SMLP Skill Learning

In the current Interactive Media industry there are a number of skills required to land yourself a job. Amongst the usual skills of XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Stylesheets), is the developing language PHP.

“According to Odesk, demand for PHP programmers is nearly double that for the next most popular skillset. Indeed, PHP accounts for nearly 20 per cent of all IT jobs posted by businesses.“ - source: IT Examiner

PHP is being requested more and more in jobs roles and is therefore becoming almost a required skill (usually being teamed up with SQL). Due to the increase in job advertisements stating PHP as a required skill, this is the area in which I would like to expand my knowledge most. Learning this skill will enable me a better chance of getting myself a job once I finish the course.

Due to the high demand for PHP, a person who is trained with this programming skill is more likely to get a job faster than a developer/programmer who doesn’t. Therefore, this is a skill I would like to be able to include on my CV as a skill that I have and know.

My previous knowledge of PHP is almost none. In the past I have copied and pasted open source PHP code into my work, adjusting it to suit my needs, but have never written any from scratch. During the course so far, I have discovered a like for coding over designing and learning PHP would aid me to delve more into the coding side of building websites.

Due to the many advantages of learning PHP, I have decided that this is the skill that I would like to learn about in my SMLP (Self Managed Learning Plan).

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Second Year, First Half

Getting onto the second year was an achievement for me; initially I thought that juggling college work with family life might be too much and that I may succumb to the pressure. I'm not saying that the second year has been easy, but it's a way of life that I've had to get used to and one that I have now established a routine for. At the end of year 1, I really looked forward to year 2 as it brought fresh challenges in the shape of a CSS assignment and the newly added CMS unit too.

The second year started off with an assignment over the summer, I didn't mind the work over the summer but didn't really relish the thought that 3 of the 4 tasks were essays (I'm not the world's best essay writer!). The business plan, for me, was the best part of the assignment and something I really got my teeth into. Although, stupidly, I referred the assignment due to my referencing and my ignorance to the chosen format - schoolboy mistake!

Returning to college brought along the fresh challenge of working in a team with 3 other members of my class. This is something that we, as a class, have never done before on a scale like this and along the way we’ve had some initial teething problems to sort out. This unit certainly made me re-think my time planning - initially I was spending more time on the team assignment rather than my other slightly short assignment. I eradicated this quickly and a new time planning routine was brought into place.

A key aspect of year 1 was the feedback sessions that we had throughout. I’d like to think that I’ve taken note of all the key points that were mentioned to me in these sessions and this does show in the grade progression I’ve had so far. My first assignment of the second year (not including the summer one) resulted in a Merit, which I am very pleased with.

Although the sketchbooks aren’t an assessable unit, like they were last year, I’m still using them in exactly the same way and finding them as much use as ever. I’m still a bit fazed by the idea of pulling my sheets of paper from them and using them as evidence, but I’m sure I’ll get used to this in time.

I can certainly say that the second year has taught me a lot already, you should never believe that just because one thing happened in a certain way the first year, that it will happen that way this year too. You’re always working towards improvement and this is hard to come to grips but I’m getting there. College work and family life aren’t such a juggling act no more, they’re still 2 separate entities of their own, but neither overlap the other no more – which makes things incredibly easier.

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Soft Skills for Employment

In today’s world, being a graduate from a higher education course, you are expected to have certain skills that you can apply in the world of employment.

Working as a Team
Every job expects you to be able to work in a team and this is something I do practically every day at college. Working as a team has helped me to gain confidence with the people around me and helped me to get to know them better – especially my team for A11.

These social skills then transfer into the design industry, being friendly and talking to other people in a polite manner is something you’re going to have to do on a daily basis, whether with clients or employers, to communicate ideas across.

Presentations
Presentations are something I have struggled with in the past; standing up in front of people and talking really sets me off into a gibbering wreck. This is something I greatly need to improve as in the design industry I will be expected to present for a number of things; pitching ideas, communicating a design, reporting on research to groups etc.

Time Planning
This is a vital skill, especially in design work, meeting deadlines is the make or break of a company and it’s reputation. An employer will expect deadlines to be met. My time planning has improved vastly since the first assignment! I’ve always thought of myself as a punctual person who is rarely late for anything, as I like to arrange at work/college at least 20 minutes before my start time.

Problem Solving
Being able to solve problems relating to web work is something I find I am quite good at. Using this skill in employment will mean that my time is used more efficiently for projects, which in the long run will mean that I complete more and more projects in less time. Which means that during 'downtime' I may encounter, I can be developing and learning other design related skills.

Before the end of the year...

Location: Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Salary: £27,000 per annum
Company: Webrecruit
Job Type: Permanent
Job Title: Web Designer
Source: CWjobs.co.uk

I initially chose this job due to the skills mentioned in the advertisement. The position doesn’t state whether the role is best suited to a junior, middleweight or senior designer.

At the end of this college year, I would ideally be able to apply for a job like this having gained all the necessary skills. Commercial experience seems to be the deal clincher on a majority of job advertisements that I have seen, so over the next year I am going to do my best to land myself some more freelance work out of college hours.

The skills required include Interface Design, Graphic Design, HTML and CSS – all of which I have some experience in, commercially and non-commercially. But I feel that my skills could be improved in order to present a more impressive portfolio upon interview.

Other skills that I wish to improve upon during the course of the next year include PHP, mySQL, CMS and I’d also like to branch out into Ruby on Rails. Although this job is for a web designer, I would also like to think that by the end of the course, I could apply for web developer roles as well.

