Saturday 26 November 2016

Poster Development 1 / Think!


I have developed upon my idea of a poster in reverspective. I have began to arrange communicative elements to express the message and how the visual demonstration the reverspective effect offers. Using a phone at the top of the design, I tell the viewer to read the message within the phone. The message typed in the phone is purposely in a small scale, to engage the viewer to move close to the design to read it. This is when the illusion of the reverspective display takes effect. As, the viewer is up close to the phone in the design, they will no longer be able to see the road in the 3D reverspective. This demonstrates the distraction of using a mobile phone while driving and notifies the serious and frightening consequences that can happen.


To further communicate my idea, I have created a visual demonstration from the viewers perspective. I have established the angle a viewer would see up close the the poster, reading the message in the mobile phone. From this perspective, the viewer will not be able to see the road beneath the reverspective and will not see the child in the middle of the road.


For the message within the phone. It would be a good idea to take a screenshot of a typed message in my phone, creating a real effect to the poster. I have experimented with this idea and I feel it help reinforce the communicative nature. I typed different words and phrases that I could possibly use, I think the most effective message would be, 'Think!, can you see the road'. From this point the viewer will try to look down at the poster and realise they can no longer see the road and create a sense of shock that will stick with them. Now, with this unique sense of engagement they viewers will more likely retain the information.

Tuesday 22 November 2016

Video Media Channel / Think Project



I can get the reverspective effect to work in video by applying the same effect as what would happen in physical form. A step back from the poster, the camera will have a full perspective and see the whole image of the road. Up close however, I would position the camera at eye level of the average person and would only see the top half of the reverspective and not the most important part, the road.

To create this effect, I could move the camera steadily towards the design at eye level to walk the viewer through the illusion of the design. The view is as if the audience are the driver of the car and by moving closer to the phone, the video demonstrates the distracting aspect of using a phone while driving. I could see this advertised on TV with the aspect of public reaction to the poster on city streets, observing the intrigue it may have upon them. I will look to create a short advert, demonstrating the process and to reinforce the application of my posters.

Poster Idea / 2D + 3D aspect / Think Project


Above, I have visually communicated how the reverspective illusion will work. Take a step back and the viewer will see the whole perspective of the design, however engaging with the phone and moving closer to the 3D design the viewers perspective of the poster will change and no longer be able to see the road. This will visually demonstrate to the public the danger of using your mobile phone and how it takes your eyes off of the road, leading to horrific consequences.


As you can see, the person further away from the poster gets a full perspective of the illusion, but when closer only sees the upper half of the reverspective and can no longer see the bottom half, most importantly the road. I would situate the posters in car parks, city centres and other places where there will be a high influx of drivers. To get the viewer to move closer to the design, I could write above the phone quoting, 'what does the phone say'. In the phone I could write in a small scale, so the viewer has to com closer, 'can you see the road'. In which they cant, because they are engaging with the phone distracting their attention off of the road. This would hopefully create an impact upon the viewer.



To end this post, I have embedded another reverspective visual example to reinforce my idea.

Social Media Idea / Interactive Application



An interactive application would be well suited to target the audience of young male drivers. This generation have been accustomed to digital technologies throughout their lives and are spending hours a day browsing through their news feed. So, this media channel will be a great platform for them to stumble upon. I will create a video that quotes do not touch the phone, intriguing them to touch the phone behind the play button to discover what the video is about. Once the play button is clicked the inverted reverspective view of the driver would demonstrate how using your phone distracts their attention off of the road, with the indication of a child stood in the middle of the road that they could hit.


Another interesting approach through the channel of social media. A lot of images on social media are now becoming 3D interactive applications. Using a special camera to move around an object or environment and allowing the capacity to export into social media for the world to observe and enjoy. This technique could be transferred into my road safety idea. By scrolling up to the phone and being unable to see the reverspective road and child, demonstrating the danger of this action.

These are methods of communication that I will look to create. I think maybe the video channel for social media would be the route I could manipulate into an advert appeal. I am not exactly too sure about how to create a 360 object image that you can interact with on social media. But, I will research how it is done and discover if I have the equipment and capability to do so.

