The results are in!!!
I feel that I have managed to get quite a lot done this week and I feel quite confident that I am well on track as we are to begin our Easter break.
As I arrived on Wednesday morning I was soon told to check the board as the results for our “A5 Builder” assignment had been put up. Even though I was quite confident in my work for this assignment I was also wary of the fact that I have slipped up previously by making silly little mistakes. This was something which I was determined not to do this time and I was very happy with the fact that I had achieved a Merit grade. After experiencing many problems with my website for this assignment and having to start all over again with several weeks to go I am pleased that I have been able to achieve such a good grade.
After speaking to Steve in our group feedback session on Thursday he explained to us how he the assignments are graded. He told us that we get the good marks by completing the learning outcomes for each assignment and not by reading the plain English descriptions. This is something which I am definitely going to have to be more aware of for upcoming assignments and also the SketchBlog assignment which is being handed in soon.
I have been able to get quite a lot done this week and after giving a presentation to the group on Wednesday of our logo’s and receiving feedback I was quickly able to create my finished design. I felt that the opportunity to get feedback from everybody at once was very beneficial as you began to get different opinions and suggestions on how things could be improved. I feel that this is much more efficient than if I were to go round everybody individually with designs from my sketchbook as I think that you are able to display things much easier on screen.
I was also able to finish my screen design for the website along with the site structure diagram which now leaves me with gathering the content and building the site over the Easter break. Ideally I would like to return to college being able to focus my attention on the design for the CD that I have chosen.
I spent the majority of Thursday researching into several elements of the assignment and looking at some examples of other people’s style guides, I feel that this was a good experience as it allowed me to see the good and bad features of each individual guide which I can hopefully take into account for my guide. I then focused on trying to create the CSS for my new site as this is something which I struggled on last time. I did this by creating a test sheet and then creating a style sheet to apply to that sheet to see if everything was working correctly. I feel that this is a good way to do things as it eliminates any chance me getting it messed up half way through as I did last time. This is definitely something that I will try to do when I build future websites.
At the end of Thursday I didn’t even realise that the results for our “A6 Revert to Type” had been put up on the board until I saw several people standing around the sheet. I was extremely nervous about this assignment as I felt that I really did make quite a mess with the final timed assignment. Because of this I was both delighted and surprised that I had achieved a Merit! I am very pleased that after several referrals earlier in the course I am now beginning to get better grades which I must try to maintain. Bearing in mind that the work goes up another notch next year I know that it will take much more to achieve Merit and Distinction grades next year but it is something that I am definitely striving for!
Friday, March 23, 2007
Logos, logos, logos!!!
For the majority of this week we have been concentrating on working on our Ambient World logo. I was quite worried about this on Wednesday as I was not entirely happy with the quality of my designs. Despite putting some time aside in my self study to come up with around twenty rough designs I felt that this was nowhere near enough and I did not really feel that any of the designs would be appropriate for Ambient World. I felt that this was because I had focused on stereotypical musical elements such as musical notes and microphones, after having the experience of listening to the type of music that they sell it was quite clear that I needed to take a different approach to my designs altogether. I quite enjoyed coming up with the new designs as I felt that they were of a much higher quality compared to my earlier efforts and would be much more suited to this type of music. For the majority of my designs I tried to incorporate some kind of space/electronica theme and I would welcome any feedback you may have on my designs at the bottom of this entry.
After listening to my album Planetarium this week I was pleasantly surprised that it was not as bad as I thought it would be. It is definitely not something that I would go out and buy but I feel that is the whole point of this assignment. You cannot always expect to be working on something that you like so being able to create designs for something which is not familiar to you or not to your taste is something that we need to learn to do. I am however definitely enjoying this task and quite pleased with some of the ideas I have come up with so far.
One thing that Steve has stressed to us this week is the importance of keeping accurate weekly planning sheets and overall time plans for the whole assignment. After the experience of the first assignment where Steve planned what we should have done by what date I immediately felt at ease knowing where I should be at any stage in the assignment. When on the start of our second and third assignments we had to make our own mini-deadlines I knew that I had to put more time and effort into time management and I feel that it is now something which I am quite comfortable with and really helps when we have larger assignments such as A7 The Fax of Life. I feel that if I didn’t plan as much as I do I would definitely fall behind and not be able to manage the workload effectively as I would like. I think that management of time is probably one of the key skills to have if you were to go on and get a job in this industry so being able to do it well now can only be advantageous for the future.
As we are fast approaching the Easter break I hope to have a completed logo drawn up in Freehand by this time next week and also have full screen designs for my style guide website.
Logo ideas:
For the majority of this week we have been concentrating on working on our Ambient World logo. I was quite worried about this on Wednesday as I was not entirely happy with the quality of my designs. Despite putting some time aside in my self study to come up with around twenty rough designs I felt that this was nowhere near enough and I did not really feel that any of the designs would be appropriate for Ambient World. I felt that this was because I had focused on stereotypical musical elements such as musical notes and microphones, after having the experience of listening to the type of music that they sell it was quite clear that I needed to take a different approach to my designs altogether. I quite enjoyed coming up with the new designs as I felt that they were of a much higher quality compared to my earlier efforts and would be much more suited to this type of music. For the majority of my designs I tried to incorporate some kind of space/electronica theme and I would welcome any feedback you may have on my designs at the bottom of this entry.
After listening to my album Planetarium this week I was pleasantly surprised that it was not as bad as I thought it would be. It is definitely not something that I would go out and buy but I feel that is the whole point of this assignment. You cannot always expect to be working on something that you like so being able to create designs for something which is not familiar to you or not to your taste is something that we need to learn to do. I am however definitely enjoying this task and quite pleased with some of the ideas I have come up with so far.
One thing that Steve has stressed to us this week is the importance of keeping accurate weekly planning sheets and overall time plans for the whole assignment. After the experience of the first assignment where Steve planned what we should have done by what date I immediately felt at ease knowing where I should be at any stage in the assignment. When on the start of our second and third assignments we had to make our own mini-deadlines I knew that I had to put more time and effort into time management and I feel that it is now something which I am quite comfortable with and really helps when we have larger assignments such as A7 The Fax of Life. I feel that if I didn’t plan as much as I do I would definitely fall behind and not be able to manage the workload effectively as I would like. I think that management of time is probably one of the key skills to have if you were to go on and get a job in this industry so being able to do it well now can only be advantageous for the future.
As we are fast approaching the Easter break I hope to have a completed logo drawn up in Freehand by this time next week and also have full screen designs for my style guide website.
Logo ideas:
Thursday, March 15, 2007
The big one!!!
This week saw the arrival of the new assignment “A7 The Fax of Life”. I find it very hard to believe that this is our final major project of the year and time has certainly flown by!
It has been quite a relief to start a new assignment and forget about the stresses of last week. My first impressions of the assignment were that it seemed to be quite a lot larger to what we have been accustomed to, however, if you take into consideration the fact that both college days and all of our self study is going to be focused on this project it seems a lot more manageable. I do feel quite prepared for this assignment due to the fact that Steve has spent the majority of the week in college thoroughly going through things and clearing up all the issues. I feel that this has really benefited me and I have been able to compile a lot of notes and highlight the key points which will be good to refer to as the assignment progresses.
I have decided to do quite a bit of research into this assignment before I start any creative work as I want to be able to create better designs when I eventually come round to doing them. I have found the Storm Thorgerson site quite inspiring as he designs anything from CD covers to Logo’s which is extremely relevant to this assignment.
On Wednesday former student Marc Bowers also gave us a visit to let us know how he coped with the course and how he has found work since leaving. I feel that by occasionally having former students visit is a real confidence booster and it lets you see that all the hard work will eventually be worth it. This was something that Marc really wanted to put across in his presentation and he felt that he would have been able to achieve much better grades if he would have put a little more time and effort in. This is something that I will definitely try to be wary of as I want to be able to achieve the best grades possible. Marc has however found himself a good job which he is very happy with, as I have had the experience of having to go to work everyday to a job that I really didn’t like this is something that I will ultimately strive for.
One site that Marc said that he used was Graduate Link and he actually found out about his current job on this website. I was quite surprised to see that the majority of jobs were not really fussed whether you had a HND or a Degree and this would certainly make me think twice about doing a top up year as I had originally planned.
This week saw the arrival of the new assignment “A7 The Fax of Life”. I find it very hard to believe that this is our final major project of the year and time has certainly flown by!
It has been quite a relief to start a new assignment and forget about the stresses of last week. My first impressions of the assignment were that it seemed to be quite a lot larger to what we have been accustomed to, however, if you take into consideration the fact that both college days and all of our self study is going to be focused on this project it seems a lot more manageable. I do feel quite prepared for this assignment due to the fact that Steve has spent the majority of the week in college thoroughly going through things and clearing up all the issues. I feel that this has really benefited me and I have been able to compile a lot of notes and highlight the key points which will be good to refer to as the assignment progresses.
I have decided to do quite a bit of research into this assignment before I start any creative work as I want to be able to create better designs when I eventually come round to doing them. I have found the Storm Thorgerson site quite inspiring as he designs anything from CD covers to Logo’s which is extremely relevant to this assignment.
