Critical Analysis - questions on critiques

What is the purpose of a critique?
A critique is given so that a designer can get design related opinions about their design, by other designers. This is so they can improve their designs and future designs.

What steps would you take to begin critiquing a design?
First you would ask yourself what you liked about the design, what you didnt like about the design, what the design reminded you of, and how you can tell the designer all this without hurting their feelings.

How do you minimise the risk of offending a designer when critiquing their work?
You do this by keeping your comments factual about the design; not offering suggestions on how to change the design but ways to improve it; and being extra extra polite and sensitive.

As a designer, what are the benefits of being able to accept critiquing of your work?
The benefits are you can see where your going wrong- if you keep doing the same bad stuff without it being critiqued- how are you to know it is bad? critiques help you to do more of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff... because you soon learn what is good and bad.

Articles...

Portfolio Design 101

• Remember quality not quantity with portfolio- quality work, quality folder, quality boards. Custom made folders are recommended.
  
• Good number of works is 12-15, but no more than 20.
• Keep graphic design stuff in one portfolio, and fine art/illustration in another.
  
• 3 types of portfolio- traditional, online and PDF

Setting Yourself Apart from Other Designers

• Know yourself- who you are, how you were raised and what you experience in your life influence your designs.
• Take risks.
• being friendly, honest, punctual, polite, and professional will set you apart from everyone else. Offer a higher level of service to your clients than everyone else does.
  
• When you do get to the top there may be a cost involved. Other people may be jealous of your success and try run you down, but this is their problem not yours.

Self-Promotion–Finding Your Theme

• Honesty with yourself is an integral part of self promotion.
  
• Dig deep and be honest, rather than using shallow, fancy designs which may not really be what you are intending to show off for self promotion.
• Personality filter- may be wise to leave out negative aspects and focus on the positive.
  
• Viewers of your work look at it and feel they know your personality from your work.
  

Procrastination - A Four-Letter Word

• Tasks that can be boring or overwhelming can lead to wanting to do something else to avoid getting it done.
  
• Instead of looking at the project as a whole (which can be overwhelming) break it up into smaller, managable chunks/goals that are easily achieved.
  
• Often smaller jobs that you need to ask help for will prevent you from being able to continue with a bigger job.
  
• Best thing to overcome these problems is to be strict with yourself, and reward yourself for when you accomplish goals you have set.
  

BSBDES501A- Implement Design Solutions

BSBDES501A- Implement Design Solutions - Nicole Walsh

Winter in Wagga Wagga report.
1. Research for this project could be undertaken by searching the internet, or in person. On the internet, you could go to the Wagga council website and the various websites that are linked; or other websites promoting Wagga, like the ones through New South Wales Tourism. These websites promote many things to do in Wagga at all times of they year- its just a matter of picking out what there is to do in the Winter months. In person would involve going to places like the council chambers and visitor information centre. At these places you can ask people about information regarding what areas you wish to cover.
2. I decided on an A4 page that is folded twice to end up as a DL size brochure. I chose this medium because it is practical, is versatile as far as storage and distribution are concerned and has the right amount of room for information and images- not enough to overwhelm but more than enough to bore the reader.
3. Resources i will need are paper sizes, printing templates, information and images.
4. factors which may impact on selection of resources can be image size and resolution, copyright on images, and reliability of information source.
5. Feedback has been positive so far- my logo had a few things that needed to be fixed up originally but with input from teacher and classmates is now fine.
6. The benefits of this process are that i could see the designs progress from its first stages- which will be useful in the future for saving time when i get similar ideas, i know what will work and what wont work.
7. My promotional piece will assist in increasing tourism numbers by showcasing the exciting things Wagga has to offer in Winter.
8. I could encourage a budget increase by pointing out the fact if there was more money spent on printing the brochures, the quantity would be higher, therefore could be distributed in more places and more people are likely to see it and visit Wagga.
9. The best way to present my design concept to my client would be to give them a print out of the brochure. Also a mockup with photos of the brochures in places where they would be on display- eg, in tourist information centres, on counters in shops, etc.

