Interactive Media

Changing Times

2010-10-06T19:10:00.000+01:00

Now I have finished my Interactive Media course please view my other blog which explains more about design and how to build websites.

http://design-for-the-web.blogspot.com/

The Final 2

2009-03-19T10:21:00.002Z

1

2

Competitive Analysis

2009-03-05T15:12:00.001Z

Student Portfolio
http://www.thecraigdomain.co.uk/index.php

This is the portfolio of craig burges a former student at wakefield collage. His student portfolio is clean and precise.

I think Craig has shown a lot of the work that shows off what skills he is best at. CSS & Design.

As well as the site looking clean and professional it is carefully laid out in a nice orderly fashion. I think this is needed for a student portfolio, especially when you are planning to use it to present.

From looking at the site I can see certain characteristics which I would like use on my site.

Clean and easy to follow
I think this would help especially when doing a presentation as I would be able to look at the site with ease and select the certain pieces of information I needed for the presentation without forgetting where it all is.

Plenty of Images
The images are all perfect size to catch the Human eye, think this would also help in a presentation style as you can easily see and find the information you need just by glimpsing at the site. Also it would act as a sort of memory aid allowing you to easily remember what you was talking about / what you plan on moving to afterwards.

Professional portfolio / work portfolio
http://www.design2work.net/

This is the professional portfolio of Ken liang. I suppose very much like craigs all the information is related by pictures on the main page to allow users to see current and past works. Although I am a little dubious about this particular site.

One reason is that the full image background makes the site rather large and could be a problem for people with slow internet.

Another thing which I think this site could use Is maybe written text under each picture hyperlink, similar to Craigs. Because at the moment you are having to hover over the images to see what site they actually go to which can be a little frustrating.

Overall I like the idea and realize that in many ways it is very similar to craigs. This proves to me that the 2 sites need not be completely different but made so that they can easily be edited and updated.

Summery

Clean
Both sites are very clean leading me to believe that for a portfolio site it should be clean and straight to the point allowing users / potential employers to quickly and easily access previous works.

Easy navigation
Both Sites are easy to navigate round allowing you to access all current and previous works quickly and efficiently. Once again this would allow potential employers to look at the work you have done in a more efficient way.

Pictures
There seems to be a lot of picture links on both sites. Mainly a short thumbnail of previous work that actually leads onto the work in question. I think this is also a good idea to allow potential employers to find your work a lot more easily.

Skills
Both sites use a variety of skills they have picked up for web design. I think this again is important as a potential employer can see what you can do without actually looking through your work.

Target Audiences.

2009-02-10T11:20:00.001Z

Dave is a potential employer who is looking for an employee, although Dave is looking for people with enough experience to carry out the work that is necessary. He asks that all applicants have a portfolio ready to show him at interview.

Michaela is a student studying for a HND in Photography who is just about to leave college. She wants to see what freelance work is going on at the moment. To do this she browses the web on a 4mb connection from BT looking for a freelance web designer to make her a portfolio.

Paul is a Plumber who is looking for a web designer to build him a website; he only has a 2mb connection from Talk Talk and the web is rather slow. To find freelance web designers he is searching on Google. He has found several but most of them are using too much of his monthly bandwidth.

The final Semester

2009-01-21T15:10:00.002Z

This year has come and gone almost immediately. Although in this short space I have learned a lot over the past year. One of which (CSS) I was worrying about I can now use this skill significantly well.

As I will be doing a 3rd year at collage to up my HNC to a HND I don’t have to worry as much about the industry, as the other people in the group do. I will feel ready for the Web side of the industry once I finally finish halfway through 2010.

At the moment I am currently learning PHP, this will allow me to further advance my skills in web design and enable me to create much more complex sites.

In the final days of this semester I will be doing a presentation on all of the work I have done so far. I am a little nervous about doing this in front of an audience but at the same time I am also looking forward to it.

Presenting is one skill which I think I need to improve on, as it will help me in a lot of real life situations where I have to stand up and talk about my work in front of complete strangers.

By the end of the year I hope to have accomplished many web design techniques such as using PHP and MYSQHL sufficiently enough to create everyday modern sites.

One thing, which I would mind learning at a later date is the ability to use E-Commerce software, I think this once again will improve my chances of joining the industry when I have finished at college.

The most beneficial Job Skills
The skill I am most proud of learning and the one I think will help me the most in the industry is CSS. I was very worried about learning CSS last year but this year I have researched a lot and found various techniques, which could all be used in the web industry.

Almost all the skills I have learned so far in the last semester have been really beneficial for me to get a job in the industry. However presentational skills are a must have as I feel they will help me a lot in interview situations and situations where I am meeting clients.

At the end
By the end of the course in 2010 I hope to have a job in the industry. The job I am aiming for is the coding web sites job. Although I am a little dubious about my skills at the moment I think I will apply for a junior position to allow me to get the experience required to get a better job later on.

PHP The Way To Go

2009-01-08T16:21:00.001Z

1. http://www.w3schools.com/PHP/DEfaULT.asP

This will be the first site I will look at well researching PHP, it has very basic and easy to understand tutorials.

2. http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/PHP/1

This site tends to have more advanced PHP tutorials; once I have grasped thee basics of PHP I will surely be visiting this site as it will allow me to create and do more interesting things with PHP. For instance this particular site has various PHP tutorials on how to create forms and a mailing list. This can be very valuable when making a website with a form.

3. http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Tips_and_Tutorials/index.html

On this site there are both advanced and basic tutorials, ranging from how to start in PHP and the more advanced E-Commerce.

4. http://www.goodphptutorials.com/

This site has very good tutorials, most of them are videos. This is a very good site especially if you can’t understand some of the writing which is in most the tutorials.

5. http://www.killerphp.com/

This is an ok PHP video tutorial site. It has videos for both basic and advanced PHP, meaning you can progress slowly through the videos allowing you to develop PHP at your own pace.

6. http://www.thesitewizard.com/php/index.shtml

A basic tutorial site, this site is perfect for beginners as it shows the first type of scripts you should be creating with PHP and how to do them.

7. http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/627

Zend is a great site for beginners learning PHP. It has been strictly made for people who are just starting out in PHP and offers some simple advice to help you write scripts.

8. http://www.programmersbank.com/tutorials/PHP/2/

This site offers a wide range of tutorials. There are limited beginning tutorials but after the other sites this may be one to check for more advanced PHP help.

9. http://www.hudzilla.org/phpbook/index.php

This is a free online E-Book, it is an older version of the book but still offers valuable knowledge to help set up PHP and other basic information that is needed before starting to write PHP.

10. http://www.sitepoint.com/books/phpant1/

The Book “The PHP Anthology” is a great book, the first 207 pages are available free and offer some very useful PHP information which is easy to understand and follow.

Skills Of The Trade

2008-12-10T17:07:00.003Z

Skills
There are plenty of skills in the industry that I am certain that I need but do not have the skill in it at the moment.
The skills that I’m interesting in learning are Flash or PHP. Although looking at the industry jobs going at the moment PHP seems to be more valuable than Flash. A lot of this is to do with the fact that PHP is more accessible on the web than flash.

Reason
Flash: This is a skill, which I would like to know more about, because I know that it is used on a lot of websites these days and can also be used a lot to produce nice interactions on a site between the display and the user. However with this come some accessibility issues, with users having some problems clicking on slash links etc.

PHP: This skill is used on almost every modern day website. Usually to store information such as member (usernames and passwords) and also can be used to log IPS and other information. This skill seems to be needed in the industry, and usually is classes as standard.

Example Jobs
http://www.creativepool.co.uk/employee/jobdetail.php?ref=PUR/EN1097/JN8545
In the job above skills required are mainly Adobe products and also Flash. So this could be something to aim for, however this seems like more a designer role.

http://www.reed.co.uk/job-details/Nottingham/Lead-PHP-Developer-up-to-k-Nottingham/?JobID=17380389&k=web+design&ns=True&lit=2
This job however is based on Networking. But you need a lot of knowledge in PHP and also a fair amount of PHP experience to even get a look in.

http://www.reed.co.uk/job-details/Windsor/Web-Developer-Photoshop-XHTML-CSS-ASP-PHP/?JobID=17410376&k=web+design&ns=True&lit=2
Another web design job, however this requires both Flash and PHP.

In my opinion both skills are important in the industry but I feel PHP seems to be more the industry standard, this is why I would like to do PHP for my self timed learning plan rather than Flash.

The Return

2008-12-03T18:06:00.002Z

Summer assignments
The summer assignments really prepped me for the second year, as well as make me curious about the actual working industry. What was fun about the summer assignment was that it allowed me o research and look at the current market for web design.
Although this was rather worrying at times seeing the locations was several miles away and often in a different city all together.

None the less I looked forward to the second year and the things that I could improve on to get a job in the industry.

CSS
CSS was the first step in the second year although I was dubious and in self-doubt I found this assignment very fun.

I struggled at first the coding. But after I learnt the easy access code through Dreamweaver I was finally making progress.

This part of the second year as taught me so much already and I am looking forward the 2nd half.

Presentation
Also this year I have already done another presentation. I seem to be struggling on these, as I can’t seem to remember all the information. However after a word with Steve one method is to place images of the desired information on the background of the presentation.

I have done this and I’m currently looking forward to testing it out and seeing how much it helps.
Creative!

At the moment I am currently designing for a product, which I know nothing about. I have been struggling a little with actually getting some ideas down, although the ones I have drawn I think are pretty good.

Summery
What I feel confident in

After the beginning of the second year I defiantly feel a lot more confident in my CSS abilities. Although I do feel as if some improvement is needed in general I am very pleased with the work I did over the assignment and in the test.

What I don’t feel comfortable about
I am still a little worried about presentations. I think this will improve with time. Although I think the new technique will help a lot it still needs to be tested.

Skills improved in
Know that I am doing my time sheets in my sketchbook every day, I feel a lot more confident in my time keeping. I always have my sketchbook, which makes it handy for jotting the time started, and the time finished on my work.

