I have always been interested in tattoos and the way they look. I do plan to get full sleeves covering both my arms and i have been researching using the internet, books and magazines to figure out what kind of images i want on my skin.

These are just a few images that i found inspirational fo the design of my tattoos.

My band 'inamba' the biggest thing in my life.

My band 'inamba'

These are a few japanese illustrations that i have found on the internet. I started researching japanese illustrations becuase from what i had previously seen of them i thought they were very inspiring and visually effective.

This year has given me the opportunity to explore several different fields of visual communication including web design, video, stop frame animation and book making etc. Earlier on in the year we had one workshop on advertising where we were given a concept to work with and we had to create an advertisement for video or print. This was something that I thoroughly enjoyed and I new that I wanted to continue exploring advertising because I enjoyed it so much and I was proud of the final outcome that we achieved.

I have always been the kind of person who works alone, but my experience with advertising so far has made me really enjoy working in a pair and bouncing ideas off one another to produce an effective final outcome.

Advertisements in general were one of the main things that made me apply for this course. Throughout my education I have always been told not to waste my talent as an artist. When I decided to take a year out all my teachers said that I was wasting my time and that I should apply for a fine art course or a something similar because I had a talent for painting but I knew that wasn’t what I wanted to do.

It wasn’t just paintings that I loved looking at, I realised that it was everything around me. I loved photographs, illustrations, special effects, CD covers, magazine layouts and adverts. All these different things were starting to appeal to me and advertising stuck out the most. I think that this is because my older sister got a 1st in her advertising and marketing degree and I never heard the end of it. Whenever we were watching TV together she would tell me which adverts she liked and why they worked so well, and so I began to analyse them myself and figure out what could have worked better. I think it has been this influence from my sister that has made me want to work on advertising briefs. I guess I’m just lucky for having the chance to do so and figure out that I enjoy the creative process that advertising gives me.

The last brief that I did was also an advertising brief. It was the brief that I have enjoyed the most throughout this year and it was also the highest grade that I have achieved this year. Whenever I have been given the chance to explore different aspects of advertising I have done so, for example the last critical studies essay I wrote was about advertising and I researched in depth, evaluations and opinions of advertising in relation to critical theories.

Overall I chose my self written brief to be an advertising campaign because, I enjoy the work, I work in a pair which in my opinion works productively and effectively and my previous advertising work has been my best work for this year so far. I hope to take what I have learnt from my last brief and apply that to this one to gain an even more successful outcome.

James England – I love/hate technology

This project has probably been the one that I have enjoyed the most so far, however it has probably been the one that has challenged me the most. When I first started the course I had never even seen a mac computer before and did not have a clue what the words, ‘Final cut’ and ‘Dreamweaver’ meant. I come from a background of lead pencil drawing and oil painting and that’s about all I had chance to do through my GCSE years and my A-Levels.

Web design has been something that I have been interested in for a while but I have never had the chance to do. I found the few sessions that we had on web design very interesting and I was eager to learn, however I felt like we only learnt a very limited amount. I think that my skills have developed a lot throughout this brief and I am very pleased with what I have managed to put together as my final result.

Using final cut was another completely new thing for me but again I really enjoyed it. I feel quite proud of myself going from not knowing a thing about the programme to putting together an animation and editing a video on it. Even programmes like photoshop were something new to me and I developed my skills and used them to create most of my website.

There were some visions that I had that I couldn’t manage to achieve on dreamweaver simply because I didn’t know how. I did try and get the final result that I wanted by manipulating techniques that I learnt and trying to develop them to fulfil my visions.

I’ve have proven to myself that I’ve learnt enough to design a basic website. I know that I could design a more sophisticated website once I have learnt a few more skills but I am pleased with the outcome that I’ve achieved using my basic knowledge of dreamweaver.