Cutlery

I textured, rendered and lit this scene, modeled by flatmate Kirby Dowler. The metal may need some work but the caustics on the handles really adds realism.

The project is set!

Second Hand-in today
As if one hand-in wasn't enough, the client project brief also had to presented ready for the next stage. Despite not being marked, this stage of the project is very important, download it here

Personal Research Proposal

Final Draft
Finally I have reached the hand in date for the research project. Click here to download the PDF document.

It has been a lot of work over the past few weeks and it is a relief to finally let it go but its a nerve racking experience and caused much stress!!

Nottsgraf established

We have a client!
At least we can say that we have!! Nottsgraf is a dream of a company...literally. It has been invented to set the brief of our client project.

We will be a sister company to them expanding their work from printed media to multimedia!

Mobiles have 'key role for young'

More parents than ever now see mobiles as vital tools in supervising children's behaviour, giving them peace of mind, and making young people feel safer.
- BBC News - Read full report here

I'm not a parent but I am surprised by this report. Granted, having a mobile could make a child safer in certain situations but I think it makes them targets for other crimes.

As a teenager, I never had a mobile! It was fine! Mum did offer me use of a mobile when i went into town but I told her every time that there is a public phone box every 10meters on the high street! When I did finally get a phone I got used to having one very quickly. Now I would say that I can't really live without one! But ironicly having a phone as a student made me susceptible to muggings and sure enough, my phone was stolen! Maybe even more ironic then, that it was stolen by a trio of 14 year olds!!

Phones and iPods are desirable items for thiefs and giving them to younger children puts them in danger in my opinion. And does anyone else think a 9 year old with a mobile just looks stupid!!

"The study also showed that girls were much more likely to text parents to let them know they were safe"

Maybe you have to be a parent to understand the quote above, this I can see is a good way to reassure parents yet the flip side is what happends if the child doesn't text! Maybe there's nothing wrong at all! So the child's safety hasn't changed at all from when I was 11 but parents feel better about it!

Aims and Objectives defined

This is what I hope to achieve with the research project.
Aims

• To research what it means to live in a post-traditional environment


• To make an observation on where traditional Church stands in this culture


• To produce the /thoughts magazine over the up and coming issues and develop it’s direction over the next year.


• To effectively use multimedia and understand the applications of technologies to further the work of the magazine and develop an idea of community

Objectives
By fulfilling these aims, the following objectives hope to be fulfilled.

• An understanding of post-traditional society will be gained through effective research and through this, comparisons can be made to Church culture and society.


• Personal skills will be developed and new techniques maybe learned in multimedia technologies.


• The reputation of /thoughts magazine along with the team that produces it will continue to grow as being a credible and quality magazine that has a recognisable brand.


• That the direction of the magazine is developed


• Ultimately, a study will be produced that can assess what the magazine can do to pioneer a sense of community around it’s brand.

/thoughts autumn released

The autumn edition of emergingculture/thoughts has been released!! Its very exciting to see my work in full print.

To get a copy or to read more about the project, click here

Roll on 15th December - Winter edition goes to print!

Reading list

I have added a list of the books that are inspiring me and aiding my research on the side of this page. Click on the links to see the books on amazon.com

Planning a robbery?!

I have just received the architectural plans for the Students' Union building. I will be modeling the interiors for the Union and hopefully using some of the skills developed at Rio to making some cool images. I was asked if i was planning a break in!

Time-lapse locations

James and I spent a day roaming the city of Nottingham to find locations and shots to film some time-lapse footage. We found a quiet multi-story car park that overlooked the train station, the trams of Nottingham and some trees in a local park.

In retrospect, we should have made better use of the settings available on the camera. This would have taken longer and it is important to evaluate the length of time we should be spending in these situations.

Compound at Freshers

One of the clients that we are working closly with is the students union at Nottingham Trent. The entertainments department have commissioned us to create video content for the SU screens. This included highlights of the evenings meaning we took 2 video cameras and a still camera to the majority of the freshers events to capture the fun and the frolics of 1st year student life.
(Photo by Dave Baird)

New Google

Google has changed! They've swap their search pages around by adding a small plain menu down the right hand side and moving some of the data that used to be at the top down towards the bottom.

0607 Branding

As part of the compound branding and increasing awareness I designed this logo which highlight the context in which we are working. This client project is confined to the 06-07 academic year. It uses the compound font and is not designed to replace the compound word which has been evolved to encorperate the website. It will be the feature of the new compound t shirts!

Making the most of religious warfare!

Its fair to say that the conflicts in Lebanon and the middle east were at least in-part caused by religion. The fighting was devastating and the mess it left was even worse. And so now that the re-building of a country is in progress there seemed to be an oppertunity to jump and make some money out of it!

Advertising campaigns popped up all over the cities in posters and on bill-boards. But surprisingly the product they advertise is Vodka and Whiskey. The obvious message is simple, its a way to lift spirits, encourage and aid the re-building process but how can an alcohol company do this? We are back to the convenience versus substance argument. What Lebanon needs now is substance, not vodka and whiskey!

Surly this substance can be offered by the religions that were part of the fighting. If these people were willing to fight for whatever they believed then they must be able to be constructive within their communities.

Compound established

Our client brief states:

"A Nottingham-based design agency would like expand and become a company that can offer more than printed graphics and photography. Establish a Multimedia Production company that can offer a wide range of multimedia products to a wide range of clients on a tight budget."

In answer to this brief, the three of us have started the wheels in motion with the idea of Compound being the name of our Multimedia company. I then took it upon myself to develop the brand identity of this concept.