On Wednesday former student Marc Bowers also gave us a visit to let us know how he coped with the course and how he has found work since leaving. I feel that by occasionally having former students visit is a real confidence booster and it lets you see that all the hard work will eventually be worth it. This was something that Marc really wanted to put across in his presentation and he felt that he would have been able to achieve much better grades if he would have put a little more time and effort in. This is something that I will definitely try to be wary of as I want to be able to achieve the best grades possible. Marc has however found himself a good job which he is very happy with, as I have had the experience of having to go to work everyday to a job that I really didn’t like this is something that I will ultimately strive for.
One site that Marc said that he used was Graduate Link and he actually found out about his current job on this website. I was quite surprised to see that the majority of jobs were not really fussed whether you had a HND or a Degree and this would certainly make me think twice about doing a top up year as I had originally planned.
Friday, March 09, 2007
A6 Evaluation
When we were first given the A6 Revert to Type assignment my initial fears were geared totally towards the presentation that we had to give at the end of the project. I felt that this would have been the most difficult part of the assignment by far and did not feel that I would struggle too much with the rest of the assignment. However, I soon began to realise that this was not the case.
As I began to do the “as and when” tasks I soon realised just how difficult they actually were. I was quite excited about them at first because I knew that jobs in the industry require you to work at a very fast pace so this would be great experience for the future. The first timed task we did was to produce an article on musician Jonathan Gee using a given set of elements. I was quite happy with the design that I did for this and I felt that I benefited greatly by getting the whole design done with quite a lot of time to spare. This meant that I could spend time thoroughly checking the work and improving it. I could have spent more time on the planning process for this design but this may have left me with little time to spare meaning that I wouldn’t be able to check it as thoroughly as I would have liked. If I were to do this task again I would certainly try to get everything done with time to spare so that I could make the necessary amendments which would lead to a higher quality of work. This was something which I tried to do for every practical task in this unit but unfortunately this was not the case for all of them.
The next task we did was to design a paint tube for a range of oriental paints. Again this task involved working to a set brief which I immediately felt at ease with. I enjoyed this task as I felt that it was quite a challenging brief due to the small amount of space available to put the elements. I felt that this was a good experience because you cannot always expect to be given large amounts of space to create designs so being able to design on a small scale is a key skill to have.
We were then given the task of creating a job advertisement to a given brief and again this was something that I did not really struggle too much with. I felt that this task had a much more commercial feel to it compared to the tasks we had done previously and again I was pleased to see that I had left myself with plenty of time to check the work and make any amendments. I felt that this was possibly my most effective design out of the tasks that we had done and if I were to do the design again I would probably stick to the same design.
The next task we were given was to create a grid for a newsletter article and then design all of the content. As there was much more to do in this task compared to the previous tasks that we had done I knew that I had to try and work a lot faster. This has not really been a strong point of mine in the past as I tend to spend quite a lot of time dwelling on things and changing things. Due to this I tried not to dwell on things too much and just try to get it done as quickly as possible, I was not really entirely happy with this design as I felt that I might have rushed it a bit too much even though I only just managed to meet the deadline with minutes to spare. Due to this I decided not to submit this piece of work as I did not feel that it was designed as well as the others that I had done. If I were to do this design again I would definitely try to speed up the rough design process as I feel that I spent much more time than I need to on this.
The last timed task we did came as a real surprise as we had to design multiple fact sheets and supply all the material. This was the first time that we have had not been given the content for a task and this was something that I really struggled with given the amount of time that we had. I was quite confident that I knew the majority of the content so I decided to write as much down as I could and then save it as a text file ready to be imported into PageMaker when I needed it. I was quite disappointed with my performance in this task as I had planned to make 5 sheets at first and then when I realised just how much time I had left I amended this to 3 sheets. In the end though I only ended up with having just over 1 and a half sheets finished before I ran out of time. I feel that I ran out of time purely because of the way that I had designed the sheets. I had designed the sheet to have roughly 10 definitions on each page and bearing in mind that I had to create the illustrations for each definition I just did not have the amount of time to create them. I felt this was a good experience however as I realise just how important management of time is and I feel that if I were to do this task again I would only put around 5 definitions on a page which would save me a vast amount of time.
One part of the assignment that I am happy with was every aspect of the presentation that we had to do. This involved creating a visual presentation along with an accompanying handout. After spending quite a lot of time on the design of the handout I am very pleased with the end result. I felt that everything that I had learnt from doing the “as and when” tasks really helped me with this design as I had a clearer knowledge of all the different typographic techniques. I was also quite happy with my design of the visual aides as I felt that they contained a good balance of information and images. If I were to do these tasks again though I am sure that I would be able to improve on them due to the experience that I have gained throughout this assignment.
The actual delivery of the presentation at the end of the assignment was something that I was worried about the most. Due to this I wanted to try and know the presentation inside out and also give myself cue cards to remind me of any important pieces of information. I felt that this was a good technique to use as I felt that I did quite a good job with the presentation and my nerves soon disappeared. If I were to do this task again I would certainly use this method as I felt much more confident compared to presentations that I had done in the past.
When we were first given the A6 Revert to Type assignment my initial fears were geared totally towards the presentation that we had to give at the end of the project. I felt that this would have been the most difficult part of the assignment by far and did not feel that I would struggle too much with the rest of the assignment. However, I soon began to realise that this was not the case.
As I began to do the “as and when” tasks I soon realised just how difficult they actually were. I was quite excited about them at first because I knew that jobs in the industry require you to work at a very fast pace so this would be great experience for the future. The first timed task we did was to produce an article on musician Jonathan Gee using a given set of elements. I was quite happy with the design that I did for this and I felt that I benefited greatly by getting the whole design done with quite a lot of time to spare. This meant that I could spend time thoroughly checking the work and improving it. I could have spent more time on the planning process for this design but this may have left me with little time to spare meaning that I wouldn’t be able to check it as thoroughly as I would have liked. If I were to do this task again I would certainly try to get everything done with time to spare so that I could make the necessary amendments which would lead to a higher quality of work. This was something which I tried to do for every practical task in this unit but unfortunately this was not the case for all of them.
The next task we did was to design a paint tube for a range of oriental paints. Again this task involved working to a set brief which I immediately felt at ease with. I enjoyed this task as I felt that it was quite a challenging brief due to the small amount of space available to put the elements. I felt that this was a good experience because you cannot always expect to be given large amounts of space to create designs so being able to design on a small scale is a key skill to have.
We were then given the task of creating a job advertisement to a given brief and again this was something that I did not really struggle too much with. I felt that this task had a much more commercial feel to it compared to the tasks we had done previously and again I was pleased to see that I had left myself with plenty of time to check the work and make any amendments. I felt that this was possibly my most effective design out of the tasks that we had done and if I were to do the design again I would probably stick to the same design.
The next task we were given was to create a grid for a newsletter article and then design all of the content. As there was much more to do in this task compared to the previous tasks that we had done I knew that I had to try and work a lot faster. This has not really been a strong point of mine in the past as I tend to spend quite a lot of time dwelling on things and changing things. Due to this I tried not to dwell on things too much and just try to get it done as quickly as possible, I was not really entirely happy with this design as I felt that I might have rushed it a bit too much even though I only just managed to meet the deadline with minutes to spare. Due to this I decided not to submit this piece of work as I did not feel that it was designed as well as the others that I had done. If I were to do this design again I would definitely try to speed up the rough design process as I feel that I spent much more time than I need to on this.
The last timed task we did came as a real surprise as we had to design multiple fact sheets and supply all the material. This was the first time that we have had not been given the content for a task and this was something that I really struggled with given the amount of time that we had. I was quite confident that I knew the majority of the content so I decided to write as much down as I could and then save it as a text file ready to be imported into PageMaker when I needed it. I was quite disappointed with my performance in this task as I had planned to make 5 sheets at first and then when I realised just how much time I had left I amended this to 3 sheets. In the end though I only ended up with having just over 1 and a half sheets finished before I ran out of time. I feel that I ran out of time purely because of the way that I had designed the sheets. I had designed the sheet to have roughly 10 definitions on each page and bearing in mind that I had to create the illustrations for each definition I just did not have the amount of time to create them. I felt this was a good experience however as I realise just how important management of time is and I feel that if I were to do this task again I would only put around 5 definitions on a page which would save me a vast amount of time.
One part of the assignment that I am happy with was every aspect of the presentation that we had to do. This involved creating a visual presentation along with an accompanying handout. After spending quite a lot of time on the design of the handout I am very pleased with the end result. I felt that everything that I had learnt from doing the “as and when” tasks really helped me with this design as I had a clearer knowledge of all the different typographic techniques. I was also quite happy with my design of the visual aides as I felt that they contained a good balance of information and images. If I were to do these tasks again though I am sure that I would be able to improve on them due to the experience that I have gained throughout this assignment.
The actual delivery of the presentation at the end of the assignment was something that I was worried about the most. Due to this I wanted to try and know the presentation inside out and also give myself cue cards to remind me of any important pieces of information. I felt that this was a good technique to use as I felt that I did quite a good job with the presentation and my nerves soon disappeared. If I were to do this task again I would certainly use this method as I felt much more confident compared to presentations that I had done in the past.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Presentations and Purple Giraffe’s!!!
