Logo Final

This is the finish logo out of the ones i designed today i feel very happy with this design because it really pulls the eye towards the pheonix and i like how i found a way to use my experiment in my final piece.

Logo Re design

today i redesigned a logo for my website. after looking with Dan at my design he suggested taking my pheonix design and using that because it was a very well made image and it would be a shame to not actually use it. therefore i gathered my pheonix and started to think about design after getting a few together i decided to change the name of my website from barbaric clothing to Pheonix clothing or Black pheonix clothing. i have decided on one logo from the six i created. these are the Four i choose not to use.

Logo Design

Today i spent the day designing the Logo for my website. i started with a pentagram that used for my art course last year and made it digital then changed it using photoshop and a Graphics tablet. this gave me greater control over my logo design as a whole because it meant i was drawing not using the mouse.
this is the pentagram i decided to use.

I then decided that the logo was to bland and so decided i would Swords crossed behind the whole design to give it more substance however i feel it still needs a little more and so i think i will change a few things and keep using different ways and combinations of the swords to make a logo that i really want to have on my work i am also thinking of putting a banner in to have my website name inside so that the brand has a title not just a logo like putting a name to a face.

DSLR introduction

Today we had a introduction to the DSLR camera and we got taught the basics on how to use the camera on manaul mode.

we covered

Aperture

The main function of a camera lens is to collect light. The aperture of a lens is the diameter of the lens opening and is usually controlled by an iris. The larger the diameter of the aperture, the more light reaches the film / image sensor. Aperture is expressed as F-stop, e.g. F2.8 or f/2.8. The smaller the F-stop number  the larger the lens opening

We also covered 

Exposure

Exposure is the amount of light collected by the sensor in your camera during a single picture.  If the shot is exposed too long the photograph will be washed out.  If the shot is exposed too short the photograph will appear too dark.  

Illustrator Experiment

Today we opened illustrator to get to grips with the interface and learnt what could be done on the program. this program has really stuck with me and i seem to pick it up very quickly and enjoy using it other than photoshop. i can also design everything in illustrator then move it to photoshop using export to then colour and tweak it slightly adding final touches.
I experimented on illustrator using the touch screen drawwing straight onto the canvas using the brush set up of chalk scribble i didnt have an idea what i wanted my end result to be but after messing it became clear that i could turn the shapes and fluid lines into something very interesting.
This was my image.

I then got told to add shapes and basic text to the image to show my understanding of shapes and tools in illustrator and i came up with this even though i prefer just the phoenix. i understand that i had to add to it to cover the shapes and show that i took everything in while the demo was being taught.

experiments with panorama

Design Idea for website

My idea for the website in this unit is to either create a new website selling Goth and alterative or re-design Tribal voices website. However I feel more comfortable designing my own website and mixing many different labels and styles of clothes that I know and like to wear. My website will have a large inventory of everything from shoes to accessories such as wrist bands and jewellery. I have already thought of a name for my website and am looking forward to designing a logo to really emphasize the name of my site. Logo design will be a very interesting process because I did allot of logo designing last year and so I think I will be able to use all my skills from last year into helping my website look very professional. Gathering the things I put on my website shouldn’t be too much of a challenge I know plenty of website that have the brands I would like the only problem I and worried about is the copyright issues and whether there will be problems in that area or not.

My website should reflect the style of things on it therefore I feel I will be working with mostly greys, black and reds. This will let me experiment on putting red inlays into designs for borders and icons. But also this has a down side due to having such a limited palate I need to really work hard on making my designs stand out from the rest of the market. Although this poses a challenge I feel that having an idea that inspires me will give me the drive to get to the standard that I require.

Researching this project should be rather simple for me as I have been shopping from the site that inspired my idea for years I will be trying to find there designers to get further inspiration and maybe even find where they got their inspiration and see it can spark any new creative ideas for my website. I think I will look further than the websites I already know and try to find new websites because I feel the more websites I find and look at will give me a higher chance of making mine all the more original because I will know my market and know what been done and what hasn’t. I think getting the designs to be completely original will be the hardest bit but with such a vast selections of styles I could draw inspiration from means I can truly let my ideas flow. I will especially try to use the least amount of tribal style possible because I feel it is used on most of the websites that sell this style of clothing and accessories. Therefore I will have to look into lots of design styles to create my style.

Snooker Ball in Photoshop

Today we made a Snooker ball in Photoshop we did this by first making a gradient on a layer above the background. This gradient went from foreground to background. This created a black fading to white background on which we could create our snooker ball. We then used a selection tool called elliptical marquee tool. This tool creates circles but only if you hold Shift. We then positioned the circle in the centre of the page we then used the selection we already had to create a copy of the circle slightly below the circle we had and then filled that one in black. To create a shadow from the black circle we used Gaussian Blur on a scale of 25 to give it a very Soft edge that looked like a shadow then positioned it in the right place. Then to make the shadow look natural we used dodge tool to create a highlight on the original circle and then used the burn tool on the bottom to make the bottom of the circle blend with the shadow we did. We then made a selection with the elliptical marquee again and created three ovals that where all connected and then saved the selection. Using the circle selection and loading the new selection into the current it meant we could create a layer mask and then with reduced opacity to fade the colour in circle again but leaving a faint white outline to make it look like a glare coming off the ball this we the final touches to our snooker ball.

Effects in Text

Shattering Text

We wrote simple text today to then add effects to it. We first used a FX that was bevel and emboss to make it look metal type face. We then merged the layers of effects down because if we didn’t the effects would mess up from splitting the text. Then using the polygonal lasso tool we selected triangles from the text to slightly move to give it a broken glass effect. I am sure this can be used in lots of ways and it has sparked ideas to use it in my other module for the ending of my comic book.

We then used the lasso tool on a new layer to create a circle around the middle or the whole text and then feathered the lasso using Shift F6 to create a blur around the outside of the selection. We then deselected the lasso and the use the effect Blur and Radial Blur. To create almost a black hole kind of space zoom feel we used the Cloud effect by going through the Render menu. After giving a space feel behind the text we needed to give the Text the same zoom to make it fit. Therefore we right click the thumbnail and select the pixels in the text layer and then we make a new layer to add a 50% grey fill therefore creating a grey version of our text below it. We then go back into Blur and Radial blur like before to give the explosion text inside it. We then merged the two explosions to make it easier to match the Hue and Saturation that we were about to change. Making sure we only selected the explosion layer we changed the explosion to a colour that we wanted. Then to give the Text and Shadow we used the Effect Stroke and Drop shadow to position a shadow in the place we wanted it.