CSS as stated above I feel a lot more confident in CSS now especially after the test. The test put me under some pressure but it also showed me what I’m actually capable of.

Presentations are one skill that I’m planning on improving with the new technique. Hopefully it will be a success, through practising it seems to work.

Transferable

2008-11-05T16:46:00.001Z

Time keeping
Advantages
Always used in a working environment to makes sure you get paid for the correct amount of time you have worked.

I have been getting better at this skill over the years however I feel as if I could use some improvements. In the way I do my time sheets, and remembering to always do them.

Phone manner / Social
Advantages
Clients: Having a good phone skill / Social skills allows to persuade clients much more easily to choose you as there designer etc.

Future: Having a good phone manner / Social skills are more likely to get you an interview with a future employer.

I have a fairly good phone manner / Social skills at the moment as my current job involves answering phones and talking to clients.

Presentational Skills
Advantages
Client: Being able to give a presentation in front of a client can make or break a deal for the company you work for.

Employer: Having a good presentational skill will allow you to perform better in interviews not getting stressed as much and also allowing you to answer the questions asked smoothly and calmly.

I really need some more practise, in this skill. Although I am confident enough to give a presentation, when I do attempt it, my voice sounds wooden.

Team management skills
Advantages
Clients: Having a good team skill will allow you to share information throughout the interactive media team more easily; this leaves you with more job positions.

Work: Almost 90% of jobs worldwide require you to have some kind of team skills that will allow you to work with or lead a team of people.

I can work with a team but I am not yet confident enough to actually lead a team. In the future this is one thing I would like to do.

End Result

2008-10-08T17:31:00.000+01:00

At the moment I am in the second year of a HNC Interactive media course. So far on the course I am currently learning CSS and XHTML, through research I have recently found out that it is required for a lot of jobs that these skills are known.

Although I am finding CSS and XHTML very useful I find that I need to improve several more skills before I attempt to enter the industry.
Skills such as:

Team Skills: As I am doing a top up course to HND after this year I feel like it will be some time before I learn the true value of a Interactive Media Team. I have worked in teams before but in a completely different industry.

CSS: I am currently in the process of learning CSS this year however it is somewhat daunting that I am not fully confident enough yet. I am sure that after this year I will have enough confidence to apply for a Jr position Job.

XHTML: Same as above really I feel I need to learn a lot more about XHTML before I feel confident enough to apply for a job in the interactive media industry.

Time keeping skills: I have been using time planning a lot over the past years both for work and for collage. But I still feel I need to improve attention to detail when filling them out and try not to miss anything.

Presentation: This is a skill that I have been learning slowly from the beginning of the course and continue to improve, although I am still a little nervous about presenting my work in front of people.

By the end of the course I should have more skills that will allow me to be confident enough to get a job.

Aspirations

2008-10-06T10:30:00.000+01:00

For the second year I hope to have a better understanding of CSS and XHTML, the main reason for this is that they are both required to get a job in the web design industry and my confidence will be boosted if I gain a better understanding of the two languages.

Also I hope to become much better at problem solving so that I am able to spot my own errors in my work. The main goal I have for the second year is to improve my presentational skills as it will help me be more confident in group situations.

In the third year I aspire to improve a lot of my skills such as attention to detail, spelling and grammar. They are all important and will help me succeed later in life.

Also in the third year I would like to find out more about the industry and how it all works ready for when I leave collage. This will mean that I will have to get a part time job in the web industry. But before that I hope to become more confident in client situations, so that when I am actually in a work place, I will feel more comfortable and relaxed about situations involving meetings.

At the end of the course I am hoping to have a job in the web design industry at first a junior position, this will allow me to gain more experience in the web design industry and then I can move on.

After this I hope to one day own my own business in web design / print, even though it will take a lot of effort as I found out through certain assignments at collage I believe it is still possible.

End of year Evaluation (May 13)

2008-05-13T16:31:00.008+01:00

Past
On my first Blog entry almost a year ago I did not realise how fast things would go. I have felt mixed emotions so far about my work, from being unhappy to being happy.
The first assignment we did based on a fictional website was a whole new learning curve for me, I did not actually realise how hard it would be as I wasn’t really thought the correct way before I found it quiet difficult to adjust.

Back when we first did the assignment I thought my initial designs were very pleasing however looking back now I can see how wrong I was. I struggled to grasp the concept of colour in the beginning, which I think made my work slightly poorer than what it could have been.

As you can see from the picture I used the wrong colour scheme, which made the design look bad. Also I did make a lot of design errors which looking back now makes me laugh at the easy mistakes I made.

I also had trouble with how things was marked here compared to the last college I was at however I am now starting to realise how and why things are marked in a certain way. This has helped me correct a lot of errors, which I was frequently getting at the beginning of the course.

The second stage of the course was building a real plan for a website which I would actually be building. For this I did take a lot more care however I was still making naive mistakes these mistakes did come to bite me later on when actually creating the website.

Although I did make lots of mistakes in the plan this did not discourage me from fixing them when actually coming around to building the web site. I was a little unhappy with my first choice of design so I changed it slightly to make it easier on the eye this also made it more user friendly.

As you can see the ne thing I started to learn was complimentary colours and how they affect websites. I got all the information from a colour lecture presented by Steve; this made me very happy, as that’s what I had been struggling with from the beginning.

The first thing I did was change the website image and the general overlay to make it look more pleasing. After I had done I was very pleased with my work and exited that I was learning more about my self and the things I could do.

As you can see from the image there was a big change in the style of the website. Also what impressed me was the dramatic difference between the look. One of the major factors, which made me change the style, were rereading the “Park” lecture which was in my sketchbook, this very clearly said that the best designers always use repetition. So I decided to give it a go on the website and it worked! The website was looking great and had to be my best achievement at that time.

The most fun I’ve had on the course to-date is when I started “A7 Wailing Whales” This gave me more of a chance to explore my design talents when I had to listen to music and think of a perfect design that would fit as a Digipak cover and also a CD cover.

The reason why I found this assignment to be a little more fun is that I got to explore with more creativity than the previous assignment. It was all trial and error and I soon learned which would be the best possible design for the job.

Although it was very fun and probably the most hands on assignment to date I was worried through pretty much the entire thing. The main problem was not being able to pick a final design I struggled on this for both the Digipak and logo designs. I had a lot of problems mainly because I made too much work for my self and I could not choose one of my own designs, as I liked all of them equally.

A have learned a lot in this past year so much more than I ever thought possible when I joined the coarse. The most valuable information I have learned is all the design issues such as PARC and colour coordination. Because they haven’t just improved my design skill the combines two have improved my entire work enabling me to work at a better more comfortable rate.

The most inspiration moment was when Dave Panel came in to see people in the HND course I got to learn a lot about the industry and how things work once you get a job working for Dave or any other company. I suppose I was a little surprised at how some clients always want something out of this world.

Where I’m going
At the end of the coarse I hope to be going into the industry, however at this moment in time I do not feel confident enough to go out into the industry and get a job. I think the major factor behind this is because I still make some bad decisions when designing. But my overall thought is that I am not yet confident enough to work for a client.

Although I am happy with my progress I am a little sad that the time has flown by so rapidly. I can see a major difference in the way I work since when I first started. One of the main things, which have helped me on the coarse so far, is the sketchbook. The reason being that it allowed me to jot all my ideas and all my mistakes down in the same book this is what has helped me reflect back on the beginning. This has helped me learn from many of mistakes, the best way I have found learning my mistakes was via making a checklist. This however can get confusing if you make simultaneous checklists I got lost several times when checking off my work. I have recently got a lot better at doing work as I seam to be concentrating a bit more I think that may be to do with me finally getting how the course is laid out and how I should be doing things.

At the moment we are getting ready for the second year to be honest I suppose I was a little worried / scared of CSS and how I would cope with a new language. On my previous course I did VB, which I thought, was ok and fairly easy but CSS seams to be a completely new language. Although once I spoke to Steve I was soon at ease after learning that it is actually easier than VB.

I am slightly worried about the second year mainly because of the huge amount of work involved. However I am also really exited, I have done a lot of work recently and I feel ready for the second year.

How I’m going to get there
I think what would be best for me personally would be to get a couple of books to keep me in front over the holidays so when I come back ill be in the frame of mind to work. Also as Steve and John have told me reading will help me with my spelling, so it will work two times as good for that reason.

I also feel as if more tutorials are in order. Some of the work I did at the beginning of the year and even through A7 was only achievable through learning the work from tutorials, which I had found online. Although they can be quiet stressful at times I think I did get a lot of help from online tutorials as they helped me with certain advanced features with the programs we were using.

I did struggle a bit last year though when it came to understanding the criteria, which came with every assignment. I think it may be best if I talk about my understandings of the criteria opening with Steve or on the blog so that if I have got it wrong I can be corrected before I hand in an assignment.

I couldn’t have actually come this far without my sketchbook and thus I would not be able to carry on without it. I think that it is still very important for me to record my work in the sketchbook as it helped me understand a great deal more. The sketchbook was also a recorder for me as when I forget things all I have to do is read certain parts of it back to remember.

To get there fully I also need to know when to ask for help. All this year I have been too shy enough to ask for help on my work. However this has also caused some of my work to slack in details stopping me from getting higher marks. I suppose more than anything it was just stubbornness I believed that I was right, however for the second year I will always ask for help if I need it to make sure that my work is done fully and correctly, I think this will help me reach my full potential.

Goals for next year

Sketchbook, even though a sketchbook is not art of the syllabus next year, I would like to continue using one. However I would also like to get a lot better at using the sketchbook and maybe record my time in the sketchbook also as I think it would help me more than it being a separate sheet.

Time, I know for a fact that I need to improve my time keeping next year. One thing I have been thinking abut is keeping a record of time in a sketchbook as I think I would remember to do everything if I was seeing it everyday like the sketchbook.
Tutorials, I would like to learn one new skill from a tutorial every 2 month starting from the second year. I think learning advanced options in applications can only help me in the future.

More reading, this one is a definite; as I struggle with spelling reading more books would help me greatly. However it is not just about my spelling. I think getting books such as CSS and Illustrator for beginners will help me a lot when trying to complete my work.