Sunday 20 November 2016

Reverspective Visual Ideas


For the reverspective visual content, I could take either photographs in a similar grid structure to the reverspective template, or I could illustrate the scene of a road. Above, I have collated images that have been taken is a similar grid system that could possibly match my reverspective template. All of which, are in a built environment and express the type of scene I want to recreate, whether it be illustrated of photographed. I feel the application of a photograph would be most suited to create a greater impact, as it brings a real world aspect into the design and makes people think this way.

Here I have created a rough idea of how I imagine my reverspective display to appear. I have used Photoshop to create the scene using transform tools such as, perspective, scale and skew tools. This is where I came across my first indication of a problem. The photograph that I take will have to be in perfect line to the grid structure of the reverspective. If the buildings rise above the upper diagonal lines the buildings will flow over onto the upper surface of the reverspective. It is less of an issue if the sky falls into the side surfaces of the reverspective, as there is less visual detail that would effect the reverspective illusion.



To further communicate my idea, I have demonstrated the reverspective change of the road as you move up to the phone with the mock scene with my manipulated image of a city street. Because the reverspective design is the structure of a pyramid, when the audience moves above the pyramid they will not be able to see the other side of the 3D shape, where the road will be. This is the message I intend to communicate, I just need to fit visual content into this display to create a though provoking impact upon the viewer.

Creative Poster Inspiration / Think Project


I have found and collated posters that think out of the box and strive away from conventional 2D. These posters come into our world and connect with us in a unique and memorable. I will use the idea behind these posters to engage and audience, the more memorable the visual display is the more chance the audience will retain the information. Whether the audience likes the communicated message or not, designs like this make the audience remember and retain. If the design makes the audience retain the information intended, it is doing its job.


ANAR Foundation have created a very clever design that alters with perspective. It is a poster design with a face of a child that appears like a normal, healthy child at the average height of an adult, 1.75m. However, from a child's perspective, the poster is viewed from a different angle and the image of the child appears bruised and beaten. The intention of the poster is to communicate a message to children away form the adult, abuser, they are with, telling them how they can seek help with a number to dial and a message to advise against prolonging the agony. The way this effect is created is through a lenticular effect.


A lenticular print is small bumps or spikes on the surface, allowing the image to reveal different effects from two different perspectives. It is similar to the reverspective design used by Patrick Hughes, in terms of the balance between perspective and illusion. This is how the ANAR Foundation create the design to communicate to a children who may be mistreated and need some form of help and guidance, with the hidden message seen from a low view away from their adult abuser.



With this kind of mindset I want to create a poster with an interactive message. Using my reverspective idea, I can communicate the danger of using a mobile phone while driving and how looking at your phone alters the perspective of how you see the road. I could do this by engaging the viewer to interact with a phone gesture situated above the design in the poster. The change in perspective by moving up to the phone above the design would alter and restrict the view of the road seen in reverspective. This would be a clever way to demonstrate the danger of mobile phone use when behind the wheel. I could create more of an impact by creating a child character on the road to communicate the horrific consequences that may arise in this situation.

Saturday 19 November 2016

Patrick Hughes / Reverse Perspective / Think Project Inspiration

Patrick Hughes is an English contemporary artist. I had seen his work when I visited the flowers gallery and I was memorised by the illusive design, that came to life. He creates a world that is solidified into perspective, by precisely sculpturing wooden lumps of space that come out towards you and brings his work to life as you move around the design. The whole idea behind his work is inspired by the optics and perspective. I could relate this to the Think road safety campaign brief and communicate how our optics and perspective are inhibited, with factors such as alcohol, mobile phones, drugs, road or weather conditions, that affect our concentration and reaction when driving.


I could incorporate this technique into a visual display of a road and create processes and scenarios to engage the audience and demonstrate the consequences of using a phone, alcohol and drugs while driving. This effect could be transferred into a poster, social media interactions, a video and a physical display to interact with in real world.


I could create the template with cardboard. The cardboard would have to be of good quality, otherwise the design outcome will have a tacky template to work with and ruining the overall impact. I have found some examples to show how It can be done to communicate my creation process. I would place digital prints over the pyramid template that have been precisely measured and coordinated into perspective to match the dimensions of the pyramid template. However, I will be on the lookout for objects or other things in shops that are in the shape of a pyramid and have the capacity to work with for my Think Road safety project.


