Evaluation

With the graphics lesson that I have had, I have been able to extend my knowledge on programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator. I now know that there is a difference between the two, photoshop is about changing images and Illustrators is about designing images. Now I find it easier to use these two programs so that I can use this in later tasks meaning it has been very benefitial. I have learnt how to present my work, that it should be annotated and evaluated, and what could be changed in order to make an image better. I have developed skills which will mean that in other tasks which would require that I make things like logos, gifs etc. 

I have also learnt that things such as logos have reasons for everything. This is that things such as colour, style and presentation would matter in trying to attract a target audience. e.g. red or blue would mean that the goods may be low in price and high in quality, whereas the use of green and brown would be the opposite, it would show reliability, class, quality and that it is expensive.

I have learnt that I should show every stage of documentation by the use of annotation and screenshots. This is so that I can show how I produced a piece of work and then justify it.

The finished product for my projects normally do not fit the original intentions. This shows that my ideas and thoughts develop more and more in order to improve. I also have concentrated in the general look of the images as well as the reason for having different parts. My pictures must look colourful, meaningful and presentable. Comments from others mean that my work can be changed slightly in order to change something or reinforce a good idea, this would give me confidence because I wold have a second opinion. Advice has also been helpful in order to carry out a particular task incase I do not understand. I also think that my creative ability means that I am able to come up with many different ideas so that there are more to choose from and I would pick depending on which was most suitable and effective.

Football bias illustration

Here is an illustration for my investigative feature on the topic of football bias among fans. It shows a fan of an undisclosed football team only recognised by the fan wearing the hat saying "my team FC". This would suggest that regardless of what happens, fans would always see things from their perpective. He is sitting on a chair saying "football bias", this is to show that the topic that I am going to look at and also that this person represent a person who is biased towards their football team. We can clearly see that the person is looking at the TV and we would know that this is a football match because of the topic and the outline of the pitch along with the goal. We see a large pen on the pitch in the area as the fan shouts "how is that a pen?!?". The message of the cartoon is that it doesn't matter what the fans will see at a football game or on TV, they will ignore this and represent their team meaning that they are biased.

File formats

File Formats

File formats are used in computing, it is used so that a particular program can encode information depending on the type of file. There are many different types of file formats, each with their own specific use. Formats will decode things such as images, videos and text. Here are some examples of some image formats:

JPEG- this is the most common use of file format mostly used for printing and emailing, this is because it can give the smallest size. Moreover, this type of file can be used in all photos editing software. This image will however, degrade every time you save it meaning that image quality will become worse over time.

GIFs- GIFs are files which are a cross between an image and a video file. It is a number of images which are clumped together. This format has a limited amount of colours meaning that the file sizes of them are relatively small. This has a limit of 256 colours meaning that it is a much lower quality. This means that it is not taken seriously or regularly used in the photographic world.

BMPs- This is normally known as a Bitmap image file which can store digital images. It is usually small and compact, images can go up to 24 bit and is used to windows.

PNG-  This stands for portable network graphics. This is a lossless Bitmap version which is portable and allows more colour so that images seem better quality and aren’t dull and bland. PNG uses ZIP compression which is slightly more effective than LZW compression which are slightly smaller files. This format versitile because it is a newer version.

Tiff- Most programs for Tiff allow no compresion unless LZW compression. This format is lossless but is not as effective for 24 bit colour images. JPG and ZIP compression is provided by Adobe Photoshop also but this greatly reduces third party compitibility of the TIF files.

Illustrator apple

 

This is how I created my apple on Illustrator. First I created a circle using the shape tool. This created a block outline which would act as the base for my apple.

I then created a gradient which would give the apple another dimension. The graan would be the colour of my apple because it is conventional and the white would show light reflection.

I was then able to use a gradient mesh so I could move different part of the shape and so would be skewed and change direction. This was so I could move the reflection of the light so that it is facing a particular direction. This makes the look of the apple more effective as apples would also shine when light is on them and it would normally be on this part of the fruit. The stalk was also created using the brush tool and selected a brown colour.

Finally, I then was able to create a shadow in the same way that I created the base for my apple, by using the shape to to create a circle. The gradient tool meant that the further you would see into the circle, the more dark it would be and there further out, the more transparent. This would the be arranged so that it is placed behind the apple.

My sky sports logo

This is the logo that I will be using for my channel ident for sky sports. I think that this is suitable because the house colours are red white and black which I think are colours that will attract my target audience. It looks very similar to the current logo of Sky sports, this is because i thought it would be a good template for this one of my own. I used red because this is one of the standard sports colours along with blue and green. I wanted to make my logo dynamic, bright and simple and I think that i have achieved these things. this logo will be used at the end of my ident above the slogan for the channel. This was created on Adobe Photoshop by making a number of similar size rectangles, one will be an outline of anotther which will be black and the main rectangle is red. There is also an effect that I have used which makes one side brighter than the other, this is to make it less boring and dull. The use of red is relevant to sports in general e.g. Football clubs: Liverpool, Arsenal, Man United etc. also the use of red also makes it stand out. I have also used different effects on the fonts to make it more dynamic. one has a shadow, but the other doesn't and also is leaning to one side.

In conclusion, I think that this is a suitable logo for the channel because of the effects and styles that I have used in order to attract my target audience.

Investigative feature: Football bias

Investigative Feature: Football Bias

For my interview I will be studying bias in football among how fans who would be biased towards their particular teams. To do this will study past examples of incidents, which have happened on and off the pitch between clubs, which means that the interpretation can be ambiguous.

