Creative Portfolio: Wine Label

Why a wine label? Because wine labels are both creative and limited. When you design a wine label, you must consider the shape of the bottle, the colour of the glass and of the wine, and even the texture of the bottle or the label. In addition, you deal with all the elements and principles of design as you meet both marketing problems and government standards. The wine label project will force you to consider type, image, and packaging as you develop both the label and a prototype for your portfolio.

The Portfolio Project: Product Label

PORTFOLIO PROJECT: Wine label. Although this project may seem limited, you might learn that it will allow you to create more product designs for your portfolio as you learn to determine what you need to include and, conversely, what you want to include in your design. Two main issues here focus on legibility and shelf recognition.

TOOLS: Any software that allows you to create and manipulate typefaces through a “character” and “paragraph” option along with image incorporation. Some examples include Photoshop, QuarkXPress, etc.

WHAT YOU’LL ACCOMPLISH: This task will force you to think about typefaces as applied to an object that is both difficult to read from a distance and that must be incorporated within a limited space. Additionally, you will begin to look at all packaging in a different light as you begin to notice how designers used type, images, and materials to represent a product.

There’s so much information to relay to you about packaging in general and about wine labels in particular. So, first I’ll give you information about packaging shelf presence across the board; then, I’ll focus on the wine as I offer information about government regulations and marketing particulars and how to make this wine label fit into your portfolio both visually and conceptually.

Once those topics are covered, I’ll dissect a few wine labels to show you why type and image are so important for this project.

Creative Portfolio: Video Production

If you have your sights set on a career as an Art or Creative Director, you need to know about video production even if you don’t conduct the actual shoot. The dilemma that you might face is that you need to know enough to discern whether your team is goofing off or goofing up, but you don’t need to memorize every digital and video magazine and book on the market. Unless you plan to become a fulltime camera person, you just need to know the basics. Linda will take you through those primary routines in this article.

The Portfolio Project: Digital Video

PORTFOLIO PROJECT: Video. This project is a little looser than the previous projects, as the video will not be included in your portfolio (although you might plan to develop a promo or something similar for an online portfolio).

TOOLS: Video production would require Director, Premiere, After Affects, Sound Forge, or some other film editing/audio program that comes with a digital video camera. If you don’t have this software, just follow along and plan up to the point where you eventually will produce the video. You’ll need to use a notebook and sketchpad for notes and thumbnail sketches, as well as video storyboard sheets for production logs (sample included in this article).

WHAT YOU’LL ACCOMPLISH: As with previous projects included in this series, it’s your job to tackle this project with the study of other videos, television shows, and movies to learn more about how the pros accomplish their tasks. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to prove that you can create a smooth ride.

Creative Portfolio: Consumer Campaign

Often a Website client might branch out into other media to promote his products or services. Magazine advertisements, billboards, and television commercials all offer venues for marketing campaigns. If you know how to create and present a multi-format presentation like this, you could snag that Web client’s total advertising program. In this tutorial, Linda shows you how to create a campaign that is consistent with a client’s Website so that you can include this project in your portfolio.

The Portfolio Project: Print Advertisement Campaign

PORTFOLIO PROJECT: Ad Campaign. This project includes 3 full-page colour magazine ads, a billboard, and a storyboard for a 30-second television commercial. These projects can supplement a client’s Website, so pick a product or service that you’ve already worked with for this project, if possible. You will learn how to present these projects professionally to a client in a professional manner.

TOOLS: Begin with a sketchbook to make notes and to plan your ad campaign through thumbnail sketches. Even if you don’t have access to a layout program like QuarkXPress, you can use Photoshop or other software programs to complete this project. A basic understanding of print production, including billboards, is desirable.

WHAT YOU’LL ACCOMPLISH: You will act as Art or Creative Director as you complete the three diverse media projects. Although you might not have a staff to fulfil your directives, you can think as a director as you tackle new skills that will expand your knowledge about advertising campaigns. Once you complete these projects, you’ll know how to direct a team that can create the final projects.

Web 2.0 best practices

If you visit this Web site regularly, you’ll realize that recently, we’ve looked at the topic of Web 2.0 in some detail. This approach to Web applications aims, among other things, to create a more responsive experience for users. Both Ajax-style and Flash/Flex rich internet applications are common approaches in the Web 20 world.

The Web 2.0 approach is relatively new to the Web world and in this article, I want to look at some of the emerging best practices for building Web 2.0 applications. Even though some of the component parts of approaches like Ajax have been around for a while, developers are still coming to terms with Web 2.0. As we get more and more experience building this type of application, more and more best practices emerge.

I’ve attempted to put together a list of best practices for building Web 2.0 applications. See if you agree with what I’ve written or if you’ve got any more to add. I’m going to cover the following:

• Minimizing server traffic
• Using appropriate interface elements
• Providing user messages appropriately
• Indicating changed or refreshed data
• Picking the right approach for applications
• Enabling SWF files
• Using frameworks, toolkits and script libraries
• Working with object-oriented design patterns
• Separating script into separate files

There aren’t any resources to download with this article. Rather, it discusses each of these best practices and provides a rationale behind why each is appropriate.