Even though we were only in college for one full day this week as well as practicing our presentations I feel it has been very productive.
On Wednesday we were visited by former student Jonny Haynes who came in to give us a talk on his experiences with the course and what he is doing now. I was very impressed with what he had to say and it was good to hear from somebody who has done this course and gone on to get a decent job out of it. As he works for Technophobia who are quite a large firm in Sheffield I was eager to see what he had been doing since working for them. As he began to show us what he had been up to since he started there it became apparent that the work he does is very different to that of The Design Mechanics who I visited recently. The main difference really is that Technophobia deal with much larger clients and work on projects for long periods whereas The Design Mechanics need to have a quick turnover in work to attain any profit. He also stated that it took him almost six months to gain employment after finishing the course so that proves just how difficult it may be to get a job in the industry when the course is over.
On Thursday we came in for a short period to practice our presentations. We were able to go through the presentation in front of Steve and the rest of our group and gather any feedback which would make the presentation any better. I was quite happy with how this went and I feel that because of the feedback I received I will be able to deliver a better presentation next week. One regret I have however is that I didn’t really rehearse enough before our practice session. If I were to do again I would definitely rehearse more so that I will feel much more confident about the whole thing. After John helped out by giving us a little exercise on presentations it became apparent that the key element to any presentation is just confidence. If you go into the presentation in a confident mood you are much more likely to do a better job.
With the deadlines coming up next week I am definitely going to dedicate a lot of my time to trying to know my presentation back to front!
Even though we were only in college for one full day this week as well as practicing our presentations I feel it has been very productive.
On Wednesday we were visited by former student Jonny Haynes who came in to give us a talk on his experiences with the course and what he is doing now. I was very impressed with what he had to say and it was good to hear from somebody who has done this course and gone on to get a decent job out of it. As he works for Technophobia who are quite a large firm in Sheffield I was eager to see what he had been doing since working for them. As he began to show us what he had been up to since he started there it became apparent that the work he does is very different to that of The Design Mechanics who I visited recently. The main difference really is that Technophobia deal with much larger clients and work on projects for long periods whereas The Design Mechanics need to have a quick turnover in work to attain any profit. He also stated that it took him almost six months to gain employment after finishing the course so that proves just how difficult it may be to get a job in the industry when the course is over.
On Thursday we came in for a short period to practice our presentations. We were able to go through the presentation in front of Steve and the rest of our group and gather any feedback which would make the presentation any better. I was quite happy with how this went and I feel that because of the feedback I received I will be able to deliver a better presentation next week. One regret I have however is that I didn’t really rehearse enough before our practice session. If I were to do again I would definitely rehearse more so that I will feel much more confident about the whole thing. After John helped out by giving us a little exercise on presentations it became apparent that the key element to any presentation is just confidence. If you go into the presentation in a confident mood you are much more likely to do a better job.
With the deadlines coming up next week I am definitely going to dedicate a lot of my time to trying to know my presentation back to front!
Friday, February 23, 2007
Time to relax…no chance!!!
I have quite enjoyed the little break from college this week and this has enabled me to get quite a lot done.
One of my aims for this week was to finish everything to do with the upcoming presentation (slides, handouts etc) and apart from rehearsing the actual presentation I have been able to do this. I had been quite worried about the handout for the presentation due to the fact that it will also be marked. Because of this I have tried to take into account all the little typography tasks that we have been doing recently and after spending quite a bit of time on this I am quite happy with the end result (see below).
I have quite enjoyed the little break from college this week and this has enabled me to get quite a lot done.
One of my aims for this week was to finish everything to do with the upcoming presentation (slides, handouts etc) and apart from rehearsing the actual presentation I have been able to do this. I had been quite worried about the handout for the presentation due to the fact that it will also be marked. Because of this I have tried to take into account all the little typography tasks that we have been doing recently and after spending quite a bit of time on this I am quite happy with the end result (see below).
Another thing that I have spent quite a lot of time on this week is trying to fix the problem with the navigation of my A5 Builder website in Firefox. I was quite disappointed that the site did not render properly in Firefox but despite many attempts to alter the coding the problem still remained. This is something which I will continue to try and fix but at the minute I haven’t had any luck! I think that I had been having the problems with my website because I had created a template and tried to create every page from the template, this seemed a good idea at the time but when any meaningful changes needed to be made it proved to be pretty difficult. I will definitely put more thought into whether to create a template page next time.
I also decided to take advantage of this week by trying to address some areas of the SketchBlog assignment which we were given at the beginning of the course. One area that I felt I needed to address was “Analyse the cultural contexts in which graphic ideas are communicated”. This has proved to be a very difficult task and after what seemed like endless searching I was unable to find anything of any real relevance. This has proved to be quite frustrating as I hoped to get quite a lot of this done during this week. This is something which I am definitely going to revisit at a later date as without this it would be extremely difficult to pass the unit.
I am quite looking forward to next week at college as we have a former student visiting and we are practicing for our upcoming presentations. It will be interesting to see how another student has found leaving the course and going into a job after speaking to former students at the Design Mechanics several weeks ago.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
The stress of timed tasks!!!
The deadlines are slowly creeping closer and although they are not until another few weeks this will be our last full working week. This is because we are now embarking on a week’s holiday and then when we return one day is dedicated to the practice of our presentations. Because of this it has been quite pleasing to see that things are slowly but surely coming together.
On Wednesday we undertook our usability testing for the A5 Builder assignment. I was looking forward to this as I was eager to see what other people thought of my website and what possible improvements could be made. I spent quite a lot of time thinking about what questions to ask in my questionnaire because I wanted to be able to capture the best quality feedback possible. I think that this was beneficial as during our group feedback sessions with Steve last week it was apparent that we needed to create a blend of both quantitative and qualitative responses.
I was quite happy with how everything went and because of the feedback I received I was able to change several pieces on the site. I feel that I could have improved on this by including a section stating “Any other comments” or something along those lines. This would enable be to receive more qualitative responses and this is definitely something I will consider doing next time. See the latest version of the site.
On Thursday we were greeted by another timed task. The first part of this was to create the grid for a newsletter and the second part of this was to organise the content into the grid previously created. I was looking forward to this task but I soon began to encounter several problems with creating the original grid. As we were only given an hour to plan and create the grid time was certainly of the essence. I feel that I spent too much time doing my roughs and drawing my chosen design out which left me with very little time to actually create it. This resulted in me creating a design which I was not entirely happy with and I would certainly have amended it if I had the time left over. Even though I did struggle with this I still felt it was a beneficial task as it reminded me just how important time in this industry is. If I were to do this task again I would certainly remember this and spend much less time on my rough work leaving me with more time to create my final design.
Even though we are about to start a week’s holiday it is no time to relax as there is plenty to do. With the presentation to master along with the upcoming deadlines I am certainly going to be busy!
The deadlines are slowly creeping closer and although they are not until another few weeks this will be our last full working week. This is because we are now embarking on a week’s holiday and then when we return one day is dedicated to the practice of our presentations. Because of this it has been quite pleasing to see that things are slowly but surely coming together.
On Wednesday we undertook our usability testing for the A5 Builder assignment. I was looking forward to this as I was eager to see what other people thought of my website and what possible improvements could be made. I spent quite a lot of time thinking about what questions to ask in my questionnaire because I wanted to be able to capture the best quality feedback possible. I think that this was beneficial as during our group feedback sessions with Steve last week it was apparent that we needed to create a blend of both quantitative and qualitative responses.
I was quite happy with how everything went and because of the feedback I received I was able to change several pieces on the site. I feel that I could have improved on this by including a section stating “Any other comments” or something along those lines. This would enable be to receive more qualitative responses and this is definitely something I will consider doing next time. See the latest version of the site.
On Thursday we were greeted by another timed task. The first part of this was to create the grid for a newsletter and the second part of this was to organise the content into the grid previously created. I was looking forward to this task but I soon began to encounter several problems with creating the original grid. As we were only given an hour to plan and create the grid time was certainly of the essence. I feel that I spent too much time doing my roughs and drawing my chosen design out which left me with very little time to actually create it. This resulted in me creating a design which I was not entirely happy with and I would certainly have amended it if I had the time left over. Even though I did struggle with this I still felt it was a beneficial task as it reminded me just how important time in this industry is. If I were to do this task again I would certainly remember this and spend much less time on my rough work leaving me with more time to create my final design.
Even though we are about to start a week’s holiday it is no time to relax as there is plenty to do. With the presentation to master along with the upcoming deadlines I am certainly going to be busy!
Friday, February 09, 2007
Team work, where do I fit?
This week’s blog entry is a little bit different from usual, I am going to analyse where I feel my position would be if I were to be put into a team working situation.
I feel that several of my personality traits would fit into the criteria for a selection of the different team-roles stated on the Belbin website (www.belbin.com). One of the positions that I thought I may have fitted into was the “Teamworker” role. I felt this because I think that I am a quite mild person and like to avert friction wherever possible. However one weakness of a “Teamworker” is that they are indecisive in crunch situations, I feel that in the past this may have applied to me a little bit but the recent timed tasks that we have been doing have made me become much more focused. I am now beginning to decide on my design choices much quicker and easier without mulling things over.
