Evaluation of Blog

What have I learned?

I have learned that blogs are an important tool for any designer to use. It allows them to present their work and ideas on the internet for fellow designers, students, and potential clients to look at. It allows allows them to discuss interests that are relevant to their blog's primary topic.

What have I enjoyed?

I found placing my work on the blog for display a new experience, as well as being able to place my own opinions on my blog.

What have I found difficult?

What I did find difficult was locating fonts, tutorials, and web pages that I found interesting and put them on my blog. Capturing every image took time and was tedious, and as usual Font Squirrel was being difficult.

Fonts

FONTS

Here is a list of fonts I may use on my blog site.

Wide Latin

Verdana

Times New Roman

IMPACT

Bookman Old Style

Arial Narrow

Bernard MT Condensed

Papyrus

Web Banner Tutorials

Here is a list of Web Banner Tutorials that you may find useful.

Entheo: Designing a simple web banner with a logo using photoshop.
http://www.entheosweb.com/photoshop/banner.asp

A Quick and Dirty step by step tutorial.
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/primers/ad_banners/a-quick-and-dirty-step-by-step-tutorial-lets-build-an-ad-banner-with-photoshop.html

Animated Web Banner
http://www.tutorialwiz.com/animated_banner/

Digital Composition DIY
http://digicompdiy.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/how-to-create-a-banner-for-your-webpage/

Bright Hub
http://www.brighthub.com/internet/web-development/articles/23099.aspx

Blog Design Brainstorm

A rough brainstorm for my blog design. I personally did not see any point of including this, but my current project insisted on it.

IMAGE COPYRIGHT

IMAGE COPYRIGHT

Something every designer must know is copyright, which is basically the designer's right to control how a design is used. Because it is required on my current project (this very blog) I have posted an explanation focusing on Image Copyright.

Legally, the person who made the image (e.g. photograph or drawing), they own the copyright to that image. The copyright allows them to be paid for their time in creating the image. Any reproduction of the image done without permission would be a breach of copyright.

However, there are exceptions to the copyright, for example if they are an employee of the company the images are created for, or an employee instructed to create the images. In that case, the company owns the copyright. Alternatively, the person who created the image will not have copyright is there this an agreement that assigns the copyright to someone else. To claim copyright, you have to register your image in order to have prove of your ownship if someone else claims the image as their own.

• If you wish to use the work of others, you first need to directly contact and gain permission from the copyright owners before you use their work.  If they grant consent, you may use their image. If they don't, under no circumstances should you use the image anyway.
• Do not use images from google image: there is a chance that an image came from a website that is different from the website you took it from.
• There a several websites full of stock images you can use freely. Here are a couple of example links:

http://www.istockphoto.com/
http://freestocktextures.com/

Inspiration

In 2008, I went to the Empire Cinema, Newcastle, to see Dreamworks' Kung Fu Panda with my older sister. I am a massive fan of animated films, even ones fit for children, such as the Nightmare before Christmas, and even at the current age of nineteen, I still enjoy movies like Pirates in an adventure with Scientists and Despicable me. When I saw Kung Fu Panda, I was blown away by not just the movie, but the characters' designs, the setting, and the flawless animation. When I left that cinema, I knew that this was what I wanted to do. I wanted to design characters, or if I failed that, become a storyboard artist. I began collecting Art Of books full of designs drawn by Dreamworks Character Designer, Nico Marlet, who had designed the characters for not just Kung Fu Panda, but How to Train your Dragon as well and had effectively become my inspiration.
It was because of my desire that I have taken a college course in Interactive Media. In this blog, I will be posting inspirational videos and imagery, video game and movie reviews, and images of my own work for designers and students such as myself. Please take a look at my work, and give constructive criticism and tips on how I can improve. Some useful links to video tutorials would be nice, too. Thank you.