I think I have finally finished my FMP!!

I went in this morning to help with the exhibition build but I was an hour late due to personal reasons so when I got there most of the hard work had been done, I do feel bad about this but I also did ask Mark as soon as I got there if I could go to the library asap as I’m really trying to avoid taking the extension.

He said this was fine just to stay til lunch, which I did.

Since then I have been sat in the library finishing the FMP.

I have added in my exhibition plans to the sketchbook, sent off my A3 PDF for Chris to organise printing for and paid for an A1 print of my poster to be printed at a brighton printing service. Doing at a printing service was easier than trying to organise it with reprographics at uni as I could just upload it from my laptop and know that it’s done.

Now, onto finishing the portfolio!!

I have spent 10.5 hours in the Library today with maddie. We have been grafting our bottoms off trying to get our projects finished.

I feel like I have made good progress today and am getting closer and closer to finishing the FMP!! YAY!!

There are a handful of things left for me to do within the FMP and while this is a wonderful feeling, I know that I still have quite a lot to do for the portfolio. I’m hoping that if I finish the FMP tomorrow, I can spend next week smashing the portfolio out. I know we’re expected to be in to help build the exhibition all week from the schedule and I will be going in on Monday as I have already got it covered at work. I do however hope that considering the circumstances and having an extension, I will be allowed to continue working on my portfolio for the rest of the week in hopes I can submit all on the 3rd. I feel like I can definitely do it IF I get the FMP finished this week.

Okay, so, I’ve been adding the finishing touches to the new website and after editing it following the advice of my last tutorial, I’m happy with the outcome. The first website was cool because it had parts of the template that were flashy and engaging but looking back on it now, it’s definitely too much, especially for the type of service I’m offering.

My new website is clean, organised and professional and I’m feeling really confident in submitting it as my final outcome.

In other news, I did apply for an extension and it has been granted…

I don’t want to use it though. I have a week left and reckon I can get the FMP finished in time. Just need to spend all my free time in the Library getting work done and finished. There’s still quite a few blanks in my sketchbook that I need to do but Eloise said last week to leave the sketchbook alone because it’s finished.

I haven’t analysed and broken down the website design yet which I know I definitely need to do and there are other things I want to do to show my development as well so I’m giving myself to the end of this week to do them.

Today I had the last opportunity for a tutorial with Eloise before hand in. With energy running low from how much I’ve been using my brain the for the past month, I feel as though I didn’t get what I should have out of it. There are quite a few things I forgot to ask Eloise.. I might ask in am email if I have time, but for now, I’m just going to get on with the last remaining things I have to do.

I showed Eloise my new website and she advised me to take some images out as it had started to look repetitive. I agree on one example I have included within the website (the one we was looking at when she suggested) so will edit this later. I have redesigned the website on a new site, adobe portfolio after my success with this when creating my portfolio website. I followed her instructions to make my images smaller within the page.

While I was advised rework the website into something a little more simple, I still feel as if I like my first version more. I just feel like it’s more professional and actually looks like a real brand website whereas the new version is more of a portfolio.

I don’t know what to do go with because on one hand Eloise told me her thoughts on the original website but on the other hand, I can’t help but feeling like the look of the website is down to personal preference.

I probably will go with the new website to put forward as my final outcome because I’m always told less is more and the site is pretty easy to navigate.

I wanted to take the time to just reflect on why I haven’t included one of the shoots within my website and exhibition plan.

The shoot, Blood On My Nikes, didn’t go wrong nor was I unhappy with the outcomes. I feel that I conducted a shoot that conceptually but also obviously reflected the song it was influenced from. I just find that as that was one of the first shoots I did, my work progressed as the FMP went on. I feel like the other shoots I did show a higher level of photography and styling. I don’t think the Blood On My Nikes shoot matches the level of the other shoots so I’m not including it within my final outcome nor the exhibition. I also feel that the way they’re quite gruesome pictures isn’t appropriate for a website anyone can view, they almost need a trigger warning as the fake blood looks quite real.

After todays tutorial, Eloise suggested there were a few things I needed to change about the website and with the problems I’ve been having with wix, I decided to use adobe portfolio to redesign my website. I went into doing that kind of unseriously but turns out I much prefer the look of it for my FMP final outcome. It allows me to do all the changes Eloise suggested to me while also creating a website I’m proud of that’s also easy to use. Wayyyy less stressful than wix.

