areas and that is where companies and people need website designers to control the design side of a website.
PRINCIPLES OF WEBSITE DESIGN:
SIMPLICITY IS BEST:
- Simplicity always works in an effective web page design, putting too many elements on the page may lead to distracting visitors from the main purpose of a website.
- Clean and fresh design of a website not only makes the website appealing but also help the user to navigate from one page to another seamlessly.
- Keeping the design as simple as possible is important so that the visitors can feel it easy-to-use and can find their ways easily rather than loading a website having design features that do not serve the purpose might be frustrating for the viewers.
CONSISTENCY:
- Consistency in website design matters a lot as using loads of different things such as colour, font sizes and font types may confuse the viewers with the information sections.
- It is important that the fonts, sizes, headings, sub-headings, and button styles must be the same throughout the whole website.
TYPOGRAPHY AND READABILITY:
- No matter how good the design is, the text still rules the website as it provides users the desired information they are looking for.
- Keeping the typography visually appealing and readable for visitors, along with the tricky use of keywords, meta-data, and other SEO-sensitive elements is very important.
- It is important to consider using fonts that are easier to read. The modern sans-serif fonts as Arial, Helvetica, etc. can be used for the body texts and make proper combinations of typefaces for each and every design element such as headlines, body texts, buttons, etc.
COLOUR PALETTE AND IMAGERY:
- A perfect colour combination attracts users while a poor combination can lead to distraction and that is why it is important to pick a perfect color palette for the website which can create a pleasing atmosphere, thus leaving a good impact on visitors.
- Using too many vibrant images on the whole website might confuse the viewer and it will not look good from a design side. It is best to keep the layout simple and clean.
EASY NAVIGATION:
- An easily navigable website increases the time a visitor or customer remains on your website. This allows visitors more time to explore your website and discover information about a company or business.
- The navigation bar or tools is a clear indication that your website is filled with knowledge and depth and helps to break up the website into categories and groups in a logical and understandable group.
DESIGNING MY PERSONAL WEBSITE:
BRIEF:
- This module is based on professional practice and personal choices of work that everyone wants to work on and after mindmapping my interests and passion, I decided to explore web design and development to create my personal website.
IDEAS AND THUMBNAILS:
DEVELOPMENT:
- As it was my first time to work with web development but it was a benefit that I was aware of basic HTML and CSS coding.
- As I wanted to keep the theme of the website minimal and simple, I decided to use the same theme throughout the whole website.
- I followed different tutorials and courses to understand all different websites contents in order to apply the specific coding needed for the website.
DESIGN REQUIREMENT FOR A WEBSITE
- As following the minimal design, I had to make sure that I am eliminating unwanted content from the main website page and other pages.
- I used a simple pastel coloured based graphic background and used the same background for the whole website because it is very important for a successful website to not make the viewer confuse by different images and loads of information.
- According to the minimal design requirement, I wanted to have some pages such as Portfolio, Contact, Social and services and type of work which I specialise for.
- I used drop down menu for the services column as there are different areas of my interest which I feel is important to show to the viewer.
- I tried to keep the portfolio page as simple as I can, I again used drop down menu to make it easy for the viewer to view my work according to their own choice.
Target Audience for my Website:
- The main objective for creating my website was to create my platform because I feel in today’s world if you are a designer you need a website so people can approach you and can contact you easily.
- The other reason for designing a website is to showcase my work to other people, especially who are designers and understand the type of work I am trying to showcase.
- The target audience for my website would be people who need a web designer along with multimedia designer to fit their needs, other designers, or employer as I feel that I specialise in different areas at the same time such as Graphic design, photography and website design from now on.
- I have also designed my website for other designers and to push the boundaries of design and development to show my skills. I feel I have applied the latest visual designing techniques hoping to get my website on other people’s inspirations list.
EVALUATION:
- I feel by working on this project, I have learned a new area which is web development.
- I have gained in-depth knowledge and understanding of HTML and CSS coding by working on this project which was to create my website.
- Through this project, I have created a personal website which I feel is important in today’s world if you are working as a designer or a freelancer.
- I have worked according to the brief and followed the steps which I find beneficial to use when I was developing and designing my website.
- I have used a simple and minimal style theme and kept the same theme for the whole website which I feel is making my website less complicated and straight forward because of the elimination of unwanted information and content.
- I have used the same font and colours palette throughout because I think consistency is a very important part of website design and that is why I tried to keep the elements inside the website simple and minimal both for the design and typography of the website.
- I have created simple and easy navigation to provide the information which I want the viewers to look at and it is straight forward at the same time providing only the main and important info in the form of columns such as contact, social, portfolio and different work areas such as Graphics design, photography, branding and video.
- I would say that this project was not easy as it was my first time to work as a developer and designer at the same time and there were times and areas where I didn’t have any idea to resolve some coding issues but I think I have self-learned a lot in this project and tried to research and solve issues by following tutorials and informative coding websites.
- Working on this project also makes me realise, the work I enjoy doing and I feel web designing and development is one of them.
- I am proud of all the work I have done and created my website without even needing a web developer and glad that I have explored and learned web designing and development in this project rather than working and creating the work which I already know and experienced before.
Zainab's Degree blog 
