Final Show: Virtual Gallery Visit

I have visited the V&A website and I will discuss critically its galleries in this blog.

Here is the front page of the V&A online museum. Firstly, I think it is a very clear and nice Home page. The Menu is categorised, clearly shows options at the top. The spotlight research is also added on the right hand side on the top, which convinces the viewers to look for a specific topic or question. The information provided is completed, including ongoing collections, welcome post, opening time, tickets, brand logo, map and address, etc. This website is very easy to navigate and earthing list clearly. It allows the viewers to find information easily, for example, they don't need to access to another website or page to look for ways to get to the museum.

To inform my own website, I would apply a big and clear title at the top. (my brand name) Then keep the menu as clear as possible, which I can hide some pages, such as the questionnaire. To invite audiences, I can make a similar front page as the V&A's. I would like to add a welcome slide and put a link to my new collection to show the latest information.

The museum provided different methods for people to go to the destination which I think is very convenient. If I make a real gallery, I think I also need to provide this information; to make sure helping people to find the location.

The V & A museum also added social media for their updates. Viewers can find the latest information from here. To update information and interact with people, I would add own social strategies at the button of my website.

For people who want to get the latest news from them can enter their email address in the box here. I think the V & A website is very considered that there are many ways to promote their art news and information.

In the welcome slides, I will not only add the newest collection but also other collections.

Not only to access pages at the top of the website, but also at the end. It is very user-friendly and considered. Also, a button to get to the top, nice idea.

For the customisations of this front page, I think it is fine. Firstly, a nice background where the designer makes a low opacity that I can see the words clearly on this website. Besides, interesting brand design. It might be a bit boring if they use the same design for the brand logo on the same page. I like the idea of how they change the logo design and make this page more interesting.

The gallery page is also clearly illustrated in different collections. The icon picture of each collection is standing and the design of background colour is very creative that it changes when the viewers access to different galleries. So I would like to change each page colour of my website pages to make it more interesting.

A few pictures are showing in the Fashion gallery which I think is too less. However, I like the size of each picture that I can see the image clearly. If I make a gallery for my collection, I would use a similar way to display my designs.

When I want to find more information and it was a little disappointing.

This page is boring and like an academic source page. For an art museum standard gallery, I expected more fantastic designs, such as the front page. This page for me loos like Wikapedia website. I think fashion collections should be latest and well presented, like Vogue.

Reference List: V&A (2020) Fashion. [Online] Available from: https://www.vam.ac.uk [Accessed by 04/04/20]

LANDER, L. (2020) First Telfar Took New York, Now It’s Going Global. [Online] Available from: telfar-interview [Accessed by 04/04/20]

Art Portfolio: Reflection of Term 2

This blog is to reflect my assignments from last term.

For my major project, I got a very bad grade and it was quite disappointing. Fist of all, the instruction of my website is unclear. I made two slides for this project where the first slide is a photo gallery and followed by a link to my project flip book. I thought those pictures of lights may let viewers understand better to my topic. However, it makes the website difficult to navigate. Therefore, I think I should go to look at more designer's or artist' s websites to learn how to customise my site, or keep it simple, only portfolio for one page. It may be less confusing and easier to navigate.

Then I deleted the photo gallery, only portfolio for this page.

Secondly, my portfolio is still too wordy, even though it is better than first term. This is another skill I need to improve, to make my analysis more minimal to display. There is a method discovered during the Easter holiday which I can look for examples on website, such as Adidas. There is always an introduction of the product and I can learn the way how they describe and what is important to be included.

As it is a portfolio, I think a minimal introduction for the materials is fine, not many words needed.

Thirdly, a clearer introduction and ideas are also needed for my future project. Every explanation need to be clear and direct link to my project. Less confusion for viewers that they can see how I use the inspirations form designers and artists. I think I should spend more time at the beginning next time to plan what exactly to do to avoid less confusion. For the presentation in term 2 I seen be a little bit 'greet' and want to include all my work in. However, there are 45 slides in Power Point and when I was presenting I lost the focus. For example, I should consider all elements need to centre around my progression route which is fashion and textiles.

Art Portfolio: Welcome to a Remote Term

Welcome everyone to the new remote term.

My works for this term will change to online and all subjects will be done digitally. My research and working process will be shown here and I will also illustrate pictures of sketches and final pieces for each section. This blog will be updated frequently. I aiming for more creative ways with my project and improve my skills in digital art.

It was a very special Easter in 2020. Due to the Coronavirus, most of us stay indoor for quarantine. Therefore many activities only can be finished insides and the one way we keep in touch with the outside of the world is internet. However, it allows me to stay in calm. I think in a more depth way to reflect all my mistakes, for instance, how to work smartly. I like details and delicate art, which is good and I am quite enjoy doing it. It only matters to me is I always overthink a topic and can not find a point to focus on. In a rough way, it let me become 'Greet'. I want to show all my efforts, but they are not necessary.

So, apart from keep looking at delicate designs, I started to research for simple art. Ji Won Choi's designs are building up with strips and majority of two colours, simple and beautiful.

I would like to know about how she designs. One of her interviews:"It would really be a positive change for the designers, as well, if we had more time to extensively research, explore, design, redesign, and be allowed to create the strongest work possible" She sates a working process and I strongly agree with. She uses bold and fresh colours, make changes in shapes and type of garments. Innovation exist in every single design.

There are many designers have similar idea to hers, simple and fashionable. In this term I intended to make my designs simpler and choose one things to focus on, such as the strips in Ji Won Choi's collection. Hopefully I can achieve this target and make improvements in this Remote term.



Reference List:

PATTERNITY (2020) GARMENT DESIGN THAT INVESTIGATES OVERCONSUMPTION. [Online] Available from: garment-design-that-investigates-overconsumption [Accessed 01/04/20] .

