Animation Portfolio Production - The Art Institute of Las Vegas: Winter 2007

Animation Portfolio Production

Downloads
• Syllabus

Week 8 :: Homestretch - Finalize Your Sites
Your websites are due at the beginning of class during week 10. Please follow the parameters below and use it as a checklist for what you will be graded on. Be sure to test your website and make sure all the buttons work.

Please read the final note below.

Design (50 points)

• Balance and Composition (10 points): Does your site feel like a cohesive whole? Is it appealing and Inviting? Do the level 2 pages look related to the homepage?

• Color Harmony (10 points): Are you using colors that are harmonized with one another, and do they set the tone of your site?

• Alignment (10 points): Are you using a grid for a clear professional presentation. Do you have a sense of form to your design.

• Useability (10 points): Can we view your entire portfolio? A minimum of ten images should be viewable. Do your buttons work?

• Font Selection / Readability (10 points): Is your site readable, are you sticking to readable fonts? Are your fonts of the same family for site continuity.

======================================

Overall Look and Feel / Professionalism / Execution (10 points)
How effective is your site as a whole? Does it do the job? Does it communicate your best work? Does it communicate a professional business sense? Are you showing good works of art, or are you merely showing filler work. If you are not sure, please check in.

======================================

Deadline (20 points)
• Week 10 deadline: Is your site ready for viewing by the week 9 deadline?

======================================

Demo Reel (5 points)
Is your demo reel connected and ready for viewing? I understand that you need server space for this. Show me locally on your computer what happens when we click your demo reel link. I will be looking to see how your demo reel will be displayed within the context of your site.

======================================

URL & Server Space (5 points)
The Ai site is fine for now. However, you should think about having server space and your own URL. If you are using a free hosting site and banner ads are served on the pages, please have your site availabe for viewing locally on your desktop. Demonstrate that you are able to connect and update your site as needed.

FINAL WORD
Please note that I will be sticking to the NO SITE - NO PASS policy established in our syllabus. This means that your site is professional and ready for presentation. No skeleton sites or incomplete sites will be allowed to pass. If you have any questions or concerns, please see me for direction and possible options.

Week 7: Site Checkpoint
By this point, we should be able to navigate your entire site. From your homepage, we should be able to see details of all of your images, the profile page, demo reel page, contact page, and or blog page.

Next week, we will be testing to make sure everything works, be sure all the links from your homepage is connected and working.

We will be connecting our demo reels when we meet this week. Please have a small movie file ready to use as a placeholder if you demo reel is not yet complete.

Week 6: Connecting Everything Together
This week, you should work to have 90% of your site connected. You should be on a server, you should have your URL pointed to your server, and that you know how to connect to it for editing purposes. For Homework, connect the large images for each of your Gallery stills.

TOPICS COVERED THIS WEEK:
• Monster House DVD (MOCAP Featurette, sculpting and rig connecting).
• Putting Quicktimes on an HTML page.
• Individual Checkpoints

LINKS to Expand your Learning:
• An animation portfolio featuring various works by animator Manu Jarvinen.
http://users.evtek.fi/~manuj/maxonWEB-PHP/01_ANIMATION.html

• The Brad Byrd interview on ABC news, in case you missed it. Enjoy!
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2889098

Week 5: MIDTERM.
This week, you should have a good idea for how your site will look. I will meet with each of you regarding the direction of your site. Be prepared to share your site design via photoshop file, so we can make adjustments and tighten the overall look and feel.

DEMO REEL SIZE: To show your demo reel online, save it as a quicktime file, (MPG-4), and strive to have your reel to be under 15 MB.

HOMEWORK:
Design the next level of HTML pages. These are the ones that link directly from the homepage. For many of you, all you have to design is a template. These pages should look very similar to one another. Have all of these ready by next week. By the end of class next week, all of the images shall be embedded on to HTML pages, and linked together.

Week 4: Placing Images and Linking HTML pages.
This week, we placed images on HTML pages and we linked them in order to open up other HTML pages, pictures or other websites. We also learned how to connect to your webserver using Dreamweaver.

HOMEWORK:
Show me that you can connect to your site, that you have a homepage design and that your URL is pointed to your server.

This will be your midterm grade.

Week 3: Graphic Design Crash Course
This week, we learned the importance of marketing. Remember that it doesn't matter how nice a product you have, it nobody knows about it, if its not attractive and or if people don't get it, your site is not going to be successful.

Countless usability studies have shown that people are more inclined to interact with objectss that are aesthetically pleasing. This applies to your site. Make it aesthetically pleasing and give it a sense of visual form by using the all imporant "design grid".

