Web Design. (Recycledlifeforms.com - Research.)

I felt this was a good website to represent recycled goods, and showed a lot of interactivity and imagination. The first thing that caught my attention was how the landscape had been morphed in to the theme of recyling by the vegetables being used as a part of the structures - I felt this was an inventive and fitting way particulary for this type of website. I also liked how two types of style were incorperated to create a varied design - for instance, they have used a blend of real materials with images done in photoshop.

This site has various interactivity functions and all of these rely on the viewer clicking different spots on the page. I specifically liked how the animations played out by doing this, and how what was being displayed was all to do with helping the environment - so rather than making it boring and like a lecture, with loads of text about what to do to be "green," they've made it in to little animations which are far more interesting. To tie in with this, I also like how some of the landscapes move without having to click it - but others need your assistance. This allows you to feel more involved.

The main downside to this would be the loading times. It take's so long to load up the site itself, and then it's only slowed down when you finally get on the page because of all the various animations and movements - which only complicates things when you click on objects to make them animate too. Also, what was extremely annoying was when you press one of the top buttons for another page, it opens in a small box with the background still animating, so it's still painfully slow for no reason. Overal, it feels like they've tried to put too much on one page and rather than having it spread out on various other pages to make it faster, they've lumbered it all together. Also, one very important mistake was that things on the website can be missed because of the "clicking anywhere and hope something animates eventually," thing - because bluntly put, you may not press in a vital area and might miss an important animation.

However, the inspirations I found from this was how well real materials/objects can work with photoshopped ones - and how you can incorperate your theme in to anything - such as the structures using vegetables.

Web Design. (Patrickbizier.com - Research.)

This website is for an Illustrator's work, so I felt it was worth including in my research because it held a lot of good and bad points.

Firstly, what drew me to the website was the hand drawn feel to the design - I loved how the Artist had used his own artwork and style to create the webpage. It made the overall feeling more about the Artist, which created a more personal feeling too it. I also liked how the background seemed to be painted on some kind of material like a book, which reflects more with what the Artist does - this, I feel, appears more effective than having a Photoshopped background or just plain colour. It gives the whole "atmosphere" on the page more feeling.

I feel this website is a fine example of how to stay intune with a specific theme throughout. Even when clicking on a link and being taken to a new page, it still has other drawings in the same style, so this shows a continuation of a styalized webpage. I feel one of the biggest mistakes is using various styles, colours and images throughout a website because it becomes messy and confusing - sticking with one theme allows it to be more professional and focused.

On the down side, there wasn't much interaction or imagination in how navigation was used - it was all pretty simple. Infact, other than the nice hand drawn imagery, the whole thing didn't really use any interesting techniques or functions. And although when you do view it, it does make you feel warm inside - almost like settling in to bed with a warm drink and a story book -, it does get boring pretty quickly because there's not much to do or access.

The main thing I want to take from this website is the classic, hand drawn feel too it. I love how it's laid out like an Art book and follows this theme throughout.

Animation. (Research - Move Along.)

For my animation project I want to create something that could be quite versatile and fit in with a certain theme. For instance, I didn't want to do a straight forward animation of me walking around and interacting with people as a portrayal of my life.

After coming up with a few idea's, I decided how I could merge a few together would be to do a technique used vaguely in this music video. Basically, I like the idea of having myself in the foreground with a background that move's and changes it's scenery - but everything in the foreground would stay the same. It's something I want to play around with and possibly use Typography to create a more versatile overall effect.

There are several options I could choose with achieving this technique, such as green screen and having actual models or photographs - but the way I'd first like to test is having it entirely drawn and move in that way - or use various images and photographs for the background, but create the foreground with pencil. The characters and art style is something I'd like to experiment a lot with and try and make my own.

Web Design. (Nawlz.com - Research.)

Nawlz opens in a clean, industrial style with not much imagery - but I think thats the kind of feel they wanted. To get on to different pages, you press links and it operates like a slide show, which works better than opening up another page entirely. This format also helps because it's advertising a comic book, so the sliding effect is almost like opening a page.

The artwork is all amazingly stylized and created to a rather high standard - and the comic book, more importantly, fits with the style of the website. The various pages you can click on all have some form of interactivity and differences, so it's not like changing pages is going to be the same experience over and over. It has a lot of various functions and interactivity which is both quirky and intelligent - with how it's laid out like a comic book, how it slide's in to each page and how small animations are instigated on specific pages. Probably the main thing I like about it is how well it's laid out and how the creator has made it in his own style, which is something I'd want to do for my website. I also love the colour scheme and how it all blends well with the electric blues and pastel like purples - and their also not just standard paint but rather a nice spray paint effect.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of clicking involved to see various pages and loading time's can be demeaning. Also, the text is really small and it's obviously created for teenagers so other age groups may feel slightly alienated. But once you get passed this or this is your kind of website, hopefully you can see the real beauty in how much effort, originality and wit has gone in too it.

Web Design. (Bio-bak.nl - Research.)

Bi0-bak relies mainly on it's interactivity functions, which are insanely whacky and creative. It demonstrates a nice blend of Artwork and interactions which are all done to a high standard. At times, it's almost like you're playing a game because the webpage allows you to get so involved with it.

