WOW!

Stock Vectors

2008-05-28T10:45:00.000+10:00

Lately i have been right into vector design, and ive been looking around at the cool stuff people have been creating and chucking up on the net.
I found this cool website that allows users to put their pieces up on the internet, and it also allows other users to download the illustrator files, and use or learn from them. It is a great way to learn how to do vector design.

The website is Vecteezy! You can find it at: http://www.vecteezy.com/

35 Beautiful Bright, Colorful Web Designs

2008-05-21T16:56:00.000+10:00

The skillfull use of colors is a talent that all designers should possess. When used excessively, a design can look scattered, "rainbow-like", and distracting. When used too sparingly, a design can look bland.

View these 35 Designs here: http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/bright_colorful_web_designs/

20 Useful Tools to Make Web Development More Efficient

2008-05-20T16:41:00.000+10:00

I was just surfing the net and found some pretty cool tools for css, javascript and what not. They are designed to make web development projects quicker and more productive. The tools described below are a variety of utilities, optimizers, testing, and debugging tools aimed towards helping developers create websites more efficiently.

Check the tools out here: http://sixrevisions.com/tools/20_web_development_tools/

Blink 182 - Always ... Music Video

2008-05-18T11:32:00.003+10:00

I was checking out a filming technique that is used in the music video, Blink 182 - Always.

Then i found this awesome lego version of the music video, it's funny as. Watch the top video first, and then watch the lego version which is right underneath.

Blink 192 (Real Version)

Lego Version

Most Incredible/Ridiculous Instrument Ever

2008-05-17T14:55:00.002+10:00

Well, this video introduces an instrument which is similar to a pipe organ... only 10 times smaller and 1000 times more confusing to use! The man in this video obviously knows how the instrument works, and he is either a genius... or an idiot.. maybe both?

Either way, this is a BAD Design!

3rd Main Project - Pullins Ski Hire

2008-05-14T18:57:00.007+10:00

After doing some in depth research on the culture of snowboarding, i have found that a large amount of skateboarders, surfers and even musicians take snowboarding as a hobby or even professional sport.
A prime example is Shaun White, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_White). He is notable for competing in the X Games, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Games), in the skateboarding and also snowboarding events, while also winning gold at the Olympics for snowboarding.

Taking all this into account, i have taken into consideration the design and culture that hobbies and sports have originated from. Their design and culture in ways, has many common links such as: design, music styles & attitudes.

I will be taking in consideration the designs and cultural backing in my design for the Pullins Ski Hire Website.

Concept Presentation #2 - Personal Reflection

2008-05-12T13:46:00.006+10:00

After our presentation today, Mark and Troy were happy with our presentations and the current situation Root Negative One are at ....except.... they had one issue with our project:

Inconsistency with the four different groups.

By this, the Mark and Troy meant that they weren't too 'sold' by our design consistency between the concept, web, video and print teams.
We are having a meeting at 1pm this afternoon to clear up any confusions with the project, and to ensure that all our pieces of work are consistent among all four teams. The basic style guide is now available for each of the groups to download and implement.

The style guide can be found here: http://anem.com.au/aaron/boredStyleGuide.pdf

To Die For Clothing

2008-05-05T15:43:00.012+10:00

Yesterday I found an interesting clothing brand labelled, "To Die For Clothing". This clothing brand was created by a 19 year old guy working full time during the day, and part-time printing clothing in his basement during the nights. His highly detailed prints soon became globally popular and this small part-time job has now become a large clothing brand, popular among the skateboarding and punk music scene.
The artwork resembles tattoo design and takes his influences from punk rock/hardcore music.

To Die For's artwork is definitely worth checking out: http://www.todieforclothing.com/

U2 3D

2008-05-02T10:36:00.006+10:00

I went to see U2 3D at Imax on Wednesday night, and it was definitely worth seeing!
The screen is huge and the images on screen are 10 times larger than traditional cinema format, while also being in 3D format. The film was a recording of U2 playing in a live stadium in South America on their 'Vertigo' Tour.
The experience was amazing, it is almost like you are actually at the concert. The band members on stage feel as if they are just metres away from you, the whole atmosphere felt so realistic.
To U2's credit, they also played a great live event! Which is probably one of the reasons why they are one of the biggest bands in the world..

The 3D structure of stadium also gave myself more thought into perspective for my final project design.

Perspective Drawing

2008-04-27T10:49:00.003+10:00

Today i found a interesting Perspective Drawing website which has some nice examples on how to draw different objects in a 3D atmosphere.
There are 20 different examples with included documentation that gives tips and information on how to draw and create similar objects in 3D space.

"ArtyFactory" is the company that has produced these examples, which they can be found at: http://www.artyfactory.com/perspective_drawing/perspective_index.htm

Pullins Ski Hire

2008-04-21T14:07:00.000+10:00

After recommendations from friends and many phone calls and emails, i have landed myself a client for the final project.