Compound means a coming together, a fusion of 3 members to fulfil a final brief. It is also a fusion of very different skills which is key to starting a multimedia company.
It also means to intensify something or to make it stronger. We hope that the work we do will grow stronger and strengthen the industry.

Here is the initial branding logo that will develop over time. Keep an eye on here!!

New Sony Bravia Advert - adverts like.no.other

How to follow advert of the year 2005!...
The Sony 'Balls' advert was genius. It was recognised as genius by the industry when it was awarded advert of the year 2005. Throwing thousands of (real) balls down a quiet suburban street to emphasise colour and movement was a great idea and was always going to be hard to follow but director Jonothan Glazer and design agency fallon did a great job. 250 people (20 of which just mixed paint) working for 10 days and yes, its all REAL - Ok, well almost real, the paint did blow up like it shows in every scene and it features a real council block in Glasgow, but some bits were repeated with CG to add effect!!!

"When you're introducing the next generation of television, you want to make an impact - but that doesn't mean you have to be predictable. To announce the arrival of the new BRAVIA LCD and SXRD range, we want to get across a simple message - that the colour you'll see on these screens will be 'like no other'."
- bravia-advert.com/

I think this advert is beautiful, I enjoy watching fireworks but there is something about the satisfaction from the mess that the paint leaves! The clown is a nice little feature and is almost stolen from the balls advert where a frog jumps from a drainpipe. One very strange thing about both adverts is the uses of location which are associated with poor communities who may not be able to afford a state of the art, top of the range Bravia TV.

To see the advert and learn more about how it was made click here

Research Discussions with Simon Perkins

The first concept of this project was the idea that the Printing Press was invented and used primerily for printing Bibles and looking at the contrast of how the press is being used today compared to those 600 years ago.

The conversations that I have had with Simon Perkins have been so interesting. Our contrast in beliefs could not be more different, Simon an athiest and myself a Christian but I think that these contrasts have been brilliant towards the direction of conversation and to the project itself.

Simon has inspired me to look more into the make-up of community and the contrasts in secular and Church cultures. One of things that has really struck me from the conversations, and maybe it takes an outsider from faith to spot it... In this post-traditional world, where society is turned on its head from history how can the Church continue to hold it's structures and strictness that binds a religion.

It would be fair to say that society today is very convenience driven whereas what the Church offers is of substance. The balance of Convenience versus Substance is a interesting debate and one that I hope to research. -

"It would be like a church offering drive-by baptisms"

- Maybe not but there is a massive gap in the market for convenience Church, podcast sermons or 'God-casts', online Christian communties.

Getting back to 3D!

The skills that I nurtured at Rio Architects have been sidelined without the oppertunity to use 3D Studio Max. It was good to spend a bit of time getting back using the programme and putting my 'MAX-head' back in gear after a 6 month neutral period!

So why MM-Log?

Why bother with a Blog?! They were my thoughts too when the tutors encouraged us to blog our developments throughout the year. But now looking at this concept, a concept that I've never grasped before, I can see the uses of blogging in this way.
It will allow me to log my work, it will allow onlookers, mentors and supportsers as well as people curious in my work to see what I am doing and I really hope that my work will have some sort of impact in the world (see briefs) and this is a great way of not only impacting the world but also impacting the industy that i will fall into where potential employers can see the work.
Anyway, the concept behind the name is a Multimedia-Log (MM-Log), I hope blogger don't mind me swapping the first letter! Maybe we'll have MMlogger soon!

Project Briefs

Let me take this oppertunity to explain what is going on this year.
I have 2 project modules which constiture 100% of the degree clasification.

• Client Project


• Personal Research Project

Client Project Brief
This is a group project and I will be working with Joanne Lewis and James Woods (see links) to work towards a brief set and negotiated by ourselves that demonstraight and nurture the skills that we have learnt over the past 3years. The brief that we have set is as follows.

A Nottingham-based design agency would like expand and become a company that can offer more than printed graphics and photography. Establish a Multimedia Production company that can offer a wide range of multimedia products to a wide range of clients on a tight budget.

Personal Research Project
Again, this is a project that I will decide a brief to explore but I will be working alone. I have been talking with Simon Perkins (see links) and have decided upon the title:

Would Jesus have a MySpace? - How can the contemporary Church revitalise community within a post-traditional enviroment?

The story so far!

The idea behind this blog is to chart progress throughout my final year at The Nottingham Trent University. Three years ago I embarked on my University career in Multimedia Production BSc and completed two years with an average mark of 74% before taking a year away from the course. On this placement year I worked for Velindre Hospital in Cardiff, editing and researching the use of PDA computers in a Ward situation, then 6 months with Rio Architects (www.rioarchitects.com). There I would work on 3D and 2D representations of their projects giving clients a better idea of concepts and plans.

Moving on from Rio, I spent a month working from home for a UK charity - Share Jesus International who hold an annual conference, Easter People. In this time I created and developed branding for the Youth Event and created 5 short films that highlighted the day's theme.

With the success of this work, I then took a placement at the offices of Share Jesus International to work with the youth branch - emergingculture. In this time I developed many publications including prayer letters and flyers, created the emergingculture and history makers brand and was involved with many of their projects from reviewing newspapers on a national radio station (Premier Christian Radio) to renovation an old Cornwall farmhouse ready for a new youth retreat. However, my main project was the developing, branding and production of the /thoughts magazine. The 70,000 distribution magazine has been a huge success.

And so now I am back at university, hoping to continue the 9-5 attitude I got so used to during a year of work! Please return to the blog regulary to see how the projects are going!