DesignCrowd

Design crowd is a website in which people and companies from all over the world come to look for designers to create websites, logos, business cards etc. As part of my course i had to log in to design crowd, find a briefing that i liked and create and submit my idea of how i think the logo or webpage (depending on the brief) should look like.

This is the brief for a small company who came up with a new product for helping to detect the risk of breast cancer among women, the new devie is called HALO and wish to rename there company HALO healthcare and want a new logo to be made to represent this.

So i loaded up photoshop and started creating my design, for my design i thought with the company being called HALO health care i would start by create a halo using circles and the 'skew' tool to shape them in the correct way. (as shown below)

Once i made my halo, i then decided on a font that i think looked suitable for this type of company. I then changed the colour of the text to pink as that is the colour that represents breast cancer so is appropriate as well as blending in well with the yellow halo.

I then saved my work and then uploaded it onto design crowd and submitted it to the client and awaited for feedback.


Time Adaptation:

When i am planning on working on some designs from design crowd, i will search for 1 or 2 projects that interest me, then i will change my daily plans to fit around having the extra time in for working on the projects. For example if on a normal day i wake up at 10 o'clock, and watch TV for an hour or two and then decided to go out  either with friends, shopping, or to the gym for example. But if i have chosen some projects i want to work on then i will wake up slightly earlier and work on the projects for a few hours before having a brake, by watching TV for an hour, doing a little more work and then going shopping, this way i can fit all my usually activities into my day and still fit in time for work. If i did not change my schedule for work then i wouldn't get very much done.

Unit 39

Digital Assest Management (DAM) consists of the management of different tasks and decisions, using computer hardware and software to aid in this process. There are two sub-catergories of DAM, these are; Media assets management (MAM) and the more recent concept of Enterprise Content Management (ECM). Media asses management addresses audio, visual and other media content. ECM however tends to focus more on the lines of storing files online. Storing files online is a great way to access your files from any computer that has an internet connection. Most people don't even realise that they do this already, through the use of any emailing site such as hotmail, they store your messages online so you can reach them anywhere. Another example of this system is through an online programme called skydive, which is run through hotmail and some other emailing sites, this programme allows you to store up to 5GB of work for free on this sky drive so these files can be accessed any time you log into your hotmail account. For my design work i use a programme called 'Drop Box' it is a website based on web storage, you only get 2.25GB but you can choose to upgrade your account for a small fee and receive even more room, but if like me you use hotmail as well you have 5GB from that as well so overall you have 7.25GB of storage free. 

In digital imaging systems, colour management is the controlled conversion of colour through various types of media outputs, such as printers, monitors, TV's, digital cameras etc. what this means is that if you take a video using a digital camera, and you want to play it through a TV screen or a computer monitor, then colour management is there to make sure that the colour matches through each device. Most operating systems these days come with these colour management systems already implemented in them. A cross-platform view of colour management is the use of an ICC-compatible colour management system (ICC staring for the International Colour Consortium). The ICC colour management system does not just apply to videos, it also applies to still images, though this is just a more basic form of the system. There are two different types of colour profiles, Embedding and Working spaces. Image formats themselves such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, PDF, SVG and EPS may already contain embedded colour profiles but they're not required to do this by the image format. The ICC was designed to bring developers and manufactures together. The ICC standards permits the exchange of colour spaces and output device characteristics in the form of meta data. The other type of colour profile is working spaces. Working spaces such as sRGB, Adobe RGB and ProPhoto. These are colour spaces that facilitate good results while editing. An example of this is, pixels with the equal usage of RGB should appear neutral. Using a large or a gamut working space will lead to posterization and using a small working space will lead to clipping. Since a lot of computers use different operating systems there are obviously going to be different ranges of colour management systems across each operating system. In 1993 the Mac OS provided a colour management through a programme called Colour Sync, and in 1997 windows started using the ICC colour management system in the operating systems. When Windows released Windows Vista, the brought out there new colour management system called Windows colour system. In 2005 the majority of web browsers ignored the use of these colour management systems except for Safari 2.0 and Firefox 3. Firefox 3 came with this system but had it disables as a default setting but could be turned on at any time, but in Firefox 3.5 they decided to have it enabled as a default. IE9 (Internet Explorer 9) is the first Microsoft browser to partly support ICC profiles. The only problem is that it doesn't render images correctly according to the windows ICC settings. All it does is converts non sRGB images to the sRGB profile so it doesn't really provide any colour management at all. The most recent popular web browser to be released is Google Chrome, but this does not use any colour management system.

