Assignment 001: Style Change

Now that I'm coming to the final stages of my second banner I've opted for a style change. I've been creating the banner so far with placeholder images and what not and have now thought of a slightly different approach. I'm going to borrow one of my friends graphical skills to sketch a few images for me for my banner so I can get the correct feel. Lets hope it goes according to plan.

Assignment 001: Argh!

So yes, I was correct, my idea on the previous post has started to hurt my head. Alot. I wanted the movie within the banner to respond to the slider control when it goes over a certain point on the slider, but for some reason I cant get it to work unless you press the slider. This is rather annoying. Other then that the banner is working fine.

Assignment 001: Stolen Identity

So as I was thinking of ideas for my country banner I got to speaking to a fellow Multimedia-er and she told me about her idea, and well, with her consent, I was allowed to borrow a few ideas to expand on for my banner.

I will now keep the volume control, which as it suggests control's the volume but also create a movie within the banner that is also controlled by the volume control and will change to a different image depending on where the slider is on the volume control. I can feel this starting to hurt my head.

Assignment 001: Intro and Outro

So now I have basically finished the main part of my seasonal banner I just need to think of a suitable intro and outro to the banner as it is currently just a game. I feel Motion Tweens will be involved somewhere...

Assignment 001: Initial Design

Banner: Country
So I know have a 'fully' functional design for my second banner, this being for a country. I have the main design concept constructed, but not in anyway that is graphically pleasing. I am rather pleased with the volume control slider thingy that's on there aswell, but thats all, I just need to think of what else I could possibly include now.

Assignment 001: Tutorialized.com

If no-one has heard of this site, go check it out for all your design needs. Its truely amazing and has helped me a lot during this project...It seems to have everything I need for my project, expect the ability to actually create the banners!

Assignment 001: "hitTest" Function

So as I had previously said, I built a mini game in Flash and was wanting to use the same technique on my banner. Although I grasped the concept and it worked last time for some reason it won't work this time round, what am I doing wrong? I hope that it can be fixed relatively easy...

I'm slowly starting to dislike Flash now.

Assignment 001: Initial Design

Banner: Seasonal.

Below is the first stages of my seasonal banner. It consists of an image of santa and a snowman which is split up into 6 pieces to make the puzzle [yes, only 6, but it's the concept, right?]



Now to add the correct coding and an intro and outro. Then thats one down, one to go!

Assignment 001: Initial Ideas

With this my first project of the year I think its about time I came up with [and jotted down] some initial ideas.

Banner 1: Seasonal Product.
Size: Large
Concept: Automatically thinking of Christmas, wonder why?! Anyway, I want to create a simple puzzle game that somehow incorporates Christmas [possibly Christmas shopping]. I will aim to use the same coding I have previously used for a mini game I made a few weeks ago...

Banner 2: Country.
Size: Small
Concept: As of what I have no idea which country I will be advertising, but I would like to involve a slider of some form into the banner. Yeah, I haven't really given this one much thought yet, give it time!

Assignment 001: Research

In order to find out what I would like to design for my banners I need to research more into them. I found quite a look of examples of banners over at BannerBlog which gave me a better outlook. In particular I really liked these two banners:

1 -
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2007/10/air_nz_holidays.php
2 -
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2007/06/guitar_hero_2.php

The first is a very simple idea and the second, well is something that I could only dream of creating!!

Banners/Adverts are found on almost every website today and range for subtle to in your face, and most of the time can be slightly annoying [the one with the smilies is my personal annoyance!] so it will be fun trying to create something similar.

Assignment 001: Introduction

Finally, our first task of the year! We have been told to produce two flash banners/adverts, one for a seasonal product and one for a country. All to be produced within IAB's banner size guidelines.

This should be interesting!

SPP2: Tutorial

So for the third tutorial we have been told to comment on our 'Reflective Practice' using examples from our work. I aim to talk about my thoughts on web design before university and my thoughts on web design now.

"Before I started university I had no real clue as to the in's and out's of web design and thought that entirely flash-built sites were the way forward. With the internet and everything contained within I presumed that flash was the future and therefore built two websites in flash [one for a project in college, which was very basic design, and one for my first year project, which was also very basic by some standards]. Since creating the first site I had expanded my knowledge within flash and was prepared to take it one step further with my next 'creation'. With the second site I had loads of ideas of what to do and how I wanted to go about it, but I had two drawbacks: lack of time and useful knowledge. I wanted to create a section which was updated by blogs, which was very easy in HTML but no in flash, and came to the conclusion about using RSS feeds, but it was too late, and was also too late to create the whole site in HTML. Since this I have been thinking more and more about web design; where its at, where its going and what its going to involve. With the likes of blogs, social networking [myspace and facebook], online video and audio etc the internet is becoming the main and easiest source of communication with people over the whole world. I now think that I want to look more into the diversity of web design and what can actually be done with it, in both flash and HTML."

SPP: Tutorial

So, our task for the second tutorial [of which I missed] was to write a synopsis based on one of the books from our reading list. I chose to write a synopsis on 'Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works' by Erix Spiekermann and E.M. Ginger. I first thought about the book because of the interesting title, and knowing that my graphical skills aren't that great I'd have a flick through to see if it was interesting. Below is my synopsis...


"Struggling to find the correct type to use, or just wanting to find one similar or to fit a certain style, this is the book for you! This 2nd edition typography book has been updated with all the latest typefaces, fonts, and illustrations. The Author, Erik Spiekermann explains typography and how to use it to your advantage in areas such as; legibility, meaning, and aesthetics. The book will help you understand and recognise typefaces so much easily and which font goes better with a certain mood/feeling."


Is that a synopsis? I think so, I looked at other synopses' for a bit of help and re-assurance. However, when I first saw the title of the book I thought it could have been interesting, well it is interesting but I thought it was more about creating sites graphically with text, obviously not. I still would recommend this book though.

Web Pathway: Web Design

So today we looked at the various forms of pixel art and the skills required to develop an image. And, its bloody hard, it took me 45 minutes to create a house that looked remarkably like a Monopoly hotel.

Web Pathway: Web Applications

So after the Web 2.0 we had a seminar based around setting up a server-based database [or more so a Wiki]. After a little guidance as to what to do, David Downes mentioned the name of the server we were using 'Maeda' and said to research the name, or more specifically John Maeda. I went onto my new found soure of knowledge, this been Wikipedia to find out a little more. I then became rather interested in one of his current projects; The Laws Of Simplicity