Another section which I felt I may fit into was that of an “Implementer”. This is because the traits of an “Implementer” are that they are disciplined, reliable, conservative and efficient. I feel that I have improved on all of these areas since I started on the course due to the fact that amongst other things we have to plan and complete 16 hours of self study each week. This has forced me to be much more disciplined and reliable so I believe that this certainly applies to me. Again however I did not feel that the weaknesses of an “Implementer” applied to me, one weakness was that they are slow to respond to new possibilities. I don’t feel that this applies to me because I tend to relish and look forward to new possibilities whenever they arise.
The section that I felt most suited me was that of a “Completer Finisher”. I feel that almost all of the traits of a “Completer Finisher” apply accurately to me. Two things that I consider myself to be quite strong at are the ability to deliver on time and to be quite conscientious. These are two criteria which fit into the “Completer Finisher” role along with being painstaking, anxious and someone who searches out errors and omissions which I also feel applies to me, I am aware however that I need to improve on the latter if I am going to cut out on silly little mistakes. I also feel that one of the potential weaknesses applies to me which is that I am inclined to worry unduly. This is something which has been one of my traits for as long as I can remember and although I do get myself in a bit of a panic over the littlest of things it can also be of benefit sometimes. Because I do tend to worry I occasionally feel that I over prepare for things and do too much but I would much rather be like that than under prepare and not do enough!
My previous experience of working as part of a team was when I worked as a Claims Handler last year. This was because we all used to work in little teams. This was very different to what I expect team working will be like in this industry though as everybody all had the same job and just got on with their own work.
One recent little group task that I have done was to plan and perform a short presentation about a recent trip to The Design Mechanics in Huddersfield. I did this with Drew, Craig A and Craig B and overall I thought that this turned out to be quite a success. I felt that this was because we all fit into different sections of the “Team-Role Descriptions” and each have something different to offer. Even though it was only a short task I feel that Craig A took the role of a “Resource Investigator”, Craig B took the role of a “Co-ordinator”, Drew took the role of a “Implementer” and I took the role of a “Completer Finisher”. I think if we were to work in this group again we would be able to do a good job. I also feel that I would be quite happy to work with anyone within the group because everybody seems to get on well and should be able to work well together.
This week’s blog entry is a little bit different from usual, I am going to analyse where I feel my position would be if I were to be put into a team working situation.
I feel that several of my personality traits would fit into the criteria for a selection of the different team-roles stated on the Belbin website (www.belbin.com). One of the positions that I thought I may have fitted into was the “Teamworker” role. I felt this because I think that I am a quite mild person and like to avert friction wherever possible. However one weakness of a “Teamworker” is that they are indecisive in crunch situations, I feel that in the past this may have applied to me a little bit but the recent timed tasks that we have been doing have made me become much more focused. I am now beginning to decide on my design choices much quicker and easier without mulling things over.
Another section which I felt I may fit into was that of an “Implementer”. This is because the traits of an “Implementer” are that they are disciplined, reliable, conservative and efficient. I feel that I have improved on all of these areas since I started on the course due to the fact that amongst other things we have to plan and complete 16 hours of self study each week. This has forced me to be much more disciplined and reliable so I believe that this certainly applies to me. Again however I did not feel that the weaknesses of an “Implementer” applied to me, one weakness was that they are slow to respond to new possibilities. I don’t feel that this applies to me because I tend to relish and look forward to new possibilities whenever they arise.
The section that I felt most suited me was that of a “Completer Finisher”. I feel that almost all of the traits of a “Completer Finisher” apply accurately to me. Two things that I consider myself to be quite strong at are the ability to deliver on time and to be quite conscientious. These are two criteria which fit into the “Completer Finisher” role along with being painstaking, anxious and someone who searches out errors and omissions which I also feel applies to me, I am aware however that I need to improve on the latter if I am going to cut out on silly little mistakes. I also feel that one of the potential weaknesses applies to me which is that I am inclined to worry unduly. This is something which has been one of my traits for as long as I can remember and although I do get myself in a bit of a panic over the littlest of things it can also be of benefit sometimes. Because I do tend to worry I occasionally feel that I over prepare for things and do too much but I would much rather be like that than under prepare and not do enough!
My previous experience of working as part of a team was when I worked as a Claims Handler last year. This was because we all used to work in little teams. This was very different to what I expect team working will be like in this industry though as everybody all had the same job and just got on with their own work.
One recent little group task that I have done was to plan and perform a short presentation about a recent trip to The Design Mechanics in Huddersfield. I did this with Drew, Craig A and Craig B and overall I thought that this turned out to be quite a success. I felt that this was because we all fit into different sections of the “Team-Role Descriptions” and each have something different to offer. Even though it was only a short task I feel that Craig A took the role of a “Resource Investigator”, Craig B took the role of a “Co-ordinator”, Drew took the role of a “Implementer” and I took the role of a “Completer Finisher”. I think if we were to work in this group again we would be able to do a good job. I also feel that I would be quite happy to work with anyone within the group because everybody seems to get on well and should be able to work well together.
Friday, February 02, 2007
To London and back…down to earth!!!
It has been quite action packed this week with plenty of things going on, starting with our trip to London on Wednesday and the start of our “as and when” tasks for the A6 Revert to Type assignment on Thursday. Even though there is plenty to do on the A5 Builder assignment I found that it was nice to have a little break from the routine and enjoy a day out. I was a little nervous about visiting London as the only previous time I have been was to go to Wembley in 1996!
It was certainly different from my expectations and the pleasing thing was that I found it to be a little less hustle and bustle than I imagined it to be. For the morning part of our trip we visited the Tate Modern museum, I was looking forward to this as I felt that there would be plenty of inspiring pieces which I could relate back to which would benefit me for the more creative aspects of this course. Because of this I was extremely disappointed to hear that because of recent strike action the museum exhibits were closed!
We were then given the rest of the day to explore the city which I enjoyed as it allowed me to sample some of the shops on offer! We were planning on going on the tube to visit several places but to our frustration we could not find an entrance to the tube stations anywhere and could only find the stations that stated “No Entry”. This meant that we spent quite a lot of time meandering and trying to find our bearings. To avoid this we could have returned to Leicester Square and got on the tube there and if I were in that situation again I would definitely do that. I do feel however that this trip was a good experience and even though the Tate Modern was closed I am glad that we made the trip.
After having around 6 hours sleep on Wednesday night due to the trip I along with the majority of the class was feeling pretty tired on Thursday morning. I soon realised however that I needed to get myself back into the right frame of mind as there was to be several “as and when” tasks throughout the day. I was quite looking forward to participating in these tasks because after my trip to The Design Mechanics last week I realised that this would be how tasks would be distributed in the workplace.
The first two tasks that we were given were pretty simple and I felt quite happy about what I had produced. The third task (typography design for a paint tube) however was much more complex and needed much more aspects to be taken into consideration. I was quite worried about this task at first because the brief was pretty strict and I felt that I would struggle to come up with enough thumbnails that were different from each other. I feel that this was a good experience however as it took me out of my usual comfort zone and forced me to work a little harder to get things right. I feel that I could have improved on my developmental work but due to the time restrictions on offer I did not find this to be possible. I do feel that if we were to do this task again with the experience that I have now gained I should be able to do it quicker and my developmental work will have improved.
It has been quite action packed this week with plenty of things going on, starting with our trip to London on Wednesday and the start of our “as and when” tasks for the A6 Revert to Type assignment on Thursday. Even though there is plenty to do on the A5 Builder assignment I found that it was nice to have a little break from the routine and enjoy a day out. I was a little nervous about visiting London as the only previous time I have been was to go to Wembley in 1996!
It was certainly different from my expectations and the pleasing thing was that I found it to be a little less hustle and bustle than I imagined it to be. For the morning part of our trip we visited the Tate Modern museum, I was looking forward to this as I felt that there would be plenty of inspiring pieces which I could relate back to which would benefit me for the more creative aspects of this course. Because of this I was extremely disappointed to hear that because of recent strike action the museum exhibits were closed!
We were then given the rest of the day to explore the city which I enjoyed as it allowed me to sample some of the shops on offer! We were planning on going on the tube to visit several places but to our frustration we could not find an entrance to the tube stations anywhere and could only find the stations that stated “No Entry”. This meant that we spent quite a lot of time meandering and trying to find our bearings. To avoid this we could have returned to Leicester Square and got on the tube there and if I were in that situation again I would definitely do that. I do feel however that this trip was a good experience and even though the Tate Modern was closed I am glad that we made the trip.
After having around 6 hours sleep on Wednesday night due to the trip I along with the majority of the class was feeling pretty tired on Thursday morning. I soon realised however that I needed to get myself back into the right frame of mind as there was to be several “as and when” tasks throughout the day. I was quite looking forward to participating in these tasks because after my trip to The Design Mechanics last week I realised that this would be how tasks would be distributed in the workplace.
