Blimey its been a while! I've been tinkering away in the background, but blogging just completely passed my mind... partly because I have only just gotten round to finishing my little project - my very own online portfolio!
http://www.ashleyelton.co.uk/
One of the reasons behind the wait was due to the fact that Adobe had halted all it's free trials til July 1st. So it is only now that I've been granted the power to weave through my dreams (it is a really weird name when you think about it!)
It has been a work in progress. It all started off looking quite differently. I wanted to recreate the NTAL site I found a while back. That hit me as being a great site, definitely my personal taste as can be seen in my analysis!
I managed to make the motion graphics, after several agonising and frustrating attempts. My scene list indeed got very complicated (and there is probably a much more intelligent manner to do it) but hey that's what learning is all about.
Colour wise, I went along with trying to use something like my logo - so the grey, white and turqouise were applied. I think they are now becoming afixed - my three colour palette when trying to brand myself. *UPDATE 7/7/08* I am very surprised to find that the NATL site now uses the same colours - I swear I got there first! (But on a plus, it appears great minds think alike, ha!) *
The font was a custom made one I found on a great site, da font.com, named Distro. It's a little different, quite bubble like and rounded, definitely better than the bog standard MS offerings anyway!
I've put up a preview/test version just so you can have a quick look. The reason I opted out of using this design after all the labour was in fear of the dreaded copyright (and luckily so really, as the similarities are now so striking!) At the time of making I was researching for my SPP1 essay and the big C had me fearing all kinds of law suits. The most important thing I learnt was that originality is needed. You must have some, somewhere. Never mind, this wasn't a wasted excursion as I developed more skills, and experience in Flash. (Needless to say, Jools pointed out that I would probably have been OK to have such a site, copyright can only be associated to certain things) BUT I was already onto my next design at that stage, which in terms of the visual design is a clear leap I think.
It all started off when I was playing around with the wording, PORTFOLIO. I was trying to use the P shape in some way or form. I noticed that the rounded corner could make some sort of box... when I say box, it's more like a suitcase. This EasyJet orange was my first iteration.
After making a complete suitcase, I had sort of got used to the orange, but something just didn't sit right. It was bright, bold, punchy and in your face (exactly what I like), but it stank too much of EasyJet for me! I couldn't get away from thinking that in my head. That's when my trusty logo colour scheme came back.
I decided to try reducing the thickness of the lines, which instantly makes it more sleeker, minimal. Adding a contemporary deep grey background, which contrasts very nicely brings a sense of completion to the piece. Clever people amongst us may notice it is simply an invertion of my logo:
to...
I wanted to incorporate the motion style used in my first attempt, so switched it to being less so obvious, and made the wipe ons and offs horizontal. For my first... okay, second attempt at getting a site online, I'm pleased with it. The most striking thing for me are the visuals. They look uber sleek to me, professional. I would certainly think that if I saw it elsewhere.
One issue I found in the Identities module and again with this, was the size to have the swf on the html page. People use all manners of resolutions. 1280x1024, 124x768, 800x600. Google Analytics actually have a statistics section which show percentages of the users using each display type. Obviously as time has progressed, screens have got bigger and so too have resolutions. But that doesn't mean that we should just wipe out all the big, bulky eighthundreders! At this stage in time, I have chosen to cater for all resolutions - there should be no need to scroll up or down, it should all fit, cos it fits the smallest of them all (I hope!)
Soooo after setting the size, applying the content, learning about skinunder swf files to allow videos controls, I then lept into the world of ftp, meta tags and google submission. I had uploaded stuff online before, but due to the larger sizes of the files this time, I needed to get me a proper program. In walks Filezilla. It's a great program, most importantly because it's free, and also so easy to use. You log in, find what you want and push go. It's then online! (Ha, if only everything were that easy!)
Next up, I read on a web designer's site that you should never use just Flash on it's own with nothing else HTML wise. OOPS. Screen readers can't pick up the words in your pages due to the different technology in play. But read this, looks like things are on the up for Flash, so altogether now, "yipeee!"... - only me then? * Also, Flash doesn't yet have an in-house way to add meta tags. So this is where Dreamweaver has recently become useful. I have added my Flash to a page, centered it nicely, added informative meta tags, and now, ta da, (after submitting) Google finds it, warts and all!
There are definitely areas for development. For one, it only has a few things on there. I can definitely predict I'll be adding more pages, as my offerings of work increase. Also, the quality of the stuff on there is obviously going to be nowhere near as good as what I'll be spitting out, like a factory machine, come the end of my degree. For instance, business cards, and letterheads aren't that interesting, but at this stage, it's the most recent work I've done, and I'm a believer of skills and technique, and subsequently talent, accruing, so the most recent should be the best (in theory). For now in the least, it serves the purpose of showing people a bit of what I've done, and also, what I can do technically.
I've learnt that Flash has a nasty habit of getting you hooked into constantly touching things up! Why not try another shade of that colour? What about altering the size of the font? Obviously this is a great thing about the digital era, you can constantly update and without too much hassle - no need to do all from scratch. Also sites are continually updated, and likewise their design is never static for years upon years (if you know what's good for web), so I will probably be changing it every now and again as I learn a new trick, and get into a new design scheme!
So I think that's enough about portfolio. If you've not checked it out, you can still get a decent free one from Carbonmade, which allows you to upload images and looks quite good on the eye. In terms of getting your own domain, I found an all in one offer on one.com. The customer service is good cos you can web chat (I presume around the clock as they are an international company), rather than find yourself hanging on the phone for half an hour listening to Mozart. Also, what with so many customers, they are established, and the reviews on site indicate no need to worry about reliability for their servers etc.