Pullins Ski Hire (http://www.pullins.com.au/) have approved my proposal and are happy for me to recreate their website. Through continuous communication between Pullins and myself, the final project should satisfy both my own and the clients expectations.

Furthered Study Of After Effects: Using Tutorials

2008-04-15T12:49:00.001+10:00

This is the kind of stuff that can be created using simple After Effects tutorials. I'll further my research and upload my continual learning process..

Main Project: Showreel using After Effects

2008-04-14T12:30:00.000+10:00

Well... since I've been doing the Digital Imaging subject, it has got me thinking about my main project for the Multimedia Studio class...
I have been considering creating a motion graphic montage/showreel of all my work. So something similar to this:

After Effects

2008-04-08T23:11:00.001+10:00

After Effects is a huuuuge program, with heaps of capabilities.. and i have been researching what can be done using this program.

A great tutorial website called Creative Cow Media has heaps of different tutorials for After Effects and is definitely worth checking out, for the beginner user up to the advanced users.

Source:
Creative Cow Media: http://forums.creativecow.net/

Critique Your Design

2008-03-28T10:33:00.002+11:00

Critiquing your design is an important step in ensuring that you have a working, attractive website or blog for users to view.

With Mark at Uni emphasizing the point of making sure our css websites are usable, with the in class testing exercise. I then started researching on how to critique a design and how to check for usability problems.
I have found that CSS Creator (www.csscreator.com), is a useful forum with enthusiastic users that are able to assist when i had css queries that i was unsure about.

While looking around for information on "Critiquing Design", i found an interesting article at Skelliewag.org (http://www.skelliewag.org).

The article can be found at: http://www.skelliewag.org/critique-your-design-24.htm

Your website or blog’s design is important. It’s the medium your readers use to interact with and consume what you create. Most of all, it represents an opportunity: to draw readers into your content by presenting it as clearly and functionally as possible.

That’s all well and good, but a more difficult question to answer is: does my design work? Is it a tool my readers use, or an obstacle they have to work around?

In this post, I want to help you look at your design with fresh eyes by offering a list of 11 questions — questions you can answer that, when combined, should give you a general idea of the effectiveness of your design, as well as identifying areas that could be improved.

Compatability

1. Have you tested it in another browser?
If you’ve only ever viewed it in Firefox, check that it works in Internet Explorer, and vice versa. These browsers each interpret code differently and the process can make a website that looks fine in one browser completely unusable in another — blocking out around half your potential readers.

Uniqueness

2. Have you seen another blog or website that looks very similar?
You’re probably both using the same theme. This happens a lot, but when it does, you want to implement some tweaks to make your theme unique. This can be achieved by adding a unique header image, changing the color scheme of text and links, re-arranging the page elements, and so on.

Visitors will remember a unique design and recognize your blog when they see it again. Your design certainly doesn’t have to be gorgeous but it should be different. Scobleizer’s design is very ordinary but you probably won’t come across another blog with a photo of Robert Scoble as its header image. Unless it was a Robert Scoble fan blog, of course…

Readability

3. Do your headlines stand out?
Most designs do this by default but yours might be one of the few that don’t.

There’s a reason newspapers use big, prominent headlines. You should them to be doorways to your content — the more prominent and interesting they are, the easier it is for your reader to get a foot in the door.

4. Is there enough space between rows of text?
There’s nothing more painful than trying to read lines of text stacked on-top of each other with little or no spacing. Adding some space between the lines will help your readers to consume content faster and more easily.

5. Does you color scheme make it easy to read?
Black on white is easy to read. Grey on black isn’t. In fact, anything on black and readability suffers. Faint colors on light backgrounds are also a headache (though designers seem ever-increasingly fond of this combo).

6. Is there white-space around your content?
This means, is there a bit of empty space between your content and other elements? If your content runs right up to the edge of the screen, or runs too close to your side-bar, this can affect readability because it becomes more difficult for they eye to separate your content from everything else. Here’s a site that uses plenty of white-space to good effect. Also, your white-space doesn’t have to be white — any background color will do.

An easy way to increase white-space is to make your content-column narrower, or add more padding around it.

Usability

7. Do all your links work?
Sometimes it can be easy to assume that because something should work, it does work. I learned this the hard way when a reader sent an e-mail informing me that several links in the category menu were broken. Worst of all, I added them a few weeks before I got the message. If I had given each link a quick click to make sure it worked the problem would have been avoided.

Broken links send the message that your site is neglected — even though this usually isn’t the case at all. Take the time to check the links in your design.

8. Are your most important pages easy to access?
Your About page, your Contact page, your Archives (if you have them), Categories (if you have them), and feed link (if you have one) are an important part of how readers work through your content. If these pages are buried under ads or obscured behind other, less-essential links, your readers will find it difficult to work with your site.

9. Is your category list short and useful?
Others will disagree with me, but I’m a firm believer that any category list containing more than 20 categories is no longer fulfilling its purpose. If your category list is too big readers will ignore it. The smaller it is, the more likely they are to give it a quick once-over and see if any of the topics take their interest.