Friday 18 November 2016

After Effects / Sarah Nasteruk / Process and Production 2 / Rotoscoping

Rotoscoping was the learning theme of today. We initially paired up with friends and recorded videos of us moving, creating what ever action we wanted to work with in After Effects. I walked into the room and pointed, as a bit of fun. I though this would work well to enter a scene in my video.

After we was satisfied with our footage, we exported it into After Effects and began to mask over our moving figures with the pen tool. We created a composition 1 second long and worked with 1 second of action footage we liked the most. For every frame of the 1 second footage we traced and used the time-frame key to follow a trace path until the footage tracing was complete. Once we had completed the mask we created a new composition and placed our masked 1 second moving action into it to see the effect we had just done. This was an amazing new technique that I wanted to learn, I have seen this done before and wanted to know how to do it my self. I can create a lot of cool things with this technique in the future.

Once we had our masked layer in the new composition we learnt how you can extend, shorten, loop, freeze and more with our masked footage, by using the time remapping tool. Using this tool it helped me extend the length of my footage, during my pointing action. It is fairly simple to get used to, it is like everything else in after effects and knowing how the effect works with the time-frame keys to create a programmed path.

Rotoscoping / After Effects / Practice from Charlie Hamnett on Vimeo.

For my first rotoscoped motion graphic, I wanted to create the effect of an explosion as I entered the room as a funny clip. This was inspired by 'how I met your mother' and how Barney had explosions all over his video resume. I created a movement path of two rectangles to create the impression of doors opening, to reveal me entering the room and pointing. The explosion I created with filter tools from a video sample from YouTube. This created a funny effect as if I own the place when I enter it.

Rotoscoping / After Effects (extra) from Charlie Hamnett on Vimeo.

Moving forward, I used this effect with a bit of a build up before the big reveal. I created more traced masks from my original footage. I traced my pointing hand and feet to create more scenes for my graphic, again using the pen tool frame by frame with the application of the time-frame key to create a motion path for the trace to follow. As my hand looks like it is clicking, when by itself, I created a pop effect to illustrate the indication of a click. To create this pop effect I used the pen tool to draw a line, trace path tool and applied an easy easy smooth motion to the pop. I used many patterned backgrounds to create an energetic environment to go with the up beat soundtrack I used for the graphic. Also, I created effects to these new motion mask. With my pattern images and solid layers I used the alpha matte filter to filter the colour or pattern into my traced subjects, creating an appealing display of colours in motion.


Rotoscoping / After Effects from Charlie Hamnett on Vimeo.

Finally, I have created a motion graphic without using the explosion. The explosion can look a little cheesy if I was going to show the video to people who I didn't know so well. With this in mind, I created a more graphic effect to Illustrate an impact as I enter the room. I used more easy ease motion paths with the pen tool and trace path to create energetic lines. Plus, I pulsated shapes in time to the music, using audio frames and linking the shape layers scale key to the audio and using a little code to scale the pulsations to a desired range, to create a 'boom' impression. I also added a few transitions, such as the radial scale transition and the grid transition seen in the video. This helped to communicate the heavy impact as I walk through the doors.

To conclude, I had a great time creating this video, once again learning a hell of a lot of new techniques. I enjoy after effects the more and more I get to know about it and will defiantly create more graphics like this in the future with the skills I have learnt in this process and production.


Extra Rotoscoped Work
(Skills learnt and applied To My Hyper-reality Project)

Wall Graffiti / Animated Character / Rotoscoping / Me from Charlie Hamnett on Vimeo.

Rotoscoped Funny Football Video from Charlie Hamnett on Vimeo.



Polina Zioga / Essay Introduction / 18th Nov

In this seminar I was introduced to the second year essay and visual appendix. I am required to write a 2500 word essay that addresses a set of histories, theories or technologies which informs my own practice and my course specific research question.

I learnt how I should structure my essay. First of all, include my title to clearly outline and focus the essay topic. Then below, place 5 key words that communicate and depict what the essay is about in a very short manner. Leading to the 150 word abstract that clearly summarises the essays arguments and position. Moving on to the body of the essay, we start with an introduction. The introduction needs to outline the main arguments and materials presented and establishes the structure of the essay. The essay body should communicate a logical and well supported argument, supported by a litterateur review to reinforce the message intended. To end the essay argument, create a conclusion which reaffirms the main argument and identifies further questions, plus plans for related future work.


