The Grid Reflections

1. The Grid Reflections
By Shanice Yates

2. Week 1- Audience Research
For the first week of this project, we started working on our audience profile for ‘The Grid’. For this, I researched social media and
their statistics. Once I found the social media platforms that our target audience uses the most, I did further research on that specific
platform. For this, I did further research into Pinterest and Instagram and looked into their audience as I had found that the 18-24 age
group most commonly use image based social media platforms like the ones listed above. This is helpful research to find out as we
can cater our own platform to fit a similar style of these apps. Whilst I was researching the audience, my partner Dodoh started
creating an audience profile which contained a description of the audience we are catering our platform too as well as their interests
and psychographic. She also made mood boards of the different themes as part of this to show a general idea of the themes we will
be following when creating images for the website. This research has been helpful as it has allowed us to be more informed about the
general interest of our target audience and it has also helped develop ideas on how we would like our platform to be displayed in
order to cater to this audience

3. Week 2- Visual Identity and Proposal
For this week, we were tasked with creating a visual identity for our platform. As we want to create a digital art platform, with each
page being a different theme and displaying different images, we decided to create a visual identity for each page. We worked
together to create mood boards for each topic, ‘nature’, ‘fantasy’, ‘illusion’ and ‘the future’. We also included possible fonts we would
use for logos for this page and colour schemes that would be displayed on the page that we would also be following when creating
products for these themed pages. This was helpful as we were able to gather inspiration for our platform whilst creating the mood
boards, as well as further explore the theme and what style of images we will be required to make for our own product. It also helps
present an idea of how our website would look to give the viewer an idea of the concept and the potential feel of the website. After
that, I completed my proposal in which I confirmed what we will be creating for ‘The Grid’ and it’s concept, along with a rationale on
why we wanted to choose this topic and how we will achieve this. This allows us to be prepared ready for planning for production as
we have officially confirmed our concept and what we are working towards, the visual identity that was planned out this week has
also helped us prepare for next week when we have to create logos and physical pieces for this branding.

4. Week 3- Production of Branding Elements
This week we had to create the visual branding that we were planning last week and creating colour schemes for. For this, I created 3
different logo designs in Photoshop. The first one had a neon glow and a blur effect, I felt that this fit best with the futuristic theme
that we will be following for one of the pages. The second logo had a gradient 3D effect that went from orange to purple in the
background. This one would work well for the illusion page as the 3D effect would be fitting for the visual identity we have planned
for this page. For the third idea, I made a more traditionally futuristic style logo that featured metallic text and a glow around the text.
We decided that the first logo I made would fit best for the home page and as the consistent logo for ‘The Grid’ branding, whilst the
other two logos could work well on the ‘illusion’ and ‘future’ pages as it would be interesting to see the logos change along with the
theme. Dodoh then created the Wix site in preparation for production in which we could edit it and add all of our images onto it.

5. Week 4- Theme Investigation
Now that we had created a visual identity for our platform and decided on a concept, we now have to work on content planning and
researching our theme. For this, we did research on each nature, illusion, the future and fantasy. We included the various definitions
of what these themes as statements could mean. After that, I looked into each of these topics in art, where they originate from and
how they are most commonly presented in modern day and digital art. It was interesting to note that these themes all stand out
amongst each other and have very different styles. For example, the nature and fantasy themes are a lot more detailed and would
require us to do a lot of photo manipulation in Photoshop in comparison to the future and illusion themes. We also then looked
further into freelancing, as our platform is also catered to young freelancers, and did research on the platforms ‘ArtStation’ and
‘DeviantArt’ as these are both platforms that have a similar goal and concept as we do. This research is beneficial as it helps us gain
more knowledge within each themes and how they are presented visually, as well as help us gain inspiration for our own content and
develop an understanding on what guidelines we should stick to in order to maintain that theme within our own artwork.