The first two tasks that we were given were pretty simple and I felt quite happy about what I had produced. The third task (typography design for a paint tube) however was much more complex and needed much more aspects to be taken into consideration. I was quite worried about this task at first because the brief was pretty strict and I felt that I would struggle to come up with enough thumbnails that were different from each other. I feel that this was a good experience however as it took me out of my usual comfort zone and forced me to work a little harder to get things right. I feel that I could have improved on my developmental work but due to the time restrictions on offer I did not find this to be possible. I do feel that if we were to do this task again with the experience that I have now gained I should be able to do it quicker and my developmental work will have improved.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Life on the outside!!!
This week has been really eventful but also quite enjoyable. On Wednesday we were given the day to get on with our A5 assignment and bearing in mind the trip to London next Wednesday I was very happy with this as it allowed me to make significant progress. I am beginning to feel much more confident in using Dreamweaver now and I think this is due to the fact that I dedicated a lot of time in my self study to doing the tutorial. By doing this I have learnt how to use many features and learn some of the shortcuts and easier ways to do things. I feel that I benefited greatly from doing this and I will certainly try to do this again whenever we are introduced to a new piece of software.
Earlier on in the week I was informed by Steve that I would be going to Huddersfield to visit The Design Mechanics with some other students on Thursday afternoon. I was quite apprehensive about this as I did not really now what to expect but I found this to be a really good experience.
One of the biggest challenges of the day was actually getting there as the company is situated immediately after a variety of hills and fields which was quite a surprise. My preconception of the industry was a pressurised environment but I was pleasantly surprised to see that this was not the case. When we arrived it was quite a laid back atmosphere with people quietly getting on with their work and plugged into their iPods! This immediately put me at ease and I was eager to hear what everybody had to say.
We were soon taken into another room to be greeted by Dave who owns the company and Paul who is the lead designer. Then after making sure we were all comfortable with sitting on the floor they started with giving us an introduction into what they actually do. It was interesting to hear that they employ sales people who deal with the customer and go through a questionnaire with them which helps to give a good idea of what the customer is requesting. This is then passed onto a designer to create the designs which means that designers can focus solely on designing and do not have to waste time in liaising with the customer. Because of this approach they are given quite short deadlines to complete work, examples of deadlines were 1 hour for a logo to be completed and half a day for a website to be completed.
I was quite interested to see if the majority of their work was on websites or if it was print based. It soon became apparent that it was actually print based as a typical client who goes to them will request a logo, website, business card, letterhead and much more meaning that websites are only a small part of what they do.
Another part of the visit which I found to be advantageous was when we were all given a designer to sit with for twenty minutes to see what they did and to ask them any questions. I was quite happy with this as I was talking to Oliver who has just left our course last summer and he seemed to be enjoying the experience of working as a designer full time. I also asked him many questions that I had in the back of my mind such as his working patterns, if it was a good place to work and if he found it easy to make the step up from college. One of the most encouraging things was that he along with Dave felt that he just as capable if not more capable than other students who had gone their straight from university.
Overall I found the trip to be a great experience as it gave me a taste of what to expect when I finish the course, if anybody else is offered this opportunity in the future I recommend that they take it as I am sure that they will benefit from it just as much as I have!
This week has been really eventful but also quite enjoyable. On Wednesday we were given the day to get on with our A5 assignment and bearing in mind the trip to London next Wednesday I was very happy with this as it allowed me to make significant progress. I am beginning to feel much more confident in using Dreamweaver now and I think this is due to the fact that I dedicated a lot of time in my self study to doing the tutorial. By doing this I have learnt how to use many features and learn some of the shortcuts and easier ways to do things. I feel that I benefited greatly from doing this and I will certainly try to do this again whenever we are introduced to a new piece of software.
Earlier on in the week I was informed by Steve that I would be going to Huddersfield to visit The Design Mechanics with some other students on Thursday afternoon. I was quite apprehensive about this as I did not really now what to expect but I found this to be a really good experience.
One of the biggest challenges of the day was actually getting there as the company is situated immediately after a variety of hills and fields which was quite a surprise. My preconception of the industry was a pressurised environment but I was pleasantly surprised to see that this was not the case. When we arrived it was quite a laid back atmosphere with people quietly getting on with their work and plugged into their iPods! This immediately put me at ease and I was eager to hear what everybody had to say.
We were soon taken into another room to be greeted by Dave who owns the company and Paul who is the lead designer. Then after making sure we were all comfortable with sitting on the floor they started with giving us an introduction into what they actually do. It was interesting to hear that they employ sales people who deal with the customer and go through a questionnaire with them which helps to give a good idea of what the customer is requesting. This is then passed onto a designer to create the designs which means that designers can focus solely on designing and do not have to waste time in liaising with the customer. Because of this approach they are given quite short deadlines to complete work, examples of deadlines were 1 hour for a logo to be completed and half a day for a website to be completed.
I was quite interested to see if the majority of their work was on websites or if it was print based. It soon became apparent that it was actually print based as a typical client who goes to them will request a logo, website, business card, letterhead and much more meaning that websites are only a small part of what they do.
Another part of the visit which I found to be advantageous was when we were all given a designer to sit with for twenty minutes to see what they did and to ask them any questions. I was quite happy with this as I was talking to Oliver who has just left our course last summer and he seemed to be enjoying the experience of working as a designer full time. I also asked him many questions that I had in the back of my mind such as his working patterns, if it was a good place to work and if he found it easy to make the step up from college. One of the most encouraging things was that he along with Dave felt that he just as capable if not more capable than other students who had gone their straight from university.
Overall I found the trip to be a great experience as it gave me a taste of what to expect when I finish the course, if anybody else is offered this opportunity in the future I recommend that they take it as I am sure that they will benefit from it just as much as I have!
Friday, January 19, 2007
Getting back to the old routine!!!
This week has been pretty eventful as we were given our results for our previous assignments and were also given two brand new assignments. After having so much time off and feeling quite relaxed I soon realised that I had to quickly revert back to being focused on the course.
On Wednesday morning we were given our results for the two assignments that we were working on previously. I was quite apprehensive about this because even though I knew I had put a lot of time and effort into each assignment I was aware of how simple things missed can easily lead to a referral. I was however delighted to learn that I had achieved a merit for assignment A3 and a pass for assignment A4. This was a good experience as it gave me renewed confidence for the upcoming assignments as I would not have to revisit anything. I will do my utmost to mirror this in my new assignments because being able to focus totally on them and not having to worry about old assignments is a huge relief.
Wednesday also involved the distribution of the new assignment “A5 Builder”. This involves building the back to basics website that we planned previously. It is going to be made in Dreamweaver and this is a program that I am looking forward to working with as it is the primary piece of software that I am going to be using over the duration of the course. I am however a little anxious about using this as Steve explained just how complex this application is.
Thursday also involved the introduction of a new assignment with “A6 Revert to Type”. This is a typography assignment culminating in a 5 minute presentation and timed piece of work. This is something which I was not really expecting but I think that it will be a good experience as we will be forced to work under more pressurised circumstances. This is eventually the type of situation that we can expect when we gain employment after the course so it should be a beneficial task. Tasks are also given out randomly and not at the beginning which means that time planning for this assignment is much more difficult.
In my self study this week I decided to spend time looking through some of the further reading exercises for assignment “A5 Builder” as this will be my first ever website. I found the World Wide Web Consortium website to be quite interesting as it is something that I have not really looked at in depth before. By looking at this I learnt much more about the use of CSS and where it originated from which helped me to understand the coding a bit better. The original proposal can be found at http://www.w3.org/People/howcome/p/cascade.html.
This week has been pretty eventful as we were given our results for our previous assignments and were also given two brand new assignments. After having so much time off and feeling quite relaxed I soon realised that I had to quickly revert back to being focused on the course.
On Wednesday morning we were given our results for the two assignments that we were working on previously. I was quite apprehensive about this because even though I knew I had put a lot of time and effort into each assignment I was aware of how simple things missed can easily lead to a referral. I was however delighted to learn that I had achieved a merit for assignment A3 and a pass for assignment A4. This was a good experience as it gave me renewed confidence for the upcoming assignments as I would not have to revisit anything. I will do my utmost to mirror this in my new assignments because being able to focus totally on them and not having to worry about old assignments is a huge relief.
Wednesday also involved the distribution of the new assignment “A5 Builder”. This involves building the back to basics website that we planned previously. It is going to be made in Dreamweaver and this is a program that I am looking forward to working with as it is the primary piece of software that I am going to be using over the duration of the course. I am however a little anxious about using this as Steve explained just how complex this application is.
Thursday also involved the introduction of a new assignment with “A6 Revert to Type”. This is a typography assignment culminating in a 5 minute presentation and timed piece of work. This is something which I was not really expecting but I think that it will be a good experience as we will be forced to work under more pressurised circumstances. This is eventually the type of situation that we can expect when we gain employment after the course so it should be a beneficial task. Tasks are also given out randomly and not at the beginning which means that time planning for this assignment is much more difficult.
In my self study this week I decided to spend time looking through some of the further reading exercises for assignment “A5 Builder” as this will be my first ever website. I found the World Wide Web Consortium website to be quite interesting as it is something that I have not really looked at in depth before. By looking at this I learnt much more about the use of CSS and where it originated from which helped me to understand the coding a bit better. The original proposal can be found at http://www.w3.org/People/howcome/p/cascade.html.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Bring on the second semester!!!