Below is a link highlighting good practices for basic site design. Its not very long, but is good information to know as you begin to design yoru sites.
http://webstyleguide.com/page/grids.html

A designer you might be interested in is the work of Paul Rand. He designed the logos below, review this page to learn some of the concepts regarding his designs, and see if you can apply it to your site as well. Click the image to learn more.

Topics covered this week:
Please see the handout for the design essentials regarding your site.

1) Make sure your design has a single focal point.
2) Establish a visual heriarchy by establishing the three below:
• Dominant • Subdominant • Subordinate
3) Achieve harmony to your site by repetition. Repeat colors, font styles or visual elements.
4) Use a grid to help take the guess work out of where to place type and images.
5) Typography: Which one are you : Sans Serif or Serif?
6) Use contrast to make items readable.

HOMEWORK:
This homework is meant to keep you on track. Complete this now, so that you don't work on this at the same time you are completing your demo reel.

1) Design 3 different homepages for your site, incorporating your money shot. Start with one of your sites that has inspired you. Make a thumnail sketch of it. Open up an 800 x 600 Photoshop file, establish a 4 or 5 column grid and get to work. Begin with the placement of your money shot first.

2) Design a Level One page (The next page that people view after viewing the homepage.)

3) Work on activating your URL and linking to your site (This will be part of your midterm grade).

Week 2: Checkpoint 1 / Hunting & Gathering
To keep you on track, please work to have the following ready. We will be creating Web Galleries in Photoshop today.

1) 10 - 20 images of your best work.
2) Your money shot image / homepage image.
3) Printed logo design or name treatment.
4) 3 websites that you will use as a guideline for styling.
5) URL and Server space.

NEXT WEEK:
Graphic Design crash course. We will be covering the following topics, please come to class on this day, because the visual standards by which I will be using to evaluate your sites will be discussed.

1) Formal Design Process
2) Focal Point and Visual Heirarchy
3) Utilizing the grid.
4) Font Selection
5) Website usability & best practices.

Week 1: Welcome
Today, we discussed the importance of having an online portfolio. It is an important marketing tool that anyone, especially potential employers have access in seeing, so it must be presented clearly and effectively. There are many ways to create this, but it all starts with what your goal or objective.

This week, before any kind of designing, we will be hunting and gathering. Research websites that you like, take screenshots and put this in a folder. Take notes as to what you would like your portfolio to show and do.

In class we covered great examples of portfolios. If you are working on your reel at the same time, do yourself a favor and keep your site simple. I'ld rather have you be able to put something up on the internet that is clean and simple than having something too difficult to complete.

I will be consulting with all of you regarding your findings. Next week, we will be designing your homepages and your site architecture.

TOPICS COVERED IN CLASS:
• Course Overview
• Preferred site design and the importance of communicating to your audience.
• Navigation Breakdown: Gallery(this could be broken down), Profile(Bio), Contact, Resume*, Links* ( *Although these are optional).
• Importance of research.
• Think of your portfolio as a fancy gourmet dinner plate. Your work is the main course. Your plate and garnish make the food look nice. Your website is like the plate and garnish.
• Having a logo.
• I just came across this portfolio from my MFA class...very simple.
http://www.1stavemachine.com/

• Another great place to look for sites is coolhomepages.com. This is usually the first place I start before I begin the site design process.
http://www.coolhomepages.com/

HOMEWORK

1) Reseach 30 websites that you like (you can start with the links page on this site). Flag 7 of them that you could use to help you design your site. Of the 7, choose 3 that will serve as your template for your final design and be prepared to explain why. Copy these URLS and paste them into a Word doc.

If you have a site already, be prepared to share what you have in mind in regards to your design and inform me of where you are. If you have a design already, be prepared for constructive criticism that will make it better. Also be ready to justify why you've designed your site in this way.

If you are new, be sure to secure URL's for yourself. Like www.yourname.com. the best place to check for this is www.godaddy.com. Work on this now. You will need to secure a URL and Server Space by the midterm.

2) Bring 10 images of your work.
Please size them to fit within an 800 x 600. We will practice making a web gallery next week.

3) Logo designs OR a type treatment for your name.
These must be printed out.

4) URL and server research.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

NEXT WEEK:
Best practices for designing on the net. Creation of a web gallery. Posting a web gallery on a site. Securing URL's and server space

Have fun in putting your sites together. I'm anxious to see what all of you find useful and inspiring.. If you have any questions, please let me know.