Help, I need to learn when to ask for help, instead of waiting until the last minute. This should help me get the first few passes with no problems.
Grades: In the second year I am aiming for 2 passes and 3 merits. This should be very doable but I will have to work my hardest to ensure I stick to this as I want to get the best grades possible.

Word Count 1844

Check Check Check

2008-05-06T15:34:00.001+01:00

This week is mainly one for checking and making sure that all my work is up to scratch. I have been so proud of my self over the last week as I have finished everything a week in advance just like it should be.

However this does not mean I can slack off, I am very aware that even though on the outside it looks as if I have done all the work however simple mistakes can be easily made, so to make sure everything is done this week will be mainly testing and checking to make sure that all my work is complete.

To carry on being happy with my self I will make sure I keep up this high standard of work, I am getting more confident in the way the course is marked which means I should be improving, however there are still some parts of my work which I'm not totally happy with.

One of these is not checking my work properly, this can lead to me missing out on marks in the most easiest way. However this time round I have developed a check-list which will hopefully allow me to fulfil my job correctly and get all the work complete.

The first error I found this week through the check list we did last week and my own is that I did not make my images CMYK, this made me realise that I have not finished my work but rather done a rough sketch of my work.

The hardest thing of last week was which logo to use. However what made me happy is that when I posted this problem on the forum I was quickly given feedback and helped into choosing which logo I should use for the job. This took a lot of pressure off my self and allowed me to carry on work.

The happiest moment of this week was finally getting everything uploaded into Indesign, I had very few problems doing this however I did struggle to make the writing go around the inside of the CD, this of cause meant I had to go on a research mission to find the answer.

Now that most of the work is complete I feel a lot happier with my self however I am constantly checking to make sure that I have done everything correctly.

The next thing on my mind is the evaluation, I am actually finding it very pleasing this time round, mainly because I have placed all my feelings on the blog so I can just look back and find out what I was struggling with and what I was happy with.

Still a load left.

2008-04-29T16:43:00.006+01:00

CD work
This week has been a tiring one, the most stress I found defiantly came from creating the CD work. The reason being that it took me ages before finding the right effect / amount of editing that I would be happy with.

In the end after much debate I decided to go for my first and last designs. The first was using a picture then creating an effect called cubism, this involved cutting out squares in a picture rotating them and putting little shades and edits on each piece. This was of cause very frustrating and took a lot of time but I think the end result looks good thus meaning it was worth it

My last design was something of a test of patience, it was to browse the internet for various tutorials on water and make my own image from manipulating the original factor. This in some ways took just as much time as the cubism method mainly, because of the research involved. The amount of research made me very tired most nights but it paid off in the final design making the overall affect look quite good, however there was still a little dissatisfaction for me as I did not like the end result as much as the cubism one.

New Font
To go with the Cd work I needed to find a new font that stood out and really made me think “Wow that’s good” however as the weeks went by I struggled to find the correct font which would make me smile.

However after intense research into fonts I found one which had some grate potential for my logo, however I did not see it working so well on the Cd design. The font is called LotusFlower and it is a free download at dafont.com.

So with much eager ambition I went to Steve with my designs, this turned out to be the best mover ever, mainly as then I found out about the font called avant guard, I really like this font it stands out and also is clear and easy to read making it the perfect font for my Cd work.

Flight Plan
This week was also a success story as I managed to complete my flight plan, I have been holding off doing the flight plan for ages thinking it would be hard, as much of my research showed people using software to complete there flight plans. But after the list we did on Monday I felt I knew what to do, this was helped along by a re lecture on print which included a lot of information that we would all need to no. I my self am glad the lecture was retold as it allowed me to think about the flight plan with a clear mind.

I did struggle at first but I kept typing and ended up with a list of things the printer might want to no which was the flight plan. Although I had some errors I still managed to get it done.

Work to be done
Although I feel I have accomplished a lot this week I know I still have a long way to go. This week I am aiming to get most the work complete as to stick to the original time plan which was to have all work complete 1 week before the hand in date.

I think overall my biggest struggle is going to be placing everything into Indesign without no trouble, I have heard / found out that when saving in EPS (ie the logo) there can be some difficulty when transferring the logo especially if you have it with a solid colour.

The Font still needs changing to avant guard.

This is my last design however i still think it needs a lot of work doing on it to make it industry standard.

Moving Fast!

2008-04-22T16:57:00.002+01:00

My three logos although slightly finished still need work. One I need to place a good looking font on there to brighten things up and make the Emit logo look more eye pleasing. Also I think it will make me happier knowing that my logo looks its best although I have to remember not to get too attached.

A good way to improve my logo is to use thicker lines on the 1st design and a more rounded moon on the 2nd design. This makes me happy as well as now I know how to fix the logos to make them industry standard, although making the lines ticker will result in me using less paths so that the logo will still work at a small size.

Inspiration
My inspiration has defiantly been used this week; I have been using my sketchbook to help me design/redesign my work, although using my sketchbook for ideas can sometimes be a bad influences from bad business cards and such. Although I try to stay away from bad ideas they can subluminally influence me.

A happy moment of the week is the inspiration forum talk, this is a place to post and get inspiration, so please take a look if you get time. (DesignForum)

CD Work
This week has been an interesting but frustrating one as I try to pick a design for my CD cover, I have been looking very closely into plants, trees and nature. But as well as this I have been toying with the idea of Cubism as it is a play on words on the artists name which is Qubism.

Although using Cubism would be good for effect it would take a lot of time and would be very hard to pull off, I think so that I don’t have as much stress I will create the basic version of the CD first and then try and do a cubism formatted one.

Fonts
Fonts are another challenging aspect this week as I try to find the perfect font. Even though I have researched fonts and looked at plenty of them I still struggle to find the perfect font for me and my designs. The hardest part is matching them to my designs in a way that I feel they suit although it is not really about me and they way I feel but about the client and his opinions.

Logos!

2008-04-20T21:51:00.007+01:00

These are my final 3 logos. Sory for the long wait but my internet has been very slow and crashing upon uploading this week. Also i know about some of the colours not contrasting it was mainly just to see what it looked like. BAD! But it was worth trying.

Also i know about some of the thin lines consistant in some of the designs, was done to ensure they worked at small sizes.

Design, Design, Design

2008-04-15T16:49:00.000+01:00

Logos
More logo creating this week brought a design style to my logos which was eye catching. The main type of logo I stuck to was an eclipse of the sun (half) this meant that you could still see half the sun and half the moon.

At the moment I am trying different styles of type to go with this logo but finding the right one is proving to be difficult. One thing I am going to do is print off a big list of fonts saying the word EMIT so that I can pick the best one. Although trying to match one to the logo I have done is hard as some text styles spoil the logo.

If anyone has some good free typefaces please post a link.

CD Design
This week I also started on my CD design and sketched some examples of what might match the music I have been listening to. Once again I tried to get this light and dark feel across, as the music was both dark and light.

One of the designs I thought of was sun rise inside, sun setting back and night for the front, this to me seemed to get a lot of moods across which I felt from listening to the music. This design however may have some consequences as the writing on the back may be hard to read with the sun shining through the words.

Through research of the artist Qubism John informed me of a culture art called Cubism. This used different cut outs of a picture from different angles to give the onlooker more of a feel of the picture. Through more research I found a tutorial on how to do this on Photoshop. I did a couple of examples however I think that once the Qubism effect took place it was sometimes very hard to actually see the original picture, this produced some problems but with careful editing I am sure I can make cubism work. It will also provide a good play on words as the artist I am doing is called Qubism.

Weekly Events

Finalise 3 logos

Finalise 3 CD designs

Research information a flight document

Get more A1 work

Buy a new sketchbook

Logo creation

2008-04-08T16:48:00.001+01:00

This week mainly consisted of creating more logos and trying different variations of the top chosen logos. However once done I had to learn not to get too attached to the logos I was creating as they would soon be commented on.

The main motive I had going with all the logos I had created was one that represented the world and how different things emit around the world. To make sure that I was doing the correct type of logos I asked for feedback of cause all feedback is good feedback so it all helped.

At the beginning of a week I was carrying on with my earth logo with a satellite floating around the earth while emitting signals to the things below. I thought this would show how it picked up different parts / different scenes from around the world.

Learning the client
However quickly learning that this was not the correct logo was good to stop me falling for the one idea, I soon found out via though client (Steve) That a more sun/eclipse logo would be more ideal in this situation. This not only showed how objects such as light could be emitted down to earth but how easily the light could be taken away. This makes it, appeal more strongly in my opinion.

Another reason why I ended up preferring this choice is that I know that it would look good on the front of a CD cover rather than spoiling the look, as my first intended logo would have done.

Finding paths
This title simple means the new software I have learned to use this week (Freehand), although I have learned about this software I still think it is a bit more mysterious than meats the eye. Although to be honest a lot of the options look very similar to Photoshop but this only helps me settle in to the software more easily.

To get my full potential out of this software I will be searching for tutorials to help me get used to the new formats and things that you can do while using free hand. If you have any links that could help please list them below.

Over the week
Learning the edge, by this I mean learn more about the software Freehand and what it can do. Plus find out information on how it can improve logo creation.

Testing and creating, testing my new logo in different environments such as colour and background affects.

Proof of testing, screenshot any tests done on the PC and stick any paper work into the sketchbook.

New sketchbook, this week I will need a new sketchbook for this assignment I feel as if I have already done enough work to fill a new one beyond half.

Logo Crash

2008-04-01T16:55:00.001+01:00

This week I have set my self the task of researching logo designs as well as making / doodling my own. Although normally you may think that doodling is easy it does get hard when you are concentrating on the item its self.

The hardest thing for me at least was producing a brand new idea each time, after a while I started doing the same type of logo which was annoying. To stop this I thought back to the lecture on logos and the different types so every time I hit a mental block like this I switched my logo type from Text only design to picture and modern age design.

