Multimedia 12

Design a Story — A Client Design Challenge

Choose from four client briefs. Develop your own concept, create print and screen designs, document meaningful decisions and defend your work.

• Creative planning
• Photoshop & design
• Testing & revision

Design a story, then defend it

Study real campaign examples, colour and typography. Plan a welcoming community arts poster, test your message and explain your revisions.

• Design principles
• Colour & typography
• Planning & compositing

Design Lab: see the decision

Predict a change, compare the same message and explain what works for the audience. Test composition, colour roles and typography, then carry a defended choice into your own Photoshop work.

• Hierarchy & grouping
• Colour & readability
• Kerning, tracking & leading

The Brief Has Changed

1–2 Oct

Build a label once as a Smart Object, put it on a real box and mug, then answer the client who changes the brief — with one edit.

• Smart Objects & mock-ups
• Colour, type & brand

Photo Desk

Start here

Assignments from The Torch editors: earn your Camera Licence, then shoot a real story for the newsletter.

• DSLR controls
• Photojournalism

Shot on Purpose

5–16 Oct

Control the DSLR, shape the light, edit honestly and build a campaign from your own photographs, then prove it survives a new format.

• DSLR capture & light
• Honest editing & layout

Last Light

19–22 Oct

Light a film poster with adjustment layers and masks, then level up: relight a portrait, add a glowing object that lights the face, light wrap and embers, and a moving teaser.

• Motivated light & relighting
• Poster type & motion

Make It Matter

26 Oct–2 Nov

Make a moving PSA the way an agency does: insight, one big idea, pro compositing, parallax motion, and a real next step for your audience.

• Insight & visual metaphor
• Compositing & parallax

Phone Portal / Out-of-Bounds

Decode the Impossible

Build an editable phone portal, then bring a butterfly beyond the frame with masks and deliberate layer order.

• Layers & masks
• Depth & edges

Below the Surface

Create a documentary opener with a layered still, a short motion version and a practical revision.

• Compositing
• Still to motion

Drop Day

Repair a sneaker source, build recoverable masks, and control colour and typography for a product display.

• Retouching & masking
• Colour & typography

On the Cover

Design an editorial cover with readable hierarchy, careful portrait masking and purposeful typography.

• Editorial hierarchy
• Portrait masking

Press Your Stripes

Zebra Ironing

Build a believable zebra-striped ironing scene with editable masks, purposeful warp and grounded shadows.

• Masks & transform
• Contact shadows

Turtle Kingdom

Build a fantasy turtle kingdom while controlling edges, material joins, scale, light and depth.

• Compositing & masks
• Light & spatial depth

Design Studio Explorer

Explore the design studio route before moving into more advanced projects.

• Design exploration

Make It Matter

Connect design theory to a cause-advertising project, with an extension for Multimedia 12.

• Audience & purpose
• Cause advertising

DINO LOOPS

Cereal Box

Construct an editable cereal package with depth, typography, hierarchy and a deliberate brand message.

• Packaging design
• Typography & hierarchy

Truck Ad

Built for the Wild

Build an advertising composite with deliberate visual hierarchy, image integration and production decisions.

• Advertising design
• Image integration

Fresh Impact

Develop a product campaign through label construction, surface appearance, depth and typography.

• Product advertising
• Surface & depth

Last Light REDO

Develop a cinematic composite with motivated lighting and a coherent atmosphere.

• Motivated lighting
• Cinematic compositing

Stormbound · Snakefinger

Create a cinematic hybrid composite with a repaired join, directional lightning and layered rain.

• Retouching & hybrid joins
• Atmosphere & lighting

Skybound · First 3D

Move a balloon asset through Blender materials, camera and lighting, then integrate transparent renders in Photoshop.

• Blender render workflow
• 3D-to-2D compositing

Blender Bootcamp

18–30 Nov

Build one winter scene from an empty file: a textured cottage with chimney smoke, falling snow, footprints to a snowman, glowing lanterns and an appended car. Then animate it, composite it and render it.

• 3D modelling & texturing
• Particles, smoke & keyframes

2D Animation Studio

1–15 Dec

Animate the way TV studios do, in Blender Grease Pencil: a bouncing ball, your own character, a walk cycle and lip sync with a mouth chart, finished as a shot with sound and a multiplane camera move.

• Timing & spacing
• Walk cycle & lip sync

Animation Principles

After 2D Animation Studio

Four classic principles, each drawn wrong and right in Grease Pencil: slow in and slow out, anticipation, arcs and follow-through. Then a shot of your own.

• Spacing & anticipation
• Arcs & follow-through

Weight and Exaggeration

After 2D Animation Studio

Make drawings feel heavy, soft and alive: weight through timing, squash and stretch with constant volume, an exaggerated take, and the silhouette test.

• Weight & volume
• Exaggeration & staging

Walks with Character

After 2D Animation Studio

One character, four walks. Learn the six dials that turn a walk cycle into a personality, then design a walk of your own.

• Key poses of a walk
• Timing in the Dope Sheet

The 3D Camera

After 2D Animation Studio

What Grease Pencil does that a flat 2D program cannot: drawings standing in real depth, a camera that trucks and dollies through them, a focus pull, and a lamp that lights a drawn character.

• Parallax, dolly & zoom
• Focus & light on drawings

Pilot in an X-wing

From 16 Dec

Track a real camera move, key a pilot off a green screen, and build a 3D fighter around her seat so she flies it above the clouds at golden hour.

• Camera tracking & keying
• Drivers, materials & bloom

VFX Shot Library

Pick a shot

Every visual effects tutorial in one place: Laser Sword, Blaster, Helmet, Dinosaur Chase, Hall Monitor, Lake Skim, Moonwalk and more. Each one is a complete shot you build from real footage.

• Tracking & keying
• Compositing