Use of Communication Method

iMessage-

I use iMessage on a daily basis, for usually 4-5 hours a day.  I use iMessage on both my phone and through my mac. I use it on my phone as it is portable so when i’m travelling or out i can use it wherever i go as long as i have internet. I use the iMessage on my mac for when i’m at home and on my laptop. It is also an easy way of being able to send photos from my laptop to my phone.  The purpose of communication is general chats with friends and family, for example arranging times, meetings, gossips etc.

 

Email-

I use my email mainly for work. I probably use up to 5 hours a day on email as i work a lot with customer services, so that means i constantly have to be checking. I have a personal email that i have on my own laptop and on my phone that i use for shopping promotions/ contacting people out of work like college teachers etc. Even though it isn’t the most quick way of communicating it is the most professional.

Facetime-

Facetime is something i use probably once every couple of weeks. I use it mainly for getting in contact with family/ friends abroad as it is like you’re talking to them in person. This app can be used on either a mobile device or laptop. Using it on a mobile is very efficient because you are able to travel whilst still being on facetime. Facetime is more of an informal way of communication, where as Skype is more professional and something i would use to get in contact with someone to do with work. A benefit it does have is to save data roaming costs when using to contact somebody abroad as this can be through wi-fi and it is cost free.

Snapchat-

Snapchat is an app i use throughout every day, i would say i probably use up to 5 hours on it. It is a way of communicating with your friends by sending pictures and a small amount of text. You are also able to send it to a group of people so they can all see it and reply. It is a very informal way of communicating as you can only send short amounts of text so a lot of the time words are shortened down into slang. It is something i use to send messages to my friends like what i’m doing/ wearing etc. The photo you send only last up until a certain amount of seconds then you are unable to see it again, so you would be able to send anything important over snapchat.

Overall summary:

Overall percentage of Prototools used in one day.

iMessage=35%

Email=40%

Instagram= 10%

Facebook=5%

Snapchat=10%

 

Communication Protocols

WAP (Wireless Application Protoco) is a a specification for a set of communication protocols to standardise the way that devices such as mobile phones can have internet access, instant messaging and emailing. 

GRPS (General Packet Radio Services) is a type wireless data connection. It promises data rates from 56 up to 114 Kbps and continuous connection to the Internet for mobile phone and computer users.

Web 2.0 refers to the second generation of the ‘world wide web’. It includes new functionalities and features that were not available in the past. It’s characterised especially by the change from static web pages to dynamic or user-generated content and the growth of social media.

ADSL (Asymmetric digital subscriber line) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL). ADSL broadband is a connection provided over home telephone lines. It is data that enables a faster data transmission and broadband connection which works through the copper wires of your existing phone line.

MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) is a standard way to send messages that include multimedia content to and from a mobile phone over a cellular network. MMS defines a way to send and receive, almost instantaneously, wireless messages that include images, audio, and video clips in addition to text.

SMS (Short Message Service) is commonly referred to ‘text message’.  With a SMS, you can send a message of up to 160 characters to another device. Longer messages will automatically be split up into several parts. Most cell phones support this type of text messaging.

IM (Instant Message) is something where you can send a message to someone instantly no matter where they are in the world as long as they have wifi or mobile data. Examples of this are: MSN, Facebook Messenger, Skype and lots more.

VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) or in more common terms phone service over the Internet. If you have a good quality Internet connection you can get phone service delivered through your Internet connection instead of from your local phone company.

FORUMS is a discussion area on a website. Website members can post discussions and read and respond to posts by other forum members. Example of this is Yahoo Answers, the answers don’t have to be one line sentences so they are different from a chat room.

GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) is the most successful wireless communications telephony system in the world. Based on digital technology, GSM services are used by over 2 billion people worldwide.

Bluetooth is a wireless technology for exchanging data over short distances. The chip can be plugged into computers, digital cameras and mobile phones.

Domain Names & URLS are used to identify one or more IP addresses. Domain names are used in URLs to identify particular Web pages. For example the domain name would be http://www.missguided.com and the url would be https://www.missguided.co.uk/dresses.

Micro-blogging is a combination of blogging and instant messaging that allows users to create short messages to be posted and shared with an audience online. These short messages can come in the form of a variety of different formats including text, images, video, audio, and hyperlinks.