10. Is everything clearly marked?
Sometimes you encounter a link or page element which seemed self-evident to the author but makes no sense to you. Label the elements of your sidebar and the different links you might have inserted at the bottom of your content.

Stating the obvious can be a faux pas in conversation, but your readers might appreciate it. What seems obvious to one person can be very confusing to another.

Advertising and Monetizing

11. Does your site contain in-text ads (like ContentLink)?
If yes, my advice would be to cancel the service. These ads rely on readers confusing them with ordinary links. The loss of a reader is a significant price to pay for 2c.

12. Are your ads a barrier to your content?
I’ve seen a lot of sites lately with a block of AdSense inserted under content headlines, forcing readers to scroll over it if they want to read what they came for. The advertisement tells them: “If you want the content, you have to go through me first” — in other words, I’m going to take from you before I give.

This is, of course, not what the author is thinking. It seems logical to put ads where the reader’s eyes are — in the content. In the short-term it might increase clicks but I think such practice damages the respect your readers have for you. In the long-term this can be crippling.

When you’re done

Now that you’ve worked out areas your site’s design could be improved the next step is implementing the changes you need. Some of them will require a little CSS know-how — but don’t run for the hills yet.

I learned what I know of CSS by Googling the questions I wanted answered. If you want to change the color of links on your page, Google “How do I change the color of links CSS”, for example. There are CSS tutorials on every topic and many of them are targeted at beginners. So far, I haven’t had a CSS question that couldn’t be answered by searching.

With a little work you can tweak your design into something your readers will truly enjoy interacting with.

Testing of my CSS Assignment

2008-03-21T16:21:00.005+11:00

To ensure that i complete a working, error free assignment, i began testing my CSS Website on internet browsers such as:

- Mozilla FireFox (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/)
- Microsoft Internet Explorer (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/ie/getitnow.mspx)
- Safari (http://www.apple.com/safari/)

This testing process enables me to find out what errors and bugs my assignment has, and enables myself to fix these, ensuring i have a cohesive website for all major Internet Browsers.

Known bugs in Mozilla FireFox:

- None

Known errors in Internet Explorer:

- Text appearing at an incorrect size.
- Box alignment not correct.

A look at previous "Rip Curl Pro" designs

2008-03-21T16:13:00.008+11:00

A look at previous "Rip Curl Pro" designs -

After attending the Rip Curl Pro surfing competition, and the Rip Curl after party.. i began to look at the way they use design to attract customers to buy their clothes and attend their events.

Generally Rip Curl's poster design is bright colours contrasting on dark colours, with large bold text emphasizing the title of each event.

Rip Curl Pro Website, "Rip Curl Pro 2008",
http://www.ripcurl.com/?proHome_en, [accessed: 21/03/08]

Juxtapoz / Desktop

2008-03-17T21:11:00.004+11:00

Juxtapoz, Art and Culture Magazine.
An interesting digital art magazine that is definitely worth checking out!

Desktop - Australian Design, Digital Culture, Melbourne
Has plenty of good tutorials and eye candy.

Assignment Update

2008-03-10T13:21:00.004+11:00

My Layout so far:

Things to do this week:

Complete layout.
Make the website usable in dreamweaver.
Design the logo.

CSS Resources:

2008-03-03T18:10:00.002+11:00

A forum for css troubleshooting: http://csscreator.com/css-forum/

XHTML/CSS for beginners to advancers: http://www.welovecss.com/

Logo Resources

2008-03-03T18:01:00.005+11:00

An interesting post on logo design:

"10 trends that will define logo design in 2008"
http://www.logoorange.com/logo-design-08.php [accessed 3/3/08]

---------------------------------------

Logo's to look at for inspiration:

"My Corporate Logo"
http://www.mycorporatelogo.com/Portfolio.aspx [accessed 3/3/08]

HRFF New Zealand Poster

2008-03-03T07:38:00.001+11:00

HRFF New Zealand Poster

Colour Pallettes: More Ideas

2008-03-02T22:34:00.002+11:00

Colour Pallettes: More Ideas

Cool and calming colour schemes may also appeal.

Colour Pallettes:

2008-03-02T22:19:00.004+11:00

Colour Pallettes that may suite my concepts:

These similar colour scheme all feel warm and inviting, something that i feel isn't in the current Human Rights Film Festival websites.

Existing Human Rights Film Festivals:

2008-03-02T21:59:00.003+11:00

Human Rights Arts & Film Festival Australia
http://www.hraff.org.au/

New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival
http://www.nolahumanrights.org/

Human Rights Film Festival New Zealand
http://www.humanrightsfilmfest.net.nz/

Film Festival One World 2008
http://www.jedensvet.cz/ow/2008/index_en.php?id=84

Verzio 4 International Human Rights Documentary Film Festiva
http://www.verzio.ceu.hu/

Existing Human Rights Film Festivals: