Could people please visit this link and check out my T-Shirt design for the Cute Monster competition.

If you like it vote for it? Would really appreciate it! http://bubblecat.deviantart.com/#/d4qfcdh

Thank you!

Meeting with the team.

Tuesday:

Flash…..AAaaahhh! Made shapes and buttons move around the stage using nothing but actionscript 3.0, so proud of myself. Will have to e-mail it off to Brian before Tuesday.

Wednesday:

GIG 2012 convention in the Gibson Hotel. Sat in on lots of talks, panels and discussions about where the games industry is at, where it is going and what the future holds. Phil Campbell was definelty my favourite to listen to. Check him out here http://www.philcampbelldesign.com/index.php/home/ , he’s a living legend!

Thursday:

3D modelling and Dynamic Web.

Homework for 3D is to make a landscape in Unity for next week to show the class. I’ll upload the sketch soon.

Dynamic Web covered PHP. The lab was spent discussing possible designs for the app we will make for this module. I took notes.

Friday:

Game Production Class. Presentation of Gearheads vertical slice to the class. Also had a meeting with Hugh about my team’s major project. Got some really nice ideas from games like Limbo and Abe’s Odyssey.

I downloaded Sculptris last night and lashed into it this morning. Here’s a tree-pilot-girl-thing I made!

Had a meeting with my Major Project team; Eadaoin Dempsey and Bernhard Raml, where we discussed possible artistic inspiration areas such as German Expressionism and Alan Aldridge. We also had a look at how the game was progressing code wize. So far Bernhard and Joff have devised the mechanics for movement, camera, shooting fireballs and possession!

Tuesday:

Flash (Authoring Practice) with Brian. Lovely class, a bit full, but since it was the first class that was to be expected until people pick what modules they will stick with. I myself have some experience with Flash, but not the coding side of it. We started with a bit of Actionscript 3, modifying text on the stage. I think it will be fine. Just have to stay on top of it and not let it run away on me.

Wednesday:

Modding class with Hugh. We reviewed our Machinimas and discussed possible ways of promoting them further to rack up more views. Sue Vs WOW hasn’t really taken off like we hoped, but not to worry. It’s not the end of the world.

The assignment was also looked at. Eadaoin, Bernhard and I are doing a game called Gearheads so we had to give a quick little presentation on that to the class.

Thursday:

3D modding! Finally got to see what this class was about. I really liked it. We used a program called Unity to build an environment to walk around in. Pictures!

The lad that’s teaching us is a past student who graduated only a few weeks ago, so he’s pretty clued in on how the college runs…or doesn’t. His name is Eoin, and he did a fine job for this first class!

Dynamic Web with Charlie was fine again. He reviewed some Javascript with us and told us PHP and all the other languages we would learn would be the same, apart from being a different syntax. yay. Managed to do the lab and found out about AJAX. It’s what Facebook, Google and lots of other sites use to update the page without having to refresh. Really cool stuff.

Friday:

Headed in to college, even though I’m not taking Issues and Expressions with Mick, to meet up with my team and get the sprites going for Modding next week. I have to complete a skull, a bomb and a hand for our game Gearheads so Bernhard can code them up and we can play our game on Game Maker 8.1 next Friday!

Happy Birthday Marc! He turned 26 on Friday so Marc, myself, Sarah, Bernhard, Fabrizio and Shamie all decided to head out to the Woolshed, then Firzgerald’s in Temple Bar to celebrate. T’was a great night.

Saturday:

Decided to go on an adventure. Discovered Powerscourt and the wonderful little shops inside. If I had money to splash on myself I would have invested in that beautiful lace bracelet.

Got my teeth into GameMaker 8.1 over the weekend, did the tutorials to build my first game and have now cracked the animated sprites for Gearheads! Me Gusta! That is all!

I’ve just started Semester 2 of my Masters. Looks like I am really gearing myself up to come out of this specialising in Games. Who saw that coming? Not me!

Monday:

Arrived in to a meeting with Hugh and the rest of the class. Discussed semester 2 and what it entailed. Went and got food with Sarah at Wagamama. Had been feeling pretty awful all weekend, but that curry really fixed me up. I shall return to that magical underground place.