Video Conferencing means using computers to provide a video-link between two or more people. Instead of just talking to someone by telephone, you are able to see them as well. For example Skype or FaceTime.

QR Codes is a machine-readable code consisting of an array of black and white squares, normally used for storing URLs or other information for reading by the camera on a smartphone. You can get an app on your phone which scans the code and can take you to websites.

NFC (Near Field Communications) It allows them to establish peer-to-peer radio communications, passing data from one device to another by touching them or putting them very close together. Examples of this are: Apple Pay, Android Pay and Amiibo.

Using digital Communication Systems

Protocools used in my day to day basis:

1. WAP where i use instant messaging such as iMessage. I also use emailing every day at work.
2. GRPS i use when I’m not near free wifi and need access to the internet.
3. SMS and MMS when texting people or sending things such as photo’s.
4. Domain Names & URLS i use on a daily basis, at work and at home searching things like shopping websites.

 

Photoshop

Difference between layer and adjustment layer-

When you go > layers> adjustment layer you get a choice of several adjustments – levels, curves, hue/sat, sel. color, etc. And you get a ‘built in layer mask’. You can change any adjustments you make in the adjustment layer type – eg. levels, at any time – which is different than just applying levels to an image without the adj. layer – ie. no corrections afterwards.

The layer mask in an adjustment layer can be used to reduce the effect of the adjustment plus any blend you may use. A simple layer mask on a duplicated layer, say set to screen, can be used to reduce the effect of that blend.

Example of a layer mask:

Curves and levels-

Here is an example of me changing the curves layer. I went on all the colours red, blue and green and moved the curves and experimented with them to see what colours looked best with the photograph. I ended up moving each curve into a sort of ‘S’ shape for each one.

I then experimented with levels. I was able to make the photo brighter by doing this, and also add more contrast on the darker places in the picture.

Removing parts of the Photo

I think the most effective tool is the magnetic lasoo and magic wand. This is because they can both follow the outline of a shape very easily, especially when you are trying to get rid of small things in a photograph. The lasoo tool is better for straight lines and curves in a photograph, rather than the curves. I think that especially in photography such as portraits it is better to have a tool that curves around the portrait.

Processed with VSCO with c8 preset

Processed with VSCO with c8 preset

Here is an example of where i have used the content aware fill. I really like this tool as it is a very easy and quick way to remove objects/people from a photo that you may think has ruined it, but intact it can be fixed. I thought that this photo i had taken was a good example to use it on as the man as in the way of me taking a photograph. So by using the content aware fill i was easily able to get rid of him.

Above is an example of where i have used the spot healing tool. What i have done is found one of my photos where my model has lots of freckles and have managed to edit them out by using this tool. It gives the girls face a very airbrushed look, i could’ve made it look more life like by decreasing the hardness of the brush. This tool is great for getting rid of small flaws in a photo.

Clipping Masks

Here is an example of my clipping mask i created. I did this by going to creating a text to start off with. Then i went to file place and selected the photo i wanted> then right clicked on the photo and went to clipping mask> i then right clicked on the text layer and went to blending options and experimented with the way i wanted my text to be displayed. I found this technique very quick and simple to do and would definitely use it for my work in the future.

 

 

Photoshop- Intro and File types

Basics:

Firstly, I imported a photo that i have taken from my documents. I went to “open” then found the photo where i saved it in my “photos” folder. Next i used the cropping tool to crop my photo, my aim was to crop the sides so there was less of the background and more of the model.

Next, i used the same cropping tool to resize my photo. I did this by going up to the tool bars at the top and where it says the width and height i changed them both to 300 to create a square. The reason i wanted to create a square was because squares are often used in social media posts especially Instagram.

Then, i chose to make the basic change of changing the contrast and brightness on the adjustments panel. I did this by going to image >adjustments > then brightness/contrast.  The reason i chose this adjustment was because of the colours and contrast in the photo it would make a positive difference.

I then saved the photo as a JPEG into my documents. Below is the outcome of the before and after difference after the few steps.