I’ve finished putting in all the images onto the site and chosen where and how I want to incorporate the colour pallet I have decided on, just need to add a home page. I’m waiting to see what Eloise says about the new version before I carry on incase the new version isn’t as good as the original one.

Now coming to the final stages of my fmp, I have to start bringing together the final outcomes of design that I will use within the brand identity for my creative service. Fusionz.

It’s been helpful to also be figuring out what I want to create for myself within the portfolio as I’ve been using the skills from both projects to bounce off each other and it has helped me.

From my initial logo moodboard, I had found lots of examples that included colour. As I have chosen quite bold colours within my website design, I’ve found it tricky to create a logo using colour.

Because of this I have already experimented with monochromed designs that are inspired by the Swiss design movement. I’m happy with the outcomes, they’re clean, readable and modern looking.

This was key when creating my logo as I knew I needed to create something that would appeal to my target client.

Out of the three variations I created I’ve decided to go with the original design I made.

I still wanted to experiment with designing a colour logo as I liked a lot of the examples within my inspiration mood-board that involved colour.

Taking the two brightest colours from the website colour pallet, I tried and tested different shades of the colours as well as different fonts and variations of my services name. I had started to lose faith as none of them were calling out to me…

I took a break from it and came back with fresh eyes and realised that one of them wasn’t actually that bad, there was just a part of the way I had drawn one of the letters I didn’t like the look of. I went back and tweaked it to a more suitable outcome and have decided to go ahead and use that one. (See sketchbook)

I would laugh in the face of the girl who said ‘it’s not going to be long until I’ve finished?’

The last two weeks have proven to me that I am not in fact nearly finished.

I now hate WIX as trying to use it to do my portfolio website has been the hardest thing ever.

I have designed majority of the website for FUSIONZ on wix and am waiting til my next tutorial until I do anything else to it. While its nice to be on easter break, its also scary that once were back, we only have like 2 weeks I think left until submission?!

Before I can continue to finalise my website I need to see what I take away from my next tutorial. Hopefully there’s not a lot I need to change and I can just crack on but I don’t want to get a head of myself.

I can’t believe that we have about a month left until final submission!

It feels like only yesterday I was in my first ever lecture scared but proud of the jump I made coming to uni all by myself considering my original plan was to move with three other girls I knew from home, two of which I don’t even speak to anymore..

I’ve finally started to get the ball rolling on finalising my idea by taking my concept within my FMP and offering it as a creative agency in the form of a website…

I first started building the website late last night once i had got in from work, it filled me with ease to find that it wasn’t giving me the same issues as I had with cargo however I did start to feel like I was working just to get it done and didn’t actually necessarily like the look of what I was doing.. I had also started to get confused towards the end and after today I can blame that on being tired. This is because today I have worked more on it and completely changed most of the pages and layout from what I did last night. Some of the choices I made last night have me saying “what was I even thinking?!” a lot in my head today as I have tailored the website much better and way more visually pleasing.

This has lifted a large weight off my shoulders as I started to worry that I had set myself so much to do in the amount of time I have left. Now I have got into the swing of building this website, I’m confident that it’s not going to be long until I’ve finished it!

To say that I’m pleasantly surprised with the result of this shoot would be an understatement.

I had added in the plan for this shoot rather last minute as I had started to consider the fact one of the shoots I originally had planned might not be possible to complete due to the awful weather we keep having. I also felt that conducting this shoot, would serve as solid development from my initial research into punk culture I had done in the beginning staged of my project.

The song that this shoot was inspired by has quite a personal meaning for me… It was a pivotal song in my current relationship.

When me and my boyfriend first met it was going really well very quickly and I mean like a wonderful but intense week after our first date… For reasons I’m not going to go on about here, we fell out and stopped talking for a couple of weeks.. We still followed each other on social media and one night when I knew he had been out, he posted two songs to his story. I knew they were meant for me and one of the songs was this one…

I know how he was feeling in the time we wasn’t speaking as I was experiencing it too but not completely as the reason we fell out was technically ‘my fault’. There has to have been a lot of frustration surrounding his emotions and then when he posted this song it was confirmed. This was the start of us again however because I obviously said something to him and we’ve been together for over a year now.. my longest relationship eva! yay! I’m not impossible to love!

Anyways, I feel like the way in which I have developed this shoot into the final outcomes like this one below, effectively reflects the songs influence. The way in which I’ve layered the images together and experimented with different layer options has created an interesting sense of depth, the chaotic tones within the song are reflected through the models facial expressions and movement of the different poses. I really like the outcomes from this shoot, they might be my favourite so far.