Tuesday:

Can’t remember.

Wednesday:

Modding class with Hugh. Lots of people showed up to see what it was about. I joined my MP team for the first assignment. Build a game using Gamemaker 8.1 in 2 weeks.

Went along to the Motion Graphics class to see the level it was going to be taught at. Was not impressed. Motion Graphics was an hour and a half late to start because Caroline, the lecturer, couldn’t get her laptop to sync with the projector. Honestly! Who wipes a Mac and installs Windows? What was the point of getting a Mac then? Anyway, I overheard that she had been changed from Design Practice to motion Graphics because she wasn’t being fair with the grades last year. Giving A’s to all the arty people and not giving the ‘less artistically talented’ people a chance. That’s why Paula got the Design Practice gig instead. Oooh! Scandal!

Thursday:

Arrived in to do 3D modding only to get word that the class was not going ahead this week because the lads who were going to be teaching it didn’t know they were starting this week……..Ah come on! Was not happy about that, but then again I am in DIT, so fuckups are a norm by now.

Dynamic Web class with Charlie happened in the evening from 6 to 10. Looooong class. Hugh popped in to count how many people were 50/50 about it as one of their electives. I put my hand up and Hugh shot me down saying I was doing it. No take backs. Oh well, he probably knows best so I’ll just roll with it. Will have a functioning app at the end of the 12 weeks. Besides, I can’t see myself going through this semester without a bit of Charlie in there. The man is a legend, I don’t care what other people say.

Friday:

Came in to sit in on the law lecture with Mick Muldoon, but couldn’t stomach the idea and ran away. Hugh told me issues and expressions was a waste of time for me to do anyway, and I don’t fancy writing essays, so will avoid that like the plague. Sarah went along to it though and told me it wasn’t terrible, so maybe next week I’ll give it another go and see if I can get as far as the door this time.

Ann Marie’s Adventures in Galway!

On Jan 2oth 2012 I hopped on a bus to Galway for Akumakon, a three day event!!!

Arrived around half 3 and helped set up the convention area with the rest of the committee and staff. Met my little sister and her mate who were staffing. Got to see my designs all printed! T-shirt prints, banners, convention booklet, ID badges, hoodie prints…..it was amazing. Went to the pub quiz that night and had a blast with anyone who came within range of me. Bulmars ftw! Got to watch the rehearsal for the Burlesque show! It was hilarious.

Day 2 of Akumakon involved me and John getting up really early to arrive at the con and sort out bits and pieces before the public were let in. I had to get my artist’s set up at their tables and have staff tend to them if they needed anything. All my artist’s for the artist’s alley showed! One girl had her parents show up to help her out. I thought that was brilliant and had a little chat with them. Lovely people. Not only was I working as Art Director for the convention, I was also the conventions mascot! I made the costume and wore it proudly around the convention for about 4 hours before I took most of it off due to the wings being a bit of an issue around people. Health and Safety people!

Since it was a Saturday and I had worked like a dog designing stuff and surviving semester 1 up till that point, I decided to blow off some steam and get really wasted. Cue the whiskey.

Sunday, day 3, was a tamer day, thank god.  I was delicate to say the least. Sold lots of my hats and made €300 in total! Was very happy! Overall, I thought the convention was a success. Lots of people bought the Akumakon Hoodie, much to my delight. It was really cool seeing my work walking around the place. I actually had to invest in one because it looked really awesome.

I want to be the Art Director again for Akumakon 2013, but this time I will want to be paid for my work. I only did it for free because my little brother was the co-con director and I wanted him to look good, but next year he won’t be involved at all so I will not be so gracious. Then again, the world is suppose to end this year so there might not even be a convention! Stupid Mayans and their apocalypse.

I did a bit of tweaking to my website. This is what I’m now submitting as the design part of the brief. I’m really pleased with it because it actually looks like a website for a clothing brand. I did start off very artsy with it, but that was my AIT design creativity screaming to get attention. Thankfully Paula put me in check and said a simple layout was the best option to go with for my first time coding up.

I will give myself a bit of grief trying to set up all the Javascript and arrays to the thumbnail galleries, but it will be worth it in the long run because it’s something I’d like to have on my own website. So fingers crossed I can crack it and not run screaming to Fabrizio or Bernhard!

All the stuff I’ve picked up from Charlie’s lectures, and Paula and John’s classes will come in handy when I set up my own website. I can go as mad as I like there, so best to learn the basics now.

Monday: Ludology and Design Principles.

Ludology class with Hugh let us in on what he had planned for us over the Christmas. Play WOW!

Tuesday: PRESENTATION!!!!…..and Authoring Principles.

Conal, Dave, Meghann, Trevor and I finally got to give our presentation for our Integrated Project: Reading Kids. 15mins was the maximum amount of time each group was given, but everyone went over that limit because of questions being asked, general discussions starting up and team members talking about their part in the project for too long rendering the rest of the team to have to skim through their parts.

I had to skim. Was not happy about that, but couldn’t do anything about it, so carried on. My part , as well as Meghann’s, in the project covered design. I talked about how I interviewed three Irish illustrators as part of my research, while Meghann covered trends in children’s book illustration from the articles I had sourced, and the Miffy Case Study.

A bit anti-climatic really. I expected bells and whistles to go off when we were done. None of that. Just got the go ahead to start Phase III and have it ready for January. Should be no problem.

Wednesday: Ludology

Got the feedback reviews for The Witch’s Labyrinth game. It went really well. Some odd feedback, but overall, very positive.

We also had our assignment broken down to us for over the Christmas break. Myself, Eadaoin and Sarah are a team now. Our task is to play World of Warcraft and make a machinima video! I’ll have to get onto John about it. I think is has like…EVERY patch there is for WOW.

Thursday: Design Practice

I’m importing stuff into Dreamweaver! Buttons are actually working! Rollovers are happening! It’s so exciting! I’m actually at it as I type this. Every once in a while I let out a little squeal of glee, I don’t care. I’m really looking forward to showing Charlie what I’ve done in January! I’ll be able to construct proper websites soon!

I’ll be submitting my Design project for Paula this evening. Just to get it out of my hair, since the deadline is Friday at 5pm. I want to breathe again!

Games Night Tonight! Me and Sarah are gonna get wasted on Captain Morgans and play boardgames, video games and screen games with everyone else! It’s gonna be great!

Friday:

Not to worry! Here we go!

It’s the final furlong till the end of first semester! Yay!

Here’s a few screenshots of what I’ve been working on for the Design Practice Project!

Not finished yet though! I need to do the Upcoming Designs Page! It’s going to have thumbnails of fashion designers drawings and sketches on it! Yay! how many clothing label websites offer that?!

As you can see up in the top left hand corner there is a little jellyfish! It’s my logo! Really proud of it. It represents the goal Free Circle stand for: Fair pay and working conditions within the textile industry. A jellyfish is something you cannot ignore once you see it. In nature, a jellyfish is a unisex animal with a flowey, graceful, material-like appearance. Got some inspiration from the kooky Katy Perry actually! It gets that part of the textile industry across simply from it’s real-life equivalent! I decided to go down the character route because I wanted to get across some personality to the target audience who are aged 17 – 27 years.

Really learned a lot from this project and the Design Practice lectures with Paula McGloin and John McGee. They are absolute legends! Honestly, even though I have 4 years of visual communications education under me, I’m still learning loads from these guys! Props to them both!

Right, on with this weeks adventures!

Monday: Ludology and Design Principles.

Had to give a presentation review with Bernhard, Melissa and Yan on the online game Puzzle Pirates! We had to play it the previous week, then break it down and explain it’s ins and outs to the class via SlideShare. (When I get home for Christmas I’m lashing into Uncharted 2! Might even buy Uncharted 3 for the little brother!) Anyway, Hugh is now getting us to form our own groups and play WOW! That’s World of Warcraft for all the noobs reading this! Oh god! I’m turning into my little brother John! Headset, Camtasia, the girls and me screaming LAG!!! alot! Oh the joy!

Design Principles actually picked up! Conner didn’t blagger on to the Digital Hub kids at all! We learned stuff! Brilliant!

Tuesday: Authoring Principles.