 

File Types

PPI- 

Our computer monitor displays images at 72 pixels per inch. This means that our 3.8 megapixel image is going to measure about 32 inches by 24 inches when viewed on a monitor. You can determine the display size of the image by dividing the horizontal and vertical pixels by 72. In this case, 2272 / 72 = 31.6 and 1704 / 72 = 23.7. It’s good to use the 72ppi standard when you want to post an image to the Internet.

The difference between the PPI on a monitor and on a printer is that when printing your computer needs to use more PPI pixels per inch to produce a high- quality image.If you print a photo at 100ppi it’s not going to look like a professional print, you will be able to see the grain and fuzziness of the photograph.

File Formats-

JPG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)- JPEGS are usually the most used format on the web. This is because, they are known for their ‘lossy’ compression, meaning that the quality of the image decreases as the file size decreases. You can use Jpegs for projects on the web, Microsoft office documents, printing at high resolution etc. They are also very quick and easy to use, as they open straight away.

PNGs (Potable Network Graphics)- PNGs are great for interactive documents such as web pages, but are not really suitable for print. While PNGs are “lossless”, meaning you can edit them and not lose quality, they are still low resolution. PNGs are used for a lot of web projects because you can save your image with more colours on a transparent background, which makes a lot sharper quality image.

TIF (Tagged image File)- TIFs are usually used for the bigger formats such as photographs, when saving them for a print as it doesn’t loose its quality. If you were to use this format on the web it would take forever to load.

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)- GIFs are most commonly know for their animated form which are used on a lot of web pages such as tumblr or banner ads. GIFs are formed from up to 256 colours in the RGB colourspace. Due to the limited number of colours, the file size increases drastically.

The difference between CMYK and RGB is that RGB color is used for digital communications, like television or websites and CMYK is used for stuff made for print, like brochures. RGB stands for the colours red, green, and blue, the colors widely recognized in design fields as the primary colors. CMYK, on the other hand, stands for the colors cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. CMYK, on the other hand, stands for the colors cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.

AdobeRGB- 

The image above explains how AdobeRGB works pretty well. Both images, only contain 3 colours, however the colours shown on the AdobeRGB scaled have more of a difference between them all. This means photos taken in the AdobeRGB colour space will have more vibrancy in their colours compared to others. This is really good when editing images for the web because websites will want those bright vibrant colours in their work. It also keeps the realism within the photograph, by having the strong tones come out not only on a camera but in the image itself on the computer.

Colour Depth (8bit GIF vs 24bit JPEG)-

Colour depth, also known as bit depth, is either the number of bits used to indicate the colour of a single pixel, A ‘bit’ is a computer term for data storage. The selection of colour depth will have a huge outcome on the final edit of an image.

JPEG graphics can be saved at 24-bit colour depth, allowing for a much richer mix of colours than 8-bit GIFs. If the viewer’s monitor is set to 24-bit colour, they will see the full range of color data. If the viewer’s monitor is set to 8-bit color, however, the JPEG image will be dithered to the 8-bit colour range.

You can save and compress images easily on the web by using the ‘save for web’ option as opposed to using the “save as”. This means when you save an optimized file using the Save For Web & Devices command, you can choose to generate an HTML file for the image. This file contains all the necessary information to display your image in a web browser.

Premier Basics- File Types

Size to upload to the web- normally 25/50 frames per second file size, which is a typical frame rate.

Typical frame dimensions of a typical video-10/80 frames per second. It effects file size because the lower the resolution is, it decreases the quality of the video.

What is Bitrate?

The number of bits per second that can be transmitted along a digital network.

When compressing a HD video (where the original is 1920 x 1080 pixels) If you choose 10,000 kbit/s your file-size will be about 775 MB.

Audio

The quality of audio depends on the bitrate and sample rate together. The bigger the bitrate, the bigger the sample rate will be which means the audio will be even clearer.

As technology improves 96 kHz and even 192 kHz sample rates are becoming common. These lower sample rates are used strictly for multimedia files. 32 kHz is generally used with 12-bit audio on DV.

The compression settings for file formats when exporting video/ audio for websites are best in the format- MPEG/ H.264.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Social Media- Platforms

 

The main ways organisations use social media:

Marketing
Trying to sell us something by showing their product. Space for creativity, competitions.

Information
Encourage customers to behave in a different way. Used to provide information rather than trying to selling you something.