As the first semester is now over and we are soon going to be moving on to the next semester it is an appropriate time to evaluate my progress so far in relation to the formative statement I wrote in September.
I am extremely surprised with the amount of work that I have got through in the opening semester. When I applied for the course and found out that I would only be attending two days a week I thought that I would not have covered so much in the first year never mind the first semester! This though is because I had left education for a year straight after college and gained full time employment so I was only basing this expectation on the amount of work I would have done at college. It soon struck me however that this course would be much more challenging and was a pleasant surprise.
Another aspect of the course which has surprised me is the amount of work that I have been doing in my own time. When I researched into the course it was made clear that there would be 16 hours of self study needed each week to supplement the two days at college. This is something which I expected myself to struggle on as when I was at college I always seemed to be easily distracted at home and never managed to get anything done. The nature of the college work however meant that I could do this work on a free period or a break lasting 30 minutes. I soon realised though that I would really have to improve on this aspect if I were to get anywhere in this course.
As I was worried about the self study aspect of the course I was very happy to find out that Steve had created a time planning form to fill in each week. This enabled me to write down what tasks I needed to complete and how long I expected each task to take. This was a huge help in the first half semester as I found it much easier to put the hours in as I knew exactly what I needed to do. In the second semester I supplemented this by an assignment planning form where I had set myself deadlines throughout the assignments for when things needed to be complete. Because of this I could keep on track with the workload which enabled me to feel much more relaxed when it came to the day of the deadlines for the assignments to be complete.
Another big thing for me on embarking on this course was getting to know people. As the majority of my friends had gone off to universities the year before I knew that I would not know anybody on the course. Different group tasks and activities that we did in the early stages of the course really helped as it allowed me to interact with the different members of the course and get to know them. Now after the first semester it seems like we are in quite a close group where everybody gets on with each other creating a good working atmosphere. Different members of the group have different levels of experience in programs and applications which means that there is always somebody around to give you a hand if you are struggling with anything which has been a big help so far.
When starting the course I stated that I would like to go on to a third year and achieve a degree and I am still aiming to do this. As Steve is pressing for a third year at Thornes this would certainly be beneficial and I feel that many members of the group may stay on for the third year that may not have done otherwise.
As the next semester is approaching I am looking forward to the new assignments and learning more new software and applications. As I will be creating my first website I will be using Dreamweaver which is something which will be used throughout the course and into employment so I am eager to familiarise myself with it and use it effectively. I am also keen to find out my results from the previous assignments as I feel that I put a lot of time and effort into them.
As the first semester is now over and we are soon going to be moving on to the next semester it is an appropriate time to evaluate my progress so far in relation to the formative statement I wrote in September.
I am extremely surprised with the amount of work that I have got through in the opening semester. When I applied for the course and found out that I would only be attending two days a week I thought that I would not have covered so much in the first year never mind the first semester! This though is because I had left education for a year straight after college and gained full time employment so I was only basing this expectation on the amount of work I would have done at college. It soon struck me however that this course would be much more challenging and was a pleasant surprise.
Another aspect of the course which has surprised me is the amount of work that I have been doing in my own time. When I researched into the course it was made clear that there would be 16 hours of self study needed each week to supplement the two days at college. This is something which I expected myself to struggle on as when I was at college I always seemed to be easily distracted at home and never managed to get anything done. The nature of the college work however meant that I could do this work on a free period or a break lasting 30 minutes. I soon realised though that I would really have to improve on this aspect if I were to get anywhere in this course.
As I was worried about the self study aspect of the course I was very happy to find out that Steve had created a time planning form to fill in each week. This enabled me to write down what tasks I needed to complete and how long I expected each task to take. This was a huge help in the first half semester as I found it much easier to put the hours in as I knew exactly what I needed to do. In the second semester I supplemented this by an assignment planning form where I had set myself deadlines throughout the assignments for when things needed to be complete. Because of this I could keep on track with the workload which enabled me to feel much more relaxed when it came to the day of the deadlines for the assignments to be complete.
Another big thing for me on embarking on this course was getting to know people. As the majority of my friends had gone off to universities the year before I knew that I would not know anybody on the course. Different group tasks and activities that we did in the early stages of the course really helped as it allowed me to interact with the different members of the course and get to know them. Now after the first semester it seems like we are in quite a close group where everybody gets on with each other creating a good working atmosphere. Different members of the group have different levels of experience in programs and applications which means that there is always somebody around to give you a hand if you are struggling with anything which has been a big help so far.
When starting the course I stated that I would like to go on to a third year and achieve a degree and I am still aiming to do this. As Steve is pressing for a third year at Thornes this would certainly be beneficial and I feel that many members of the group may stay on for the third year that may not have done otherwise.
As the next semester is approaching I am looking forward to the new assignments and learning more new software and applications. As I will be creating my first website I will be using Dreamweaver which is something which will be used throughout the course and into employment so I am eager to familiarise myself with it and use it effectively. I am also keen to find out my results from the previous assignments as I feel that I put a lot of time and effort into them.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
The deadline runs smoothly!!!
This week was deadline week and although I was quite panicky about this a few weeks ago I am very pleased with how everything went. Because of the amount of time I had been putting in during my self study in recent weeks I was able to just turn up at college at 11.30 and hand the assignment in without any real pressure. I think that this was really beneficial as when I handed in the last assignment I came in at the normal time and needed to work on a few things before I handed it in. I think that because of this the quality of my work would not have been as high as I believe it is this time. However, you only learn from previous experiences so I feel that this time I feel that my approach was much better and I will certainly try to do this again for future assignments.
After completing my first semester I can honestly say that the course has far exceeded my expectations. If somebody would have said to me that I would be writing 4500 words 6 months ago I would have not believed them at all! The real problem I have found is trying to cut down on my words and not trying to write them so this shows just how much my attitude has changed since starting the semester.
Another surprising element about the course is the amount of work that I am getting through and the new programs that I am learning, as we are only a few months into the course I would not have thought that I would have got through almost 2 sketchbooks and be working in programs such as PageMaker and Photoshop this early on. I am beginning to feel much more comfortable with these programs which can only benefit me in the future.
I am also pleased with the group as a whole because before I started the course I did not know anybody at all. I think that it is a good group to work in and there is not anybody in the group that I do not get on with. This creates a good atmosphere within the class and I feel that this helps whenever you have any problems. All of this culminates in everybody’s work benefiting from being in such a good group.
This week was deadline week and although I was quite panicky about this a few weeks ago I am very pleased with how everything went. Because of the amount of time I had been putting in during my self study in recent weeks I was able to just turn up at college at 11.30 and hand the assignment in without any real pressure. I think that this was really beneficial as when I handed in the last assignment I came in at the normal time and needed to work on a few things before I handed it in. I think that because of this the quality of my work would not have been as high as I believe it is this time. However, you only learn from previous experiences so I feel that this time I feel that my approach was much better and I will certainly try to do this again for future assignments.
After completing my first semester I can honestly say that the course has far exceeded my expectations. If somebody would have said to me that I would be writing 4500 words 6 months ago I would have not believed them at all! The real problem I have found is trying to cut down on my words and not trying to write them so this shows just how much my attitude has changed since starting the semester.
Another surprising element about the course is the amount of work that I am getting through and the new programs that I am learning, as we are only a few months into the course I would not have thought that I would have got through almost 2 sketchbooks and be working in programs such as PageMaker and Photoshop this early on. I am beginning to feel much more comfortable with these programs which can only benefit me in the future.
I am also pleased with the group as a whole because before I started the course I did not know anybody at all. I think that it is a good group to work in and there is not anybody in the group that I do not get on with. This creates a good atmosphere within the class and I feel that this helps whenever you have any problems. All of this culminates in everybody’s work benefiting from being in such a good group.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Everything falling into place!!!
Even though our assignments need to be handed in this time next week I feel that this week has been quite relaxed. I think that this is due to the fact that last week I realised just how close we are to the deadline and spent quite a lot of time on both assignments in my self study. This was extremely beneficial as it allowed me to just gather everything together so that everything was in order and ready for our group discussion on Thursday. I feel that because of this I then received better feedback which will enable me to improve on both assignments. I believe that the next time I am in this situation it will be a good approach to take and I will certainly try to do this again.
Thursday’s group feedback meeting was also the last time that our current group will be together. I think that it is quite a shame that this group is being broken up because I feel that we have worked quite well together and I think that the fact that we have been so well organised and seem to have everything in order is down to being in such a close knit group. I am however looking forward to working with other people in the group who I have not really interacted with as much.
I finally finished the image restoration work on Thursday afternoon and this is a real relief as this time last week I thought I would never be able to complete it. With the guidance I got from Steve in last week’s feedback meeting I had a much clearer understanding of what I should be trying to achieve and I am quite happy with the end product (Images of original and finished image at bottom of entry). Because of this I am now much more confident in Photoshop and if I were to do this again I am sure that I would be able to do it more effectively and quicker.
So this week is really going to be focused on tying up a few loose ends so that I am ready to hand everything in next Thursday. Hopefully this time I will be able to get everything completed to the required standard so that when we start next semester I will be able to focus solely on our new assignments.