Thinking of logos

Thinking up the logos required me to look at my inspiration. Looking at other logos gave me my own ideas for mine, however I had to be careful not to subliminally copy the logo.

To try and keep the logo symbol and make sure it was the original specifications that I wanted I used basic shapes to make the logo look correct. However I often found my self overlaying shapes so that they stood out more when looking at them.

Mind Maps

Mind maps have helped me a lot so far when doing the logos, mainly because I just look back on my mind maps to see what’s good / bad about a logo and then look at my mood map to see different pictures and thought on EMIT, this allowed me to be able to create a wide range of logos.

Inspiration

I have a lot more inspiration now after the holidays as I looked up a lot of logo and business card work so that I could view work and detail behind items, I also did a mood and mind map on these items. So now every time I get stuck on a piece of work I just look back at my inspiration, I also have a lot of photo work which I look at for inspiration, these also help me when I seem to be having a mental block when doing work.

Finalise

To finalise my work I have decided that I am going to post them on the forum and on the blog, this will give me a better chance to get more feedback from others. I think as we need to get more real feedback to help us maybe asking around the web for feedback will be a good idea.

New Findings

2008-03-11T18:31:00.008Z

Logos
This week I have been looking into logos and what makes a good logo via research. I have found out there are three major types of logo Text / typography design, this is where a logo is just made from a certain typeface, Design / image, this is where there is a design image which represents a company and finally the mixture of both design and typography, all designs of logos includes one of the above.

On the Typography logo most people use an unusual font to draw the attention of viewers. A great example of this is the TKMAX logo.

The image logo is a logo that is well known, the image / icon its self is usually something that represents the company name, however sometimes this is now the case. Apple is a great example of using an image to represent the company name. Nike however is different as they use a tick but the company is that well known that just from seeing a tick most people automatically assume Nike.

The combination of the two can come together to create an overall affect, the most common version of this is the Adidas logo this uses text along with stripes, This is a popular pattern which draws the eye of viewers.

Colour is very important to logos, I have researched this week and found out that most companies will use a bright colour on image or text as it will draw the eye of potential buyers and such.

Qubism

Qubism is the artist of the music I have been listening to this week, he is part of Em:t record company, who’s logo looks like the following.

As you can see it is regular text with a Chinese symbol for a image, the Chinese symbol actually stats for shine as in “Emit shine”.

I found that the music I listened to was based on different places around the world and the affects that happen. This could range from things such as Dance and then go to city life and the crime that’s there.

Qubism really made me think about there music and the affects they had used, listening to the sounds you could almost imagine you was there and see what was going on. This gave more inspiration to listen to the music and found my self listening to it almost all day to get a better feel for the work I would be doing very soon.

Review of Qubism

2008-03-10T16:53:00.001Z

Qubism is space age techno, which looks at different parts of the earth and different parts of time. The music is set as early back as the medieval age and as far forward as the space age. This allows different variations of Qubism’s music to come to life, you can almost imagine the picture as you listen to Qubism’s music it can make you think about the moods of music and what age it is based upon.

Not only good for the techno lovers, but they also have some great relaxing pieces as well meaning that it is perfect for most people. The most exiting thing about Qubism is that every song is a mini adventure in which you get lost in music and find your self in a different place and state of mind. This in turn allows you to fully relax and enjoy the music, but at the same time it will almost put you into a trance allowing you to almost see the music, this is done by using various sounds and affects to give the impression that the music is in a certain location with a variety of activities happing in that location.

A great way to spend those evenings after work, to unload the tension and be teleported to a different reality just by listening to the great sounds of Qubism, this is not all they are good for though they are also used as techno dance music with such tracks as angels in time, this is a great example of Qubims multi talent, as it a techno dance tune it is also a piece of relaxing therapeutic music, meaning that it appeals to a lot more people.

Overall
My overall review of Qubism is that they are extraordinary mainly because they take music to a whole new level which seems to chance your pace / place of origin with each track, this allows you to feel different feelings from all over the world, allowing you to experience an amazing sensation.

I would also recommend Qubism to the people who are working / planning to work in the film industry, as there are a lot of interesting sounds which could potentially be used for the creation of a film.

A lot of Qubisms music will keep you entertained for hours as each track is usually over 10 minutes so a person can get the full experience out of the music and really understand it.

Improvement

2008-03-04T18:48:00.001Z

This week I have learned more about my self and what I need to do in the future. I have learned more about the way I should conduct text formatting thanks to John, but I have also learned that I struggle with time planning.

To try and make my self better at time planning next week I am going to devote a full day to making sure I have my entire next assignment fully planned out before I even start it. I believe this will help me in the long run by keeping me focused and also allowing me to move at a comfortable rate.

Monday I made my final finishes to the website and my evaluation however I can’t help feeling somewhat disappointed in my self for not finished a week a head of schedule like I should be doing, this is another reason why I need to sort out my time planning.

I feel happy as I have done a lot better on this assignment. I have learned a lot from this assignment and how I can improve future work. One is to always research; researching colour in depth after feedback allowed me to create the site easier and allowed me to get a colour scheme which I was happy with. One more thing learned is time planning as mentioned above I need to improve drastically to allow me to reach my full potential when doing assignments.

In the future I will be following these rules:
Research the activity before doing it.
This will give me more confidence while doing the work, it should also improve my performance on tasks as I will know a lot more about the subject before starting.

Complete a full time plan for an assignment, before starting it.
This will allow me to organise my time correctly, which will allow me to finish assignments at the correct time which is 1 week before deadline.

Reread the assignment criteria.
This will help me understand the assignment more as well as make me aware of any potential problems before they pop up.

More sketchbook work.
Although I have done a lot more work this time around I have failed to get all the work stuck into the sketchbook which means it is useless, the way to fix this is to make more time for A1 which can be done via the time sheets.

Overall I feel happy with the improvements I have made, although I am upset about certain aspects such as time planning I know that I can fix this by giving my self time to work out how to correctly fill in the time sheets. Like I said above I believe the way to fix this is by doing a full assignment time plan before I even start it.

New And Improoved

2008-02-29T20:52:00.000Z

http://www.martyn-hill.co.uk/a5/home.html

The final version of my site.

On the way

2008-02-26T16:34:00.003Z

New things I have learnt this week mainly consist of design skills to make my site. I have almost finished it now, the only thing missing is the java validation. The happiest was getting positive feedback for the site however I was happy at feedback in general as it helped me improve my overall performance.

Mistakes
The mistakes I was making was not actually in the technical side of things it was the design aspects of the site such as corresponding sizes. Now I have learnt a lot more about design I no to keep the same sizes and use them repetitively, this creates a better looking affect.

Learnt
I have learnt a lot about design this week and how I should follow the park rules more often. One of which was lacking in my site during the week and that was repetitiveness in the sizes. However I have now learnt from my mistakes and added repetitiveness into my site making it look and feel a lot better.

Another design aspect I have learnt is that I need to make sure the colours I use match and look satisfactory. The way I have done this on my site is by taking inspiration from the colour index which enabled me to make the site look attractive after much deliberation.

Future
In the future I will definitely take more advantage of the books I have purchased, one of my favourites so far is the colour index, however I now that I can not always rely on this and must find my own way of matching colours in a satisfactory way.

PARC this is a rule which I will use a lot more of now I no the full aspects of its nature. Before I did not fully understand how repetitiveness could be good in this situation however it has improved my site a lot making it more pleasing on the eye which in turn makes it easier to read.

Goals for this week.
Check A5.
Check site for errors.
Fully validate the feedback form.
Finish the evaluation.
Put A5 in the folder ready for hand in.

Chalenges

2008-02-19T16:14:00.006Z

This week I have set me self a few goals which I have been working on very hard. The main thing I am happy about this week is my website. As I have changed it again it is looking a lot better.

The Differences
The old site was too stretched and had too many spacer images, thus the feedback I got was mainly about the amount of spacer images and text. However on the new site I have fixed these problems by not having any spacers and by making the site smaller it has reduced the size making it load up more sufficiently.

The most happiest thing about this week is that I have finally fixed my feedback form with some help from James, know it works as intended allowing me to receive emails from the feedback form its self.

Stressful
The main reason I have started again with the site is because of the spacer images and the length know the new site as you can see looks a lot clearer and more precise. The colour inspirited I got was from the book “colorindex” this book helped me find the correct colours I needed for the site.

This week as also been a thoughtful week, the main reason for saying this is that I have thought a lot about what I want to do with my website and have put them into practise using the knowledge from feedback given during this week.

Feedback
The feedback this week really helped me decide what I wanted to do with the site and that was to change it to make it more suitable for the user. If you look below you will see an image of the old site and a image of the new.

Old

New

Please give your thoughts on the old and the new and the changes that have been made.

Things for next week
Bring all my time sheets into collage.
Check all my work to make sure there is no errors.
Get more feedback from the new version of the site.
Print out all evidence of testing.
Start my evaluation.

Running Errors

2008-02-12T16:39:00.000Z

This week I am finding out what a pain XHTML really is. The main problem I am having is with validation, as it is strict you can barely do anything, for example for colour I am having to use pictures.

CSS
I am new to the concept and have been researching it and all the problems I have can mainly be solved with CSS however as we have to show progression I can not use CSS for everything.

The picture below shows my website still being made, there is a larger space from the side banner not yet coloured (as it needs to be a picture). The space it’s self is caused by a spacer image that I used as I could not use CSS to measure the tables. This is frustrating I was wondering can anybody help with this situation, or post some links which might help.

The main problem/struggle I am having is the character space, as I am trying to follow accessibility rules I need to keep it to 60 characters, if anyone knows a website which can help in this area please don’t hesitate to link it.

All in all this week has been an enjoyable one mainly managing my time and sorting out XHTML. The form I have is working but I cannot upload the website yet as it is not finished. However it should be finished sometime this week and I will post another blog entry after to let you guys comment on my progress so far.

Things to do

Finish my website error free and fully validated.
Upload the website.
Get feedback from the website.

CGI Help

2008-02-09T18:25:00.000Z

http://web.mit.edu/wwwdev/cgiemail/user.html

This is a link that might help if you are strugling setting up your form.