Customer Service

Deal with queries and answer questions.

Research

Things like a survey.

Internal Communications

Things like Slack, a way to communicate with your colleagues without it being public.

 

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a platform that i am not currently using on social media. What it does is, if you’re in a business you can create a profile for yourself putting yourself out there with what you do/ have done. This then leads to people getting in contact with each other and may even lead to scouting someone or offering someone a role for a new job. The parts i like about this platform are that you are able to get in contact with anyone on it. The features i dislike about the website are that it seems like it would take a while to get your page noticed.

For a user it enables you to help people connect, get in touch with new people, stay updated on what is going in within the business world and in your department. You are also able to connect to find jobs you may be interested in.

For the marketer it offers you to build your network, adverts, large target audience, share ideas, share events, head hunt people, directly message customers.

 

Pro’s and con’s of the website

Pros: networking opportunities, news updates, LinkedIn answer section, profile updates.

Cons: first time profile set up, content overload, spam overloads.

 

Social Media- Strategy

MISSGUIDED

P- Misguided are a modern clothing brand that i believe are aimed at the target audience young girls aged 16-25. The reason i think this is because their models are young, beautiful models that are all over their social media. If i was an older woman i wouldn’t want to look at clothing that was of that age, i’d want to look at a shop using the same aged models as me. Also, their clothing can sometimes be provocative, which also draws in the younger audience. Another reason why i think it is targeted to younger girls is because on their social media platforms they will use slang such as”babes, sexy, poppin”. Also, they use hashtags such as “#OOTD” or “#TGIF”.

 

 

O- Their objectives overall are gaining followers, and receiving more sales everyday for more money and growth. Possible objectives could be: increased sales, brand awareness, satisfy customers, improve reputation and behaviour change through information.

S- Missguided’s strategies are keeping up the regular posts on social media, they post almost every day. One of the main things they do is use a lot celebrities/ known people to promote their clothing. They send these people free clothing, invite them to their events etc to get their brand more noticed, especially by the right audience. They use a lot of girls who are very popular in the present time or have just came of tv shows etc. Another strategy they use is regular discounts/ competitions and promotions. This get the audience involved with their brand and is a good way to share with friends.

 

T- The social media platforms that misguided use are: Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. These platforms are used daily to keep the customers informed and update them on discounts/ competitions/ whats new etc.

 

 

Technology

Netflix

The genre of this website is a film/tv website. The different technologies on the website are:  Video, Audio and animation.

Netflix offer a variety of programmes and channels such documentary, films, series etc.  Also available are podcasts to listen to about different documentaries and film reviews. You can also get the Netflix app to watch things on the go, use the Netflix website to watch on computers/laptops or watching it simple on your TV.  There is also room for animation on this website.

Here is an example of videos on Netflix:

Example of Animations on Netflix:

By having animation on the website it adds to the range of audiences who go onto Netflix. There is a login in for children so they can only see low rated movies/ programmes and don’t have access to anything inappropriate.  By having this feature it makes Netflix user friendly for everyone!

 

Task 3. Understand Legal and ethical constraints

Legal Constraints

1. What are the intellectual property rights?

Intellectual property rights refers to the creativity of the mind, it can be treated as an asset or physical property. Intellectual property rights fall into four main areas: copyright, trademarks, design rights and patents. Copy right is work that is recorded in some type of way. The rights exist in items such as literary, artistic, musical and dramatic work as well as films, sound recordings and typographical arrangements.A trademark can be a name, word, slogan, design, symbol or other unique device that identifies a product or organisation. These areas are important to digital designers because it means all of their work has to be their own, and also means no one else has the right to use your digital work without permission.

Ethical Constraints-

A client can be difficult in many different ways, for example:

• Rude, late with content, wants payments received, wants to speed up the process, clearness, indecisive, language barriers etc.

There are a lot of ways you can deal with a difficult clients, which is mainly based around communication. One of the main ways would be to create a contract with them, so you can go back on what the contract says and if they are meeting up to the criteria.

 

2. What are Creative Commons?

Creative Commons is a type of copyright license that enables free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted work. A CC license is used when an author wants to give people the right to share, use, and build upon a work that he/she has created.