Another very insightful lecture from the legend that is Charlie Cullen. I will be asking him how to line up stuff in <div> tags next week before we break up for the Christmas.

Wednesday: Ludology and Authoring Principles Lab.

Myself and my Ludology Team gave a review presentation on our boardgame! Yay! It went really well. No bumps in the road at all!

Thursday: Design Practice.

Paula’s class was an eye opener. She had a look at what I had ready for my website and…..RIPPED INTO IT LIKE TARA BACK IN AIT!! You’d think that I’d fly off the handle what with the due date coming up next week, but no! I remained calm, took on board what she said and fixed it up. God she’s good. Her constructive criticism wasn’t taken so well by others though….

Had a really long meeting with my Integrated Project team. Our project is called Reading Kids. We’re developing an app to help children learn to read. I managed to get interviews with Steve Simpson, Stephen McCarthy and Alan Clarke. It’s all coming together!

Can’t wait till the end of next week!

Competition time! Go here: http://dublin.lecool.com/dublin/en/page/coverscomp

Right, back to business.

My Class Rep powers were called upon by….lots of worried people this week. This is why I nominated myself for the position. I don’t like feeling lost on something, so I like to make sure no-one else feels like that either.

Had a meeting with Hugh, Charlie, Paula, Mick and another lecturer on Tuesday about the issues I collected and e-mailed to him. Design Principles was under serious attack, and rightly so. Other issues were about lack of clarity in information about the course, especially on what it is now called. Other problems were about the blog and it’s marking criteria…..yeah, even after all this time, people are still confused about the blog and what it is suppose to contain. It’s worth 5 credits, but that doesn’t seem to gel well with a lot of people. They need a figure, a percentage, and number! Honestly, IMO, I think people should just accept that sometimes there are some things in life that can’t be ‘graded’ and just get on with it.

Now, back to the usual stuff.

Monday: Ludology and Design Principles.

Ludology class had us look at breaking a game down to it’s core components. We studied Hangman as the example. All we had to do was record the decisions being made throughout the game and then create a flowchart to illustrate this. Sounds easy right? Well surprisingly it wasn’t. There’s a lot more to it then you think!

Design Principles was actually pretty good. Even though the numbers from the class had dropped off, it actually catered to us a bit this time! (Hugh must have had a word with Connor about our complaints!) Really got down to the nitty gritty stuff revolving around the requirements stage of a project, which was great since my integrated project are currently in the throws of that stage in our project about a children’s learning to read app.

Tuesday: Authoring Principles.

Went to the lecture. It was fantastic. Charlie talked about applying out logo project to the web. Defining our target audience, that we couldn’t please everyone or get everyone to love our logos. Really relevant stuff.

Wednesday: Ludology.

Submitted the boardgame with my team! Finally finished and done with! Will get to do another playtest on the 15th of December! A drinking night! I could do with one!

Decided to skip the Authoring Principles lab…..and regretted it. Dave told me it was really good! DAMMIT!

Thurdsay: Design Practice.

I got to run my logo idea by Paula and the class today! She  liked it! Super happy about that! Going with the lowercase type logo as the major one, the graphic will accompany it too.

John’s class was epic. He showed us how to slice up a design in photoshop and import it into dreamweaver to use as a website! Magic!

Friday: Open day!

I’ll be talking to people about the Masters course! Might even see my little sister wandering around checking out the undergraduate courses!

Finally sent off that invoice to Jason Condron, CIT Manga and Anime Society. They’ll have their logo soon and I’ll have my money! Yay!

Was approached by Frankie Whealan, a lad in my class about doing the artwork for an app he wants to develop. I’ll do the art, he’ll do the programming! I’m pretty sure I want to do it, it might be worth looking into as a project to do on the side! Possible money maker!

Made the Finn hat for Drew Sheilds, got to get it in the post to him!

Have to print posters of my board game and stick them up around the 4th floor to advertise it before the 15th!

Have to get A3 poster finished for Akumakon advertising. Also have to drop one into Forbidden Planet!

Have to get a hold of Rob Hunt on Wednesday and interview him about children’s book illustration for my team’s integrated project!

So much to do!