My Portfolio Website.

Following the purchase of my domain name, I have now published my website for all to see.  I now know how to upload the site via Dreamweaver and how to deal with the remote files.  I have really enjoyed this project and look forward to doing some more sites.

Crisis project so far....

Myself and Anna have been working on this project for several weeks now.

Our initial ideas started with a moving image box that would have a money slot.  When a pound (or two) were placed into a bubble gum type slot, the image would change on the top of the box.  It could have been a sad face of a homeless person changing to a happy one.  The self addressed box could then be posted back to crisis with the donation inside.  Our second idea was to use furniture advertising as a way of drawing the viewer and having images of several sofas and an image of a park bench.  Still not excited by our initial ideas, we researched further into homelessness and the target audience.  We looked at the idea of making the viewer think about what it would be like to actually not have a home to go to.  I looked at the idea of having a key that wouldn't fit a lock.  Imagine if you had a key that was totally useless-How vulnerable would you feel?  We  decided to have an uncut key that would be totally useless and to put the crisis logo on the round top area.  We discussed the possibility of having a key fob with the Crisis web address and some relevant words that related to homelessness.  We have so far decided  that we will use a paper tag attached to the key with the text on it.  We may write the text on the tag by hand.  We feel that the key will be a magnet to the viewer as it would be laying on the door mat with the daily post.  This we feel will inspire curiosity and further investigation!

Here is the Crisis Key. 

Anna picked them up from the University workshops today.  The keys look superb!  Thanks goes to Jeremy in the Laser Cutter workshop who sorted them out for us.

Today is a momentous occasion.  I have purchased the domain name of:-

 www.martincruzecreative.com  

I want you to stare at it. Take a screenshot of it. Copy and paste it, and remember it for ever more. 

That includes Goldfish too. 

I created some slides for a powerpoint presentation for flight training purposes.  They are now on the club site too.

I spent last night trying to get my site working in dreamweaver.  It seems to flow ok and I now need to add the actual portfolio image to the thumbnails that I created.  I think I went to bed at some point last night!  I guess I could actually be dreaming that I am sat her writing this!

Myself and Anna spent yesterday sorting out the keys for the Crisis concept that we have arrived at.  The workshops here at the Uni have a laser cutter that will cut out plastic in a precise manner.  We created the key image in Adobe Illustrator and this will be used to allow the cutter to follow the 'stroke' lines to cut out the plastic.  We are quite excited about the concept but still need to come up with a strap line to support the key.  The key will have a tag attached with text relating to Crisis.  The idea of the key is that it is a new un-cut clean key that you wouldn't be able to use to open any door at all.  Imagine if you only had this key, how vulnerable would you feel!

An up-dated ad for the magazine 'Todays Pilot'.  I placed in a pound sign lower down instead of the 'e' in the word lower.  Client loves it.

The D&AD brief.

Well, this is my first blog with regards to the D&AD brief.  I am working with Anna and we decided to do the 'Crisis' charity one.

The past few weeks have been spent researching 'Crisis' and also the homeless situation in the locality.  Its was surprising (or was it?) that Bournemouth Council has accounted for 5 people sleeping on the street as opposed to the figure of 22 known by the 'Big Issue' magazine office.  There will be more than that too!  

Following the initial research, we sat down and exchanged ideas.  The initial concept was to have a mobile phone sized box that would have a picture on the front that would change when a pound coin was pushed into the side of it.  The other idea was to play on advertising for furniture stores.  We looked at the way adverts were constructed and concidered the idea of a sofa ad with one of the images being a park bench.  The idea was to make the viewer aware of the homeless situation and what it would be like to be there.  In the current recession, for many people, this would not be too far away.

Our 'hot' idea at present is to use the idea of a door key.  A blank un-cut door key would be no good to anybody as you would not be able to get into any house at all.  This would certainly make you feel vulnerable of this was the only key that you had.  For the purposes of the mail shot, the key could be simply dropped through the letterbox.  Anyone finding a key on the floor would instantly pick it up wondering where it was from!  On the key there would be the crisis logo, perhaps as the profile of the teeth of a cut key.  There could also be a keyfob with the wording "this isn't your key, but it could be."

Today I will talk further with Anna.

Another ad that I created for 'Todays Pilot' magazine to draw attention and promote the 'hire' side of my employers business.  I wanted the ad to stand out from all the other 'run of the mill' ads that feature pictures of aeroplanes! 

Experimentation with the slice tool in Photoshop.

The slice tool allows you to slice up your web page layout and create areas that can be used for linking purposes.  The image can then be optimized and saved for web.  The resulting files can then be imported into Dreamweaver.

WHY??????

Just recently I have had trouble uploading images onto blogger.

Anybody else having the same problem?

The homeless chap in Mc Donalds. Food for thought for the Crisis Project.

I was waiting for Borders to open this morning in order to do some research for the 'Crisis Brief'.

I decided to have a coffee in the Mc Donalds and there were a couple of homeless people sat in there having a coffee and trying to get warm from the temperatures outside, which were around about minus 5 degrees.  It was definitely food for thought.

 

The 'Go Flying' magazine used one of my night shot pics (December 08 issue).

Well, that's Christmas all done-back to the work!

Unfortunately I didn't get much project work completed over the festive period due to a week of the flu (never had it like that and mega-family commitments but i'ts all steam ahead now.

I'ts incredible how little time we have now with regards to the course.  Theres still lots to do, and my priority at the moment is the Crisis D@AD project and the Website Portfolio.

Over Christmas, I was given a copy of the Lynda Dreamweaver book which I have started working through.  I will doing my portfolio site in Dreamweaver as opposed to Flash.