Personal Research Subject : {Packaging an Elephant } Project

I've done my final {Elephant } and substituted the traditional way of sticking papers & glue & etc...
to an (E-portfolio) which contains my entire project in HTML format which included my (packaging an elephant) project..
I think using E-portfolio is low in cost of money, time & energy for student of getting sketch books , sketch pencils, colors, glue, papers ....etc
Also I've illustrated some my ideas using photoshop .. As I've linked my resources to the websites/books that I researched & look through ..
here is the link for my E-portfolio for (( Personal Research )) Subject :

http://omsamer.com/packaging_an_Elephant/









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Truman Show

1) ideas for logo:























4) Journal of all Exhibition work:





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my e-portfolio website in exhibition work..













6) Initial design concepts/ plans of exhibition website:






























































Suggested buttons to use (rollover):
























intro video:
http://amal-fm.blogspot.com/2009/06/foundation-degree-intro-videounder.html





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Free Range - Under Construction - End of Year Show

Our end of year Exhibition (Under Construction )

http://www.fd-underconstruction.co.uk

http://www.free-range.org.uk/


Barnet college (Under Construction) Exhibition:
http://www.free-range.org.uk/cgi-bin/exhibition.pl?&exhibitionID=510




















































my work was displayed in the exhibition




























3 drink tokens ..I haven't used them actually...my friends were so generous ..












I used the "traditional" punchers to mount my work...by "Hand" & "Hammer"..
I kept these to remember the preparation for the exhibition & the night that i have spent washing my hands in cold water after using it..






















Here's my mounted work before it got sent to the exhibition..





























































A sample of my work got published in Free Range Graduate Art & Design 2009 Catalog

3 different concepts

1 - Main page- About us
2- Link to my blog in blogger
3- photos gallery
4- videos -motions
5- graphic gallery
6- Contact us form


























1- Main page - flashy intro
2- About us
3- photography gallery
4- graphic gallery
5- graphic motion
6- videos
7- contact form

http://www.omsamer.com/amal_design_studio/


























1- about us
2- link to my blog in Blogger.com
3- photography gallery
4- graphic gallery
5- videos
6- contact form

Site map- Amal's Desgin Studio

http://www.omsamer.com/wordpress

Managing pages/ Uploading Work

Here are the pages that i have created in WordPress ..
{ About } : This page will contain information about the website

{Contact}: it will contain a contact form for visitors/clients

{Graphic Design}: Graphic design work will be displayed in a gallery

(Graphic Motion/ Video} : Videos will be embedded from Youtube/Vimeo to this page

{Photography}: photos will be displayed in gallery









Gallery (plug-in) main page in Wordpress

















The gallery style page could be edited in CSS
















I added another gallery to (graphics design) page











Here's where i can add more details about the gallery








upload images...













edit images details

















Gallery code added to photography+graphics page
v
v
v
>> gallery code( photography is the galley name)











Graphics design page

Foundation Degree intro video_Under Construction website

fd from Amal FM on Vimeo.

Getty Images 2

Getty Images from Amal FM on Vimeo.

getty images2 from Amal FM on Vimeo.

MadTV Apple i-rack

Wordpress [Gallery/Contact Form] Plugin

I installed wordpress (contact form & photo gallery) by uploading it to plugins folder ..

Then I've activated it from Plugins management page..












I created an album & pasted the required code that will run the gallery in my page...






Here's the gallery with some uploaded images..
























the same thing for contact page, I've pasted the code in text area & updated my page ..






Contact page with all required fields..



















Testing "Contact form":


its working :)





















Resources:

http://alexrabe.boelinger.com/wordpress-plugins/nextgen-gallery/faq/
http://alexrabe.boelinger.com/forums/
http://dpotter.net/Technical/2008/03/nextgen-gallery-review-introduction/
http://ideasilo.wordpress.com/2008/03/29/contact-form-7-faq/
http://ideasilo.wordpress.com/2007/04/30/contact-form-7/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/installation/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/faq/

Changing / Customizing Wordpress Theme

Now, my blog is ready to be customized. Luckily, Worpdpress has developed professional wordpress themes and provided efficient support of their templates that are free & ready to be installed and edited.
Wordpress themes directory:
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/
WordPress themes collections are with a graphical and textual preview available for each theme & Sorted in search feature as well.
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How to select a wordpress theme?
Using Themes ..
Wordpress Free themes
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After many research, I found a portfolio theme that is free to use.
Basically, To install a theme I need to upload the theme folder into my wp-content/themes directory. Once a theme is uploaded, I'll see it on Themes page.



(Presentation Theme Panel)

By clicking on theme title it will preview the theme to activate it. By confirming the selection should immediately become active.










My Wordpress portfolio theme
sorry for my spelling.. i took the screen shots earlier..
Edited theme:






























Final theme..

Experimental Development : Setting a Database & Installing Wordpress

Through out my research.. I found that most of the new e-portfolios are a blogs or dynamic websites that let the user update his entries easily ..
I decided to use wordpress as my blogging platform ..
Why Wordpress is now my Blog of Choice



Why Wordpress?



- WordPress is free & well known for its ease of installation.
- WordPress has a focus on usability and user-testing which many open source projects lack.
- It has a simple content management system, that allows the user to edit and create posts.
- Installing WordPress is a very simple process and takes less than five minutes to complete.
- Many web hosts now offer tools (e.g. Fantastico) to automatically install WordPress for you. However, I like to install WordPress myself..

Firstly, I have to interact with the database that I'm going to create, e.g. edit a configuration file, use an FTP client to upload the software, and then run through its quick online install process, before modifying WordPress to suit my needs.

1. Setting up a Database:

my web hosting accounts allow me to use cPanel, an easy to use interface that allows to quickly get to the important control areas of my website.

It allows me to easily add a database as well as a user for the database so that WordPress can run properly.


The steps you need to take in cPanel is to click on mySQL Databases icon,








and then adding a new database, adding a new user, and making sure the user to the database has a full permission to add and remove records.







WordPress stores all its information, and my blog posts in the database, and so it has to be able to connect to the database with full permissions.



























2. Uploading/Installing Wordpress & Editing the Config File:

I downloaded the latest version of Wordpress from (http://www.wordpress.org)
To tell WordPress which database to use when uploading it, I edited a file that comes with WordPress ( wp-config-sample.php). There's alot of ducomentation in the Wprdpress website that explain in details how to install Wordpress.
I renamed this to wp-config.php and changed a few lines. They have commented the code really nicely, so understanding what to change is relatively easy.
The things in red/lowercase are the ones I can change. For the first three items, I will input the information I used when creating my database. The last item, asks you what you want the tables in the database to be prefixed with. This allows me to install more than one WordPress blog in one database. I can keep it as its default.


Next,I uploaded the files to where I want to install WordPress. I created a sub-directory, a folder named “wordpress”.

For uploading my files, I use FileZilla.I input my details and connected to my directory. I then draged and droped all the files and folders and uploaded them to my hosting account.

Once all the files are uploaded, I browsed to where I put WordPress and go to /wp-admin/install.php. and it would bring WordPress’ install page.

I clicked on First Step, and it asked what I want my blog title to be as well as my current e-mail address.

Once I clicked submit, it brought me to the last page in the install process where it shows my temporary password to log into WordPress blog.

Wordpress default blog theme & content management system


















Resources:
http://www.wordpress.com
http://www.wordpress.org
http://www.zeldman.com/wordpress/