In conclusion, by the end of this year I want to improve my skill set in preparation for employment, take on more commercial work outside of college to improve my portfolio and complete my HND to the best of my ability.

Thanks for reading,
Sue

Second Year, why am I still here?

After my achievements of the first year, it made perfect sense for me to continue and progress onto second year. After all, this is the industry that I want as my career.

Now we have the assignment schedule for the second year, I'm really looking forward to A13: Content is King. CMS (Content Management Systems) is something that I've been trying to get myself into over the past few months but I've yet to try and use it properly. Another unit that I'm looking forward to is the SMLP (Self-Managed Learning Plan) - another chance for me to learn a key language, PHP.

When it comes to employability; this second year is going to be the most vital to ensure that I gain the skills I need. At the end of this year, I would envisage myself to be in the position where I can enter the world of employment. Which is something I aspire to achieve, rather than my initial intentions of entering a third year in a different institute.

In summary, during the course of this year, I need to be able to give my best in every assignment that I tackle and achieve the best of my potential. Ensure that my portfolio is adaptable to all situations ready for employment. And finally, I want to enjoy this year, because this time next year, I will be in the big bad world of full time employment!

Thanks for reading,
Sue

End of Year One, Already?

The past year has been one hell of a ride for me, about a year ago I didn’t even know I was going to be applying for this course as like usual, I had left things to the last minute. Due to my late decision to apply, it wasn’t until late August that I knew my fate and subsequently joined the course two weeks in. Being a late starter to the course daunted me, entering a class where everyone had already had time to get to know one another throughout induction made me feel like I was going to be the black sheep of the group. That and the fact that I was a few years older than the average age to enter a HE (Higher Education) course. But it was nice to see just how many people made an effort to talk to me and make me feel welcome, which eased me into the course a lot easier.

The past 9 months has really opened my eyes and confirmed to me that this is the industry that I want my career to be in. I still want the same goals that I mentioned on day one in my first journal entry, if not more so, although I have slightly changed my mind on the type of job I want to specialise in. Mixing the set of units between web and print has made me realise that design isn’t as simple as people think.

During the course of the year, 7 assignments have come and gone:

A1 – SketchBlog
Confusion was what I first felt when I read the assignment sheet, how could you mark someone’s sketchbook? I didn’t understand the concept of purposefully collecting inspiration and making notes of everything I was doing. It just didn’t make sense. Of course, as the assignments rolled out, I found more uses for my sketchbook and even missed it when it was left at college for marking purposes. I feel that my biggest development was on this assignment, my techniques for research and ideas generation have vastly improved over the months to the point where A7 was my strongest thought process and ideas generation to date.

The second part to this assignment was the journal that you are reading now. I enjoy writing journals, I am a member of quite a few ‘blogging’ websites and for some reason I like describing my thoughts and feelings in a way that I can read back in the future. It helps to encompass just how far things have developed and this is certainly true in this case. Reading back on my journals really brings to light just how far I have come and how much I have developed.

A2 – That’s the Plan!
A2 was a web plan that we had to write up for a website based on a chosen Great Briton, mine was King Henry VIII. Due to my late start, I was already behind on this assignment compared to my classmates, so had to really get my backside in gear and catch up. Time planning was introduced to us for this assignment, something that I still think I’m trying to get the gist of – even now! We didn’t get to build the website that we planned during this task, but it was great practise for future assignments.

A3 – Back to BASIC
The web plan practise from A2 came into use during this assignment, using the feedback that I received from A2; I could make this web plan better than the last one. The plus side being that this website was also going to be built at a later date. My time planning was vastly underestimated throughout this web plan, the content section of 50 words for 40 terms really took up a huge amount of hours and threw some of my planning off track slightly. Juggling two assignments at once (as A4 was given out at the same time), certainly made me step up and sort my time planning so that it was more productive and effective.

A4 – Image Rights
This was the first print based assignment and a part of the course I had looked forward to. It consisted of two essays, an image restoration and some banner designs. From looking through the journals of the second years, I already knew what was to come during this assignment. Getting my teeth into Photoshop and being able to develop skills in a program that I had never really used before was intriguing and something I particularly enjoyed. Essay writing was something that I thought wouldn’t be involved on an Interactive Media course, but it helped to bring together my understanding of the topics in this unit.

A5 – Builder
Now this was a chance to build the website from the A3 web plan. Using the content and specifications that I had incorporated into the plan meant that I soon learnt the little mistakes that can be overlooked during development. It gave me the opportunity to create changes and improvements to make my website the best it could be. Due to the target audience that we were allocated in A3, Silver Surfers, a lot of additional features had to be implemented to the site for accessibility purposes. Through my research and sheer determination, I proudly completed my website to an XHTML 1.0 Strict doctype.

A6 – Revert to Type
Revert to Type was the assignment I wasn’t looking forward to at all. Hearing about the timed tasks confirmed that for me and at first I didn’t enjoy this assignment at all. Typography is an element of design that I have never had an interest in – until now – and so therefore I didn’t know much about it. In the past, I’ve always stuck to web safe fonts because they were the ones that I was most familiar with. Throughout the timed tasks, there was also the additional work in the form of a presentation based on a typographer, mine was Stanley Morison. My rehearsal presentation was perfect, give or take a few seconds. As soon as I stepped in the room to present, I knew it wasn’t going to go well. My perfect five minute practise presentations went out of the window and it whittled down to 3 ½ minutes. Well beyond time, a very disappointing performance.