Printing quotes.
Whirlwindprint.com :
6PP DL roll
150gsm
gloss finish
full colour
QTY 5000
$974.16

Heroprint.com.au :
6PP DL roll
150gsm
gloss finish
full colour
QTY 5000
$584 (including delivery)

ICPPP224B: Produce pages using a page layout application

ICPPP224B- Produce pages using a page layout. Nicole Walsh

front cover

pg 2

pg 3

pg 4

pg 5

pg 6

pg 7

back cover

Rationale:
1. You wound need to ask the client to specify the style they want- for this particular project, Salvador Dali has a few different styles of work and the client may need to specify which particular movement they wanted the booklet to follow.
2. You could save wasting time by getting as much information out of the client as you can when you brief them at the beginning. By chosing colours, images, styles and possibly fonts they like, this would save them wanting you to change things later on.
3. Research for this project would be taken out by searching online or in books for Salvador Dali and his artworks. Being the famous artist and eccentric person he was, there is a lot to be found. The things you could search for include artworks, involvement in different art movements, quotes, political statements, biographies, museums and exhibitions.
4. Suggestions i would offer: be more specific with what information they wanted in the booklet- if they want a biographical approach or more of a factual account of the artist’s paintings. - Specify a budget they are planning on sticking to. -Specify their choice of stock, and weather they would like the cover a different stock to the rest of the booklet.
5. Limitations you would come across would most likely just be with the images- getting big enough images to be of print resolution may be an issue if you are sourcing images from the internet. Also copyright could be an issue in some cases.
6. Setting the document up in InDesign allows you to place elements and still have the option of editing them in other programs, without too much drama. You can also have styles set for paragraphs, characters and objects which can be edited to suit the style of the document. The text options are good also- including placement of text boxes and text wrap.
7. For the printer i have chosen, www.readysteadyprint.com.au, i will need to set up my file as CMYK, have already spell checked the text, fold and crop marks are clearly specified, at least 2mm bleed and fonts need to be supplied or converted to curves/ outlines. Issues which may uccur could be placing the pages in the wrong order and they will end up printing wrong. other problems might arise if there are any steps left out of the preflight checklist which may prolong printing due to errors with colours, fonts or images.

Printing Quotes
Whirlwind Print (www.whirlwindprint.com)
150 gsm
matt finish
QTY 1000
$1432.08

Specs: Has to be PDF; 5mm internal and 5mm external bleed on booklets; 300 DPI; CMYK; clear but short file names (eg NL_BOOK.PDF); colour maximum 300% for coated stock, 260% for uncoated stock; outline or embed fonts.

Ready Steady Print (www.readysteadyprint.com.au)
150 gsm
matt finish
QTY 1000
$1071.00

Specs: Do spellcheck; has to be correct size for product ordered; CMYK; 2mm bleed on all edges; text to be outlined or made into curves.

I would chose to go with Ready Steady Print because they are cheaper. Although Whirlwind are more specific with their requirements, they are not instantly recognisable as an Australian company like Ready Steady Print is, which i feel is important.

Brochure from Website

Motel Project

List of things wrong with information given, and solutions to each problem:

Problems:

- photos poor quality.

- Spelling mistakes.

- Too many photos for a DL flier.

Solutions:

- ask if client has other photos that are better quality, if not, offer to take photos yourself (at an extra cost)

- Offer to fix mistakes at an extra cost.

- Ask client to narrow selection of photos down to a limited amount set by you.

Email sent to client explaining problems and offering solutions:

Dear Mrs Greentree,

Thank you for supplying the information and photographs for your flier. I have unfortunately run into some issues and I need some input from you.

The photos you have provided are of unworkable quality, and I am unable to use them. Perhaps you have the same photos that are larger in size and higher resolution that I may be able to use? If not I could provide a photography service to you.

