Development of Final Hoardings

This is one of the layouts for the hording boards. Firstly, I think that I need a small separation between each image. There needs to be some lightness to separate the high contrast images. I like the fact that I am using similar hues in each of the photos for the backgrounds. However, perhaps I should consider making the blossoming flowers a similar colour, for instance a board with lilac, a board with white, a board with yellow etc. 

This board I am developing with red blossom and buds. I like the contrast in the right images and the overall colours are warm and inviting. I really like the concept of the image on the left. It was a small flower that was growing out of the side of a tree stump. The issue that I have with it is that the tree stump is a cold colour and so does not correspond with the warm inviting colours of the other images in the boards. I have tried editing the levels and hue and saturation but the tree stump was grey and without forcing the issue (and this will result in an image that will look like it has been edited rather than a natural image) it cannot be used and needs replacing. 

I am finding it very difficult to create the same hues in the backgrounds so the images are looking disjointed and not like a set. Perhaps though the differing background colours can be used to my advantage. I am going to try a set of boards where I make the background colours of the flowers the same hues and the blossom/buds themselves different colours. 

I need to come up with a way of presenting these images in an interesting way. There are 3 ways that I Could tackle these hoardings. I could reflect the building that is being built itself and show stuff about what goes on at Uni. I think this is far too cleche. I could reflect the surrounding area and the beautiful place that the building will be situated, or I could do something completely abstract and takes colours etc from the flowers that I have photographed but do something that looks aesthetically amazing. I want to produce an outcome that both reflects the surroundings of the building and nature of the place but also something that is rather abstract in appearance and looks visually interesting and dynamic. I have decided that the tag phrase ‘Let your future blossom’ does not need to be anywhere on the boards. Bath spa already have a slogan and that has its own connotations, I think that creating another would not be accepted by the uni. Instead, I will just suggest my phrase through the images that I am using and the way that they are used, I do not think that I need to spell out my message. 

In photoshop I have created two documents which contain all of my photos. This way, I can view them together and decide which photos work well next to each other.  I want to heavily experiment with composition of the boards. I want a really interesting asymmetric design and an interesting way to stitch the photos together.

Here, I have started to think about what images work well together. I have selected similar coloured backgrounds to images. I think that The right three images work well together as the images are strong and the colours are vibrant. I am not sure about the left image as it is not as interesting in composition or subject matter. 

This is definitely getting somewhere. I actually think that the different coloured backgrounds will work now that I have started experimenting with the images and playing around with composition and scale of flowers more. I quite like making these flowers more abstract focusing on the smaller details of the flowers. Also, I think that the strong vertical composition is strong. At the moment, the left image is affecting the overall feel of the board because the flower is at a slight angle. I am going to change this and also alter the scale of this flower so that it is focused more on the blossoming stem. 

This is definitely the way to go, but at the moment I have just stuck four together. I need to experiment with a more complex composition now. 

This is me experimenting with layering over smaller more abstract strips of flowers. Perhaps I could create these strips into much more complicated designs and alter the hues so that they work beautifully together?

I am further experimenting with how I can use the thin strips here, but it has actually just given me inspiration in how I could potentially create more interesting flowers. Perhaps if I segment the flowers so that they are in strips and then rearrange them so that they create more interesting compositions?

I have sliced the 4 main images into random width strips. Now I am going to experiment with composition and layout. I will try disjointing them and also laying them out in a completely different composition. 

This is derinately getting much better. I think that the composition could be more abstract, but overall it is more of a desired effect. The strips create a visually interesting and dynamic composition. It is no longer just pretty images of flowers, it says more. It is more like artwork and is more visually and mentally stimulating. 

I am going to try this again, this time I have more carefully cropped the flowers and I have changed the blossom image on the right so that the blossom is more in focus in the foreground. The previous image that I used was slightly out of focus in the foreground and so the blossom behind the foreground blossom was in focus. This gave a weird depth of field, but this new image rectifies this. I love the bukah in the background of all of these images, it makes the flowers stand out so much. I have used apertures from 4 to as wide as 1.8 to achieve this. 

I much prefer this. I have disjointed the flowers slightly and now I am just editing slightly each strip so that it looks like it has been taken at different times and even with different cameras perhaps. I really like the photo montage effect. 

To do this, I am editing curves and the levels of strips just so that I get a little bit more definition in each of the strips. This is also creating an image that does not look accidental in its montage creation. 