A7 – Wailing Whales
As the title may suggest, this was no normal assignment. From reading previous students journals I had an idea of what was to come. The task was to rebrand the record company Emit and produce stationery, a Corporate Style Guide, artwork for a given CD and an advertisement for that CD, this was all once I had redesigned the company logo. This was a massive eye opener to me as this was the type of job I may encounter if I went into the print industry rather than web. It encompassed the most detailed thought process that I have ever gone through and introduced some different techniques of idea generation. The assignment also provided me with the biggest case of designer’s block I have ever encountered. Designing the logo was really difficult, all my ideas seemed to be along similar wavelengths to the rest of the class and I wanted something that was different and unique. My biggest flaw during this assignment was getting too obsessed with one design and continually developing it even though it didn’t suit the final piece it was intended for.

Presentations
Throughout the 9 months on the course, we’ve encountered presentations. This is truly an aspect of my work that I must improve. There are no words for how nervous I get before presenting and even though I know being nervous is a natural response to the task at hand, I can’t help but let it take over the presentation. My presenting has suffered because of this, I’ve rushed through content, got really ‘breathy’ when talking, jittered about, fiddled with my fingers, put hands in pockets – you name it, I’ve done it! I think it’s the thought of presenting to someone I know, as part of an external project I did a presentation to 6 people I didn’t know and I didn’t suffer the same nerves as I do for a college presentation. Definitely something I need to improve on seen as this time next year; I will be doing my final presentation of my two years of learning.

In terms of goals, they haven't changed much at all

• I still want to be able to achieve at least one distinction grade before the end of the course and come out knowing that I achieved the best I could.
• After the course, I still want to proceed onto a third year and improve my skills even further - preferably, this will be in Wakefield or Leeds.
• In the long term, I want to have a good set of coding skills, design skills and print skills ready for me to progress into the design industry.

In conclusion, the past 9 months have passed by in a flash. The time has gone so quickly that it’s only now that I can look back over the months and realise how much work has actually been done. It’s hard to believe that in just over 3 months, I’ll be enrolling onto my second and final year of the course and starting another 9 months of hard work. So much has been learnt this year and I know there is still a lot more to learn. I’m proud of my achievements so far and can’t wait to start the second year. Bring it on!

Thanks for reading,
Sue

Bank Holiday Weekend

The sun has really brought out something in me this week, I've learnt that no matter what the weather is outside, I can really put my mind to something and crack on with the work I need to do. There were certain points in the day, especially when an ice cream van rolled past, that I was tempted to leave my work and "do it some other time" but after an ice lolly and a 15 minute break, I knuckled back down into my work and managed to achieve my aims.

After completing my artwork last week, I planned to dedicate the first part of this week to designing and bringing together my advertisement for The Wire. Setting myself the task of looking through magazines for cd advertisements and making notes of them in my sketchbook, set me off in a good direction. I had knowledge of what should be on the advertisement and had a strong design that I wanted to proceed with. I'm happy to say that I've now brought this design together ahead of schedule. Any feedback would be appreciated!

In the end I decided to go with a quarter page design, this brought me £25 under budget with a colour design which is what I wanted. I could have gone for a bigger advertisement, but this would mean that I'd have to have a mono layout.

For the rest of the week, I'm aiming to tie up all the remaining loose ends on my work and sketchbook work. Stick all my development work with annotations into my sketchbook and be in a position where on Monday I can begin my Merit and Distinction list and show my work in Seminar.

So, to clarify, for next week I want to:

• Have all my work to a finished state.
• Make sure all my development work is stuck in my sketchbook.
• Revise the learning outcomes and extended criteria for A7.
• Prepare for seminar session on Monday.

Thanks for reading,
Sue

CD Artwork

Finally, I've managed to do a post containing my images for my artwork. I've tried to keep within the same theme throughout the whole of the packaging and I hope this is reflected in the ideas I've posted.


This is the CD body, due to only using spot colours I've limited the amount of detail. Keeping the silhouettes on the body ensures that it has some relevance to the outer and inner pieces.


This is my Digipak inner, just a carry on of the outer image except it has the addition of the paragraphs of text. Not too sure about the text size at the min, that is something I'm fiddling about with.


And finally the outer, I think some explanation as to how I came to this idea is needed. As you can see, all four of the tracks on the CD have the name 'Nyala' in it. I recognised this as being a font on Windows Vista, so I researched 'Nyala' even more and found out it was also the name of a city and an animal a bit like an antelope.

From this I used my mood boards of the music I listened to and brought together my sunny, hot climate with the new Nyala information I had found out. In the background of the sunset, you can make out a map of the city Nyala.

As always, feedback is gratefully appreciated.

Thanks for reading,
Sue

Nyala, ala, ala, hey, hey.

Continuing my work from last week and aiming to keep myself on track has been an enduring process. I found myself in a frustrating void when contemplating ideas for my Digipak artwork and therefore I’ve only just managed, as of yesterday, to draw a final design at full scale in my sketchbook. The artwork has been almost as hard as designing the initial logo, although this time I had the aid of my music, I still found myself thinking my ideas were too simple or that they weren’t complex enough to fall under the assignment criteria. Another way of thinking was suggested to me during class and once I thought about things, the different things I could do just kept spilling to the point where I’m now bringing my artwork together. Adjustments still need making here and there but I’m happy with the design and its relevance to the music.

Due to the delay in the artwork process, The Wire advertisement has been pencilled in for self study, but this can only be done as soon as I’ve got a completed set of artwork. By looking at the information on the wire’s website, I’ve got a layout that I want to use in mind that’s within budget. I’m not too sure how I feel about this task, advertisements are something that I’ve done during the A6 assignment, but the whole content was given to me and made things slightly easier. A lot of research into the wire magazine and how CDs are advertised is required so that I can get a better understanding of things.