In addition, it was also explained to me what is expected for the visual appendix. I need to create an A2 poster that communicates the argument of my essay. The poster needs to include my name and course, the title of my essay and my 150 word visual appendix to address the audience about my research poster. This will be part of my research focused exhibition at the end of term two. It is concerned with representing a visual summary of my essay at a glance.

At the end of term two, I will need a 750 word start to the essay to show and submit. I will get feedback upon this to see if I am hitting the correct criteria and to push me in the right direction to get a better grade. This process is a good way of learning and helps prepare me for future essays and generates a greater understanding of what is expected as research.

Tuesday 15 November 2016

Process and Production / Nick Deakin / typography posters

In this process and production workshop, I was given a series of typographic alphabets in different fonts that I had to cut out and rearrange to spell three of five sentences provided.  This was to develop my typographic poster skills by arranging the type loosely to find unique compositions that express language differently and then finalising the outcome by sticking the loose, cut out, type in a composition that satisfies and communicates the message in the best way.


I took a photograph of the whole of my groups playful typography posters, showing an array of ideology and the idea behind what we was learning from this process and production session. A lot of the phrases was based around the recent election of Donald Trump as president.


For my first typographic poster I chose the phrase 'Trump elected president'. I arranged the type in a form that was deterioration to express the beliefs of a large sum of the American public in their trust in Trump to run their country. The type starts off level and in formation, however in the next word below the type begins to deteriorate and fall our of formation, communicating a crumbling nation over time under the hands of Trump.


My second poster is another phrase that reflects the election of Donald Trump, quoting 'make America great again'. I arranged type in this message in a clever way to link each word together, almost like a game of scrabble. The idea behind this is to create a message with the level words that communicates trump will make america great gain and not as a nation towards other nations, so not again, only for personal benefit as a nation.


The third and final poster that I constructed with the type provided, I constructed the phrase Brexit plus plus plus'. I cut out the type and arranged in a normal fashion, however I rotated the x in the word Brexit and cut out two other more of the letter x to create the impression of 'plus plus plus', like so '+ + +', arranged horizontally. This created a nice and simple composition the the poster. Now, I have three finished posters I will scan these into Photoshop and illustrator to manipulate and take further and have fun with it.

Think / Audience Case Study / Young generation 17-25

In order to focus my design, I conducted a piece of audience research to inform my campaign idea. I used the reliable GOV.UK as a source to feed my research content. In this research I have compiled statistics of car crashes and the relation between ages, intoxication's, road types and other conditions.
From the graphs above it shows that there has been a 7% decrease in all road casualties caused by car drivers, from 2010 -15. However, each year it is a common occurrence that the younger generation are the most frequently involved with driving seventies. 16-25 year old drivers and passengers sit far above all other ages in terms of casualties rates. Is this because we are indulged into the world of technology, as we have grown up alongside the vast development of technological devices?

Shockingly, more than a quarter of all car crashes in America are caused by cell phone use, a study by the Nation Safety Council has shown. The National Safety Council states 21 percent of crashes or 1.2 million crashes in 2013 involve communicating through handheld or hands-free mobile phones. They say an additional 6% of crashes in 2013 involve text messaging. Creating a total of around 27% of crashes involve drivers talking and texting on cell phones. This can be related to the younger generation, having been brought up alongside these technologies. (Business Insider UK)


Here I have compiled data to show the link between the younger generation and crashes related to drunk driving. The most cases of crashes and failed drug tests are the age band of 20-24 year olds, however not as many cases with 17-19 year olds. But, the data also shows, when testes as a percentage involved in car incidents, 17-19 year olds sit the highest and shortly followed by 20-24 age band at 60%. Both on top in this department. This states there is a greater aspect of danger when the younger generation drink and drive, due to the significant amount of incidents. Especially, compared to the older generation, where there seems to be fewer incidents. 

