REVIEW OF PROJECT

1. Briefly describe the final outcome of your project and the progress you have made, and if applicable how it differs from your original Project Proposal:

The final outcome of my project is a website about wearable technology. Within the website, I have one videos, two features and two images that are part of the features. In addition, I have links to social medias related to the website, an Amazon widget that shows wearable technology products as well as books that are available on Amazon. I also included links to other webpages that talk about wearable technology

The part that differs from my original project is that initially, I had a plan of printing a 3D dress for a photoshoot or video. That wasn’t possible in the end because the planning, development and printing of a 3D dress would be very long and expensive due to the amount of details and the materials needed.

2. What methods have you used to show how your learning has effected your project eg FMP Blog/ FMP Plan/ sketchbooks etc, and how has this helped with development of your work:

I mainly used my sketchbooks to record my physical work like, notes, images, interviews and objects I acquire during the process. I used my blog to record what I’ve done , how and what else needed to be done. It was quite useful, because my theme is very technical and large, so keeping track of the details was very important. By doing that, I could have a clear view of my ideas and how I wanted my final outcome to be. I used my FMP plan a lot at the beginning of the project to follow my plan and keep me organised and up to date. But as my project went on, some changes happened, so keeping track through a blog and sketchbooks was more helpful.

3. List the targets met (from the original FMP Plan and any that were added later):

Website.
Features.
Images
Videos.

4. Reflecting on your overall final major project, please discuss any developments which have contributed to the final outcome:

Definitely doing interviews with professionals and going to events helped me a lot with my final outcome as well as reading different media sources and understanding how they talk. It made me better at writing about it and working on it.

5. Please state what advice you received from others during your FMP, and discuss what you found particularly useful: you should refer to group reviews, one-to-one tutorials and feedback from evaluation groups

I’ve received quite a lot of advice during my project, from all my tutors and colleagues. One-to-one tutorials were a lot more helpful in terms of explaining my theme and how I wanted things to look like. I got good advice about expanding my research on layouts, logos and the visuals of the page, some fashion layouts might not adjust well for technology and vice versa. That made my website more authentic. I also got advice about my readership and how they would react to my page and my content.

That was important to me to see how I could improve and always think about my users and their experience when visiting my website.

6. Key points to take away – things to change about my approach (give at least 2) eg improve time management, what skills you have developed and how this will affect your future course/career and things to continue doing and to build on (give at least 2). What are you going to do next year? (NOTE – you may find it useful to refer to this document at the beginning of your next self managed project.)

1) Things to change about my approach:

• Improve my time management

• Avoid trying not to be overload with work and focus on the main thing.I tend to try a do loads of stuff at the same time and it’s confusing.

2) What skills you have developed and how this will affect your future course/career and things to continue doing and to build on.

• I learned a lot about web design and graphic design and how to create a website properly. That will add to my skills, because now I know how to make a real live webpage, so I can even follow a web design path if I could.

• I will definitely continuing studying web design and graphic design and ux design. I intent to continuing my website about wearables as well as my research on the matter.

3) What are you going to do next year?

• I will find a job either in fashion or design areas as well as continuing my studies on Graphic Design, Web Design and UX Design. I truly became very passionate about these areas and I tend to apply them to my fashion skills. I plan to be good enough to freelance someday.

• I will continuing developing my website and working to turn it into a proper source of information.

FINAL OUTCOME - WEBSITE

>> SEAMDE <<

So now I finished my project, my website is complete, I have 5 categories, a slideshow, a sidebar, a footer and a couple of widgets. Also, I created a Facebook page and a Twitter page so the readers could have access to other links. I'm quite proud that I managed to create a website, even though parts are not as I initially planned but it was a good process and I learned a lot. I'll continuing working on this website in the future, I'll continue to developed and work harder, specially on the parts that are not as I wanted to be. 

FINAL OUTCOME - IMAGES

- SOCIAL MEDIA

To go with the website I've created a Facebook page and a Twitter as well. The reason I did that it's because I'll use the feeds to share links from other sources - fashion, technology and "neutral" - so you can have one only source of everything. Twitter and Facebook are the main ones so initially they are the first option. I have a plan of adding a Pinterest and an Instagram accounts later on. 

>> Facebook Page <<

>>Twitter<<

I used the same image for both to create an "identity" and the same profile image to create a brand, so if you go to the Twitter page you will know this is SEAMDE and same feeling for the Facebook. My plan is to RT content from Twitter on Twitter and do the same with Facebook. I'll also have different sources as well. In the end it will be a bit hard to have two different contents, but I'll try not to repeat the same things everywhere. Or showing in different ways.