My pre-flight document is currently a work in action, at the moment I’ve got a checklist version of some simple statements that should be done before the artwork goes to print. The content is a bit simple at the moment and needs looking over to make sure that I’ve not forgotten anything from it. Pre-flight has always been a bit vague to me as I’ve never done one before, so my research helped me clear things up slightly.

Due to the bank holiday next week, we won’t be in college, so I’ve got a lot of work to be getting on with as the week after that is submission week and I will only have the Monday in college to gain feedback for last minute amendments.

Therefore, next week I need to:

• Have completely finished all my artwork, including inner cover and CD body.
• Have ideas for my advertisement and post them up on my journal for feedback, so that during bank holiday week, I can be bringing the advertisement to a finished state.
• Complete the pre-flight document(s).
• Start evaluating the assignment using previous journal entries (and references).

Thanks for reading,
Sue

Indication Elation!

At this point in an assignment, I have a clear idea of whether or not I'm on top of things. Looking at my aims that I wrote last week I can proudly say that I completed each of them. As I've already said, I feel that my progress is partly due to the fact that as a seminar group we've come together to produce our productions schedules together.

I'm really happy that I got my corporate style guide and stationery completed. I really enjoyed writing the style guide, infact I enjoyed it that much that I've also done a web version of it too. Doing this meant that I could practise my web skills, so I hand coded the site using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

This week I have started to draw up some ideas for my Digipak artwork, this is the part of the assignment that I have wanted to get onto so that I can get it out of the way as usually I feel that my ideas aren't good enough to become the media they're intended for. But I surprised myself, two of the three ideas that I have drawn are good in my opinion. While I'm in this frame of mind, I'm going to see if I can develop a few more ideas and then gain some feedback on them.

So far this assignment has taught me that by planning things in advance with those around you does infact help you. The seminar groups are a great source of information and guidance and they have helped me to develop my work and produce more creative pieces.

One of my biggest flaws this week has been my ability to present. After having to do my typography presentation again, I suffered even more nerves than previous and ended up without any improvements to the time. Finally, I cracked the nerves and reached the time needed to bring my presentation to standard. Phew! Next time, I need to encounter my nerves before presenting as it really brings my work down.

So that I remain on schedule; for next week, I want to:

• Have a final idea developed fully and drawn to scale in my sketchbook.
• Begin looking at the wire advertisement criteria and draw initial ideas.
• Start writing up the pre-flight document for print.

Thanks for reading,
Sue

Change your font Sue!

The amount of times I've come close to pulling my hair out through insanity this week has made me come to the conclusion that I'm just not cut out for logo design/development. Initially I underestimated just how challenging this task would be and thus created problems for myself. During the logo development, I found myself stuck for creative ideas and suffered from designers block as I found myself thinking overly complicated. Since then I have developed my logo typographically and graphically, thanks to feedback from my peers and I’ve eventually come to a finalised design which I’m happy with. I think that the fact the whole class is designing for the same company is what discouraged me the most. As I looked around the class I felt that my logo wasn’t as good as anyone else, so therefore wasn’t good enough.

Throughout the course of the week, I have started to write up my corporate style guide, the part of this assignment I was looking forward to most, even though I haven’t completed it yet, I am pleased with the content I’ve produced so far. My main focus for my self study work is to get the business card, letterhead and envelope pages done so I can then continue onto designing them.

As the assignment is progressing, I feel that my work is coming together at a nice pace (although the logo design has taken longer than initially anticipated). The fact that each seminar group has had to decide their weekly topics to run alongside the production schedule has helped immensely as this time round each person is more or less on the same track as the next. Which is yet another reason for motivation as I don’t want to be the only person left behind.

Yesterday I received some feedback regarding A6 – Revert to Type, I wasn’t surprised at all when Steve said I had to re-do my presentation. The five minutes of content that I had prepared myself and practised to perfection at home, just went out of the window as soon as I entered the classroom. A waterfall of words just dribbled out of my mouth and I was unable to stop myself from the inevitable running under. Hopefully this won’t happen a second time, fingers crossed!

For next week, I would like to have most of my corporate identity out of the way and be well under way with the stationery designs. Therefore my tasks for next week are:

• Complete stationery pages in corporate manual, finalise design.
• Begin design ideas for business cards, letterhead/continuation sheet and envelope.
• Ensure all development work has been stuck in my sketchbook.
• Practise presentation again and again, cross fingers!

Thanks for reading,
Sue

Developed Logo - Colour

After finally coming to a final developed conclusion with my logo, I decided that as well as a black and white version there should be at least one coloured version, I chose orange. The logo doesn't lose any of its key aspects when changed to colour but enables to it to be displayed on a variety of backgrounds.

As I said this morning, please feel free to leave any feedback you have regarding the logo I've designed. All comments are welcome!

Thanks for reading,
Sue

Developed Logo

So after some dabbling in Macromedia Freehand, I've developed my logo further and above is the result. Feedback would be gratefully received as I'm struggling to find a logo that suits the company we're designing for.

I've done two different versions as the logos will be black and white, no colour as I think this suits the design I've done. I'm open to suggestions!

EDIT: the first set of logos on the left have a font that i have drawn myself from scratch. the second set, on the right, have a pre-made font that I have developed for use with my logo.

Thanks for reading,
Sue

Internet Explorer with Itunes Plugin..