In addition, this has been a repeated theme since 2010. The actual amount of drink drive incidents has slightly decreased over this time period, but the age band of 20-24 plummet above the rest. Their the highest percentage of drink drive incidents per 1000 licence holders and narrowly behind 17-19 year olds in terms of drink drive incidents per billion miles driven. This could also represent an inexperience in the capacity to drive and handle their alcohol, making them the most dangerous of the road under intoxication.


Moreover driving under intoxication, 16-24 year old people plummet above all other ages in terms of driving under the influence of drugs. This data is collected through self reporting of taking drugs and driving in the last 12 months. This has similar effects to drink driving and has all of the similar dangers to what you get with alcohol. The data would prove no different if we had the capacity to compare them, in terms of casualties and incidents.


Finally, we look at data comparing car crashes and types of roads. The data shows that there are much more crashes in built up areas compared to non built up areas. Plus, there are much more crashes in daylight than night time in most weather conditions and road surfaces in built up roads compared to non built up roads. This is because during the day the environment is much busier in general and much greater reactions to the ever changing environment are required to drive safely.

However, it was interesting to discover there are much more deaths when driving at the maximum speed limit on non built up country roads, than driving at the maximum speed limit of the roads of a built up road environment. Especially, in poor weather conditions. Non built up areas are not the main priority to maintain, when it comes to poor weather and this has a negative effect on the amount of deaths. Creating a need to drive more carefully under these circumstances.

To conclude, now I have collated all of my research and have reinforced my understanding that the younger generation are a huge factor in road casualties and need communicative methods to inform them the potential danger they can create behind the wheel. 

Live brief Ideas \ YCN & RSA


Cornetto Idea / Mood Board


Cornetto seeks to indulge into the nature of love struck teens and encourages them to share this desire through the simple offering of a Cornetto. Dating apps are currently huge in the world of teenagers, I feel linking this notion to the purchase of a Cornetto will target their desires and encourage their willingness to buy and share a Cornetto.

After the purchase of a Cornetto, a code is revealed inside the wrapper. This code will be dependant of the flavour and will give you an online token to use in the app. The token will give you 20 swipes on the dating app, to all other people who also purchased the same flavour. In the app their are groups of different flavours, you can only get access to a flavour group if you buy a Cornetto of that flavour and enter in the code. In addition, the perimeters of finding a match is up to the app user. He or she has a choice of what distance they are willing to travel to meet their Cornetto match.


Think Idea / Mood Board




Think, want a conceptualised design to raise awareness for young men, communicating the dangers of drink driving, drug driving, using a mobile phone while driving and dangerous driving on country roads. I have the Idea to crate a physical design that will demonstrate an awareness message in real world and the capacity to transition into posters and social media channels, such as, short videos and interactive on screen applications. These will appear and intrigue when scrolling down news feeds.

In the style of Patrick Hughes I could create a reverse perspective illusion to create a scene that will move as you move around it. So, for example, I will create the scene of a road in reverse perspective to create a real world application for the viewer to interact with, as if they are in the drivers seat. I will create different scenarios for each reverse perspective illusion. For one, I could place a phone above the reverse perspective scene of a street and when you move above the scene the road will disappear. This will demonstrate the restricted vision of the road when using your phone, giving the viewer an indication of the danger.



Learning of Life / Mood Board (RSA)




This brief wants a design that encourages people to continue to learn throughout their lives if they are to seize and prepare for these new emerging jobs. Technology is ever improving creating new jobs and automating older jobs, people need to be educationally prepared for the modern movement of jobs. I need to create an A3 poster to communicate this notion.

I intend to create a 2D poster with a 3D aspect. This will relate to the notion that the world is no longer 2D. I will use the reverse perspective technique of Patrick Hughes to create this 3D aspect and will protrude through one of three classic research icons, a magnifying glass, binoculars or reading glasses. In the reverse perspective technique, I will include modern technological icons exuding forward from some form of expression of a technological world. Demonstrating in an illusive way that the world has a whole new scope.

Sunday 13 November 2016

Live Briefs / YCN & RSA / Interests and Initial Ideas

Cornetto (YCN)

Think (YCN)

Learning of Life (RSA)

These are the three briefs that interest me the most. For me, I think these briefs offer the opportunity to have the most fun and play with the designs. I will resarch each brief to pull it apart to and figure out what I could do to develop the company image and communicate their brief effectively.