JIWONCHOI (2020) biography. [Online] Available from: bio. [Accessed 01/04/20] .

Photography Exam

These are pictures I selected to submit for the assessment and a contact sheet included.

Task 1

ISO 400   White Balance: Incandescent (Indoor) 

SONY SLT-A57  F4  1/50 sec  24mm

ISO 800   White Balance: Fluor: Warm White (Indoor) 

SONY SLT-A57  F4  1/30 sec  20mm

ISO 100   White Balance: Daylight (Outdoor)

SONY SLT-A57  F8  1/200 sec  26mm

Task 2

1. Rule of Thirds

ISO 100   White Balance: Daylight (Outdoor) 

SONY SLT-A57  F4  1/250 sec  24mm

2. Symmetry

ISO 400   White Balance: Incandescent (Indoor) 

SONY SLT-A57  F3.5  1/40 sec  18mm

3. Low Angle

ISO 400   White Balance: Auto (Indoor) 

SONY SLT-A57  F4  1/60 sec  18mm

4. Focus on the Foreground

ISO 400   White Balance: Auto (Indoor) 

SONY SLT-A57  F4.5  1/50 sec  26mm

Task 3

ISO 400   White Balance: Auto (Indoor)
SONY SLT-A57  F5.6  1/20 sec  28mm

ISO 400   White Balance: Auto (Indoor)
SONY SLT-A57  F11  1/40 sec  35mm

ISO 400   White Balance: Auto (Indoor)
SONY SLT-A57  F22  1/4 sec  40mm

Task 4

ISO 200   White Balance: Daylight (Outdoor)
SONY SLT-A57  F7.1  1/200 sec  28mm
Fast Shutter Speed

ISO 200   White Balance: Daylight (Outdoor)
SONY SLT-A57  F22  1/30 sec  20mm
Slow Shutter Speed

Contact Sheet

Website Creation: Final Reflection

I changed some parts of my website to make it simpler and easier to navigate. Then I concentrate on drawing new final pieces for my major project. After I created a flip book for these final design pieces, I found they do not related as shared the same topic.

A link to Yumpu Book: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/62943152/a-flip-book-colour-emotions.

Therefore, I spent some time and started to sketch out a new collection. Due to limited time, I decided to keep it as simple as possible. I chose Black & White as the starting point. Black & White look like the simplest colours, however, they represent various emotions. As the pattern I have used in the deigns, the element of zebra shows a feeling of calming. Besides, the hand-drawing circles shows anxiety. I found this inspiration, then used different size of black fine liners to provide several textures. My previous designs give the viewers some confusing and inconsistent, in order to let them understand mt idea and narrative of my designs, I changed the whole colour tone and made the style of these drawings more related.

I found the Yumpu Book does not flip, so I created another software to create a new flip book, the Flipsnack. A GIF version of my design shows above.

I felt more satisfied with the new designs, especially when it shows on the flip book. A slightly improvement can be seem, I used similar patterns or the exact same marks in all the pieces, therefore it became more easier for the viewers to get into my ideas. One of the reasons is that I reduced the number of words. It is important to just show main ideas in this mini portfolio. I found if I include too many information, it might confuses the readers. It is not an academic book or an article in a newspaper, therefore the large number of explanation is unnecessary, just need to highlight techniques of the garments.

Inclusion, I am satisfied with the beginning about the processes of artists and designers' research and how I used the inspirations I found to my works. Also the way to keep looking and testing the website that I made so many improvements. However, I should remind myself that think about the outcome of the works what will be presented to the public. Not only need to concentrate and spend too much time on only one of them, think about the whole section and if they will work together. Unless I might waste time on repeating myself from failures.

Here is the link to my final version of the flip book: https://www.flipsnack.com/elin75zero/yumpu-final-version.html. Also, it is showed on my website: https://elin75zero.wixsite.com/mysite.

Website Creation: Reflection

Firstly, I realized there are too many pictures in my gallery that I created more pages in Menu, hidden them and add buttons to link back to the Gallery.

I received feedback from my gallery that a part of the viewers think the Gallery include too many works and it is not clear. Therefore, I deleted all the images and replaced by three representative pictures.

I think it looks more organised now. These three pictures obviously show specific topic of the mini gallery link to.

I also deleted message box at the bottom and other unimportant links of social media.

Also, I think the Feedback page is not necessary to show in the main menu. Then I changed it as a subpage.

At last, I have gone through all pages on my website and edit their position. I found some of them, especially the Bio page, there is a large space between the main body and the footer. Therefore, I reduced them to make my website more organised. Still finishing the major project, will be posted on the next blog.

Feedback & UX Testing

I created a questionnaire on my Google Drive to receive feedback from my website and made improvement based on the advice.

There was more than 90% thought the customisations of the Home page is Good and excellent. Only 7.1% think it is okay. I asked some of them that they think it is too simple with white background. However, I decided to keep it like that. It is because there are too many colours of my textiles work and I do not want to mess it up with the background.

It was 21.4% of them think my gallery is not convenient. It probably is the problem of buttons. I realised there are too many, but it is the best way I can illustrate. I still need to learn how to make a good website.

A little proportion of them thinks more description is needed. I will get back to my work and added information.

A comment claimed that I set the Bio page as the Home page. Then I changed it afterwards. It is a very helpful questionnaire, I did not realize this problem.

Also, one of the suggestion said that they cannot assess the social media at the bottom of my site. It is also one of the parts I missed. Then I added links to them using rectangle in Shape and set a low opacity that the shape will not cover the text above.

Furthermore, I made the text on the Bio page bigger that it is clearer to see. Here is the mobile version.

I think it is better and more looks like a completed website now. However, I think I should add a comment blanket after each question that people can give me more details of what they think about my website.