Summer time.

Below is some of my personal project work from over the summer break, it's important to keep busy & your idea's fresh!!
You can find more of my work over at http://soulatech.deviantart.com/

soulatech.com

The project is finished & live online at: http://www.soulatech.com/

But why is it a onepage design? The reason being is after years of looking at other designers websites is you have to go though loads of pages & loads of links which load more data than what is needed. So I decided from the start a "onepage site" would be prefect as it only need to load once & everything I wanted to showcase is there from my design work to contact details so clients can get in touch.

I also understand that clients dont want to be spending ages looking though work & trying to find details needed...this is the main reason the site has this onepage layout. [Time = cash!]

Below is a screenshot of the site live online.

What next?

After speaking with Noli from twindots, we arranged a set deadline & price. Then I had to edit my .psd file & upload it to mediafire. [Mediafire is a free hosting site for files to share via the internet.] then simple E-mail him the link.

After this it was simply a waiting game till the coder had coded the site but we came across 1 issue with my design & that was the fact I wanted a flash .svf button to play the background music.

The issue was that the .svf wouldn't work in some web browers like I.E 7 & firefox 3.1, so we talked baout using a product which is free online & work in all browsers today. We both decided on soundcloud, as they have a free flash plugin web player.

The coder made sure it would still fit within the size design to the .psd & sent me a preview to make sure I was happy & he could go on coding the rest of the site. I'm happy knowing the level of detail he goes into & clearly explained everythign to me as I'm not a coder.

After this issue was addressed, he finished the prject 2 days early of the deadline & sent me all the files needed with usernames/password to the xcontrol panel to host the site. Having experience is this before it only tuck half a hour to upload thye site & have it fully working online.

Downlaodable .psd file: .psd final website design

Final design

After I was happy with my final design, I started looking for a website coder to code the project. My budget was £250, in which this had to cover the cost's of coding, hosting & the doname I wanted.

I asked a few freelancer's I knew online though social networking & forums but I was being told the £250 would just about cover the cost's of the coding alone. With this in mind I had to take a break & think about if I wanted to spend more money or not. In the end I contacted my old boss at twindots & we talked via E-mail & phone about the project brief & the hostings I would need.

We came to a agrement of £180 for the coding, hosting & doname. The hosting & doname will need to be renewed yearly and is hosted via twindots private server. Which worked out prefectly within my budget.

Summary: It really does help to know people within the area's needed & building up a good working relationship.

Layout idea's

I started all my idea's in photoshop using the 960 grid system, below is a download .zip of all the images from start to finished idea of the site design. The reason I've done this is because of the hassle & time it would take me to upload them all individually.

First layout design

Layout final design

Link to downloadable .zip of layout files: Layout design images.

Project change

I realised after speaking to my tutor, that the arcana project was simply to big of a task to take on in the time period we had for the project. So I decided to build a portfiolo website for myself insted.

I will still be using the research as before, but also looking deeper into other designer's portfiolo's etc.

Why the name Arcana?

Before I wrote my negotiated programme module I was thinking of a name or word that would be nice to use to best describe a collective of people & while searching online I came across the word "Arcana" 

Arcana : mysterious or specialized knowledge, language, or information accessible or possessed only by the initiate - usually used in plural.

I was instantly taken by this & decided it described everything I wanted to get across as a collective of people. Below is the logo I came up with for the project title & will also be used for the site.

Grid 960 & Adobe kuler [research]

Grid 960 link: I will be using this downloadable grid system for my project as it is standard industry size with in website design & will save me time building my own.

Adobe kuler link: For reference to colour scheme ideas for the user interface I've decided to look though adobe's online kuler app for possible ideas.

Negotiated module: arcana

For the next 2 negotiated modules, I’ve decided I want to design a minimal & simple user interface for a website to be able to showcase a selection of design work, video production & music production also other area’s of artistic work in a sort of blog form.

The reason I’ve chose this type of project is because it covers all the area’s I’m into & want to further knowledge in & it would work well as an on going project which I could carry on into other modules through out this course.