Even though our assignments need to be handed in this time next week I feel that this week has been quite relaxed. I think that this is due to the fact that last week I realised just how close we are to the deadline and spent quite a lot of time on both assignments in my self study. This was extremely beneficial as it allowed me to just gather everything together so that everything was in order and ready for our group discussion on Thursday. I feel that because of this I then received better feedback which will enable me to improve on both assignments. I believe that the next time I am in this situation it will be a good approach to take and I will certainly try to do this again.
Thursday’s group feedback meeting was also the last time that our current group will be together. I think that it is quite a shame that this group is being broken up because I feel that we have worked quite well together and I think that the fact that we have been so well organised and seem to have everything in order is down to being in such a close knit group. I am however looking forward to working with other people in the group who I have not really interacted with as much.
I finally finished the image restoration work on Thursday afternoon and this is a real relief as this time last week I thought I would never be able to complete it. With the guidance I got from Steve in last week’s feedback meeting I had a much clearer understanding of what I should be trying to achieve and I am quite happy with the end product (Images of original and finished image at bottom of entry). Because of this I am now much more confident in Photoshop and if I were to do this again I am sure that I would be able to do it more effectively and quicker.
So this week is really going to be focused on tying up a few loose ends so that I am ready to hand everything in next Thursday. Hopefully this time I will be able to get everything completed to the required standard so that when we start next semester I will be able to focus solely on our new assignments.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
The end is near!!!
As our assignments have to be as complete as they possibly can be by this time next week the pressure is now certainly on. It hadn’t really struck me just how much work there was to be done until the latter part of last week so this week has been pretty manic to say the least!
On Wednesday as normal we were working on our back to basics assignment. Before the lesson started I was quite comfortable with this and most of my anxiety had been aimed toward the other assignment. However this all changed as I started to put my screen designs into Pagemaker.
I decided to design the text on the website to be quite wide so that there would be no scrolling on the site. By doing this I totally forgot about the principals that I learnt about in the previous assignment about how wide text should be to keep users interest. As I had spent the majority of the afternoon doing the design it was quite demoralising to be told that I would have to drastically alter it but I feel that once this is out of the way I have will have the majority of the work done and will be able focus more on the other assignment which I find much more challenging. If I were to do this again I will definitely remember about text width on websites so that I will be able to design the website better and save myself a lot of time.
On Thursday Steve wanted to see our image restoration task to decide if we had done a good enough job or if we had to do it again. I was not confident in my image at all as I felt that I had adjusted the levels of image incorrectly which meant that certain parts could not be distinguished.
As expected Steve did think that I should do this again but this was beneficial as he told me what I could do to stop this happening next time. Even though this is going to be a very time consuming task I feel that it will certainly benefit me in the long run as I will be able to have more experience and become more familiar with the application. If I were to do this exercise again I would definitely keep a closer eye on the image when I am altering certain settings to stop the same thing happening again.
There is an awful lot of work to be done between now and next week, hopefully I will be able to complete it to a decent standard so that any little things that may result in my work being referred can be identified and worked on before it is too late!
As our assignments have to be as complete as they possibly can be by this time next week the pressure is now certainly on. It hadn’t really struck me just how much work there was to be done until the latter part of last week so this week has been pretty manic to say the least!
On Wednesday as normal we were working on our back to basics assignment. Before the lesson started I was quite comfortable with this and most of my anxiety had been aimed toward the other assignment. However this all changed as I started to put my screen designs into Pagemaker.
I decided to design the text on the website to be quite wide so that there would be no scrolling on the site. By doing this I totally forgot about the principals that I learnt about in the previous assignment about how wide text should be to keep users interest. As I had spent the majority of the afternoon doing the design it was quite demoralising to be told that I would have to drastically alter it but I feel that once this is out of the way I have will have the majority of the work done and will be able focus more on the other assignment which I find much more challenging. If I were to do this again I will definitely remember about text width on websites so that I will be able to design the website better and save myself a lot of time.
On Thursday Steve wanted to see our image restoration task to decide if we had done a good enough job or if we had to do it again. I was not confident in my image at all as I felt that I had adjusted the levels of image incorrectly which meant that certain parts could not be distinguished.
As expected Steve did think that I should do this again but this was beneficial as he told me what I could do to stop this happening next time. Even though this is going to be a very time consuming task I feel that it will certainly benefit me in the long run as I will be able to have more experience and become more familiar with the application. If I were to do this exercise again I would definitely keep a closer eye on the image when I am altering certain settings to stop the same thing happening again.
There is an awful lot of work to be done between now and next week, hopefully I will be able to complete it to a decent standard so that any little things that may result in my work being referred can be identified and worked on before it is too late!
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Getting to grips with Photoshop!!!
This week has been quite productive and I feel that as we are now past the half way mark of the assignments I am quite happy to see that some aspects are coming together.
The web content section for the back to basics project was finally completed this week and although it was quite a repetitive task and proved to take much longer than I expected it seems to be the last piece of heavy written work for a while. I feel that it was a beneficial exercise as it allowed me to research into things that I would not necessarily have looked at otherwise. To improve on this I could have spent more time researching into a wider range of definitions but this may have taken up too much valuable time. If I were to do this again I feel that I would be much more confident as I now have a wider knowledge of these terms so will not have to do as much research into them.
I had my first real detailed experience with Adobe Photoshop this week as on Thursday we were handed the Image Restoration task. When Steve was going through what we would be doing I was thinking that this would be a nice creative task to do and that it should not be too difficult. This could not have been further form the truth however as I found some aspects of it quite a struggle and it proved to be a very monotonous and quite time consuming task. Steve also stated that some people may have to start this again when he has a look at these next week, this may not be such a bad thing though as hopefully he will be able to give me some advice on how I can improve it and my work should be better as a result.
I feel that as I have never really done anything like this before I was always going to find it difficult but I did not understand just how much time and effort it would take to do this exercise. I am however confident that as I progress through the course I will become much more familiar with the program and if I were to do this task again I would not find it so complicated.
This week has been quite productive and I feel that as we are now past the half way mark of the assignments I am quite happy to see that some aspects are coming together.
The web content section for the back to basics project was finally completed this week and although it was quite a repetitive task and proved to take much longer than I expected it seems to be the last piece of heavy written work for a while. I feel that it was a beneficial exercise as it allowed me to research into things that I would not necessarily have looked at otherwise. To improve on this I could have spent more time researching into a wider range of definitions but this may have taken up too much valuable time. If I were to do this again I feel that I would be much more confident as I now have a wider knowledge of these terms so will not have to do as much research into them.
I had my first real detailed experience with Adobe Photoshop this week as on Thursday we were handed the Image Restoration task. When Steve was going through what we would be doing I was thinking that this would be a nice creative task to do and that it should not be too difficult. This could not have been further form the truth however as I found some aspects of it quite a struggle and it proved to be a very monotonous and quite time consuming task. Steve also stated that some people may have to start this again when he has a look at these next week, this may not be such a bad thing though as hopefully he will be able to give me some advice on how I can improve it and my work should be better as a result.
I feel that as I have never really done anything like this before I was always going to find it difficult but I did not understand just how much time and effort it would take to do this exercise. I am however confident that as I progress through the course I will become much more familiar with the program and if I were to do this task again I would not find it so complicated.
Friday, November 24, 2006
“Orange is red brought nearer to humanity by yellow”
This week involved making my first presentation which up until now was something that I had not given much thought to. When Steve informed us that we had from 10am until 2pm to research, prepare and rehearse a 2-3 minute presentation on any given colour my first thoughts were that this would not be possible. As I had never done anything like this before I was apprehensive about doing this and just wanted to get it out of the way.
When we were put into different groups and each given a separate colour I was quite happy with the outcome. I was placed with Drew and given the colour orange. Because I get on well with Drew I was confident that we would be able to prepare well enough to be able to produce a decent presentation. I was also quite happy with the colour orange as there were several associations that I thought of straight away such as Holland, the mobile phone company Orange and EasyJet.
I enjoyed researching into everything that we would be putting into our visual aid (PowerPoint presentation) as I learnt many interesting things such as the origins of Holland’s relationship with orange. As we had created a list of ideas which seemed to be getting longer by the minute we were quite worried that we may not have enough time to cover them all. We resolved this by splitting the task in half with Drew making the visual aid with me creating the fact sheet and this seemed to work well.
When it got to 1pm it was time to rehearse, we decided to go to the car for this as there would be no distractions. However this proved to build up my nerves even more! The more times I rehearsed the presentation the more mistakes I seemed to be making. I even confused orange with yellow! I did though find that rehearsing with somebody in a quiet place without any distractions was a big help and I feel that if I were to do this again I would certainly use this method.
After sitting in the canteen waiting for my turn for what seemed like an eternity but was more like 2 hours it was my turn to give my talk. By this point I was incredibly nervous. I did feel though that the lecture that we had been given that morning was a huge help as it went through what different emotions we may be feeling and in a way this acted as a tool to calm me down a bit.
The presentation was not perfect but I was pleased that I did not make such a mess as I had thought! I think that we definitely created too much work for ourselves and this resulted in not having much time to cover each section of content we had written about. This was also a hindrance when it came to rehearsing as I seemed to forget some parts. If I were to do this again I would certainly make life easier for myself by making the visual aids shorter and simpler which will allow me to focus on other aspects which I struggled on such as my body language.