When I first read about this assignment, I initially didn't think that designing a logo for a company would be as hard as it has been. Due to the whole class having the same company to design for, we're all coming up with similar ideas, therefore I find myself trying to find something unique that's never been thought of, but designer's block keeps getting in my way. To combat this, I bought myself a couple of Logolounge books and begin reading through them for inspiration, some development of the initial ideas I've had was done.. and slowly but surely, I may just be getting there with a final idea. A lot of development is still to be done though.

Being in a seminar group with a group of students who are highly motivated to do well is refreshing. I find that the motivation spurs me on more and makes me want to get on with my work even more than normal. The seminar groups are very productive, even though unfortunately I missed todays. Due to picking assignment 2, I am certainly feeling the pressure of a heavy workload which, as I keep saying, is a good thing as it will prepare me for the busy environment in the design industry.

This week we began to look at Style Guides and the content found within them. It's quite interesting to see just how stringent some companies are with the way they allow their logos to be displayed and just how indepth they are prepared to go just to make sure specific colours are used and so forth. Stationery is another element that is considered also - business card layouts, letterheads etc.

On Monday, another ex-student - Mark Feather - came into class to talk about his experiences of looking for and finding a design job. I'm starting to find that as more and more ex-students come in, the same few features are being mentioned about how they found their job. Something I can begin to put into practise in the not so distant future.

This week is going to be an extremely busy week, my targets for next week are:

• continue with developing my company logo, think about colours.
• begin writing up corporate style guide, think about layout of logo and stationery.
• incorporate my company logo into business card, letterhead and DL envelope designs.
• catch up on notes from seminar that I missed.

Thanks for reading,
Sue

Emit Ideas - Feedback Required!

Here are the strongest of my initial logo ideas, some feedback would be appreciated!

1. This logo is based on emitting sound, the word emit has sound waves emitting from it.
2. A clever (ish) idea using all the letters from the word 'emit' the M is on its side if you can't spot it.
3. Emphasising the letter 'e' makes it so that it can be detached from the other letters and used on its own within the black square.
4. My personal favourite, a soundwave behind the word emit.
5. Once again, emphasis on the letter 'e' this time wearing headphones due to it being a logo for a record company.

Please leave feedback as to which you think is your favourite and why and how these ideas could be developed further.

Thanks for reading,
Sue

Emitting Ideas

Straight back into the scheme of things and I have to admit that I'm really looking forward to getting my teeth stuck into the final assignment of this year. Deciding to do the higher grade assignment means I have the possibility of finishing this first year with a bang, all I need to do is get my head down and really perservere for the next 6 weeks until submission.

Our first major theme since returning from Easter has been logos and their design principles. After our lecture on design principles and reviewing a few case studys on logos such as Nike, we were asked to redesign the CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) logo. My group (consisting of myself, Gary and Tom) decided that we wanted to maintain some of the original features of the previous logo while incorporating the initials CND. After going off by ourselves to draw some initial ideas, we then came together to chose a final design and develop it some more. We were pleased with our final idea, it incorporated all the design principles we had been taught in our lecture and could easily work at different sizes due to its bold elements and contrast.

Yesterday we had a visit from ex-student Jonny Haynes (who works at Technophobia), who came to present his work that he's done since leaving the course. Another valuable insight into how the design industry works. With each person that comes in from the 'outside world', the more I gain a perspective of what to expect when I finish the course. The volunteer web work I'm doing outside of college should also provide me with some experience in dealing with clients which will prove vital once I'm in the design industry.

For the rest of this week, I want to really get myself stuck into designing my logo. Once I have this task out completed, I can begin to draw up the artwork for the remainder of my tasks and also begin writing my corporate identity. Which, if the identities i've seen so far are anything to go by, will be a lot of work.

So, my aims for next week are:

• Continue drawing up logo ideas, creating as many as I possibly can.
• Once I feel I have enough sketches, develop around 5 ideas further in black and white.
• Choose one design and develop it in colour, considering logo principles lecture.
• Research corporate identites and what type of things go in them.

Hopefully I can be at a stage this time next week where I am almost finished with my logo. Next week's seminar session will provide me with some vital feedback. Keep looking for my five developed ideas, I will post them up on here during the next week for some feedback!

Thanks for reading,
Sue

Designing Dislikes

This week has really provided me a valuable insight into the design industry. Having to listen to the music that Steve provided us with over and over again certainly wasn’t my cup of tea. If I’m honest, the music was that peaceful and quiet that it almost made me fall asleep the first time I listened to it. But by doing this exercise, I have learnt that you don’t always design for something that you like or have interests in. Therefore, I have learnt to switch off my personal tastes and design regardless of my opinions.

One of my reading week tasks has been to create some ‘mood boards’ relating to the music I have been listening to. At first I found the idea of these a bit silly, but as I’ve been putting them together throughout the course of the day, I’ve come to like them and discovered how much of a great visual aid they will be to me. I decided to do three story boards relating to my tracks; each one shows the three main themes I feel are present at some point throughout the four tracks.

The first theme was a calm, almost dreamy track which helped me to picture clouds and water in my mind. Colours schemes appropriate for this would be shades of blue accompanied with white to create a tranquil theme. For this, I think that some form of ‘flowing’ font would be suitable, therefore a script font like Mistral or Staccato would be perfect. Forte would also be suitable.

After track one, the piece progressed into what reminded me of the jungle. A percussion instrument is present and sounds almost like bamboo sticks being struck together. Obviously this kind of theme would go perfect with different shades of green. Typefaces that have a jungle like appearance would be best, so for this I stuck Papyrus onto my board, I also think Eccentric would also be a suitable font although it lacks that jungle appearance.