unit 35

Images can use two different types of colour model palettes, RGB (red, green, blue) and CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, key which stands for black). RGB is used mailing for uploading photos to the internet so it is a good idea to make sure that when creating an image in photoshop for example that you use RG  colour mode. Although RGB is mainly used for internet use, it is also used for coloured television and digital cameras. CMYK is generally used for printing as it has a wider range of colours so tends to look better and higher quality when printing images, this helps when showing a client some work so it looks as good as possible. CMYK uses a four step printing process, when printing an image, it will print the image four times, one in each colour, the colour from these prints then mixes together to create the desired colours. Some design software such as photoshop will have a swatch tool, this will allows the user to match the colour from the design to what it will be when printed.  Most image files can be quite large, so to reduce the size of the file then it is best to save the file as a JPEG or PNG file (these reduce the amount of megabits required).  The problem with compressing an image is that it reduces the overall size of the image which some websites may require you do but you risk ruining the quality of the image, this is especially noticeable when you make an image larger as it becomes pixalated. This is because since there are less megabites, they have to stretch to make the image larger so the pixels in each megabyte has to spread all the data out further making it appear more square, and lines don't appear as smooth as they should be. A good example of this is old fashioned computer games such pac-man, in the original versions instead of being a circle the curve is made up of little squares instead of a smooth curve. One more factor when printing off work is the DPI setting, DPI stands for dots per inch, (dots being pixels). 200 DPI is the recommended minimum setting for a good quality image. Finally we must talk about the copyright issues of photography. There are five points that I will list so that you understand the copyright laws.

1. Who owns the copyright on photographs?
The photographer owns the copyright on any photo that they have taken unless they work for a company and they take a picture for them on their behalf then the company that the photographer works for will own the copyright to that particular photo. The other way that the photographer wouldn't own the copyright would be if they sold their work to another party, then that particular party would own the copyright of that photo. No matter what, if it is any other case then the photographer who took that photo will own the copyright to it.
2. Copyright registration.
You're probably thinking why register? Well this is a simple answer. If someone else or another party tries to steal your work and you want to sue them for copyright, if you have registered then you have the proof to show that its your work. You can also submit loads of photos and only pay a single fee so if you want your work protected then it's really worth it.
3. Using the work of others
No matter what work you want to use that belongs to someone else, be it a font style, an image or a piece of writing you should obtain permission from the owner to use it. You should also be prepared to pay a fee of some sorts because its very unlikely that a copyright owner will let you use their work for free when they have put all the effort into doing it. A copyright owner can refuse to let you use their work for any reason, no matter how silly it may be. It's their work and if they don't want you using it then that's final.
4. Marking your work.
If you're a photographer and you submit work to a company and then people call that company and ask to use a certain photograph and it isn't makers then they won't know what to tell that person calling up as they won't know who has submitted it. You should also place a copyright notice on your work so that people know its copyrighted. Doing this will help to deter infringement. If you are uploading a image to the web and you wish to copyright it then you should just edit it in Photoshop and place a copyright notice on it.
5. Model release forms
An individual has certain rights to control how their image is used. This varies from country to country depending on laws. The general rule is to protect from defamatory or to use the image as something offensive.

Unit 24 -Part II

I am sending a quote to a client over design crowd, this will be an account of any expenditures i will have when working on a project such as, travel, accommodation, food/drink, electricity and internet etc. Since this is a live task i will actually be submitting a quote to a real client. The following screenshots are how to submit a quote:

Here is what i wrote for my quote:Hi, my name Shaun and i am an apprentice web and graphic designer currently training with Distinctive Publishing and Training based in Newcastle. During my time as a designer i have found that my designs tend to focus more towards the more modern and colourful styles. Once i set my mind to a task i won't stop until i have finished the project or done as much as i can in certain amount of time and i am always looking for new techniques and ideas to improve my work. The reason i am quoting this much is i will have to pay for the correct software needed to help create this design properly as well as for electricity, and internet, this is important so i can keep in touch and find out specific details about how you want the design to look etc. 