So overall I feel that the presentation was a quite a helpful exercise. I think that getting the first one out of the way will remove any fear of the unknown and the whole process will be extremely beneficial to me as I progress through the course and perform other presentations.
This week involved making my first presentation which up until now was something that I had not given much thought to. When Steve informed us that we had from 10am until 2pm to research, prepare and rehearse a 2-3 minute presentation on any given colour my first thoughts were that this would not be possible. As I had never done anything like this before I was apprehensive about doing this and just wanted to get it out of the way.
When we were put into different groups and each given a separate colour I was quite happy with the outcome. I was placed with Drew and given the colour orange. Because I get on well with Drew I was confident that we would be able to prepare well enough to be able to produce a decent presentation. I was also quite happy with the colour orange as there were several associations that I thought of straight away such as Holland, the mobile phone company Orange and EasyJet.
I enjoyed researching into everything that we would be putting into our visual aid (PowerPoint presentation) as I learnt many interesting things such as the origins of Holland’s relationship with orange. As we had created a list of ideas which seemed to be getting longer by the minute we were quite worried that we may not have enough time to cover them all. We resolved this by splitting the task in half with Drew making the visual aid with me creating the fact sheet and this seemed to work well.
When it got to 1pm it was time to rehearse, we decided to go to the car for this as there would be no distractions. However this proved to build up my nerves even more! The more times I rehearsed the presentation the more mistakes I seemed to be making. I even confused orange with yellow! I did though find that rehearsing with somebody in a quiet place without any distractions was a big help and I feel that if I were to do this again I would certainly use this method.
After sitting in the canteen waiting for my turn for what seemed like an eternity but was more like 2 hours it was my turn to give my talk. By this point I was incredibly nervous. I did feel though that the lecture that we had been given that morning was a huge help as it went through what different emotions we may be feeling and in a way this acted as a tool to calm me down a bit.
The presentation was not perfect but I was pleased that I did not make such a mess as I had thought! I think that we definitely created too much work for ourselves and this resulted in not having much time to cover each section of content we had written about. This was also a hindrance when it came to rehearsing as I seemed to forget some parts. If I were to do this again I would certainly make life easier for myself by making the visual aids shorter and simpler which will allow me to focus on other aspects which I struggled on such as my body language.
So overall I feel that the presentation was a quite a helpful exercise. I think that getting the first one out of the way will remove any fear of the unknown and the whole process will be extremely beneficial to me as I progress through the course and perform other presentations.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The importance of the blog!!!
After recently receiving an e-mail from Steve regarding the use of my blog entries and what should and should not be included in them I decided to take a look through what I have done so far.
I feel that as I had never even heard of a blog before I started this course I am pretty pleased with what I have been doing so far. If I look back at my early posts and more recent posts I can definitely see an improvement. I feel that this is down to "The Reflective Cycle" [Gibbs 1988] (see image at end of post) which I often use when I am stuck on where to start!
I think that this is also proven with the fact that I only received my first comment on my blog 3 weeks ago and I have had a further 11 since then so I hope that this proves that my entries are improving. However I think that this is also to do with the fact that I have myself started to come out of my shell a bit and started commenting on other people’s blogs. As Steve has stated several times “feedback is an excellent way of accessing higher level grades” so I think you start to pay more attention to it when you hear that!
From now on though I am going to pay much more attention to my blog and make sure that I am using it properly and making sure that I give constructi
ve feedback to my peers.
After recently receiving an e-mail from Steve regarding the use of my blog entries and what should and should not be included in them I decided to take a look through what I have done so far.
I feel that as I had never even heard of a blog before I started this course I am pretty pleased with what I have been doing so far. If I look back at my early posts and more recent posts I can definitely see an improvement. I feel that this is down to "The Reflective Cycle" [Gibbs 1988] (see image at end of post) which I often use when I am stuck on where to start!
I think that this is also proven with the fact that I only received my first comment on my blog 3 weeks ago and I have had a further 11 since then so I hope that this proves that my entries are improving. However I think that this is also to do with the fact that I have myself started to come out of my shell a bit and started commenting on other people’s blogs. As Steve has stated several times “feedback is an excellent way of accessing higher level grades” so I think you start to pay more attention to it when you hear that!
From now on though I am going to pay much more attention to my blog and make sure that I am using it properly and making sure that I give constructi
ve feedback to my peers.Thursday, November 16, 2006
Photoshop arrives!!!
This week I had my first real experience with Adobe Photoshop and so far it seems to be quite a good and efficient package to use. It is really interesting to see how simply changing a file format and optimising an image makes such an impact on the file size.
As this is the industry standard application and is a program that is going to be used quite a lot throughout this course I am quite apprehensive about using it and hope that I will be able to use it to the required standard. However judging by what I have done on it so far which is more or less limited to this afternoon I am quite confident that I will be able to handle it.
The Image Compression Report was also introduced this week and this has proved to be an extremely time consuming task, bearing in mind the word limit of 500-1000 words it has also proved to be quite a difficult task and one currently that I cannot wait to get out of the way!
In our group feedback sessions this week we talked about where everybody was at and I was quite relieved to see that I seem to be keeping on top of everything. This was one of my key aims when we changed to doing two assignments at the same time. As we are now fast approaching the half way mark of the assignments I am happy that I have been able to juggle the workload efficiently so far and hope that I will be able to do this until the deadline.
As I have planned to complete the dreaded compression report by this time next week I am certainly going to have a lot to do in the coming week.
This week I had my first real experience with Adobe Photoshop and so far it seems to be quite a good and efficient package to use. It is really interesting to see how simply changing a file format and optimising an image makes such an impact on the file size.
As this is the industry standard application and is a program that is going to be used quite a lot throughout this course I am quite apprehensive about using it and hope that I will be able to use it to the required standard. However judging by what I have done on it so far which is more or less limited to this afternoon I am quite confident that I will be able to handle it.
The Image Compression Report was also introduced this week and this has proved to be an extremely time consuming task, bearing in mind the word limit of 500-1000 words it has also proved to be quite a difficult task and one currently that I cannot wait to get out of the way!
In our group feedback sessions this week we talked about where everybody was at and I was quite relieved to see that I seem to be keeping on top of everything. This was one of my key aims when we changed to doing two assignments at the same time. As we are now fast approaching the half way mark of the assignments I am happy that I have been able to juggle the workload efficiently so far and hope that I will be able to do this until the deadline.
As I have planned to complete the dreaded compression report by this time next week I am certainly going to have a lot to do in the coming week.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity!!!
This week has been quite hectic because along with doing the two assignments I also managed to resubmit my A2 assignment. I was quite relieved to get this out of the way so that I could concentrate more on the other two assignments but I just hope that I have got everything to the correct standard. I certainly will be pretty nervous over this next week leading up to receiving my final mark for the project. For these next two assignments I hope that I will be able to hand them in to the required standard first time round so I do not have to worry as much!
On Wednesday morning we had a lecture about CRAP, this was however quite an important lecture and I will have to make sure that I can remember Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity as these are key principals which I will need to take into consideration as I progress through the course. I think that it will be quite a challenge to start using terms such as these commonly but I feel that it will eventually all sink in and I will be able to be confident in using these terms.
Our group feedback meeting was also beneficial on Thursday as there were quite a few things that I was worrying about and wanted clarification on. It turns out that I have not made such a mess on The Designers Republic essay as I had thought! Steve also seemed impressed that all of us had our time plans and were able to say what we would be doing in any given week. I think that we do work well as a group as we do talk about things together not only in the feedback sessions but also in lesson as well. I feel that we are all helping each other along and this can only be beneficial as we progress through each assignment.
Deadlines are coming thick and fast and with competitive analysis and delivery requirements to be completed by this time next week there is certainly a lot to be getting on with!
This week has been quite hectic because along with doing the two assignments I also managed to resubmit my A2 assignment. I was quite relieved to get this out of the way so that I could concentrate more on the other two assignments but I just hope that I have got everything to the correct standard. I certainly will be pretty nervous over this next week leading up to receiving my final mark for the project. For these next two assignments I hope that I will be able to hand them in to the required standard first time round so I do not have to worry as much!
On Wednesday morning we had a lecture about CRAP, this was however quite an important lecture and I will have to make sure that I can remember Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity as these are key principals which I will need to take into consideration as I progress through the course. I think that it will be quite a challenge to start using terms such as these commonly but I feel that it will eventually all sink in and I will be able to be confident in using these terms.
Our group feedback meeting was also beneficial on Thursday as there were quite a few things that I was worrying about and wanted clarification on. It turns out that I have not made such a mess on The Designers Republic essay as I had thought! Steve also seemed impressed that all of us had our time plans and were able to say what we would be doing in any given week. I think that we do work well as a group as we do talk about things together not only in the feedback sessions but also in lesson as well. I feel that we are all helping each other along and this can only be beneficial as we progress through each assignment.
Deadlines are coming thick and fast and with competitive analysis and delivery requirements to be completed by this time next week there is certainly a lot to be getting on with!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