Below is a link to download my negotiated programme module.

Negotiated programme module.pdf

Evaluation & Programme

I've choose to base my work roughly around the "street-talk" brief, I've decided to break away from telephone boxes and use the "street-talk" nightclub poster & flyer events network instead. My end product will be a set of poster & flyer designs for a fictional nightclub. The context of the work will be how the flyer design starts & is worked out to a finished product ready to print.

Below is a link to download my evaluation & programme. 

Evaluation & Programme.pdf 

FINAL: Veritech [Context]

This project was harder than I thought it would of been due to the time of year & people having deadlines also I could only find one person who had time to remix my final display piece. We spoke about idea's about how we wanted the track to sound but I told him to have full control of anything he would like to do as long as he could keep one element from the original file.

Info about producer:

Name - John Williams

E-mail - veritech@live.com

Website - link

USA, humboldt county california.

I asked John after he had sent me the remixed version back any thoughts he had on the track and this is he reply:

"I would like more time to change up the beats more and get more movement in the music to be honest. 

I liked the samples that you started with, it makes me want to go to the bar and do some recording next time.  

I figured some downtempo brokenbeats would go well with the original sounds and give the

original samples the most emotion behind them."

Below is the final track remixed.

FINAL: Pentacontakaiheptagon [Object]

I decided instead of handing in the 3D object I would simple take some photo's of it from angles I thought was interesting. The reason for just handing 2 photographs is because I feel they are a more finalised vision of what I had planned from the start of the project. Below this post is the 2 final photographs.

I will be handing the final edited & unedited original photographs on a usb stick.

FINAL: Pentacontakaiheptagon [Object]

 

Socialy engaged [Context]

So I've finished my final piece for display and as I said before I will be posting all the files so people can download them & make remixes of the track, I've asked a few other producers to get involved but at the moment I'm still waiting for them to get back to me.

I've also posted links to this project via facebook to my contacts list due to having alot of producers added to my network to try get as many people involved as possible. Below is all the files and the program info to download.

Reason files & sound clips: link

Track at 320kbps: link

FINAL: Life's about [Display]

So after spending so much time making the other tracks for this project I ended up taking a break from it. After listening back to my other work it was clear that none of them worked well for this project, so I decided to re-cut a bunch of samples I recorded & just make a "track" of purely recorded sounds to re-tell a story of a night out in a minimal way. Below is the outcome.

Co-lab [Context]

I've decided to link my context project with my display project, by letting other producers being able to download my final display piece with all the files & sound clips to be able to make a remix of the track. The way I see it being social engaged is anyone can take part of this project when ever they feel like...even after the deadline date. I will post more of this project up after I have finished my final piece for display.

FINAL: Relativity? [Image]

After Cutting down all the footage I had, I decided that I wanted to make my four short films into one but still have them playing at the same time so using premiere pro I layered my footage over one another to get that ghost image effect I was after. I also added a track to the film to give it more depth as I thought it fitted well with the footage and linked in with my other projects.

Triangle [Object]

Came across this link today while looking for more idea's for my object project, I really like the geometric shapes & started make some of the first polygon triangles for my final piece now it's planned out in my head.  I've made the triangles using 10x10cm squared paper and folding them in in a way so that are square still but when pushed together they form part of a triangle. 3of these = 1 full triangle. [image below]

sound is not just noise & Liquid test [Display]

After going thought the tutorial in the lost post I came up with 2 more idea's for my display project both are posted below. After working for hours on both of these tracks I realised that they where both more "music" than sound and I've decided to go back to the idea of using the recorded sounds I got to make something with more depth & better fitting to the project brief.

 

Drum & Bass [research]

I wanted to make a Drum & Bass style track for my display project but was having issue's getting the beat in time, so I looked about on google & came across a very easy to follow tutorial on link it was really helpful so thought I would post it up on here as it shows you a bit more in depth of how the program I use works rather than me posting screenshots.