Cornetto / YCN

Cornetto want a fresh, innovative idea to bring to life their brand purpose and idea. Their creative intention is to create a design to express a powerful act of sharing and to leverage Cornettos product essentials. This can be starting with a real world application and then further amplifying it into digital channels. The main objective is to get people to share Cornetto's in a creative and innovative way.

The primary target audience is love struck teens, however the majority of the consumers are 18-35 year olds, who are young at heart. The aim is to encourage more and more people to share love through the simple yet powerful act of sharing a Cornetto, reflecting the brand’s inclusive social purpose. An example is the 'scoop, snap, share' idea. Snap the chocolate tip, scoop some of the ice cream on top and share it with someone special. A design that will be shared and generate passionate conversations, is a strategic application Cornetto want to the design to develop.

What they want to see as a final outcome:
  • Where possible, include visual illustrations of how the product could be used for the purposes of the campaign.
  • Feel free to express your interpretation in your own unique creative style.
  • In case videos are developed, they should not exceed 60 seconds. 
  • If social posts are proposed, these could be static images, gifs or any type of digitally-friendly assets, respecting each social channel’s creative restrictions. 
  • The proposals must demonstrate a fit with the brand’s personality and any illustrations must be aligned with Cornetto’s visual identity. More details can be found in the Cornetto Brand Book – this can be found in the Project Pack 
  • The creamy and crunchy snacking credentials of the product should be clearly demonstrated in the activation to create a strong appetite appeal.
(Cornetto Brief. YCN. 2016-17)




Think / YCN

"Conceptualise, design and deliver a THINK! road safety campaign to encourage young men to drive more safely" (YCN. Think 2016-17)

This brief wants a conceptualised design to raise awareness for young men, communicating the dangers of drink driving, drug driving, using a mobile phone while driving and dangerous driving on country roads. I must conduct a piece of audience research to inform my idea, such as a focus group, survey or both. The target audience are 17-25 year olds. This age group are four times more likely to be killed or seriously injured compared with car drivers aged 25 or over. A campaign is needed to raise awareness and encourage them to drive safe.

I need to develop a communications plan to show how the campaign would be rolled out across England and Wales. They would like to see how the campaign would work on at least two media channels, this could be, social media, TV, cinema, events, radio or PR. But, particularly Intrigued in ideas that will transfer well on to social media, as part of an always on strategy.


Learning of Life / RSA

"Design an exciting new way to support, encourage or stimulate learning throughout people’s lives in the future." (RSA. Learling of Life 2016-17)

This Brief states how improvements in technology, health, demographics and lifestyles create new opportunities for work in the future. People now live for longer and more and more new jobs emerge, with new technologies making many menial jobs automated, it in-turn creates new jobs. The brief wants a design that encourages people to continue to learn throughout their lives if they are to seize and prepare for these new emerging jobs. This has to be communicated by the channel of an A3 poster and a body of A3 pages to communicate the idea about the design.

It also asks me, consider the socioeconomic changes and when creating the design. How and where will they learn. Technologies now allow a whole new spectrum for learning, as you can now easily access learning schemes online. Life long learning is increasingly becoming the norm and the design needs to illustrate this to encourage the people stuck in the block method of, learning, work and retire to evolve into the modern age.

I have to chose from one of five possible scenarios to respond to:
  •  In 2020, there will be over 5 billion internet users, with over half of them accessing the internet over handheld tablet devices. We don’t want people just to consume digital technology but accomplish more with it. How can we encourage those with good digital skills to become digitally innovative and creative? 
  • By 2050 a third of people in the UK will be over 60. Since 2000, there has been a 140% increase in over 65s running their own businesses. How can we increase digital and/or entrepreneurial skills for over 60s so they can work in – or create their own – digital jobs? 
  • Of the 6.4 million people in the UK who had not used the Internet in 2014, 5.6 million of those were aged 55 and above. How can we increase and maintain skills as we enter the later parts of our lives? 
  • 35% of UK jobs are at high risk of being automated but technology can also create new opportunities. How can we support people who have been working in the same job – but whose roles are now changing – to re-train and stay in the same industry or do something else entirely? 
  • Some people may have been doing similar roles for some time, but are not fulfilling their potential. New jobs are always emerging: app developers, data scientists and even Zumba instructors are popular jobs that have emerged in the last 10 years. How can we change the expectation for retraining and reskilling at various points throughout their life courses so people can move into new roles? 
(RSA. Learling of Life 2016-17)

Friday 11 November 2016

Pete Norris Business Lecture 5 / Economics

Today we began by discussing, every profession has its own tax exempt elements. Whatever equipment or facility you may be using has a cost and are all costs to do the job. When we start earning money, there are ways you can start to reduce your cost on what you are spending for the equipment and facilities. This is important to get an understanding of your costs, especially as a freelancer. Make sure that you get your costs right.