For the final theme, I couldn’t help but think of Arabia, sand and snake charming. An instrument that is present during the final 15 minutes or so sounds exactly like a shake charmer’s flute and this brought me to thinking about sand and pyramids, camels and sunny climates. An appropriate colour scheme would be oranges and yellows, warm colours to depict the sunny climes the final part reminds me of.

Throughout the past two days, I’ve been collecting logos in preparation for the final assignment of year one. From what I know so far, this is going to be a big assignment and I’m really looking forward to it. It will be nice to include all the aspects of design that we’ve learnt so far into one assignment and really show the amount of knowledge I have gained since starting the course back in September.

I have really enjoyed this reading week, it has provided me with a challenge and some music which I didn’t really like, but has shown me that I can put my mind to something, even if I don’t like the object I’m designing for. A valuable experience.

Thanks for reading,
Sue

Nyala by Carl Stone

Carl Stone – a name that doesn’t give any clues as to the genre of music he may fall into. Therefore, upon listening to his music for the first time, mystery is brought upon the listener creating a sense of curiosity and intrigue. For the more daring listener adventuring into the unknown, Nyala is a set of 4 tracks that continue on from one another, creating a piece that gradually brings an atmospheric but demure conclusion.

Nyala begins with a steady introduction, an almost silent piece that steadily builds into a crescendo of stringed instrumentals, which provides a calming ambiance throughout. A tranquil piece that could relax even the most stressed out listener. With the addition of a percussion section on the second track, a variety of musical compositions and soundscapes are explored. Repetition plays a big factor in the dynamics of the tracks and helps to make them blend into background music.

As the song continues, we are taken to more eastern climes. With a melody reminiscent of a snake charmers flute, accompanied by the inaudible drone of a male singer. With the relaxing atmosphere throughout the piece, the listener can easily drift away and take their mind off things. Em:t 1196 is a calming album that provides easy listening during stressful times, perfect for anyone wishing to wind down after a hard days work.

A6 - Revert to Type Evaluation

Another assignment completed and handed in, an assignment that I thoroughly enjoyed as it wasn’t like any I’ve done before. The topic of typography mixed with the ‘as and when’ issue of timed tasks certainly kept me on my toes. Preparing myself for the timed tasks really paid off, having a few hours messing about with Adobe InDesign really familiarised me with the menus and therefore saved me time when building my designs.

When I received this assignment, I must admit I was slightly daunted by the fact that one of the main tasks was a presentation on a chosen typographer. My chosen typographer was Stanley Morison, a 20th century typography consultant who designed Times New Roman. Researching into Stanley and his work was really interesting, the amount of information that I found regarding his work was unbelievable. It made the task of putting information onto presentation slides less painful.

Presentations aren’t something that I like doing – at all – and this really shows when I present, I get all breathless or I ramble so fast through my presentation that I end up finishing before the time limit. To try and overcome this, I constantly practised and practised my presentation to myself and then to family members. Some of the hard work paid off as I wasn’t as breathless as I usually get, but more work could have be done to stop myself from speeding through the presentation.

The rest of the assignment consisted of a handout to accompany the presentation and a series of timed tasks. The timed tasks were really scary to begin with, the thought of working under such strict conditions made me anxious. Getting the first one out of the way helped to ease some of that anxiety and after a couple, I fell into a comfort zone with them.

Hokai (Paint Tube)
The first of the timed tasks and also the one I dropped from my submission. Of all the timed tasks, this one provided me with the biggest challenge. The amount of content you had to fit into such a little space meant that there were only so many ways I could lay the content out. This task was dropped due to a small mistake I had made on the design.

‘Vodafone’ (Newspaper Advertisement)
Vodafone provided me with a challenge from the start, deciding what column structure to go for proved difficult. In the end, I decided to go for a long but thin advertisement and I was really pleased when the design I wanted to achieve fit in the dimensions of the column structure.

‘Jonathan Gee’ (Newspaper Article)
This was by far the one I enjoyed the most, even though I spent most of my time trying to get my columns to align at the bottom, it gave me a great sense of achievement when I finally succeeded. I produced a design that I was really pleased with as it didn’t stray away from my original design.

‘Grid’ (All that Jazz)
Grid was harder that it initially sounded. Designing a newspaper layout when I didn’t have any idea how long the content was going to be made me wary and forced me into playing a safe bet. Due to the previous newspaper task, I felt really comfortable having to do another newspaper layout. Everything was still fresh in my head from the week before and therefore made things a lot easier.

Story (Snake Davies)
The final task of the lot and the one I completed in the quickest time. As already mentioned, I was comfortable with newspaper layouts and due to my mind-numbing experience of aligning columns the previous week; I was in the knowledge of ways to solve the problem.

The ‘design studio’ experience has been a major learning curve, adhering to strict deadlines in a studio atmosphere has given me a feel of what things could be like in the employment world and it provided me with a sense of reality. The fact that I have managed to hand all my timed tasks in at least 25 minutes before the deadline has made me aware of how efficient I can be with my time planning. In future, I could use the spare time I have left to check over my design more and ensure everything is how it should be.

If I was to do this assignment, I think the only major thing I would change is how I presented my presentation. Although it went better than last time, I can still vastly improve the way I present. Of the silly things noted in my blue presentation, I think I managed to cut a good portion of them out. To stop myself from fiddling with my pockets I wore trousers that didn’t have pockets and my handout was left on the table so I wasn’t playing with that all the time.

Goals
From now on, whenever I do a piece of print work, I should take full advantage of being able to use a more diverse font – rather than the box standard web safe ones, e.g. Verdana and Arial. This seemed to be a habit of mine and something I want to break out of. When I search for inspirational pieces of typography, I can now use the definitions I have learnt to annotate my work. Doing this and practising the terms will keep them fresh in my mind and therefore will embed them in my head.