Particularly, I love how you need to actually search for things yourself. Using the mouse, it enables you to scan the entire page and find other functionalities or information - this makes you become more involved with it, especially when it asks you to locate a battery to make a speaker work, which results in a small animation. Basically, instead of going on a website that has everything already laid out for you, this requires a bit more patience and wit - you're also rewarded in a sense, whenever you do find something new because of the various animations being activated, it makes you feel like you've accomplished something. The whole page is all vibrant and happy, even though a big chunk of it is black the colours seem to spring from the page, with uses of different tones and variety.

As a critique, I feel it should have some sort of link that allows you to see the animations/interactions in some other format. The problem is, when you're scanning the big page, it can get boring if you're seeing the same things - and because of this, you may miss something on there that's quite important or interesting. If I had spent so much time designing and creating this, I'd want people to see everything about it - I feel the web page is let down slightly because the creator has given attention to some detail that people may not see.

Web Design. (Rolando.com - Research.)

For my Web Design research, I wanted to look in too something which not only was "pretty" to look at, but actually has a nice interactivity which can hold an attention span for a few minutes.

The site "Rolando," is somebody's Portfolio which has a nice blend of Art with good interactivity. The basics of the site is you control a small Cherub with a camera, which can move him a long the page to spread out one huge image which plays "home" for a number of different, interesting and versatile characters and scenery. What first caught my attention for this site was the gothic, child-like Art theme and how it was laid out almost like a story book. I felt it was well presented, with it's own added touch's of "attitude" and animations. It's designed a lot like a childrens story book, but the good feature about it is when you do view the page properly, you can tell it's more aimed at adults which I thought worked well.

My main downfall is that the slide show doesn't like very long and it can be annoying to have to turn the character around to scan the rest of the page - this requires going back through everything again. Another thing is having to work out for yourself where to click to activate the animations, since it's quite big and you have to operate the character you have the added annoyance of clicking the page as well. Other than that, the Art is beautiful, the animations are well achieved and the concept is fairly original.

For my design, I'd love to have animations which reflect my personality, and be able to create a world inside the site that people can enjoy and also, works well with how I want to portray myself in the form of an image/animation.

Light Wave - Research. (Futuristic City.)

Our project for Lightwave is to design what thing's could look like in the future. It's a fairly open project with a theme thats already got stuck in my head.

In some ways, I'd like to show the world for what it is today, and how thing's may only get worse for the future. I decided to pick out the barrier's between poor people and the rich, focusing on how poverty separates the class's of today and what effect this will have on the future. Think of it as the Earth being set on levels like some huge Metropolis and the Rich being at the top in a place seemingly like "paradise," and the poor being at the bottom in the slums.

This image shows a beautiful city in the background seemingly taken hold of by technology, and then in the foreground a town that doesn't seem to have moved forward at all - and appears like a poverty stricken area. It shows the separation of society and how the Rich will grow forward, but the poor will still be expected to do the "dirty work" and live in grotesque environments. So, overall, the only people who really move on in the future is those with fortune, a good background and career prospects - which is a lot like today, but on a lesser scale.

Photography. (Early Development - Sin City.)

Well, everyone has to start somewhere. And after trying to think up a better idea for Mark's Family project, than having a load photo's representing some place I've visited or some folk I've met, I decided to go a long with some kind of other theme I could portray with the use of photo's. In the early idea stage's, I thought about some kind of comic strip style which might make the photo's more interesting and have a different way of expressing the story.

Along with this, I wanted to fit in some kind of artwork which would fit with this idea and came up with the style used in Sin City. This picture is a prime example of an idea in the early stage's of development.

Influences. (Comic Books.)

Coming back to the comic book idea, I absolutely adore this style. I love the smooth pasted effect which give's off these soft blends of colour. I also love the attitude they bring with the characters, and the use of small quirks such as goggles or tattoo's to give them a more diverse character - which reminds me a lot of the Tank Girl comic books and how the artist Jamie Hewlett choses to create such intriguing characters.

I'd like to use this kind of technique with creating my own characters and scenery. I want to make something which use's nice little added touch's with it's own Art style in such a diverse way, you actually remember them for these quirks and "different" characteristics - than having a generic boy or girl, or generic scenery or structures.

Influences. (Sin City.)

So, I've already been influenced by the Artwork and style of Sin City. I'd love to incorporate some of it in to various aspects of my work. For instance, I love the comic book style and overall, the movie effects. I especially like the choice's they use in colour, such as using a lot of black and white's with only added bit's of colour on symbolic things.

At the moment, I'm thinking a slide show of photo's made in to a comic book strip would make for an interesting, diverse piece and one I'll begin to look in too. Not just a clear view of a Traditional comic book either, but something more than that.

Hello future me.

So, basically, this place will be a home for all my research, idea's, development and influence's for my Multi Media work - and not much more. Unless I'm drunk and somehow find my way on to this site to write random crap, which won't make much sense or anythin' - but there ya go.

Main influence's in the past have been Tank Girl's artist Jamie Hewlett, James Jean, Junji Ito, Surrealism, Darker Arts, Spirited Away, Shadow Of The Colossus and various others that will hopefully continue to help me out with any future projects.

Sayonara-