This is looking really interesting and a lot more purposeful in the disjointing. I have edited the strips quite heavily so that I have quite a of level variance on each of the strips. I don’t know if this is too much, but if I decide that it is then I will just revert back to how I had it in previous attempts. 

Here I tried layering another image behind these, and then deleting the segments to show the larger image through. 

Here I have completely changed the hues in each strip of the image to really play about with colour and disjointed imagery. I think that this is looking rather interesting. Some of the strips are in sepia, some in black and white, and some have had increased yellow or blue hues etc. I think that this is looking really quite interesting. 

Here I have also experimented with horizontal effects that overlap over the vertical sections of image. I think that it looks quite interesting, but I think that it is starting to look too much like a checkerboard. I will experiment with trying to tone this effect down a little so that the horizontal strips do not effect the hues of the image as much, but I think the most effective attempt so far is the previous. 

I have added a slight red hue to this image and now the colours look a lot richer, more consistant and it has added an interested texture to the overall image that I really like. I think that this would look stunning if it was enlarged to 2.4 by 2 meters. I think that the texture that would be created on the edges of colour will give the image a softness and delicateness which I am after. 

This is the next set of images that I am going to work with to try and come up with a board. I think to be honest I actually prefer the board when I do not have the sepia parts of the image and where I just slightly change the hues of the colour. It just makes the images look a little more sophisticated, though I will develop the idea further. 

This is the newest board that I am developing. I quite like the colours in it and the way that I have divided up the images. Again they are heavily disjointed. With this one, I am going to experiment with changing the hues slightly and also changing them heavily like before. I quite like it how it is here too. In the end I want 3 sets of boards that I can place next to each other so that I can see which set works better. 

This is another board layout design. I quite like the heavy distortion in the strips that I have created out of the flower images. I have disjointed them more than in previous images. I have also slightly altered some of the levels of the strips so that they have more of an interesting colour range. 

I am really looking forward to segmenting this image, I think there are some strong aspects in here, such as the far left image. The light is strong, and generally it is a happy image that shows beauty. Also, it has an interesting dynamic composition. The 3rd image from the left is particularly wide and really breaks up the otherwise fairly consistent rhythm of the composition which I like and is what I am looking to achieve. 

This is definitely more dynamic than any other that I have completed so far. Each strip varies in width more dramatically than in previous examples. I think I prefer it like this. 

These four images focus on a central flower shape and have reds and greens as the colours. I think that they will work well together when I come to put them into a composition for a board. 

I have replaced the left image with something that has a stronger vertical presence. In this left image, all of the focus is on the centre vertical. Also, the image is generally a more interesting construction and composition. 

These images look quite amazing in sepia, but I am not sure that it is the effect that I am after. It looks like I am tying to reflect age, and I am in fact reflecting the future. The wrong message would be sent out here. Still, they are very beautiful pieces of work. 

This is my atttempt for this piece with different hues and using sepia for some of the strips of design. I think that it definitely needs work. At the moment it is a little bit complicated and not working as a whole image. I think that I need to simplify it by perhaps not having the sepia panels or very carefully study the colour scheme of each different flower. 

This is definitely looking more interesting. I really like colourising the whole image and then altering the levels. I think this is a much more striking image that looks visually more interesting and dynamic. 

Stripping back

I have gone back to basics with this image. I have not colourised any of the strips of flower. Instead, I have just edited the levels of each and slightly altered some of the hues so that there is an overall slight red hue. I think this works much better than the colourised panels, I was loosing the beauty of the flowers and I think that the colour is particularly important in these designs. It seems pointless to spend so long working out which images colours work well together and then colourising the whole image. 

I have the 6 panels here laid out. I do think they work effectively, but at the moment there is a little bit of consistency in style and layout going on which I think that I need to perhaps edit. I have chosen the flower images through the background colour of the images and the colours of the flowers. I am not sure if the way that I have worked the colour of the flowers is consistent enough. Are the compositions interesting enough? I like the way that the images have been sliced and then disjointed. Before I decide upon this as a final layout idea, I want to experiment further with ways of combining these flowers into boards. 

I think that the detail in the focused areas are working really well. Actually, this close crop is particularly interesting. Maybe this is a solution on how to make these works more abstract and ultimately more interesting to look at. Maybe crops should be closer on images. I am going to experiment with this, as there is a lot of interesting detail in my images that I would love to highlight more. Also, something that is almost completely abstract will be more interesting.

