Desktop Project - Final Design

The following image is my final desktop design. It differs some what from my orginal design as it was supposed to be a hand with a blue pulsing aura around it. As of such I decided during creation to go for a more floral and abstract design which I think worked well. It shows a more calm side of media and offers a different appearance to the overall feel and ambience of the design.

My original design which was on paper was as follows:

As you can see from this design the ideal changed quite dramatically. While I kept the overall hand idea I did change the second aspect from a futuristic, mystical design to a more floral and calm design. I think the new design works very well and I am happy with the outcome. Compared to the original, it seems to have kept some aspects, but the outer layers are totally redefined even the background colour and general theme changed. Although if I am honest it kept the mystical element some what.

Peer Group Review 

During our group review we took a look around everyone's desktop design and and review and gave pointers on where it can be improved. As we came to mine, the group generally liked the design, quoting 'It is original'. The only thing they said I could improve on was to add 3 more points and to make it easy to read. Upping the opacity and maybe making them black so they stand out more within the area.

My own critical opinion would be that I haven't left much room for the desktop icons and chances are that they will be hard to read and understand with the contrast of this desktop.

Improved Design 

Below is my improved desktop design. You can clearly see here that I have improved the colour and readability of the 6 points, and added 3 extra points as pointed out. I have used keywords to make them as short as possible but large enough to be readable by people with bad eyesight or good. 

Does the end product match your orginal intentions?

In some ways the end product matched the original design in others it hasn't. The main theme has changed from my original design but I have kept the same imagery that I have chosen before. The blue pulsing aura that I decided to use has changed to a more floral design and this has changed from original intentions. 

Is the end product apporpriate for your chosen audience?

I believe that the end product is appropiate for my audience as it holds no threatening or abusive, terms. Also it is a rather peaceful design and doesn't show anything that I would refer to as inappropiate.

Discuss the techincal aspects of your work and highlights the strengths / areas to develop.

The design was created using a series of brushes and font faces. I went for a rather abstract design and if I am honest wasn't that difficult to create. The hand I took a picture of and added some filter effects to it to give a more postery effect. I saturated the overall background to give it a more lucid feel. My strengths lie in my creativity and ability to create an absract piece, as well was knowing what brushes and filter effect to use to get the desired effect.

Discuss the content / style of your work.

I encountered few problems with my overall design outcome. The brushes were all there and I only needed to download one font type. From this experience I have learned news skills in filtering and creating abstract designs and templates, I have developed by ability to use layers and to properly layout my design using the correct tools. I also made use of layers for every seperate piece of art, for easy removal if I need it.

I managed to meet the deadline for my desktop project and didn't have any problems with keeping the time that we was alloted.

If I had the chance to make this desktop image again I would change the filtering used on the hand, and also the selection of brushes that I used. I would also change the floral theme and make it more darker and sinister to go with a more opposite design theme.