Continue to use the method of time planning that was produced during the timed tasks, due to the short space of time I had to do tasks, I felt that my time planning had to be spot on. Making the duration of tasks as strict as possible will keep me in the pressured design studio experience and will therefore get me used to the environment.

So for next time:

• Use typography definitions more so they stick in my head. Keep revising them.
• Keep the time planning as strict as possible. Plan a day at a time rather than a full week as this seemed to be more effective.
• Use my time to its full potential. Check everything over multiple times before handing something in. It’s too late to change mistakes when the work is submitted!

[Word Count: 1043]

Thanks for reading,
Sue

Late feedback on A5 Website

After undergoing many different layout designs, here is my final design.
Please feel free to leave any comments or feedback!

Thanks,
Sue

Getting things finished and tied up

As the forthcoming assignment deadline creeps nearer and nearer, I am more confident that I have ever been this close to handing in date. I suppose this is due to the weekly practise I have had with my time planning - which means I can now precisely plan things more accurately. External factors are no longer a problem for me which means I get my work done and on time.

Due to some hosting issues, my A5 website will be down for a few days while I swap over my nameservers/domain. Swapping domains should allow me to iron out the problems that I was having with my feedback form. For some reason on my old hosting, the emails containing my feedback information weren't being sent.

My 'Revert to Type' assignment is going good, each week I've been faced with a different timed task and each week I've managed to come up with a design that I'm pleased with. Each of the tasks has also been submitted at least 15 minutes before the deadline - which I hope I can manage on the final tasks next week.

This weeks task was to design a newspaper layout for some content we had been given about Jonathan Gee (You can see my design below). I found this task more challenging due to the previous ones due to the fact we had to fit things like gutter spacing and bleed areas. The text of all columns had to line up, so therefore my design had to be accurate in all areas.

With only being a week away from deadline, this week will be a 'getting things tied up and finished' week. This will mainly be focused at A5 as A6 won't be fully complete until my journal entry next week.

So for next week, I need to:

• Write an evaluation for A5, reflect on compromises and changes made to original web plan.
• Write up merit & distinction criteria for both assignments.
• Get my usability testing questionnaires and results ready.
• Ensure I have plenty of plastic wallets for my A6 assignment!

Thanks for reading,
Sue

Gasping Breath

I somehow feel that I always start my journal entry off with "This week..." or have the word 'week' in the first sentence. So here's a shot at something different:

Over the duration of the past seven days, I have gone through some mixed emotions regarding my work:

• Happiness - When I complete a part of my work to a standard that I want.
• Saddness - When my printer decides to not work or run out of ink.
• Frustration - When after numerous attempts to get my perl script working on my feedback form it just doesn't want to do it's job.
• Embarassment - When I realised the stupid mistake I'd made with my perl script. A silly little reason why it wasn't working.
• Elation - When with some help from Gary and Tom, it finally worked!

My website has developed immensely over the half term holiday, most of my pages are now complete - the design was slightly changed (and will slightly be changed again!). The testing session on Monday provided me with some very constructive feedback, some changes were suggested which I've taken on board. Some of them may be implemented over the coming week in time for a pre-submission check next Tuesday.

Another timed task was presented to us today - this time in the shape of a newspaper advertisement. Certain restrictions on the size of the newspaper space we were allowed to use were imposed, which provided us with a small design task before any sketches were even drawn. You can view my design below:

Bits and pieces of my work need tying up now, mainly my evidence log for my website build. Last week I took some time to get some browser shots for the operating systems and browsers I want my website to work in. Another set of these will need to be done this week so that I can get shots of the slightly changed design.

After a practise run of my presentation today, it was brought to my attention that I sound out of breath when I present - mainly due to nerves. This is something I need to try and overcome before the real thing on March 4th as it was the biggest drawback of my presentation - that and fiddling with the pockets on my trousers.

So, for next week I need to:

• Use the feedback received on my usability forms to ensure my site is the best it can be.
• Begin to stick all evidence in my sketchbook and annotate.
• Practise my presentation more, try not to get nerves get the better of me.
• Have all my work ready for a pre-submission check next week.

Thanks for reading,
Sue

Boost of confidence!

This week has taken some of the pressure off of me, after receiving some feedback on my referral work, I can now look forward to the hand in date knowing that I'm on the right track. My restoration is a lot better this time, the colours I had chosen previously made the image appear bland so they needed some work. I'm confident that I can hand my work in on time, as well as keeping on top of the current assignments.

My website is altering slightly, after some feedback I received yesterday, it was suggested that I horizontally flip the header so that I can make good use of the space and align things properly. The current layout seems a little harsh when it comes to alignment. This shouldn't take me much time to do, I have already done a template and validated it to XHTML 1.0 Strict so the next step is to begin entering my content.

During the course of this week and next week, I'll be considering the questions I should include on my usabililty testing questionnaire. Testing the website with people outside college will provide me valuable feedback from my target audience. For this I have already got 4 people lined up.

Today we had a 2 hour timed task in which we had to design the label for small tube of paint called Hokai. This timed task went a lot better than the previous one for FontBook, I planned my time a lot more efficiently which enabled me to hand my work in 20 minutes early - which is how I like things to work out. I really liked the finished idea that I produced and was pleased with the whole process from roughs to digital product.

My presentation/typography assignment is going well, I feel that I'm on top of everything. My presentation needs practising a lot more so that I am confident with the information that I have included - so that I can hopefully recite from memory.