This is starting to get very interesting. The layout is far more asymmetrical and interesting to look at. You focus more on particular areas and overall I think the composition is stronger, the colours more vivid and intruging and the detail highlighted more. 

Again, I think the close crop on this image is more interesting than the full image before. 

I really like the crop on this image, it is just so interesting. The focus point on the right flower is rather interesting, it is out of focus slightly on the actual bud of the flower, but then in focus on the wet branch below it and the bud that bleeds off the edge in the top left corner. It is a really interesting image that I am quite happy with. 

I have come up with a new idea. Perhaps, I should let there be an essence of randomness to the composition of the close crops of these images. I have laid the 6 boards out in an interesting way and so that there is great colour variance in neighbouring images. Now, I am going to create a selection area and crop going along the image. I want to see what results that I get from this. 

This is the layout of the initial attempt at this idea. I think it really looks effective and definitely is the way that I intended the images to look. In total here, 13 boards have been produced from just the 6 originals because of the closer crop. I think the running image brings all of the boards together and makes them look like a consistant set, but there is enough varience in composition and layout to make all of the boards look visually interesting and dynamic. Because of the very close crop on my original images the photos are looking rather textured, but I am going to embrace this. I may even add a texture filter to get a consistant grain. I think this will add to the overall effect of the boards. 

The first image section is looking a little bit too vibrant in colour compared to the rest of the images. I am going to add a layer effect and overlay to try and dim down the contrast slightly.

How that I corrected this in the end was simply editing the contrast slightly in the selected area of vivid colour. Now it is more consistent in contrast with the other images. 

I have edited the images so that they have a grain on them. I really like this effect, it makes the distortion of the images look more purposeful. I played around with the amount of grain until this was the result. 

The grain is difficult to see on an overview of the whole board, but the board is going to be 2.44 meters by 2 meters in size so any detail such as texture will be very easy to see. 

I have just done some test prints, and I have found out that my photos do not have enough contrast and generally do not have the right quality on matt paper. Also, my screen is slightly out and colours are not matching correctly to print. Therefore, after tests, I have come up with an editing process for each picture to get a desired quality that consists of changing the hue by +3, the saturation by -4 and the lightness by +16. All of the colours were coming out very dark and fairly highly saturated and I want a more subtle approach to the images. The grain is printing well however. The grain gives the images a desired overall texture which I am happy with. 

Visit to Newton Park Campus

Although I have visited Newton Park before, I figure that it will do me well to come up with ideas for hoardings that suit the environment that they are placed in if I actually visit the place they will be erected. I also found the current hoardings that have been erected because of a new building that is being constructed. The brief suggested that the hoardings that I am designing for will be similar in style to these.

These are the hoardings. I really dislike the design of these currently. They are hideously corporate and you can tell that stock photography has been used. They could be erected anywhere and advertise any university because they are such general statements. There is nothing unique to them that describe Bath. This is why I feel that I need something completely different and unique for the hoardings that is specific in design to the campus and Bath Spa University. This is probably why the competition is open to students and they are not getting a design agency in to complete the task, because above is the result. I need to give them what they want, designs that are completely different and more arty. 

This is the location of Newton Park campus. Instantly, you can see the importance of the grounds of the university. The University are very proud of the land that the Uni is situated in. There are 3 ways that I can take this project. I could represent what happens inside university. I could represent Bath itself or I could do something entirely abstract. I think I want to combine the last two. I want to do something that represents Bath and the grounds and the beauty of the place that the Uni is situated but I also want to produce something that is slightly abstract and only suggests my concept or message. 

This image of a dafodil that I have taken has one of the university main buildings in the background. This image has given me inspiration for a new idea. I like the strong vertical flower in the image. I also like the fact that the flower was taken on the grounds of the University. The University grounds are beautiful, they are kept very well and generally flowers and wildlife are very important. I think that I want to take photos of flowers or trees in Bath, paying particular attention to vertical compositions. It is spring at the moment. It would be good to take photos of blossom and buds. These are both symbols of growth and blooming life. I could have a message such as:

'Bath Spa University- the natural choice for students'

Bath Spa University- Let your future blossom'

I particularly like the last idea, and this is how my idea is going to develop. I am going to go to the botanical gardens in Bath and take photos of blossom and buds and develop the concept and idea from this research.