Happy Times

2008-02-05T16:56:00.000Z

A3 is finally finished now and I am touching up my website. Validating it is a pain especially with strict I almost wish I had chosen transitional. The main reason I am enjoying this is that it is mainly all practical and it is filling my sketchbook fast with testing screen shots and user screen shots.

The struggle is finding the correct age group to view my site and actually comment on it correctly I.E. not family as they tell you what you want to here.

I will be uploading my site next week and I would love it if people could give me feedback, all feedback is good feedback. A new program that I have starting using which helps a lot with A1 is “Mind Genius” it is installed on every PC around collage and can easily create a mind map which as you all know is needed for A1.

More designs, I have scrambled some old magazines for both 1st and 2nd years to use as inspiration I will be giving them to Steve so just ask if you need some more work ect, books / magazines are the best things to get inspiration from as there is so many pictures and font designs in them which could be potentially usable.

Colour is a word that makes me wish I’d done better on my website after reading the colour index I found out I should have been using a light brown background, well at least I am noticing all this now which will make it easier in the future.

The goal for next week is to have my website fully finished and validated with plenty of feedback from all. The unfortunate thing is that it is NEVER finished, because as soon as I get feedback I will be acting on it and making yet even more changes.

New Terms

2008-01-29T16:48:00.000Z

Learning even more terms this week, once again it’s typography. Learning all these new terms as helped me a lot this week. The main reason is that know I no how to improve my work and what I am doing wrong. The main thing I need to work on is my Widows and Orphans, the hard thing is finding out that when uploading is done it squashes the text and can make these appear where there was none before.

A cheerful time this week as I learned more on CSS and Dreamweaver, however perhaps the best thing of all is that I think I have finally done my template for the assignment, however I am not quite sure on whether that’s how I want it at the moment even though it is finished I still keep seeing problems arising.

I will work on this all week and find a solution to the things I don’t like via using more tutorials, if anyone knows any more useful tutorials other than the ones I posted please post them they are very useful tools for everyone in the course.

Problems with HTML Strict is that it was mainly designed for the use of CSS to incorporate the tables ect, however on this assignment we are not allowed to use CSS. This begs the question, can anyone help here too with a helpful tutorial?

The most fun part of the week was defiantly learning more on Dreamweaver, all this was mainly done in self study watching a few tutorials, but also from reading back on my lecture notes. Know all I have to do is master InDesign. The main reason being is that I have been using Page Maker, even though they are very similar I will be having a play round testing the new features of it this week in self study.

Fun! That is how to describe the feeling when a time task is handed out, however there can also be stress from this. Like I posted last week I am testing my self in my sketchbook to make sure that I am up to scratch on my design knowledge so when the next task comes I am ready.

The main thing that I need to work on is the little drawing tasks that occur before actually designing an item, I think if I practice at this I should be able to do a lot better in the next time task.

My goals for next week:

To finally have a template integrated into the website
To create a feedback form for the website
Practise design tasks via doing little designs in the sketchbook
To do at least 3 mind maps in my sketchbook

Quick fire

2008-01-22T17:02:00.000Z

New Skills
Learning more about Dreamweaver over the last few days has been a good experience, I have moved on from knowing nothing to knowing something which is always a good experience. Naturally I have been noting my progress in my sketchbook to make sure that I have all the evidence of testing, mainly I am still using the tutorials I put up last week, however when I find some new ones that are interesting I will be posting them on the Blog and/or the forum.

Designs
Today was a test of patience within the room, when we had our quick fire test, the room was silent which was a weird feeling as I am used to the odd noise from the room but it was dead. I myself was quiet and hard in concentration. The task was frustrating but yet gave a kind of adrenalin rush to get things done.

From the last quick fire tests I learned one thing and that was to polish of the designs on paper faster than normal this gave me more time to spend actually developing my work which in total made me feel better about completing it.

The task its self I originally thought might be more daunting but as I said it was a mixture of adrenalin and frustration, this was defiantly applied 5 minutes before the end when everyone was rushing to grab the plastic folders. I am not yet sure what the environment is like in the working industry, but if today is anything to go by its fast pumping adrenalin action.

Sketchbook
The sketchbook yet again needs more work. The main thing I personally want to improve on is the mind mapping so far I have done very little in this and it needs improving. Another aspect that needs changing is my inspiration, although I may have a lot of it at the moment it is not yet all annotated, so my goal for this week and next is to improve my sketchbook skills and mind mapping skills.

Industry
Another uplifting moment this week as I was one of the people that got picked to go visit Dave at the Design Mechanics. This will give me some incite into what the industry is really like as I will get to see it first hand, as well as see all the work that has to be achieved. Another good moment is that I get to ask any questions I missed last time.

Free Tutorials

2008-01-15T16:58:00.000Z

Dreamweaver Tutorials
www.entheosweb.com/dreamweaver

All Adobe product Tutorials
www.tutorialized.com/
cbtcafe.com/
www.ndesign-studio.com/

More Skills

2008-01-15T16:36:00.000Z

Skills of the Week
This week I have learned a lot of new skill’s. One of which was an old skill but it has only just hit me how I should use it all the time and not just in certain parts of my life. This skill is called screenshots! I use this skill every day however I have only just learned the joy of using it to proof my work. This has lead me into doing a screenshot for almost everything I do for proof. So for this week it has been used for Page Maker and Dreamweaver there is a lot more programs that I need to do it for however so that I can proof I can use the programs. However it is also good for practical work for my sketchbook.

Today I have also started putting inspiration into my sketch book I have a lot more of it to print off, the last post I made was about glue and how ineffective it is at the sticking job so I have opted for cello tape and staples. There is one problem with doing all this though and that is that yet again another sketchbook will be used.

The Other new skill I have learned this week is how to use Dreamweaver, this is a skill that I have been looking forward to, however it is easier than I thought it would be. For the last few nights I have been looking into tutorials on how to work Dreamweaver and other Adobe products better, I will of cause be posting the good links I found after this post in case people also want to get better in software.

This week has also been a happy time for me as I am beginning to learn more about my creative skills. By this I mean that I am learning more about my own personal skills, before I couldn’t see anything wrong with certain types of text ect. But these last few weeks I have learned a lot about my self and the kind of things I don’t like. One that I hate know is centre text, to me it makes the writing look horrible and hard to read. Another worse text I have seen is jagged text going diagonally up a page, this was the hardest text I have found to read I will also upload a picture of this to show you what I mean. I think this means that my mind is made up on whether I am a designer or artist.

Key Points

Colour (I will be using a lot more colour in my sketch book to make it look brighter and more cheerful)

Inspiration (All my inspirational work should be in my sketchbook by the end of the week)

Dreamweaver (Following up lectures on this will improve my work later on)

Page Maker (Just improving my application skills)

Sketchbook (Checking lecture notes in my sketchbook to make sure I understand everything fully before doing an assignment)

moving forward

2007-12-25T21:38:00.001Z

This week has meant many things for me. Mainly looking forward to after Christmas, I did a lot better on the last hand in, I put so many references and I put them in the correct order! Tomorrow I will be checking the site to make sure I have got the required details for the next assignments, also just to get a better understanding of it.

After Christmas there is a few things I want to get done badly and that is to actually stick in all my inspiration with salotape, this is because glue just seems to unstuck after a week maybe I just have that problem I don’t know. Also to start filling my new sketchbook I want it to be more colourful this time round and not just blue ink with a bit of colour.

Evaluation

2007-12-19T23:53:00.001Z

At the beginning of the term I was thinking that I would be passing every assignment first time and thinking that maybe I would get a merit. I was at the beginning a little optimistic about what I as going to achieve while in the course and how I was going to achieve things. Also I did not realize that certain aspects of the course where needed. Such as at first I did not think the sketch book would be much use however I soon learned other wise. Another aspect which I thought was not as important was the Blogger, however I soon learned that it was very important for my progress through out the course.

However since then I have soon learned that the course involves a lot more than just work. There is a lot more work that goes into the marking than what I first thought meaning that it is very hard to actually achieve more than a pass. However despite all this I am very happy with the course so far. At the beginning I did not think that the sketch book was so important. But after doing the course this far I would defiantly say that it is the most important thing on the course. Mainly because so much information is recorded in the sketch book this allows me to look back at it. Another thing what I am happy about is how much I have improved in the over all design aspects of the Interactive course. Before I found it slightly hard to think of ideas fast however, after doing exercises where ideas had to be produced in about 1min I soon learned how to do this correctly. However as well as learning this skill I also learned not to add anything else into the actual design. Before at the beginning I thought that what was best was what I thought was best. However I can safely say that, this is not true anymore. It is always what the client wants.

With these new skills I hope to be able to progress on the course even more and maybe even reach my goal of a merit on at least one or more assignments. I think one more think that I hope to achieve is to improve my Blogging. Mainly because I think hat the Blog makes people on the course connect more and let’s people going through the same things as me share the experience. The main thing that I hope to achieve on the course is experience; so far a lot of this has already been given via learning idea generation and such. However I hope to improve my skills, in both the software and design. My final goal for the end of the course is to gain enough experience to be able to get a job in web design, or a design course that requires idea generation.

To summarise my time on the course so far, I would explain it as enjoyable but at the same time very educational. The best parts about the course so far are the lectures and the sketchbook in which to take notes on the lectures. The main reason being is that they help so much when doing work later on. The most enjoyable part of the course so far has been the image restoration and idea generation, mainly because I learned how to use Photoshop correctly and how to make something that looked bad look good. The idea generation made me think about what it would actually be like in the industry and how fast they expect you to gather information and ideas. I think hat not only was this one of the fun tasks so far it was also the most valuable as it will be one of the main things to help me on my way to a good career.

Main Goals

Short term
Throughout the second semester I would like to achieve at least a merit in assignments. I would also like to get better at using the software applications such as “Dreamweaver and Photoshop” allowing me to be able to make better websites. I would also like to improve my overall sketchbook work, making it more aesthetically pleasing by putting more colour and designs into it. Finally I would like to improve my Blogger skills, by posting more helpful comments.

