Monday, October 30, 2006

Time to relax!!!

This half-term holiday has allowed me to reflect on the assignment that I recently handed in and I feel that now the first one is out of the way this experience will be valuable for future assignments. Completing this first assignment has allowed me to identify what exactly is required by Steve and to what standard, this should make things much easier for the next two assignments which are due to be issued later this week.

I feel quite pleased with the assignment that I handed in and hopefully the string that I tied it all up with will be strong enough to hold it all together! I felt quite relaxed about deadline day as I had already completed the majority of the assignment so this allowed me to just make minor amendments and then hand it in with time to spare. This was extremely beneficial as I was not rushing to get things done which may have led to mistakes being made. I hope that I will be able to repeat this exercise for the two forthcoming assignments as I will be much more relaxed about the deadlines.

The fact that we will now be doing two assignments throughout the next term instead of the one that has just been completed I am quite anxious about this as the natural thought is that the workload is going to double. Bearing in mind the amount of work that went into the last project this could lead to a lot of work needing to be done. I am sure that this will not be as bad as I expect but I can’t wait to get these projects started!

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Deadline day!!!

After spending the majority of today tinkering with the assignment and making several minor changes I am quietly confident about handing in my first project tomorrow.

I’m sure that it will feel like a huge weight is lifted off me when I hand in the assignment as this is the first one. It has however been quite enjoyable and the experience that I have gained during this assignment will hopefully stand me in good stead for the two assignments that are approaching. Factors such as Weekly Planning Forms and working in PageMaker are slowly becoming second nature to me now and that is definitely beneficial for future assignments.

Trying to sort out what I need to include on my CD that I hand in tomorrow has also been quite a challenge. As we only need to include the work that we are handing in on the CD it has really all been about filtering out the work that is not needed. This was quite difficult at times because many of my file names looked pretty similar especially my picture names. To avoid this confusion I could have given them all suitable names the first time I saved them but unfortunately this was not the case. The next time I do this I will certainly put more thought into the names of my files so they are easy to identify when it comes to gathering them on the CD when the assignment deadline approaches.

As tonight is the night before the deadline I am going to spend it amongst other things trying to attach the CD containing all my work to the arch lever folder by any means possible! This is due to the fact that if my folder fails the ‘shake test’ then my CD may be lost and this could result in my work not being marked. I am also going to try to hunt down some string so that I can attach the sketchbook to the folder and keep it all together so all in all it is going to be an eventful night!

Hopefully this time tomorrow I will be relaxing after successfully handing in my first assignment to the desired standard!

Sunday, October 15, 2006

The deadline approaches!!!

This week has been pretty hectic as the deadline is fast approaching and there is plenty to be done. I find it hard to believe that all this time has passed and it has certainly gone quickly!

On Wednesday morning John came to give us a lecture on blogs and how they should be presented. This was quite helpful and it culminated in me displaying my blog to the class so that any improvements could be identified. The results of this are that several changes are going to have to be made in the near future, this may prove to be challenging as this involves editing the code which I have very little experience of.

Getting all the project work into the template and in the correct order was fairly challenging this week as consistency is paramount for this course and the slightest mistake could lead to me failing the project. Bearing in mind I did not even know what PageMaker was this time last month I am quite happy with how it has turned out. I did however put the references in the document straight away, this turned out to be a bad idea as I ended up editing the document several times and the references ended up in completely the wrong place. The next time I produce a Web Plan I will certainly leave the referencing to last!

The group feedback session was also very helpful this week as it gave me a better insight into what Steve is actually expecting from us and I was quite pleased that I seemingly only have a few minor amendments to make. This was also beneficial as it allowed me to see what other people were doing.

The deadline for the project is next Thursday and I am slightly apprehensive but also quite confident in the work that I have done. As this is the first project I am not expecting to achieve the highest grades but I feel that this has given me a good insight into the course and be valuable experience as I start the two new assignments in several weeks time.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Getting things done!!!

This week was all about getting on top of the workload and making sure that I am on track to have everything completed for this time next week. I had to transfer my sketchbook designs to PageMaker which proved to be a very time consuming but quite an enjoyable task. This enabled me to give an accurate representation of how the site should look if it were to be published to the internet. The design for the site template is at the bottom of this entry.

Thursday’s feedback session was also very productive as it allowed me to show my designs to Steve, Scott and Jamie and receive comments from them on how it could be improved. As a result of this feedback I added images to the design to give a more accurate representation of how the site will look, made the size of the title fonts larger so it stands out more and rearranged the layout of the contents by adding more text and moving the whole layout to the right eliminating the large amount of white space. I felt that this was effective as it gave me a good idea on how a prospective client may react in these circumstances when designing a website for them.

Diane was in the lesson on Wednesday afternoon and she spent quite a lot of time discussing where I was with the project and offering any help she could from her experience of previously doing the course. I found this to be extremely helpful as she was able to show me what she had done and how I could improve on what I am currently doing. I think that it will be useful to have her around in the coming weeks as the deadline approaches and as we start the new assignments.

In my self study this week I am going to have to try and piece everything together and do some slight amendments to the work that I have done so far. As the deadline is approaching fast I am going to dedicate a lot of time to my self study this week so I am in the position of handing it in to Steve next Thursday!