Finance is all about the control and flow of money. Its knowing where it goes, where it goes to, how its noted and more. Money has several definitions. First of all, it is the cash you have, it is short tern and is very fluid. Then there is the cash you have + the cash that you can get, the availability of money to an individual, e.g savings. Next there is the cash you have, the gash you can get + loan credit, this is less fluid and you have to pay back the money that you have borrowed. Finally there is loan credit. This is short term and long term, for example a mortgage or my student loan, with 25 -35 years of debt and small amounts of money flowing out to recover that debt. It was interesting to learn, if you are owning a firm and your going to run it, short term loan credit is what your after. Banks offer loan credit to agencies on a short term basis, about a years worth. So if an agency is running a project, people need to know when am I going to get paid and how quickly can they expect payment. It is usually around 30-60 days for the short term loan to take effect and enables the agency to pay their workers.

Next we learnt some basics about finance, cost and price. Cost is what you have to give to get something you want, it is not necessarily financial. It is normally described as a monetary aspect but there are always more difficult things you have to cost. This could be simply being polite to a client, even if you may not like them. Next there is price, what an item is actually sold for. Fashion items for example, cost little to make, but are sold for a high price. So if this client expects a high price, charge them. If the client says this job is going to cost £1000, charge around £1000 if that is what the client is expecting, when it's only going to cost them £100 to make the product. If you only charge £150, with £50 profit. The client may think, there is something wrong here, Im not going to get what I expect and wont buy from you. So it is important as a designer to be aware of what the market expects. As long as you can deliver the quality there is no problem and then charge appropriately.

After we covered more key pointers in finance. Profits are the difference between cost and price. Price above cost leads to better income. However, loss is is the negative difference between cost and price, with prices sitting lower than costs. Then we looked at Income, Income is money coming in, this can be cash or credit. You need to understand what your income is, because based on your income helps decide whether a bank will give you a loan or not. on the other hand, there is expenditure. This is the spending of money and the money that is going to leave. Next we looked at debt. Debt is the money that is owed to you or the money that you owe. This is connected to expenditure in a way. You have to know what money is leaving as you also have to pay the workers in the business, if you accumulate debt you cant pay these workers and they stop working and the whole plot falls apart. Finally there is credit. Credit is how much money beyond that which you have, you may use, this is often a positive element in business. I have learnt a lot from this business lecture yet again and I have learnt how important it is to plan your flow of money in the world of industry.

Pete Norris Business Lecture 4 /


First of all, we looked at buyer behaviour. It is key to us to know how buyers behave, this will give us an insight on how to create designs that hit all the correct points for the buyer. To begin the buyer behaviour design process, you have to initially recognise the need. That need triggers research and pre-purchase evaluation, accessing your memory to ask questions what worked last time and what didn't. For example, is this new car going to last me 10 years or is it going to be like the othe models you may have knowledge about, or how much better is the mac better than the PC I am using. The more complicated the product the longer the evaluation. After this phase, we move onward to the purchase and consumption phase. The consumption phase is using the product you have purchased and during this process you are evaluating how good or bad the product is. This is the post purchase evaluation lodged into your memory. Would you buy the product again, would you recommend it to a friend, was anything about the product memorable.


Next we investigated the buyer behaviour process and how it is affected by the environment. Factors include, environment, culture, social, class, family, work and ethics to name a few. what you see in advertising and how it impacts your family and friends will also have an impact upon you. Equally, memory has an impact upon the buyer behaviour process. This is impacted buy your exposure to a range of different adverts to get you to comprehend what ever is being advertised. Once you have managed to get a viewer past comprehension they will retain the information whether they accept the advert or not. If a design gets the viewer to retain the information, the design is doing its job whether they accept it or not.