• To Get Merits
• To be able to use software better
• Use the sketch book more efficiently
• Helpful comments

Mid-term
By the end of the course I hope to achieve all of the goals listed above. This will help me be more employable. However for this I will need to get more experience in the industry this might mean trying to get a part time job to help me on the way.

• Get more industry skills
• Continue improving industry skills
• Do more idea generation

Long-term
At the end of it all I would like to get a job in the industry in either web design or a design related job such as “Design Mechanics”. However if I feel that I do not yet have the skills I will most likely consider doing another year to get better experience and knowledge.

• Get a design job
• Get enough experience
• Consider doing another year of education

Ahead of Schedule

2007-12-11T17:15:00.001Z

Web plan
This week is a happy week as all the work is pretty much done a head of schedule, this means that I do not have to worry as much as I did last time. The main thing that I am going to be working on over the week is making sure that the A3 assignment is up to scratch with references, that was the main point of error in the last one as I did not do them correctly.

I will also be correcting all my spelling and grammar mistakes, I believe doing all these things now rather than later will help me in the long run as I will be able to check all my work. Through out the week a lot of times to make sure that it is all done correctly.

The stress factor comes in knowing that this very important as it is a core unit. I am trying my best and putting as much references in as I can as well as making sure that they are all correctly formatted.

Image Standards

I had an interesting experience this week when I changed my images to make more since with in the industry. I made the title a lot bigger to go with Steve’s recommendations, mainly because some people might not know who the Jazz singers are.

Inspiration Board
This was an idea by Andrew who suggested that the class gets an inspiration/feedback board, so that people in 1st and 2nd year could get a pin board and instead of waiting for some feedback from the blogs just pin it up in class and get feedback that way. This idea I think would be very useful as it would help with getting feedback a lot faster.

The work strain

2007-12-04T16:43:00.002Z

Reference
This week I felt embarrassed as I did not realise that I was doing my references wrong. However I feel a lot better now as I no how to do them properly. Before I was getting most of the information in however I was not doing it in the correct order. Now I feel a lot better as I no exactly how to do them for website and books.

Books
Another point of shame this week is that I did not have the books that are on the course requirement. This made me a bit upset in ways because I knew that I needed them I did not have the money to get them though. However Steve told me the name of a person who will sell me the books cheap which made me happy as now I can buy the books with no stress.

A3
Most of A3 if finished now which is another reason to be happy. There are just a few things I need to do on them. Also I will remember to make sure that A3 has all the correct information in and has all the correct references.

Banners
This week another fun assignment creating banners of all things. Although at times this was very stressful as eventually we were creating an idea every 40 seconds. This made the pictures of the people look really funny as there was not enou8gh time to make sure that the pictures was filled out with enough detail and they looked more like shadows.

Work Timescale
While doing the banners I learned how working in a time strained environment is fun and stressful at the same time. Mainly creating them was fun but when it got down to 40 seconds an idea I did not realise the strain it put on to make sure that all the work was done. After doing it though I can see how much I can actually get done in 30 minutes. This is why I have decided to use the strategy on my home study.

New Hand In

2007-11-27T16:44:00.001Z

Referral
Feelings of tiredness this week as I was up most the week making sure that the referral work was finished. However this with the cold made me feel very drained as I did not get much sleep. But I still came in and worked my hardest through the week to make sure that my work did not suffer as a result.

I am learning now a lot about the mistakes I am making, they are mainly small, but they all add up making a big mistake. I have realised since referral work that I was making a lot of the same mistakes in my ordinary work. .This has helped me a lot as I am now improving my other work.

Working Standards
The week I finally leaned what it would be like to work in a business where they only give you five minutes to do a full business card. This was a helpful task, mainly because I realised how much work I could actually get done if I was in that kind of environment. Evan though I made some mistakes we did it the day after making me happy as I got time to rectify my mistakes.

I have also learned how stressful this could be in the actually industry though. Mainly because it has to be done perfectly after 15 minutes work making it a lot harder, this includes actually thinking of the designs also. I had to think really hard about what I wanted to use as my final design which is where the stress comes from I think however as time gets by I am sure that I will get used to it.

Time Learning
I am feeling a lot more confident this week mainly because I have finally realised how I can achieve my full potential in my time planning. Before I was going about it all wrong but this assignment has changed all that as Steve has taught us about micro planning. This has made me a lot happier as I finally know what to do and when to do it.

Handing in near
Next week most of A3 has to be in meaning I will have to work hard this week to make sure that all the work is in correctly and in the correct format. I will do this by checking it against the other assignment to make sure it looks correct first of all. I am getting a bit better with my spelling and grammar which has made me happy also as now I no where I am going wrong. Because now I now here I am going wrong I can easily proof reed some of my own work. However as sometimes I still get spelling wrong I will be asking other people to check my work to make sure that it is correct.

Image
Another feeling I have has this week is a feeling of knowledge mainly because I have finally learned about a new software “Photoshop”. This is not really new however I did not know how to do some of the things before that I do now.

This task soon became stressful rather than fun though, because I kept finding mistakes in my own work. I have figures out that the best way to make sure that the image is done correctly is to mainly use the clone brush in “2px” This allowed me to edit the picture in small detail well keeping the overall detail. I suppose one thing that made me tired is that image restoration seems to never be complete, I always keep finding little mistakes in the work which can sometimes irritate me.

Colour Change

2007-11-20T16:37:00.000Z

This week I learned more about colour with “Digital Imagery” and what I realised is that when I thought 5000 pieces of information was a lot for a computer to do this week we learned about TIF, and how printing format is 300DPI and has over 90,000 different pieces of information to remember and save, although this also means that the file size is far greater. But it is worth it if you are planning on making a good print of something; this made me feel happy, as I finally realised all the formats and what I should use for optimum efficiency.

Font

Another major factor this week to add into my knowledge database was about fonts, serifs and symbol ect. Display text confused me at first glance as I thought it looked a bit weird for text then Steve told us that it was mainly used for titles and banners to stand out and catch the eye of the audience. One thing that confused me is that a lot of the fonts looked the same and at first I could not understand, why there was so many fonts, as most of them looked identical, though I gues this is why there are 100,000’s of fonts out there, because most of them are the same with very little difference.

Image

Today I learned how to restore an image, of coarse I will not know if it is done correctly by next week, I am going to try and get as much done this week on the subject as it is something that I really enjoy doing, though I have to remember I have a lot more work to do besides this.

Referral work

This week I also have my referral work to finish off, I have done a lot of it already but I know to keep checking to make sure that it is done correctly. The main reason is that I want this to be done perfectly this time to show that I have learned from my mistakes. Although it might be bad news to get a referral I see it as good news as it has really helped me on the next assignment. Which has made me happy because I am sure that I will not make the same mistakes twice.

Sketch Book

One reason which makes me a bit worried this week is that I am nearing the end of my sketch book, the reason why this makes me worried is, know I will have more pages to look through to find the information that I desire, although a good point is that it will make Steve happy as I am moving onto my second one. Although this does create more work as I am going to have to create another index page.

Things for next week

Referral Work: This is my main priority this week, to make sure that I get all the work done correctly I have taken this week of work to make sure I can get it all done as well as all the other work.

Image restoration: This is the next task I want to make sure that I complete this week, however I will have to do it after my referral work.

Sketchbook: Buy a new sketch book for next week as I am nearing the end of the one I am using at the moment.

Photoshop: One thing that I really want to try and get done this week is Photoshop tutorials online, I think this will help me greatly in the image restoration, if anyone know some good sites can you please comment.

Time: This week I must remember to add new things to my time sheet as they come up, like when I have a break ect, I think this will add to my micro planning, if not please correct me on the comments.

Life of Colour

2007-11-13T17:04:00.000Z

This week I have learned a lot more about colour, and that it is not just about feelings, though this made me feel a little confused at first. By this I mean all the new meanings of colour I had to experiences such as RGB,
Monochromatic and others, I think that this will be very important towards the next assignment, but I will also be using them in my old assignment (Referral work) manly to show my understanding about the work more.

Referral

This week I also got my referral feedback, I had mixed feelings on this knowing that it was fixable made me very happy, but what confused me was how I knew to do certain things and yet for some reason I did not do them on the final design, I don’t know weather I just forgot these on the last printing with getting everything in, I think I did because on my first print out test copy of it most of the points was done, however the point is now I no what I’ve done so now I can fix it, I suppose this is what is really making me happy.

Sketchbook

The sketchbook is god, since I have got it back, I have been a lot happier, mainly because I have added loads more inspirational work into it, and now I can actual re read it to find information which is what I missed during reading week. Although the happiness must soon end as I am almost at the end of my first sketchbook meaning that I will have to get another, I’m not sure what Steve does with the old ones whether we are allowed to take them with us (Hopefully) or whether they have to stay in class.

More Design

Today I have done the first part of the new assignment, this has made me very happy learning all the new things about colour and such as I have said above, but another reason why it is making me happy is because, I have a feeling we will be using Photoshop more this time round, I no it will still require a lot of planning, researching and working out.

A good chance for me to put new design work in my sketch book this week also, mainly because “Make Your Mark” was something that was happening in college today and I got some good design ideas from them and also some designs to stick in my sketchbook, I must say that following my argument from last week that some of them look more like art work than design, however this is my interpretation of things, I’m sure that someone could argue with me and clearly explain there point of view on why it is design.

Time

This subject has actually made me happy for a long time, not because there isn’t much to do because that is FAR from the truth, there is loads to do. But the reason I am happy about time is because I have finally learned how to use the time sheets efficiently, I think for this week I have over four sheets to hand in, which is a lot compared to before half term when I wasn’t doing it correctly and only had one or two per week.

Also another reason why I am happy about time, is that Steve will be collecting time sheets now, the reason this is making me happy is that now I no that there is no way that I can loose any of them, this also means that I will be keeping up to date with my work and hopefully having enough proof at the end of assignments to warrant my time on them.