6. Week 5- Content Planning
We are on our final week of planning/research before production starts, so this week we mostly focused on planning out the content
we want to make for the website. For this, we made slides for each theme discussing our main inspirations for art style when it comes
to production, including images of pictures with colour schemes and layouts that will be similar to our products and discussed the
style that we will be making our products. We watched YouTube tutorials of different graphic designers' creative process for different
images that we felt fit well within each theme and that we would like to make similar for our website. I also saved a playlist on
YouTube of different images we gathered inspiration from that we can refer to throughout production to help us make images that fit
these themes. These slides, along with our mood boards, will help us be prepared to start production next week. We then made a risk
assessment and production schedule so that we knew what pieces we were both working on and will be able to be organised during
production as we don’t have a lot of time. Whilst we were planning out these slides, we decided not to have the nature theme as one
of the pages. This is because we struggled finding ideas for this page and how we could make it its own individual theme without the
other themes incorporated, we also may run out of time and would rather not make a sub-par page in comparison to the others that
will be of a high quality. I also carried out a quick experiment for the illusion page where I created a marble style pattern with
different colours. I did this because I was unsure how to use the liquify and wanted to have some practise with that tool before
production starts so I am not wasting time or making too many mistakes during the production weeks. This went successful as I now
feel able to navigate the liquify tool with more ease which will help assist me when creating specific images during production.

7. Week 6 Day 1- Production
For the first day of production, I made two images, one for the illusion page and one for the future page. We had decided that
this week we will focus on illusion and the future themes, and next week will be focused on fantasy. The first product was a
trippy city image that required me to use the camera raw filter to adjust the lighting and colors highlighted images, as well as the
liquify tool to help me create the illusion sunset background that is shown on the website. I had some issues at first when cutting
out the background, as some of the buildings was quite detailed it was quite time consuming to neatly remove the background.
However, the easiest way for me to complete this was using the pen tool and it ended up not taking too long. For the future
image, I cut the background over this city street image and added a space background. After, I combined both layers and used the
camera raw filter to enhance the neon lights of the signs, as well as bring out the individual colors of the galaxy space
background. These went quite well overall, and I feel that these would fit well for our illusion and future pages.

8. Week 6 Day 2- Production
For day 2 of production, we were working from home as there was an event on at college. I wanted to create this cyberpunk
scene that is shown to the right. This was quite time consuming as I had trouble cutting out the details in the car layer, but this
was resolved eventually. To create this image, a lot of the process was using adjustment layers to make sure all the individual
layers have consistent shading with each other, as well as add the neon glow effect and up the contrast on the sunset image.
The screenshot, as shown below, shows me using the camera raw filter to try and enhance the colors of the sunset part of the
image. Overall, I am happy with the end result, although throughout the process I was unsure whether I would achieve a good
end product or not. For the rest of the afternoon, I made a variety of different background on Photoshop with different color
schemes so that there was a variety of images to be used as backgrounds or for text boxes.

9. Week 6 Day 3- Production
On day 3, I decided to make this futuristic space image that looks similar to a poster or album cover to promote ‘The Grid’. The
colorful planet in the corner was made using the shape tool, I then painted various colors with the brush tool and used the
liquify tool to mix them together. The rest of the image was made using photo manipulation and adjustment layers to fix the
colors of each layer. After that, I decided to update my reflections as I was starting to fall behind, so I worked on that throughout
the afternoon. Also, we decided after looking at what products we had both made so far that we were no longer going to create
the fantasy page. This is because we are halfway through production and we feel that we don’t have enough products for
illusion and the future, switching to fantasy next week would be a disadvantage to us as this is not only time consuming, but
we will also have numerous pages with hardly any content to show for it. Focusing on the future and illusion themes will allow
us to combine the two themes seamlessly for the home page and also produce more content of good quality for the two pages.

10. Week 7 Day 1- Production
Starting off the second week of production, I felt a lot more at ease knowing that there was less pressure creating the fantasy
page and I could focus mainly on illusion and future content. I made two images for the future page as Dodoh has been focusing
on illusion, the first image required me to combine multiple images of a model, city street and fabric texture and adjust the
layer style to blend them all in an interesting way. I think this went quite well and I didn’t have too much difficulty with it as I
had experience creating double exposure effects from my previous project where I made a fanzine. The next image was similar
to those that appear on our mood board, as this neon planet style image is quite consistent throughout the future theme we
knew we had to have something similar for our own page. This went quite well; I used the shape tool for the planet and added
glow effects around it. To finish it off I added glitch/noise textures and changed the layer style, so it was faint over the image but
completed the overall look. I experimented at first with having ‘The Grid’ text featured on it, but we decided that it looked best
without any text on it.