I'll be blogging again very shortly.
@
http://www.ashleyelton.co.uk/
One of the reasons behind the wait was due to the fact that Adobe had halted all it's free trials til July 1st. So it is only now that I've been granted the power to weave through my dreams (it is a really weird name when you think about it!)
It has been a work in progress. It all started off looking quite differently. I wanted to recreate the NTAL site I found a while back. That hit me as being a great site, definitely my personal taste as can be seen in my analysis!
I managed to make the motion graphics, after several agonising and frustrating attempts. My scene list indeed got very complicated (and there is probably a much more intelligent manner to do it) but hey that's what learning is all about.
Colour wise, I went along with trying to use something like my logo - so the grey, white and turqouise were applied. I think they are now becoming afixed - my three colour palette when trying to brand myself. *UPDATE 7/7/08* I am very surprised to find that the NATL site now uses the same colours - I swear I got there first! (But on a plus, it appears great minds think alike, ha!) *
The font was a custom made one I found on a great site, da font.com, named Distro. It's a little different, quite bubble like and rounded, definitely better than the bog standard MS offerings anyway!
I've put up a preview/test version just so you can have a quick look. The reason I opted out of using this design after all the labour was in fear of the dreaded copyright (and luckily so really, as the similarities are now so striking!) At the time of making I was researching for my SPP1 essay and the big C had me fearing all kinds of law suits. The most important thing I learnt was that originality is needed. You must have some, somewhere. Never mind, this wasn't a wasted excursion as I developed more skills, and experience in Flash. (Needless to say, Jools pointed out that I would probably have been OK to have such a site, copyright can only be associated to certain things) BUT I was already onto my next design at that stage, which in terms of the visual design is a clear leap I think.
It all started off when I was playing around with the wording, PORTFOLIO. I was trying to use the P shape in some way or form. I noticed that the rounded corner could make some sort of box... when I say box, it's more like a suitcase. This EasyJet orange was my first iteration.
After making a complete suitcase, I had sort of got used to the orange, but something just didn't sit right. It was bright, bold, punchy and in your face (exactly what I like), but it stank too much of EasyJet for me! I couldn't get away from thinking that in my head. That's when my trusty logo colour scheme came back.
I decided to try reducing the thickness of the lines, which instantly makes it more sleeker, minimal. Adding a contemporary deep grey background, which contrasts very nicely brings a sense of completion to the piece. Clever people amongst us may notice it is simply an invertion of my logo:
to...
I wanted to incorporate the motion style used in my first attempt, so switched it to being less so obvious, and made the wipe ons and offs horizontal. For my first... okay, second attempt at getting a site online, I'm pleased with it. The most striking thing for me are the visuals. They look uber sleek to me, professional. I would certainly think that if I saw it elsewhere.
One issue I found in the Identities module and again with this, was the size to have the swf on the html page. People use all manners of resolutions. 1280x1024, 124x768, 800x600. Google Analytics actually have a statistics section which show percentages of the users using each display type. Obviously as time has progressed, screens have got bigger and so too have resolutions. But that doesn't mean that we should just wipe out all the big, bulky eighthundreders! At this stage in time, I have chosen to cater for all resolutions - there should be no need to scroll up or down, it should all fit, cos it fits the smallest of them all (I hope!)
Soooo after setting the size, applying the content, learning about skinunder swf files to allow videos controls, I then lept into the world of ftp, meta tags and google submission. I had uploaded stuff online before, but due to the larger sizes of the files this time, I needed to get me a proper program. In walks Filezilla. It's a great program, most importantly because it's free, and also so easy to use. You log in, find what you want and push go. It's then online! (Ha, if only everything were that easy!)
Next up, I read on a web designer's site that you should never use just Flash on it's own with nothing else HTML wise. OOPS. Screen readers can't pick up the words in your pages due to the different technology in play. But read this, looks like things are on the up for Flash, so altogether now, "yipeee!"... - only me then? * Also, Flash doesn't yet have an in-house way to add meta tags. So this is where Dreamweaver has recently become useful. I have added my Flash to a page, centered it nicely, added informative meta tags, and now, ta da, (after submitting) Google finds it, warts and all!
There are definitely areas for development. For one, it only has a few things on there. I can definitely predict I'll be adding more pages, as my offerings of work increase. Also, the quality of the stuff on there is obviously going to be nowhere near as good as what I'll be spitting out, like a factory machine, come the end of my degree. For instance, business cards, and letterheads aren't that interesting, but at this stage, it's the most recent work I've done, and I'm a believer of skills and technique, and subsequently talent, accruing, so the most recent should be the best (in theory). For now in the least, it serves the purpose of showing people a bit of what I've done, and also, what I can do technically.
I've learnt that Flash has a nasty habit of getting you hooked into constantly touching things up! Why not try another shade of that colour? What about altering the size of the font? Obviously this is a great thing about the digital era, you can constantly update and without too much hassle - no need to do all from scratch. Also sites are continually updated, and likewise their design is never static for years upon years (if you know what's good for web), so I will probably be changing it every now and again as I learn a new trick, and get into a new design scheme!
So I think that's enough about portfolio. If you've not checked it out, you can still get a decent free one from Carbonmade, which allows you to upload images and looks quite good on the eye. In terms of getting your own domain, I found an all in one offer on one.com. The customer service is good cos you can web chat (I presume around the clock as they are an international company), rather than find yourself hanging on the phone for half an hour listening to Mozart. Also, what with so many customers, they are established, and the reviews on site indicate no need to worry about reliability for their servers etc.
I'll be blogging again very shortly.
@
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