With this in mind we was shown Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in a way to clarify the information we have just learnt. I was told to imagine that I was put on an island and ask myself what are the first things you will need to survive. Obviously we begin with physiological needs, such as food and water. Then we create a sense of safety by building a shelter and a form of defence. After this, you start to develop relationships, form a home and create families, developing a form of belonging. Then we start to develop esteem and status within the community, to generate a aura of power, respect and worth. Finally ending with self actualisation. Maslow states that very few people reach this level, this is priministerial level where you reach such a huge degree it begins to effect your personal values. This lead us to the 80/20 rule, which is important to know as a designer. Only 20% of people in the world want to make decisions and the other 80% are happy with having a nice income, a family, a home and content with what they have. Interestingly 20% of the people earn 80% of the income and 80% own 20% of the wealth. This is known as the Pareto principle and is an standardised statistic.


Next we discussed buyer behaviour in terms of which product they will buy. First, the buyer will access their memory and reflect on whether the product was good, bad or indifferent and then many other different experiences and outside factors influence their behaviour when it comes to buying a product. Me as a designer needs to research and have knowledge about this when advertising products to audiences with different buyer behaviours.


Finally we looked at how design and business connect. If you are designing for business there has to be a two flow way and that the business are aware of what you can do for them. When you talk to a business in this way it is important to understand that there is market issues. As a designer in industry it is important to know what is going on in the world and knowing what is happening in their markets and the direction it is going. Do this by researching their market segment issues, the real market issues and what their customers actually want. This will enable you to come up with a design that fits the business far better and brand their product to meet the consumer demand. Expanding upon this, we also have to consider the macro environment issues and the ethical and social issues, understanding the public relations. All of the public relations stuff is, damage limitation for a business. Damage limitation will always occur, big or small, it is our job to understand and know ways to reduce the impact of the damage for the business. This is investing in the local community to make sure when something goes wrong, the business has a bank of stuff they can cash in at the time and not create a bad name for the business. I have learnt a lot from this and I now understand a lot of different factors will allow you to target your design for a business in the best way possible.

Cyber-Crime Advert

Cybercrime Awarness Advert from Charlie Hamnett on Vimeo.

I have created a video advert to reinforce my Cyber-Crime illusive posters idea. It demonstrates the process of how a criminal tricks an victim and decodes their information to access their account and retrieve valuable data. I have used After Effects, working in 3D space to enter the email and enter the cybernetic path. The video also has a new inclusion of the amount of money that is taken from victims, as the type extrudes towards the screen numbers accumulate the large amounts to express the transfer of money from the victims account to the criminals. in the last type layer I have indicated the amount of money lost to cyber-crime in 2015 at £675 million (BBC, News 2015). This Number keeps rising and I have communicated that with the rising sum illustrated, using sliders to animate, in my video advert. In addition I have improved the impression of the illusive face, using after effects to reveal a different opacity up close to reinforce the idea behind my design.

Polina Zioga / Formative Assessment Feedback / 11th Nov

Today I received Feedback on my formative, contextual presentation. My strong points was layout and the content I put on the slides. My content was short and concise and created a sense of mystery for the audience, in which I explained to clarify. This helps to engage the audience and prevent them loosing track of the presentation by having to read a lot of information from the slides.

What I could improve upon is, I began to stray away from the relation to graphic design and I need  to go back a few steps and engage with this message a lot more. The question that was brought up was 'and how has graphic design impacted cyber crime' and I need to investigate this in greater detail to bring my presentations message back on track.


Polina also expressed, factors that our group as a whole was strong and weak about. She liked the content and interesting initial platforms of work to establish a research question, liked the presentation design and liked the time management of the presentations in general. In addition, Polina also noted out general points of improvement for the group as a whole. One was to make sure the presentation design is more visually engaging, do this by using the whole slide as a template, place text and images close to the edges and do not include too much text. Some times the topic subject can be too broad and needs narrowing down. Make sure the title summarises your topic and not a representation of the research question, the research question needs to be as focused as possible to guide research in a channelled direction. I  will take all of the feedback provided and use it to improve my work to get the best result I can do.