Bias is when a situation is interpreted dies-honestly from a perspective, which is support of their own thing. For example a football team. A football team is more typical because it is competitive and contains a lot of passion because of supporters standing by their team. An example of this would be that if a Liverpool player were to tackle an Everton player It is not a coincidence that supporters of Liverpool will stand by their player and say that it was not a film, the Everton supporters will say that it is a foul despite both sets of fans seeing the same incident.

The theory is that fans will stick up for their team despite evidence going against them, they will find any reason to back up why they are right and will not admit that they are wrong. They will do this as a sign of passion and support for in some cases the only thing that they have got, their club. This is also cause by the fact that football fans are positive, admitting that ‘a goal should have stood’ or ‘the tackle was not a foul’ is a sign of negativity as they will see it as their club doing something wrong.

In many cases supporters will know that their club is in the wrong, but will still be biased, even if it is un-defendable. This is why people will bring up past incidents to make it seem even. ‘That wasn’t a red card’, “the same thing happened to us last season and he was sent off’. This shows that people will never cease to support their club. In other times, people genuinely believe that their club is in the right. There is a theory that, for example a fan will look at a situation from their own player’s perspective. If a Liverpool went into a tackle, the Liverpool fans would say that ‘it was a reasonable challenge, wereas other supporters would say ‘the tackle was too harsh’. In this case bias may not be applied consciously because there is reason and justification towards the argument, and the supporter would be honest. However, this may provoke the cliché: ‘You would say that, you support them’. This means that football fans are conventionally dis-honest.

These are the questions I asked and the responses I got.

Do you think the challenge was a worthy of a red card?

(Relevant to the Kompany foul against Manchester United on Nani in the FA Cup)

Manchester City fan: ’It was not a red, 10-15 years ago this would not have been a red card, he didn’t even touch him”

Manchester United fan: ’Football has changed, he did not touch the player but if he did he would have broken his leg. We need to eradicate this from the game.

These responses are from passionate supporters defending their team with reasonable perspectives, but these are more generalised opinions meaning despite a decent response there is still bias.

This is also relevant in other things in football in terms of teams as a whole.

Who do you think will win the premier league this season?

Manchester City fan: “We have the best team, we are top of the league. Its simple, Man City will win”

Manchester United fan: “We may not be top but we are close behind. Our team has more experience of winning the league than city”.

This is a sign of people showing support for their team. Singing, and shouting support from the stands are other ways of showing optimism and hope that they can win the match. But whether a team will win the league is a different question because it requires more than a team just ‘doing well’.

How do you think Fernando Torres has done this season?

Chelsea fan: “It has taken him a long time, but in recent weeks he has shown signs of improvement”

Other football fan: “Look at the statistics, under five goals in 12 months at Chelsea. He will never reach his past form again”.

The Chelsea fan will stick up for Torres because in his opinion sees potential. Chelsea fans have a better opinion in some ways because they see him play every week and have a more assessed view. Fans do not necessarily always stick up for their own players. For example

How do you think Henderson has played for Liverpool this season?

Liverpool fan: Terribly, he has a lot of potential but not £20 million worth of potential.

Liverpool fan: “He may be young and fast, but he has no skill and no footballing brain”

This shows that fans can turn against their own players and have their own opinions and that not all fans are dillusional.

My interviewees were just ordinary football fans. In some ways due to the expansionism of football they have become experts in the subject. This is down to the fact that fans can watch football games from the comfort of their own home. Moreover, the amount of coverage is extreme. During live games there are a large amount of cameras around the stadium meaning that many replays can be shown from different angles and in slow motion. This means that fans can give a clear opinion rather that seeing the incident one and in real time.

My Snowman

This is my christmas card that I created on Adobe Illustrator. i thought that this is relevant because the connotations of christmas are Xmas trees, crackers presents, turkeys and snowmen. When people see a snowman they would instantly think of the winter time and also of christmas. Whenever we see christmas being portrayed in film or on television we would normally see children running out on a christmas afternoon in the snow, trying to create huge spheres in order to make snowmen. This is why i thought it was relevant to use for my christmas card. Firstly, I creates three circles which would act as the bottom, body and head of the snowman. the circles would be created by the use of the pen tool which means that lines can be skewed in order to make a shape. I was then able to put a tint along the outline of the circle in the colour blue. This is so that you can clearly distinguish between the snowman and the background, the use of blue is to make it look cold, although snow is not blue, it is definately cold. Also people will instantly think that it is cold when they see this colour. The three circles where then sized and put in the centre. The shadow of the man would be made using the same method as the body but the outline is white and the inside is black. The body has buttons which is also relative to a conventional snowman, this was used by the paint brush because it is so small. I had three buttons in three different colours to make it look more visually attractive. I create the branches also as twigs are normally used for the arms of the man, I wanted it to look authentic hence the use of the colour brown. More very small sots were used at the head of the snowman to create a clear smiley face and eyes. The orange shape is the apple, this is because conventionally a carrot acts a a nose.

My Blog Logo

This is the logo to my blog. I aimed to create a logo which was simple in design and relevant to the topic of media.I created this logo in Adobe Photoshop which I thought was very quick and easy to use. to create this im made 4 different boxes using the shape tool. One would be black for the outline which would work as a base; another one would white which is smaller than the previous which will go over it; then there will be two more which will also be smaller than the previous and go side by side. This is where the two initials of my name will be which will be in a white  army font. Underneath is the word "productions" so they know that we are producing something.

If i did my logo again then i would make the following changes:

1. Add more colour, this would make the logo more visually effective and would attract the viewers to the blog. i would have probably used red or blue and used effects so that they would not just be block colours. This would make the logo more dynamic and better to look at.
2. I would probably change the font of the logo so that it is more reflective of the blog I am doing. 
3. I would also make the logo more relevant to media by the use of small pictures or base my logo around things such as cameras, actors, film reels etc. This will be so that people would instantly know what my blog will focus on visually.