Tate Modern

Popped into Tate modern the other day (I love the fact that you can just pop in when are around the southbank). Looked mostly at level three at the 'Poet and dreams' and 'Material Gestures' exhibitions. It has got a nice mixtures of sculptures and paintings. It is interesting to see the different teqniches and elements used in paintings. 

 www.artandabsinthe.com/tag/mark-bradford/

The map above is by Mark Bradford called Los Moscos. It is aerial map of an urban area - using materials found on the streets of Los Angeles. He uses soaking, bleaching, tearing and sanding the paper, to emphasise its physicality.  I like this piece of mapping - it creates layers which is important in mapping. It would be interesting to try maybe for a project. 

I am also a big fan of Cornelia Parker. I remember seeing her piece - Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View - a few years ago. She is interested in how everyday objects can be changed by (often violent) processes and change into something new.  The light from one light bulb in the middle of the piece is casting shadows across the room. I haven't really incorporated light very much in my projects and I think by placing light in unusual positions you can get playful and dramatic effects. It has inspired me to try to incorporate some lighting effects in my play project. 

http://blog.tate.org.uk/tate-tales/?p=36

30 pieces of silver is involves symbolically killing off one set of values (class pretension, personal possession) to reveal another. It gives out a surprisingly calm feel. The way the silver is just hoovering above the floor. 

 flickr.com/photos/95443147@N00/23727938

Another idea

This is the first layout visuals for my website. It has got an expandable side bar hiding text. Large images going horizontally across the screen. It is alos showing the sections I am planning to incorporate in my portfolio.

My website

I have chosen not go with the moonfruit site for creating my website. I have bought my own domain (www.hannamarie.co.uk) and plan to create the site from scratch. The benefits with this is that I keep the website for the future and update and do work to. It also gives me an opportunity to learn more about web design and gives me more freedom to create actually what I want.

I have chosen to call my site my first name and middle name, as I am getting married this summer and my sir name will change, this avoids confusion. I wanted to still use my name, cause I think that works best for an on line portfolio. It is not a business or a blog, so I think it needs to be linked to my name. 

Below is  a navigation mock up. It is designed to float over the background image. It also outlines ho I am going to sort my content on my site. I am not planning to sort my work by years, but by category.

In designing my site I mocking up layouts in indesign and illustrator and when I come to a desicion on a design I will start to put it together in dreamveaver. This is a different approach then using the tools and templates that you can find in moonfruit. There you are working from existing elements and makes changes. My approach works the other way - where I decide what it should look like and work and then putting it together. I believe this is a more creative and focused approach that suits me better. 

Portfolio thoughts...

It is getting closer to finishing my course. As well as getting my portfolio ready I need to set up my own website. This is an opportunity to create something that shows off your work and at the same time gives clues of what you are as a person and what are important for you as a designer. It is an opportunity to create something that looks really cool graphically. This will be interesting and I am looking forward to it as I am interested in graphics and like to discover further possibilities with what you can achieve with graphics. One of the most important things to consider when creating your own website is to make sure that it runs smoothly and is easy to to navigate. In our busy lives we don't have time to sit and wait for wed pages to load and if they are hard to navigate it is easy to give up. 

When creating my blog I used one of the templates on blogger - but changed headers, colours and added photo elements along the right hand side to give it more personality. I choose to go with light colours in the background and with a bright spot colour in header texts. I choose a strong header image and decided a name for my blog that said something about myself. 

On line portfolio considerations:

Target your market - Are you trying to get a job or showcasing your work, trying to get business?

Text - Short and precise I think is good. Get the attention fast and then keep it by keeping it short.

Simplicity - It is a portfolio site. Your work should stand out - draw attention to it.

http://www.simonhoegsberg.com/we_are_all_gonna_die/slider.html

The image above is from a website that shows projects from photographer Simon Hoegsberg. I really like the large horizontal image that you can navigate by scrolling along the smaller image below. It is simple and looks very cool. It is a cool peice of photography - but I think it can work for one of my projects as well. Where I have used a long layout that you scroll along. 

I also think that the images you upload have to be large enough for you to some of the details. Of course you can also add a download pdf button - where you can view the work at the right size, but there is no point in putting up work that doesn't view properly. 

http://www.grant-associates.uk.com/

Above is the website of landscape practice Grant Associates. They have a clean and simples website. At the moment the site is under construction. It used to have have sketchbook part - where you could flick through some of their sketches for projects. That is a feature gives you a little insight into the practice. Other Landscape and architecture practices some times have parts where you can see research that they are carring out about eveything to green roofs and to energy saving structures.  On some of the students that graduated last year you can see photography or video. I think it is very important to have a section like this. 

http://www.deep.co.uk/

These are looking at navigation. I like sites where you can scroll through a project - without the rest of the page scrolling as well. 

http://pentagramarchitects.com/portfolio/architecture/

Pentagram is multi design agency, who also has a architects part. I like the way they have utilised their work to make the website and as the same time use it as navigation. Where you click on the images and it will take you to that project. 

I choose to look at website examples from across the design field for inspiration. I think you can learn a lot from other professional fields. Below are some thoughts on a couple of the websites from last years graduates. 

The website I like the most is the one by Tom Ginnett.  It is simple, works really well and showcase his work really well. His personality comes across in his use of the illustartions for the different sections. The only thing I think he has overlooked is an opportunity to get a bit more his personality across. Maybe an about or interests page could have done this. 

Paul Bratton 's website is not as nice in terms of layout and design, but he uses two extra sections - photography and artwork to show a bit of his interests. It shows addititional talents and I think it os important to show that off if you got it. 

To sum up;

I like to make a simple, graphic site which uses cool navigation features and which really shows off my work. I will include a photography part and also a part about future apsirations.