Unit 24 - Part I

i have been asked to create an accounts sheet in excel so that i can keep track of any expenses I've had when creating work. it is important for freelancers to keep some record of the money they have earned and spent so that they know roughly how much each job is costing them and therefore how much pay is considered to be appropriate and profitable.
this is my spreadsheet:

Unit 27

Adobe Flash is used to create small 2D animations and video files (usually as .swf or 'swif' files) using a number of different shapes, tools and tweens placed on a number of different frames using a timeline. Adobe flash is a fairly basic software package but can produce great results depending on your skill level with the programme. One of the main uses for flash animations are to create small animations for websites. a good example of this in use is a website called www.wix.com, on this site you can create a 'mini site' in an incredibly easy and quick way. I have used this website before to create a mini site to attach to my Facebook page around my website. www.facebook.com/pages/Game-Rag3/. The only problem with having a mini site created solely by flash is that can sometimes be rather slow to load up, depending on the size and length of the animation. I also have a small flash file animation on the top of my weskit where the title flies in from the top along with a small image coming in from the side, you can see this at www.gamerag3.x10.mx. For my flash header on my website it was a very simple creation process, all i had to do was to add the images of my title, logo and the small image i use and place them in the correct starting location, add some more frames on the timeline and on the last frame right click on one of my images and select 'create motion tween' then simply move the image to where i want it to end up, then just repeat this process for my other images. Always be sure that when you create a flash animation for a client that you always keep the same style the client is using on there website (for example) so that match in well, and that the file is saved as something both you and the client can easily recognise and is also in the correct format which for flash files is normally .swf

Unit 25

Text editing programmes are as the name suggests, designed to edit text files. Alot of people tend to get confused what is meant by a text editor and a word processor. A text editor is used to edit 'plain text files', a plain text file is something which is represented and edited by showing all of the characters as they are present in the file. Plain text files are often used for programming and configuration rather than as documentation E.G. detailed instructions and user guides. In the past they were used for this. A word processor is a piece of software that is used to control the characters by enabling different formatting functions such as bold, underline, italic etc. These and other common formatting symbols were once only used with desktop publishing software but now they are used in the simplest word processor. Most word processing software can be used to edit a plain text file but only if the document is saved in the correct format, if you just save it how it is using the word processor it wont be saved as a plain text file. The most common text editors used today are notepad which is a default programme for anyone using the Windows operating system, and WordPad which you normally get with most microsoft packages, although there are a few programmes that can be used as both word processors and plain text editors.

When writing work on a computer especially for important pieces of work or work that is going online it is very important to make sure you proof read your work. Most computers and word processors these days have a built in spell checker and will either automatically correct any small spelling mistakes or underline the work in red if it does not recognise the word you are trying to spell. The main problem with this is that most computers used in the UK have the language settings as American, and not English. This causes small problems as some word may sound the same in each language but are spelt slightly different, eg, the word 'colour' is spelt 'color' in American and therefore will not show up as a spelling mistake or it will automatically change the spelling of colour to the American way of spelling it. Also if you design a company name for example and it uses a strange way of spelling a word or is a word that does not exist the computer will always show it as a spelling mistake unless you add into the computers dictionary. So when writing up work make sure that your computers language is set to English and that you check your own work after your finished just be on the safe side, by reading it out loud so you can easily notice any mistakes as you go. Another function of most word processors is there ability to check for any mistakes in grammar, such as accidental second presses of the space bar, or a missing apostrophe, these grammatical errors will usually be underlined with a green line. Making sure to prof read your work is important becuase if it doesnt make sense then anyone who reads it will not understand and may not want to work with you in the future due to these kinds of errors.


Media ethics covers a long range of different topics, such as broadcast media and journalism, film, theatre, and internet. First of all there are different types of ethics for journalism, such as manipulation of the media, the news can either be manipulated or manipulating, and manipulation can then be split into voluntary and involuntary.  Public interest as the name states focuses on subjects that the general population are interested in, usually high interest stories about current news on wars over the world etc. Privacy is also an important topic when it comes to journalism  as it normally ends up conflicting with the right of free speech. This is due to some journalists finding out secrets about people or celebrities that they may not want the public finding out about or finding out about just yet, but journalists will publish them anyway. The conflict here is that it is a breach of there privacy but the journalist can say they have the right of free speech to say what they want.
There also a different set of ethics based around entertainment media, the most commonly known area of these ethics are those based around the depiction of sex, nudity, violence, and strong language. One way in which the media sector tries and prevents these topics effecting people in a negative way is to give things like games and movies and age restriction limit. The rating system goes from U which means it is suitable for people of all age up to 18+ these ratings and restrictions help media sectors avoid any hassle from parents or families claiming that there content is not suitable for there children etc, but these restrictions stop them viewing anything that is deemed to mature for children. Both advertising and entertainment media make heavy use of stereotypes. Stereotypes may negatively affect people's perceptions of themselves or promote socially undesirable behaviour. Finally we will move onto media and democracy. In democratic countries, a special relationship exists between media and government. Although the freedom of the media may be constitutionally enshrined and have precise legal definition and enforcement, the exercise of that freedom by individual journalists is a matter of personal choice and ethics.