I have also notices a few spelling mistakes, I could fix them for you if you agree with my findings.
Also, there are quite a few photographs you have chosen to use, and given the amount of text there will be no need for at least half of them. Perhaps you could chose the ones you would most like on the flier and not worry about the rest.

These extra services i can provide for you will come at a small cost, which we could discuss later.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Regards, Nicole Walsh, 123 Design Agency.

Intellectual Property questions

1. What is intellectual property and is it the same as copyright?

Intellectual property is a term which covers several areas of the law regarding the creation of an item; and is different to copyright because copyright falls under the category of intellectual property along with others such as moral rights and trademarks.

2. How would you register your design for copyright and how much would it cost?

There is no need to register a design for copyright because it is automatically covered when a design is created. There are no costs involved. Where copyright is free and automatic - you need to register and pay for trademarks and patents.

3. I have an idea about a logo design, is it covered by copyright?

An idea isn’t covered by copyright until it is actually made, going from an idea to a design.

4. What is the name of the federal legislation covering copyright law in Australia?

The Act which covers copyright in Australia is the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth).

5. What does Copyright protect?

Copyright protects artistic, dramatic and musical works (including compilations and sound recordings), films, publications, text material, and computer programs.

6. What is the Copyright notice and its purpose?

The copyright notice - © - is the symbol which is used to let people know that a piece of work has a copyright owner. An example of its use would be- ©Nicole Walsh 2011.

7. What evidence could you provide to a court to prove you’re the copyright owner of a logo you’ve designed?

When designing a logo you would need to keep the original sketches or files that show working from the beginning (an idea) to the end finished product.

8. If an artwork appears in an Art Gallery, does the Gallery own copyright for that item?

No they don’t, they only own a licence to use the artwork.

9. If I’m employed by a company as their in-house graphic designer, who would generally own the copyright?

The company would own the copyright of the works you produce for them.

10. If I’m working as a freelance Graphic Designer and create a logo for a company, who would generally own the copyright for the logo?

You would generally own the copyright of the logo, unless the contract you both sign stipulates the copyright belongs to the client.

11. How much of an artistic work can I safely use without infringing on copyright?

You can use a little bit as long as it isn’t a majorly recognisable element of the design, or an important part of the design. It is never a good idea to use copyrighted material without permission anyway.

12. If you’ve done everything in your power to identify the copyright owner but they won’t contact you back, is it ok to use the work without permission as long as you use a ‘good faith notice’ stating you were unable to contact them?

‘Good faith notices’ do not count for much because if you use the work you are still breaching copyright, so it is not particularly a good idea to go ahead and use it without knowing for sure.

13. Who is VISCOPY and what might they come in handy for?

VISCOPY (the Visual Arts Copyright Collecting Society) are a rights management organisation who represent Australian and New Zealand visual artists. They can come in handy if you come across an artwork you want to use and are unsure if the artwork is copyrighted.

14. What are moral rights?

Moral rights are the creators rights, weather or not they own the copyright. These rights allow them to challenge the copyright owner if they believe they have changed or misused a design of theirs.

15. How would you go about obtaining copyright clearance for an artwork you want to use that you’ve found on the internet?

You could contact the web host, or the owner of the site, to find out who owns the copyright of the artwork. If that doesn’t work you can contact associations such as VISCOPY, Aboriginal Artists Agency, Australian Commercial and Media Photographers, AGDA, Craft Australia, Australian Institute of Professional Photography and NAVA. These associations may be aware of the art you are trying to use and know who to contact to get permission.

16. What is a Trademark and how do you register one?

A trademark is something you can register (a logo, image, smell, etc) which your business uses that is an integral part of your identity. You register one by going to www.ipaustralia.gov.au and paying a fee.

17. What does a Patent protect?

Patents protect invention methods, techniques and processes, as long as the invention is new, innovative, and is useful.

18. Define Defamation.

Defamation is when someone’s reputation has been tarnished by the actions (including designs and photographs) of someone else.

various indesign excercises

Pumpkin Patch Catalogue