2k words

In this assignment however we have to write 2000 words, although this may seem a lot it has not bothered me that much, mainly because the 2000 words will be split up over 40 items, this works out at about 50 words per item, which isn’t much at all, I’m trying my absolute best to make sure that I do a lot better in the next assignment to stop me getting another referral. However as I have stated in previous posts I am a student and for that reason I am constantly learning new material, this also means that now and again I am going to get something wrong.

New & Old

2007-11-06T17:39:00.001Z

First feelings this week, are mainly of disappointment, even though I did the work to the standard I thought was rite, it was wrong, this can only mean one thing and that is, that I have to work at it, to improve, in ways this can also be a happy time, as a way to learn from mistakes, I’m looking forward to the feed back because it will enable me to work out what I did wrong it will also give me ways to improve my work so that I don’t get it wrong again.

The marking is allot stricter at this college than it was at Margret street, this means that this is a whole new experience, now I am just trying to adapt to the new learning style as well as the new marking, all I no is it could be worse, at least I will be able to try and correct my work, where as in industry I might not be so lucky.

Chances are I will be able to make this into a pass, by redoing certain parts of the work that, I have done wrong, I think the main thing that I will have chance to learn. Sorting out problems like this can be very stress full I no that allot of people who got referrals was very upset, mainly because the room went silent, however I am taking this as a lucky break, meaning I am getting another chance, this will help me learn from my mistakes and hopefully never get them wrong again.

The way forward like I said in class is not to sit, wine and be upset about the results given, it is to learn from mistakes made, as Steve has previously mentioned we are all students and he expects us to get it wrong some of the time or we would already be in industry.

The way this can be done is simple, after we have received feedback learn from the mistakes done and correct them, I have already been talking to a number of people which want to get together once feedback has been given to make sure that we all get it rite this time over. I think that this symbolises that the group is coming to one as a whole, hopefully this experience will bond the group making us all stronger as a whole.

Time is a major factor in this I think that allot of people may be very upset, from the grades given out today and may not understand how to change that, hopefully this will get better over time, if not this could cause problems which is why I suppose I’m on a downer at the moment. This meaning that all the people in the class are my friends and it would be a shame to see any of them stick this way, I no at least two that are fairly upset, by the grades and all I can do is stand by and help them get through this experience.

As soon as I saw the presentation on what most people had got wrong, I knew that I had got a referral, mainly because my time sheets wasn’t perfect I think it took me into the last few weeks to use them correctly, I think the initial blow of actually getting a referral has knocked me down in the future, however I see it as another step that I must pass before I can move on, the best way to do this is to listen to friends, family and hopefully get back on track.

In lighter news, I am finally reunited with my sketch book once again, this means that I can now stick all the work over the holidays into my book so that I know where it is, this is one problem which I no has been bugging me for a wile, I’ve been thinking of ideas, but having no where to put them so in some ways I am glad the holidays are over.

Another good point about this week is that I have finally got my host set up, this has gave me an email account also which I hope Steve will be happy about, I am just on the verge of thinking what I can put up there in the mean time to test to make sure it works, I think that a construction site page would be appropriate for now.

New Assignment’s

The new assignments are making me happy the first one is pretty much the old assignment however this time we actually get to make the website which will be very interesting because I will be able to test out my new host I.E. John. The second assignment is a whole new bunch of things, one is Photoshop, I’m sure this will make Gary happy as he will be able to get his design monsters out of the cupboard. However this week part of the assignment is to write down 12 pieces of individual software, such as “Adobe Dream Weaver” and also to write an essay on Design using research from Ian Anderson and the presentation lecture.

week starts

2007-10-30T16:39:00.000Z

These last few days I have found very interesting, not only are colours just the interpretation of what something looks like, they are also symbolic, for instance brown meaning earth and Mother Nature. I am slightly weary of what to put in my presentation to make it just five minutes long, I will have to cut allot of information out and just get straight to the point.

Presentations

I am actually looking forward to the presentation in a few ways it will give me chance to practise a skill which I will need in the industry, but it will also give me more confidence. I think working in the industry is full of meetings and presentations, so I am very happy that we will be doing allot of these, this will prepare us for the industry world and how it works.

Key Skills

Key skills gained from doing presentations can be a number of things, the first is confidence I my self no that I need more confidence which is why I am happy knowing that the class will be doing allot of presentations. Another is seeing what it’s really like in the industry I believe that doing presentations and interviews will help the class understand allot more about what it is like to work in the industry. Also knowledge is one of the things I am enjoying, researching for the presentation has give me allot information on colours and like Steve told me web designers are very brainy because they have to do this kind of research day in and out, this means that they will know allot more than you think. I’m really hopping we do another presentation so that I can get some more info ion things I didn’t no before.

Things I’ve done

This week I have done a number of things, the first is learned about the new assignment, via reading the assignment sheet which is on the HND site, for this I have printed off the next production schedule, I no the first one I did wasn’t very good looking back at it in my minds eye I can see what I did wrong. Also I have printed out a time sheet, as I gather we are technically back at college we just aren’t in the building it’s self.

At the moment I am currently working on my presentation on the colour I was given, this is probably one of the fun tasks, I am learning allot of new things for all colours not just the colour I have been given, allot if not all are symbolic in some way and always represent something else. I.E. “Red is danger to the western world”

The Bible

I am missing my sketch book so much I do not honestly no what to do, I am trying to keep all my work neatly laid out but I think I have lost some pages with not having it. I now no that Steve and the second years was correct in saying that it is like a bible. On the other hand not having the sketch book is teaching me how valuable it is, I really can not wait to get it back to stick all the new work in and so that I can look back for information.

Things for next week

Printed out and electronical version of presentation
Information on colours in sketch book
Put all design and inspiration work in sketchbook
Fill out production schedule
Fill out another time sheet

Sorry to all

2007-10-27T09:45:00.000+01:00

Hi all i would like to take this time to Apologise to you all, this is because I did not no that comment deadline date had changed from before Sunday to before Thursday, I feel as if I have let you all down not knowing this fact and I will sure as hell make it up to you.

Design Week

2007-10-23T20:31:00.000+01:00

This week I have been thinking about the last assignment, I’m hoping that I’ve past but if I haven’t I will make sure I pass it next time. This week I have learned a few things about design and how important the target audience is, if you look at cat food and cat treats most if not all have pictures of cats looking happy, this implies to the owners of cats to buy there food, o coarse some go way over the TOP I.E. whiskers, they have cat treats where the actual box is shaped as a cat.

I have also been gathering more design ideas, I have got some scenic pictures which I will be sticking indo the scrap book (when we get it back). Also I have got loads of logos, mainly from farm things like tractors, seen as I work on a farm I have plenty of opportunities to get my own good photos and logo ideas.

Things to do

For the rest of the week I will be reading the new assignment, and printing out preparation work for, this will hopefully help me allot especially if I get referred and have to do two assignments at once, Also I will be getting more logo designs and inspirational pictures.

Finally !!!

2007-10-16T13:55:00.001+01:00

Completion

This week was so relieving as I finally handed in my work, it made me feel happy as i knew the stress would be gone for one week, however I know it will soon be back after half term with another assignment however, strangely I am looking forward to it. Maybe I’m just looking forward to the marks so that I no what to improve on, I just don’t know. In the next couple of weeks I know a presentation is coming mainly because Steve did a presentation on it, however “Gary” also gave Steve the idea which means if Steve wasn’t thinking about it, you can assure that he is now.

Thing’s Learned

The main things learned this week was how important it is to have the work ready one week earlier, the reason I know this is that it made the last week a lot easier as I knew exactly what I needed to do. I asked John to proof read my work which I think he said “That’s a first” It wasn’t really at the proof reading he had to do its that I asked him to sign after to proof that he had read it, hopefully that will go towards M2 on the assignment.

As said in the previous posts time is flying as you can tell its almost November, I’m hoping that I have a pass however if I have a referral I wont mind too much as Steve said “You are students” this implies that we are all learning, we cant all be perfect or we would be in industry. If I do get a referral I think I will work on it for a full week to make sure that I can have it finished and up to scratch to cause me less stress.

Mastering

I am now starting to master my time and my time planning I’m not sure if I filled my time plan in correctly yet until Steve and John has looked at it however I’m hoping that it is done correctly because then I will no for sure when to do my work.

Looking Back

Looking back from when I first started I can defiantly see a difference, before I was on this course I was at Wakefield college which was a different teaching standard, Steve and John really have improved me as now I’m doing the work on time always getting it ready before hand and hopefully getting it right though there may be cases where I get it wrong.

Learning

Spelling will always be my weak point, however I am confident that there will always be people to put me right on spelling, so if anyone reading this is thinking I’ve got allot of spelling mistakes can you please E-Mail them to me so that I know where I am going wrong, also I can add them to my auto correct which will enable me to get them rite in the future. As for example the email I sent to Steve had a rather embarrassing word on because I didn’t check the spell check properly, Steve was kind enough to tell me but I must admit it was really funny, but I’m also hoping I don’t do it again as now I have a new nick name, I’m sure you will all here of it if you haven’t already.

Key Points

Spell checking
Time keeping

Things to come

Presentations
Reading week

More Websites

2007-10-15T11:01:00.000+01:00

www.thecounter.com (This site will allow you to check the most resent statistics on the web)
www.w3.org (This site has lots of infomation, Inc: Definitions and meanings to HTLM, XHTML, CSS ect. Also a full accessibility rules list)

Count The Blessings

2007-10-09T15:47:00.000+01:00

Deadline Incoming

The week of the deadline soon approaches, however this week was the test week for the deadline and I must say I’m happy, not because it’s all done because I no there is a lot more things I can do within the assignment but I what I need to do and how to do it. This has brought me a lot of joy as last week I was upset thinking that I wasn’t going to make it.

Reasons for relief

The reason this week is so relieving is that I no I can finish before Wednesday, this will allow me the rest of the week to proof read it and make sure that it is all correct, but finally I can relax, for a short few days.

