Digital Skills - Walls Ad

This weeks digital skills session was all about typography styling using adobe illustrator. This involved using skills such as tracking, kerning, 3D options and getting to grips with the appearance palette. This was a very helpful session to me as I was previously quite unfamiliar with the appearance palette. I learned how to add new fills and strokes behind or in front of the text to create the effect shown above. This technique is great for commercial adverts like the one I've designed as it really stands out, as do the bright and bold vector shapes. This also gave me an opportunity to practise my previously learned skills with creating the vector images within illustrator and also placing the image in situ.

Digital Skills - Blackberry Ad

This weeks digital skills focused on the shapes tool, pathfinder within illustrator and the transform options within photoshop. Working with vectors is not a strong point of mine so I enjoyed getting to grips with them throughout this tutorial and learning more about the pathfinder tool. Learning these skills is making me a lot more comfortable using illustrator and are very simple yet effective skills for creating some very successful designs. Once I had finished my design in illustrator I then put it in situ using photoshop and learned some new techniques such as adding the gradient shadow and the sheen effect to make it look much more realistic.

Digital Skills - Adidas

Digital Skills - TopShop

Original Imagery

This weeks digital skills used Photoshop again, and worked on photo and colour enhancing. This was useful as I learned a couple of things which I didn't know I had the ability to tweak so easily, such as the background colours of original images. These a great techniques for fashion or product images as it helps to enhance certain sections. 

Digital Skills - ABSOLUT

This was my first digital skills task and it was produced using photoshop. This design included using brush tool skills, quick selection tool skills and also layer masks.

Using layer masks is a technique I personally dont tend to do a lot throughout my work but is extremely useful can can help to create some really great designs so becoming more familiar with them throughout this was very useful to me. I liked this final design and would work well with a range of different flavours/colours and could easily be changed just by altering the hues. 

Digital Applications - SWOT Analysis

Strengths: 

Personal strengths lie within graphic illustration I'm rather 

comfortable with Photoshop which has been my main programme of choice to use for many years.

I have experience in a range of design areas including branding, illustration, 

typography etc. 

I understand the entire design process from the research to idea generation, to 

development and my final ideas. 

Weaknesses: 

I tend to neglect other programmes such as Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign so my skills are lacking in those areas.

I also steer away from using mixed media throughout my designs. 

Lack of understanding with printing methods 

Idea generation and sketches, I tend to normally go straight into digitalizing ideas rather than spending time doing as many 

sketches I can. 

Opportunities: 

Chance to improve my portfolio to make it more industry 

specific

To challenge myself and improve my skills in other programmes. 

Regular feedback from tutors and peers. 

Threats: 

Time constraints due to other personal commitments.

Lack of equipment. 

Digital Applications

For my new module I was asked to have a look through the current briefs up on D&AD and choose one I felt I would enjoy most and which I could utilise to express my digital skills techniques I have learned. After a thorough read through each one I finally settled on one set by 'It's Nice That'.

‘It’s Nice That’ are looking for new and exciting ways to stay engaged with their original audience. This could be through a poster campaign, a publication, an event, an app or something so brilliant that no one has thought of it yet.

Throughout the process I am to consider how they can spread their commitment to showcasing great work in an information overloaded university world.

My final outcome should be ambitious, whilst still keeping in mind that ‘It’s Nice That’ is a small to medium business and this should be reflected in my response to the kind of budgets a business of this size can access. Another aspect to keep in mind is the tone of voice and any idea should fit in seamlessly with their existing identity. I am required to connect ‘It’s Nice That’ to a huge student population, including those who are aware of the company already and also those that are yet to discover it.

My target audience is students studying on creative courses, or those studying on other courses who are also culturally aware. 

Alongside my brief I will also be taking part in several digital skills tasks where I shall learn several more skills and techniques which I shall then try to tie into my designs. 

After choosing my brief I quickly set myself a time plan in order to keep myself as organised as possible with this project...

For this particular project I must show what I have learned from the digital skills lectures and use these techniques throughout my designs. 

A particular weakness of mine is my lack of skills with illustrator. I feel after the digital skills sessions that I have become a lot more comfortable and understand the programme a lot more, making it easier for me to incorporate it in my designs. Using vector shapes in designs was a new skill I have learned and I would like to really improve this and take it into my designs for this particular project. 

Another skill I developed was using layer masks, something I dont regularly do. I want to again, really improve this skill throughout this brief and create some really intricate and interesting designs.