Hoplite Media
Christos Savvides' Digital Portfolio
Bloc Media Website
Jul 2nd
The Bloc website is made entirely of WordPress. This makes it easier for us to update when we have completed new projects that we want to show to people. One of my first project working for Bloc Media was to expand on the layout and add some new sections. The original site had only 3 links: home, about and contact. I renamed the home page to work but left the design and functionality exactly the same. This page can be viewed here: http://www.blocmedia.com/work/
I then created a new home page as well as sections for news and games. The games section I designed and edited the functionality so that it would only display posts which had a category of “games”. Categories in WordPress are a great way of deciding which content should appear on each page. The “News” section was implemented in the same way pulling in new posts with the category of “News”.
The Home page was a complete re-design. I implemented a jQuery slide-show panel which scrolls through images of featured work, 3 large image links and two separate sections for the latest news and work. The home page works much better this way with instant access to the key features throughout the site.
You can view the site here: http://www.blocmedia.com/
Work & News Pages
May 15th
I have been updating the site over the last few days with blog posts of my work. Eventually the site will be structured so that work posts will appear in the “Work” section and news posts will appear in the “News” section. The home page is a place for all of my posts and will make it easy to keep up to date with my progress. The main reason I wanted to write this post is to say that the order in which I post is not necesseraily the order I have completed the actual work. I have a lot of projects which I completed in the past which I would like to eventually add here but due to current projects going through updates etc. I wanted to quickly get them online before they change.
Final Year Project
May 15th
When I was studying at the University of Kent I learnt many different ways of expressing myself creatively. The main inspiration I had for chosing Multimedia Technology and Design was because I did not want to be stuck down to one medium. I wanted to be able to work with multiple platforms constantly expanding my knowledge and combining technoligies to create effective outcomes. In the final year of university we had to complete a large project which we could do either individually or (as the lecturers preffered) in teams. We were told teams generally produced a much higher standard of work and had more of a chance of reaching their targets as projects could sometimes be a little over ambitious…
For my final year project I decided I wanted to work with a team of close friends as we had previously worked together and produced a good standard of results. We also had a wide range of knowledge and specialised more in certain areas than others. Many groups decided they would make a website or a documentary etc. However we decided that because of the varied nature of the course we would try to combine all the knowledge we had gained to create a cross media project. We decided that we would create a fictional product and try to market this product using a variety of online digital content. This included creating the product (through initial concept design to 3d models), adverts (animations, posters), booklets, a website, flash games, and accurate research for textual material.
I was chosen by my three team mates as team leader and would over see the production but also took a key role in producing all of the flash content throughout the site (interactions, games, banners), 3d animations, character designs and textual content. The product we created was a robotic designer toy that could walk, talk, dance and interact with its surroundings and people. Far fetched we know! We knew we couldn’t actually invent the product but wanted to show how we could market the it effectively online. We were very happy with the final result (as were our lecturers) and we received a very high mark for the work.
The website was the hub for all of the content and can be viewed here: http://www.christos-savvides.co.uk/synetico
NOTE: blog and forum no longer available.
Team members:
Ciaran Park -http://www.ciaranpark.com/
Oliver Shenton – http://www.eypy.co.uk/
Simon Ly – http://www.simon-ly.com
Join the Skyn Revolution!
May 14th
My first project for Bloc was to create a website for an international condom company known in the UK as Mates. The website was to promote a new innovative condom from their range of products. The site designs were already mocked up when I arrived and my job was to implement the website using standard HTML, CSS and Javascript for 5 the different territories which wanted to promote the product.
The original plan was to create 1 website which was translated into 5 different languages, however due to each territory having specific requirements as to what they did and did not want it ended up being 5 separate websites with some similar content.
I decided that the best way to go forward was to implement the UK site and then adjust it for each territory, this isn’t the most efficient way to work (especially when you receive new translations every 5 minutes!) but the way the development progressed meant that it had to be done in this fashion.
All of the territories also wanted separate blogs which they could update themselves. We decided to go with WordPress for implementing this and as I had never done any WordPress work before it was my first leap into the ‘content management system’ (CMS) realm. Customising each blog into the site and playing around with the PHP opened my eyes up to the power of CMS. We had a few problems with it because of how the URL and databases work but overall it did the job. It seems like WordPress is better at what it is actually made for (personal blogging) and when you try and expand upon this it is very easy to run into problems.
However the ease of use in customising and updating it is what essentially led me to creating this site (my portfolio) in the same way and this is definitely a system I will be looking to work more with in future.
You can view the site at: http://www.skynrevolution.co.uk
The site is continually changing so here are some early screenshots of how the site looked when we first launched:
New Website!
May 12th
OK so as you may have noticed… The site has changed! After about a year and a half of the old design I felt it was time for change. Recently I have been working a bit with WordPress and liked the ease of use for updating and editing content. This was the main reason I have changed from a standard HTML site to a blog style site. The plan is that I will be able to update it far more often than I used to. However, I will not only be using the site to display work but will also have a go at blogging. I’m a blogging virgin so don’t judge my posts too harshly please!
You may have also noticed I have used a default WordPress theme. Again.. Please don’t judge 
The reason for this is that it has taken me a very long time to actually implement this site from when I came up with the idea for a change. Hopefully now that it is up I will be more urgent with the work I do here. I am planning on customising the site and making it more “my own” but we will see how it goes… I am also loving this theme right now. In the last few months I have become addicted to twitter and so I felt the site needed a large space for my tweets and I love the style and implementation of it in this theme.
Anyway this is supposed to just be a quick hello! and a little welcome into my “new” world….
Lets hope I keep to my word and actually update it!