You have different permissions with Creative Commons depending on what license you are with.However, all of their licenses require that users provide attribution to the creator when the material is used and shared. Some licensors choose the BY license, which requires attribution to the creator as the only condition to reuse of the material. Their licenses allow the material to be shared and reused under terms that are flexible and legally sound. Creative Commons offer six copyright licenses.

3. Other ways to copyright-protect an image are to put your name/ logo onto the image to declare its yours. Use Non-Repudiation Tools such as: Myows, Safe Creative and Myfreecopyright. EXIF Editing, Watermarking, Reverse Image search,

Many Flickr users have chosen to offer their work under a Creative Commons license, and you can browse or search through content under each type of license.

To perform a copyright search through Google Images there are a few steps.

1. Go to Advanced Image Search for images or Advanced Search for anything else, which you will find on settings.
2. In the “all these words” box, type what you want to search.
3. In the “Usage rights” section, use the drop-down to choose what kind of license you want the content to have.
4. Select Advanced Search.

How would you perform a Creative Commons search through flickr?

1. Go to the advanced search on the creative commons website.

2. Enter your search terms and then scroll to the bottom of the page and tick the check box next to “Only search with Creative Commons-licensed content.” You can also further limit your search to images that can be used commercially or images that can be modified or adapted. Click on Search.

3. It is important to check the terms of the licence and that you comply with them. The following symbols indicate the terms of the licence:

4. Then you have to click on the arrow in the bottom left hand corner to download the image. Make note of the title and photographers name and the URL for the image so you can attribute it correctly.

4. Ethical Constraints

Who owns the copyright, the client or designer?

Usually, this is down to the client and designer to discuss. People may think that if your company is the one paying for the image that they should have all rights. However, other people may argue that the designer should have the copyright as it is their design. If the client is being difficult with the arrangement you should probably try and settle it so the copy right is even. Initially, this should be discussed before making the design/image etc and sometimes the best thing to do is sign a contract. Under US Copyright law, the designer automatically owns all rights to the work they do.

 

Equality Act 2010

The equality act 2010 protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society. It replaced previous anti- discrimination laws with a single ACT, making the law easier to understand and strengthening protection in some situations. In order to not discriminate it is important that the usage of your website is usable for everyone no matter their disability.

Visual Impairment- colour usage, alt tags on images, font sizes (14px)

Audio Impairment- subtitles on video

Motor skills- audio tools, keyboard>TAB/cursor keys

Pro’s for clients: Cheaper, could have more choice through variety of designs.

Cons for clients: no protection, unethical, little communication, unoriginal ideas.

Intellectual Property Rights:

Trademark

TM-  Trade Mark     R- Registered

It’s a word, slogan, image, logo or some combination used to connect products with the maker of those products. A trademark can take many shapes, as long as the mark is distinctive. A good example of a trade mark is used in clothing and shoes. For example Nike have a trademark which is a tick, so hen people see it the knows its nike. The business owner who uses the trademark properly owns the trademark.

Copyright- Protects peoples original ideas.

Images, Audio, Video, Copy,Graphics, Literary Works. Expires 70 years after death.

 

 

 

Composition

Rule of Thirds- This refers to a 3 by 3 grid that fits on top of any image. The grid works horizontially or vertically and helps you determine how the eye follows an image or group of images (such as a website). There type of websites this may be found on is ones using photography, because it can separate photos.

White space- White space is purely the the blank/ empty space between elements. Its the space we leave that makes the style look very tidy/ clean and elegant. Even though it’s called white space, the space doesn’t have to be white. An example of great usage of whitespace that we are all familiar with is Google. Their homepage is filled with whitespace so we can focus on what is important: search.

Emphasis eg. large/small-  Emphasis is used on websites to show what words are more important and less important. For example, things that would be in a large font would be: discounts, logos. slogans, titles. All these things will be emphasised because they are important and the web designers want to catch the viewers attention.

Alignment-

The root word for alignment is line- to line up. Alignment as an effective web design principle allows us to make conscious decisions about how and where elements are placed on the page. Below is a web example of alignment, not only does it offer a description for the website right where user eyes fall first, but the gallery moves around when the user scrolls with the mouse. Websites that are fully aligned are ones that a very clear, and in proportion, if it is not aligned then the website will look very unorganised.

Business Logos