11. Week 7 Day 2- Production
For day 2, I wanted to create more images for the illusion page as I have mostly been focusing on future themed images
throughout production. The first thing I made was this edited statue image, I added a gradient adjustment layer which created
this thermal effect over the top which I thought looked interesting and similar to other images I have seen within the illusion
theme. I had some issues with the image exporting at poor quality, this was resolved however because I found that the original
statue image saved at a poor quality, so I had to redo the process. This didn’t take too long as I already knew what I was doing to
achieve this effect. For the next image, I want to create this image with the eyes in a circle as I thought it was quite trippy and
mesmerizing and would fit well as a feature on the illusion page. This effect was created using the clone stamp tool over and
image of an eye and was then placed surrounding the center image. As shown in the screenshot, the original image was going to
be red. However, I thought this looked quite harsh and didn’t fit amongst the other products that Dodoh had created so I ended
up switching it for a dark green gradient.

12. Week 7 Day 3- Production
For the final day of production, I decided to try and create some animations for more visuals for the website. I was worried
about this at first as I didn’t have any experience using After Effects but wanted to add something extra for our platform. The
first thing I created was this visual where it appeared as if the colors were moving towards you. This was confusing at first as I
didn’t know where to find the tools or different shortcuts that are used on this software. But I ended up figuring this out okay in
the end as I watched a YouTube tutorial which was helpful and very informative. For the second visual it looks sort of like a
kaleidoscope pattern. This was made by creating a wave animation, and then copying and mirroring the layers until this visual
was made. I adjusted the colors at the end of the process so that the different shades would draw the viewer in even more.
Overall, I am happy with how these both went, although I had difficulty at first, and I think these will fit well on the website as a
background visual, or for a text background. In the afternoon, we started having issues with the Wix site. We weren’t able to
load anything on it and everything was running really slow. This was an issue as we were on our final day of production and
needed to submit everything. To resolve this, I had to make a new website on my own email. I had Dodoh send all her content
she had made to me, and I recreated the website and added all the images to it.

13. Week 7 Day 4- Production (Work from Home)
Whilst at home, I realized that we didn’t have an ident for our branding which is required as part of the brief. To resolve this, I
created this grid animation on After Effects. This wasn’t too difficult to make once I got into the process of making it, there was a
lot of layers to create the spinning effect, however, which sometimes got confusing. After creating the immersive grid effect, I
incorporated our main logo and animated that to move up and down. To finish it off, I added a neon glow effect to brighten up
the image, and then added a grain to give it a more 80s futuristic feel. I was very happy with the overall look of this animation
and we both decided to make it the main header of the website in place of just the logo on a plain background.

14. Week 8- Evaluation
This week focused on evaluation. I downloaded the template and started working through each of the slides. This week I got
around halfway through as I had managed to complete the project overview and the personal response section. For project
overview, it outlined the overall project and how I developed my ideas throughout this process. For personal response, I had
to write about how I felt throughout the project and how I refined my ideas. I also looked over the new Wix site and made
sure that it everything was set and organized, then I sent the link off to a few people that for my target audience to await peer
feedback. The evaluation I completed this week was helpful as it allowed me to look at my thought process throughout the
different stages of the project and how my ideas developed during production, I also got to look at all aspects of the project
and discuss what I did to achieve the overall outcome. This is good practice for FMP as I will have to discuss in detailed
reflections how I carried out each stage of the project.

15. Week 9- Evaluation
For the final week of the project, I finished off my evaluation. I completed sections evaluating the project, an analysis and an action
plan. For evaluating the project, I discussed the positive and negative parts of the project and give critical judgement on whether our
project met the brief or not and how it appealed to the target audience. For the analysis, I went into detail about how the overall
project went and what I would do differently in the future. I discussed the knowledge I developed throughout this process and also
included my peer feedback. For the action plan I discussed what skills I will develop for future projects and what personal attributes I
need to work on. Reflecting on the different aspects of the project like this is beneficial as it allows you to step back and look at the
overall project from a different perspective, such as the target audience or a critical standpoint. Reflecting on what went and what
could be improved is important as it makes me aware of my stronger areas throughout this project, and what aspects I will need to
work on ready for FMP to ensure that everything goes seamlessly with my final project. To finish off the project, I checked over all the
work and submitted it to my main Wix site ready to be given feedback.