2) EDITING - WEBSITE

- Click on the link -  

>> SEAMDE <<

I had a problem with the website, I had all the plans to create the website myself and even started the coding process on Dreamweaver. But I wanted my categories to link to every single feature I had on the website, that's when things became confusing. So I went to Ravensbourne and I tried to find a teacher that knew how to use Dreamweaver to help me, I found a teacher and explained to him my problem and that I had the option to create with Wordpress but that I was saving this option to the last. So after a hour talk he suggested me to go to Wordpress because I would need to create a template page and add PHP to it, but I don't know PHP yet and I didn't have hours available to watch PHP on lynda.com. So I had to take my desperate measure and create my website with Wordpress. I bought a Premium Theme, a domain, a custom domain and changed it as I pleased, it was a lot faster, specially because I knew how to use it. But I won't be defeated and I'll learn PHP in the future. 

I picked the theme Zuki because is a flexible layout and adaptable to other devices, something I was particularly interested when creating my design. Then I changed the logo, the navigation bar, and created pages for the event and a front page so every feature with a particular tag could be add to that. 

After that was adding the content, the images and the text. I created a "welcome" feature where I talked about the website and what the mission is and what we thing about wearable technology, etc. Adding the image with the hands together and the collage. The collage is the main image, as soon as you open the website, that is the first feature you see. Then following to the event page, you have an image with the name of the event and the date, if you click on the image it will take you straight to the eventbrite's page. 

This is the homepage, with the logo, navigation bar and full-width slideshow with the main articles. This theme allows me to put quotes, a sidebar and smaller articles under the slideshow, which is good because I can play around with the content and how I display it. On the sidebar I'm putting a Twitter feed, a Facebook page and Amazon widget. Occasionally a quote about something. 

This is the events page. Big pink squares with the name and the date on the side. The order is chronological and if you click on the image it goes straight to the Eventbrite's page of that particular event. I will test having smaller squares with the name and date. I put big because of the names. But I can do something about it. Having the main information and then the link. 

This is the feature page, an image on the top with a big heading and the author right down below, and then the feature. On the bottom we have date, the categories and tags. Below that we have a "related" widget with some other posts that might be interesting and share buttons. 

The footer is all about quick information so when you go to the bottom of the website you don't have to go all the way to the top to check the navigation bar for example. Here I also put recent posts, a quick list of events happening during the current month so you don't have to go to the events page if you reach this part of the page, a menu and links to other good websites about wearable technology. 

1) EDITING IMAGES

For the images, I wanted to give the idea of collaboration, partnership and coming together. So in my head, what's the best to express that than two hands shaking? When you shake some else's hand you agree with them, you talk to them and you create a bond. You don't shake hands to fight with someone. So I developed a theme that two hands shaking, one represents the fashion hand wearing gold rings and a bracelet (one or more) and a technology hand wearing silver rings and a Jawbone. They shake and hold each other. 

I used Lightroom and Photoshop to edit the images. With Lightroom I edited the Exposure, highlights and blacks. I tried not to but loads of contrast and took the saturation down a little bit. I like to use Lightroom to work on the single image and then put into Photoshop to clean the rest. I cleaned all the images I did and picked the best ones, some of them were very dark or after I edited it looked edited. I like to have the images to look natural even though they are not.

I started with this one because I thought it truly meant union and coming together, collaboration. I liked that the background was already white, so cleaning would not be a problem. My first step was cleaning every disturbance around the hands, cleaning some paper marks or shadow caused by them. Being really careful not to cut anything that I shouldn't. 

This one in particular I liked how the hands are and that you can see every single detail of the hand and the jewellery. I wanted to use this image as the main image of the social media profiles. Until I worked a better picture, that is. But I thought this expressed everything that my website is about. Two hands coming together and making the difference. I'm not so sure if people will understand that one hand is fashion and the other is technology, but even though they don't get it, it's an image that relates to the concept of the website. 

This image was different, even though it's a handshake and it expresses quite the same thing, it's not as strong as the first one. I did the same thing with this one, I cleaned the background and cleaned everything around the hands. But this picture was a bit harder then the first one because there was a shadow around the hands, so I was really careful not to cut part of the hand that I shouldn't. The image was crisp and you can see the details but the concept was not effective I think. 

After deciding the image I wanted to use, it was time for me to do some collages and retouching. I started by putting the hands in sequence together and then multiplying them and putting them face to face. So it could create a form, a form of a seam. As if the hands were coming out of each other again and again. The pink background wasn't a first option, but it happened during the experiment. I was initially thinking about having a white background,but it looked a bit boring and simple. So I added pink and I instantly liked. It was a colour that matched the orange of the Jawbone as well as the blue of the other bracelet. 

I've decided to use them as images for my features on the website and as profile pictures for the social media links.

WEEK 8

I've done my videos, images and decided which prototype I'm going to use. So week 8 is all about editing, writing my features and putting everything together into my website so everything can be organised nicely. Now it's time to finalise the website, create the pages and get the events happening in the near future. Creating the social media links and using it, following the right people and sharing the main information. 

1) Features

2) Images 

3) Website