Time Goes By

Time still seams to be flying by before my eyes though now I think that I am under control, as I no what to do and when to do it, I finally found my perfect working time last week. It is between 9-10pm I don’t know why but I find I work a lot more sufficiently at this time, maybe it’s because I have had more than five coffee’s by then.

No More Microsoft

What can I say, other than don’t use free Microsoft E-mailing accounts, hotmail has had a real problem this week not letting me accept any of Steve’s Emails, this has annoyed me, reason being that I have received them perfectly up to this date, however there is light at the end of the tunnel, as John is allowing me to buy into his server which will give me my own E-mail address that I can control as well as a web hosting account, this will come in handy for the next assignment.

Indexing

This week I have learned that I must index my scrap book, mainly because it will help Steve when marking the work find references, however it will also help me when in seminar groups and groups with John. The reason it will help me is because I will no where all my work is and where all my evidence is.

Blogging

I am looking forward to this next week and doing my evaluation, the reason being that half of it is in my Blog anyway so I really shouldn’t have as much to do as normal, this makes me feel happy meaning less stress, although I’m sure ill struggle on some parts, but for most I will use my Blog as my guide for the evaluation.

Reading Skills

This week I attended my weekly dyslexia meeting with Liz, I learned a lot more things this week about the dyslexia and how to improve it, before trying to read words got blurry from reading because of the sharpness of the background colour. However this week I learnt of layovers which really improves my reading style and helps me read a lot easier.

Key Points Learned

Time planning
Style sheets for dyslexia
Auto replaces
Indexing
Referencing
Page maker

Things for next week

Reference
More in page maker
Finishing the assignment
Putting all the work in the folder
Relaxing after deadline
Getting ready for the new assignment

The Chase For New Talent

2007-10-02T16:41:00.001+01:00

To start of I would like to express the gratitude towards Steve for letting me sit in on the DM (Design Mechanics) presentation, this was of much use as I learned all about the industry and how the clients really are (stubborn). To sum things up DM was an industry for experience, it lets new graduates get experience where as most design businesses ask you to have at least four years experience.

This week 1st and 2nd of October was both worry and joy, what I mean by this is that on Monday I was worrying weather I would get everything in on time, however on Tuesday signs of joy was appearing as I had caught up with all the work, this made me very happy and proud, now is just the worry of getting everything into page maker and making it look rite, the hardest thing is to make sure that the references are correctly matched with the work.

Points Learned

A number of things learned this weak one of which was improved skill in page maker, this software can really annoy me when the measurements just don’t want to go rite, by this I mean the rulers, one time they will fit perfectly the next they don’t. However page maker has made me feel more comfortable with grouping large text and print work together. Other things included, better time keeping and most accessibility rules.

Time

I don’t know if all the class feels the same but the entire weeks at college seem to just fly by, by this I mean that I don’t seem to have enough time, I blink and a day has flown by before my very eyes.

Things For Next Week

Next week I would like to fully, complete the assignment one week early, this will allow Steve to be able to give me feedback on the work which will hopefully allow me to improve, on it. I am hopeful that I will do a good job first time, however after hearing horror stories from the second years and how many people was referred I think deep down I am a little worried. (Only time will tell)

Key points
Time keeping
Assignment rules
Accessibility rules
Page maker skills
Production skills

Lessons & Facts

2007-09-25T16:07:00.001+01:00

This weak is my catch up weak, so far I have managed to look into three hosting accounts. From this I learned about the different prices, information and databases which was included in each of the hosts. I got allot of compassion this weak, because of the reason stated in the last post, this made me feel happy as now I no I defiantly belong in the group.

The real struggle this weak has bean trying to understand the technical side of web design and that is all the different languages involved, such as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), learning to write in HTML will be very difficult I think I am just at the moment looking into tutorials on Delicious, which is a good site with plenty of answers to questions plus free tutorials. (If you no any more tutorial links please comment) Another software I have learned about this weak, is Adobe Page Maker, the software its self is very useful especially for creating your first layout design on as you can measure it to the nearest mm. (millimetre) It is also used to create other things such as journals and books, simply because of all the rulers and guidelines you have on the software, generally I feel confident with the new software and look forward to using it again.

Another thing this weak which made me feel a little distressed, was hearing about “Jacob Neilson” who is an accessibility “freak” as well as a web designers worst nightmare, he is very big headed, he is correct however, he seams dull and doesn’t seem to like design, however as Steve would say “Content is king” and over 80% of people visit a website for some kind of information not the flashy pictures.

At the end of the day we was taught a lesson by Steve for not using are journals properly which is fair enough, as we was warned by Julian and both Craig’s to treat are journals like a bible, and in actual fact that’s what they are, when you need information you no where to look as it should be somewhere in the journal.

Key Points

Page Maker
Up-To-Date Blog work
Affective time keeping
Accessibility
JavaScript’s
Referencing and Plagiarism
Web plan

Days Away

2007-09-24T14:03:00.000+01:00

Illness

Last weak I was ill, from Sunday until Monday night, however on Monday I learnt that my Granddad had sadly past away this made me feel quite upset and I really couldn’t have worked to my full potential, as I normally would do. Now I’m back I will be concentrating on the work I have missed so that I can catch up, to do this I will be planning allot of self study this weak, this will allow me to catch up, as well as monitor my own performance.

During the time off I felt as if I was failing my self not being able to do the work I wanted to do, but certain things in life can affect the work you do, now I am better im hoping to get back on track.

Websites to Match

2007-09-11T16:43:00.000+01:00

del.icio.us This site contains a bookmark of various sites and stats.
evolt.org This site allows you to download new and old browser versions.
thecounter.com This site lets you browse statistics on what browser is used most.

Seminars & Skills

2007-09-11T16:14:00.000+01:00

Weeks Beginning

This weak has involved allot of research, this in-turn made me very happy as I was not only learning more about a certain person, I was researching about the person that gives me inspiration; David Attenborough. The research work is ongoing and it is what I expected, however I did not expect to be able to pick my own research target.

This weak I also got to go to support for my dyslexia in spelling, this did not affect me much as I have bean to support groups before, although I was frustrated as I missed part of a presentation, but when I came back Steve caught me up so I felt better straight after.

This week we also started the assignment, which made me feel happy as I knew that I was starting to get to no the course and the people within the course. The lectures we have on the assignment are well explained and if I don’t understand anything there is always a QA session after which makes me happy as I am able to find answers to the parts I don’t understand.

Best Part

The best part about this weak has bean learning about the entire course, the assignment and the rules about the assignment. The reason for this being the best part for me is that it allowed me to be able to sit down and look at and understand the work that I would be doing over the coming weeks.

Summary

The weak as a whole made me feel happy as I learnt allot more about my self and about the course. The main thing that I’ve learnt this weak is that the note book will always provide reference, so I am trying to jot down all the notes I can, this will save me allot of time during the assignment as I will already have allot of the assignment write down in notes in front of me.

Key Points

· Learning more about note taking
· Learning about seminars
· Learning about support groups
· Asking questions
· Researching
· Time keeping
· Learning about the assignment
· Learning certain rules of an assignment

First Feelings

2007-09-10T21:06:00.000+01:00

Group Activity’s

The first activity was where we all sat in a circle and tried to remember each others names, this was a good way to get to no the people we would be working with and also a good as it made me feel more at ease because I learnt the names of my colleagues.

The next activity made me feel part of a team. This was because of the team activities we all did, this included answering questions in a team of two-three people, the teams was randomly set out to give the full group a chance to get to no each other, this made me feel more welcome and helped me settle into the group as a whole. Another team activity was bidding on items which would enable the team to drop an egg out of a window without it breaking, this once again helped as team work was essential for everyone to have fun, wile learning new experiences.

Best Part About The Weak

The best part about the weak for me was a presentation from the second year students this provided allot of information which was very useful and it was nice to talk to some people who have gone through the experience before.

Summary

The first weak was mainly about team building and how to survive the two years in the course, the activities and team work made me feel at ease as well as introduce me to new people and the way of life in the interactive media course.

Key Points

The key points I learnt in the weak was that to always note in my sketch book this will allow me to reference notes made at an earlier, another useful fact I picked up from the second years is to always be aware of time and to make sure that all work is planned out before hand, this will ensure less stress when I’m doing assignments as I will know which part I’m doing and when I’m doing it.

My life up to now

2007-09-09T20:48:00.000+01:00

Where I’ve come from

From an early age, I have always been interested in design I used to draw roughly about 4-5 hours every day, I used drawing as a way to relax and feel more at ease with my self as a person. As years past I learnt more about drawing and the creativity behind drawing. This made me want to draw more and become a designer of some kind.

By the time I was half way through high school, I learnt allot about personal computers how they run and what they can do, because i wanted to explore this for me self, I bought my own drawing software for my pc called “Paint ShopPro” this allowed me to create my own drawings as well as having fun creating them in a new environment. Since then I have purchased more software such as “Adobe Photoshop” this software is very similar to “Paint-Shop-Pro” but allows me to use more creativity in the drawings I do.

After high school I decided that I wanted to no more about pc’s and the environment in which they are used so I did a course at Wakefield college called “GCE In Applied ICT” this taught me allot about pc’s and how they are not just used for design and fun, I learnt how to successfully build and create my own pc as well as learning all about networking, web design and the laws that are used when accessing a pc. This is when I learnt that I could fuse my talents for pc’s and design via web creation however in this course there was very limited web creation available and the only software I was able to use was front page, this is when I knew that I wanted to know allot more in this particular skill so I decided to apply for a full web design course.

Where I’m going

I am attending Wakefield college at thorns park. The course i'm doing is "HND in interactive media". From this course I hope to gain enough experience and qualifications to start work in the industry. I would also like to learn new ideas and creations which will help me get there, along the way I will to pick up allot of inspiration which will enable me to improve in design and help me get the job I want. In the future I would like to work in the industry of web design for a few years, this will give me great experience for setting up my own business in design.

How I’m going to get there

To make sure that I get the things I want in life I will work to my full potential, making sure that all my work is to a high standard and always in on time. To make sure that all my work is in on time I will be creating a time planner which will enable me to work in my own pace as well as finish all the work on time.