What am I doing to develop myself as a multimedia practitioner?

The pathway I plan to take next year is Online Environments, as the area of multimedia I specialise in is web design. My main strength is graphic design and this can also be put to good use within an online environment, so I feel this is the perfect route to take in order to enhance my existing skills.

I have been designing websites for a couple of years, often relying on my graphic design skills rather than my coding skills, as I tended to use WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) software, such as Adobe Dreamweaver to put the HTML web pages together. This produces messy and sometimes out-dated code, which makes it difficult to maintain and update and can also cause problems in future. I also created my html layouts using tables, a technique which I have read is an old and out-dated technique and there are now far better alternatives.

I decided I needed to cean up my knowledge of html and css and be able to code a website by hand, without the use of WYSIWYG software. I purcased a massive book, which details what you can do with xhtml and css and how to create good looking websites with clean and valid xhtml code. The book also goes on to discuss other programming languages such as PHP and javascript, which I plan to read at some point.

After reading about how to produce css based layouts and valid xhtml code, I set about creating my own personal website. I designed the entire website in Adobe Photoshop, ensuring I put my graphic design strengths to full use, before coding the website from scratch using a text editor. I constantly checked that my code was 100% correct and valid, using an online code validator.
My website can be found here; www.stephengreig.com however I intend to modify the site further, mostly in terms of content.

I also attracted the attention of a new, American based website design company and have signed a contract with them to produce websites on request. This should hopefully provide some insight into how professional web design companies operate and what standards are expected in the industry. www.vertigocreations.com (I designed the basic website before it as manipulated to meet the owner's specific needs). Other websites I have made via this company;
www.tier-10.com
www.neumodemedia.com

So that's what I'm doing to develop myself as a web designer; I've read a book, made my own website and signed a contract with a web design company.

Oh, also, in terms of graphic design, I designed many pages (including front/back cover) for a recently published Hereford United book;
http://www.stephengreig.com/wagu.html
http://www.herefordunited.co.uk/buy/2288613/The-Whites-Are-Going-Up

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Avatar Ideas

Today we had our first lecture on the Identities module; the topic of which was the 3D avatars that we are required to create. I found the lecture more useful than I anticipated as it gave me a much clearer idea of how to create a digital incarnation of myself that shows who I am as a person.

Preferences

Possessions

Passions

The above points are the '3 P's' that were presented to us in the lecture. If these points are used as a guide, we shouldn't have much trouble trying to show ourselves in the avatars we create.

Preferences: I assume this point to mean your own personal preferences in terms of things such as clothes for example that can obviously be easily shown on your avatar.

Possessions: Your favorite possessions could be evident on your avatar. For example, if you cherish your headphones or you can't live without your phone, these could be easily included in your avatar creation. Alternatively, if there is one particular item that sums you up as a person, your avatar could simply be a modified version of this object. We were shown some impressive examples of this in the lecture; one for example being a little ketchup bottle character.

Passions: If you are passionate about something then it is likely to be a big part of who you are and you'd probably want to show this in your avatar. If you are passionate about art for example, your avatar could be holding a paint brush and colour palette or something similar.

My ideas:
My two main passions in life are Hereford United (football) and music. I intend to show my passion for Hereford United by having my character wear a Hereford shirt or perhaps a scarf.
In order to show my love for music, I think I will have my character sporting some headphones or an I-Pod or something similar.
My character's attire will display my personal preference in terms of clothing, and obviously the Hereford shirt/scarf will show my preference in terms of football teams.
With regards to appearance, at this stage, I plan to work with my actual appearance as opposed to something enitrely different like an object. I would like to create my avatar with a big smile as I feel this will reflect my personality somewhat - and the fact that I smile a lot!
I'm glad I did the mind map of myself yesterday as I think this helped a lot with these thought processes.

I'm looking forward to starting the 3D avatars and I'm hoping I can create a good quality, digital version of myself that shows who I am. I'm also hoping there's not too much drawing involved! I did actually get an A in art at GCSE but I can't draw characters for shit.

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Identities - My Identity

The identities module is all about creating things that represent ourselves. Logos, avatars, pixilations etc. etc. that show a part of who we are. This got me to thinking about who I actually am and how I could show myself in my work. So I decided to create a mind map for myself, to organise everything I know about myself. I'm hoping this will help me with this module, in terms of having a clear idea of my identity.

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Online Environments - Diary Entry 1

As an introduction to the Identities module I have been exploring the world of 3D avatars, as we will eventually be developing our own to represent ourselves.

The 3D online environment I have been exploring is known as 'Second Life', which allows 3D avatars to move around 3d surroundings freely and talk to other avatars. The concept is based on a standard text-based chat room but has been developed into a virtual world within which you can create a visual representation of yourself and literally live a second life.

The site is very easy to sign up to and the software is quick to download; however, the first real negative I discovered was the lack of flexibility in terms of your avatar's appearance as well as the character names available.

I found the movement controls easy to adapt to and I was impressed with the freedom the program allows, as you can fly all around your current environment and instantly teleport to different locations, which was pretty fun at first. I found the novelty soon wore off though and I was soon bored with the apparent lack of things to do. Nothing fun is free... not far off the real world!

I decided to explore Second Life by searching for various famous landmarks and visiting them. Here are the holiday snaps...

This is me flying around the Eiffel Tower

Me in the Oval Office... me and Obama are homies

The Statue of Liberty - I was quite impressed with the water here, very nice.

Stonehenge... well it's the best version I could find.

I couldn't find any famous football stadiums... so this is just a football stadium, pretty cool though.

From my own experience using the program and from what I have read, it seems there is a very common complaint with Second Life, which is the amount of time it takes the 3D surroundings to generate. You also can't see very far in front of you! For example, I did find a nice, big football stadium, but couldn't get a decent shot of it because one of the ends just wasn't there because it was too far away!

To wrap up my first thoughts on my first experience with Second Life, I think the concept is a very good one but it may just be a little ahead of its time at the moment. It will have more of a place when the average home computer can generate the graphics instantly. Also, I don't think you can really get into Second Life by just exploring all the time - it gets boring - you have to get involved, get a job, buy things, buy land etc. etc. And that's a little sad... in my opinion. Each to their own and all that though.

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What am I doing to develop myself as a multimedia practitioner?

Avatar Ideas

Identities - My Identity

Online Environments - Diary Entry 1

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