During half term, I'd like to:

• Finish my website, upload it and begin my testing. Gain feedback on the forum too.
• Get as many of my target audience as I can to do my usability questionnaire.
• Practise, practise, practise my presentation. Know my content inside out.

Thanks for reading.
Sue

Juggling Act

Another week has gone by, a quite satisfactory week in most respects.
My referral work is almost complete and should be ready to hand in on Monday morning. Already, I can see a big improvement in my image restoration and I am pleased with how it looks so far. My juggle between referral work and current assignments hasn't been as bad as I originally thought it would be. I've put in at least 16 hours on each assignment and then done referral work on top of that! This has led me to a nice situation where I feel on top of things, rather than being buried under the mountain of work still to do.

My current assignments are getting underway nicely. My presentation for A6 is complete in regards to the design, placement of my bullet points and titles may need some amending and my content needs a bit more technical depth after our lecture on typography anatomy today. Other than that, I feel I'm ahead on this assignment, which gives me time to do A5.

A5 isn't as far as I hoped it would be due to a problem with 'floating' tables, that has been fixed now though and so I can quickly move forward to the stage where I want to be at the end of the week. For seminar groups next week, I have to consider questions I would like to ask on my user testing questionnaire in regards to functionality, usability and aesthetics. A handout for A6 is also needed.

My targets to complete this week are:

• Draw up an initial draft of a user testing form for my website.
• Have an initial draft of my presentation handout.
• Work on A5 and reach the stage I want to be at.
• Complete referral work and hand in on Monday.

Thanks for reading,
Sue

Collect, Prepare, Think and Show

In a certain sense, this week feels as though it has been more productive than last week. Although there has been plenty of work to be cracking on with, I feel that beginning to build our website has somehow made it feel more productive than previous weeks.

Using tables and cells to build the website has been good so far, although I haven't used this method of building in a while. I find myself remembering ways to apply certain properties to cells. Hand-coding is the way forward, after allowing Dreamweaver to write my CSS in the function window and it then imploding on me and deciding not to work, I decided that I would hand-code afterall. Before the beginning of the build, my confidence in my ability to hand code wasn't too good, but after giving it a shot yesterday, I found that I should have a little faith in myself sometimes. Not much of my code is done yet, but what I have done so far works - so that has to be a good thing. My next problem is getting the code to validate to XHTML 1.0 Strict, on my first validation review I incurred five errors so before I continue any futher I would like to erradicate these.

Today we had the first of our timed tasks, it was pretty tense and I certainly learnt how not to go about my planning. Although I managed to hand my design in on time, I wasn't happy with it. If I had planned my time more efficiently I could have done a lot lot better.

My presentation handout/slides are progressing and hopefully I will have a draft version done for next week ready to receive feedback in Tuesday's seminar group.

Targets for next week:

• Collect more inspirational work.
  This is an aspect of my sketchbook which has been slightly neglected recently. If I can aim at getting 10 pieces a week I'll be able to stay on target.
• Prepare myself properly for seminar groups.
  Take notes from the seminar details on the wall making sure that I have the topics to be discussed, prepare for them beforehand.
• Think deeper about assignments.
  Read the assignments sheets properly so I know what is expected of me then I can make sure that I have everything that is required for submission.
• Ensure that I show my idea's generation through every stage.
  Ensure that I cover every stage with mind maps, word associations, rough sketches, developed ideas, final designs, feedback on each stage etc etc

A new year, new semester.

The feeling of dread that accompanied me throughout the Christmas holidays has now been laid to rest and the realisation of my assignment results has sunk in. Admittedly, I initially thought that I had referred both of my assignments and that I would be spending the first half of this term juggling four assignments instead of the preferred two. Instead, I am juggling three – my A4 assignment needs some work doing to it, which I completed expected. Over the duration of last term, my time planning went down the pan. External factors beyond my control meant that I wasn’t able to keep up with my schedule, which meant in the end I did whatever it would take just to be able to hand my work in on time. Due to those external factors, I’ve been given an insight as to what could happen when I’m in employment while working to a deadline. Staying up all night so that a deadline can be achieved was a tense but worthwhile experience, although, I’d try to avoid it where possible in the future.

Back to college and a new semester has brought us two new assignments in the shape of:

A5 – Builder
This assignment is a continuation of A3 – Back to BASIC. It requires me to build the website that I planned using Adobe Dreamweaver and put it through rigorous testing to ensure that it works fully. Usability testing will be needed for this, so feedback will be needed in the shape of a feedback form.

This assignment is the one I’ve been looking forward to the most. Since the beginning of the course I have been wanting to dive straight into the building of a website. Until now, I didn’t realise the sheer amount of work that goes into a website before an authoring program such as Adobe Dreamweaver is even opened.

A6 – Revert to Type
A portfolio assignment consisting of a number of tasks. This assignment will be another challenging one for me. Typography is another area of creative media that I know nothing about. The final piece of Revert to Type will be a five minute presentation on my notable typographer – Stanley Morison.

I’m starting to get used to the idea of presentations now, last time I managed to nail my timing so that can hopefully be a skill I can carry forward. A few factors could be worked on, the fact that I like playing with my hand out would be a good start and sounding breathless as I speak (breathless through sheer panic!). Already the ideas for the visual aids are flowing, so I can’t wait to get cracking on with these.

From receiving my feedback, I’ve realised a lot of things about myself and my work. So over the next term I want to improve:

• Time Planning – my planning in general isn’t too bad overall, but I want to make it more rigid. I’ve decided that throughout the week, I will do at least 4 hours a night of work (once my daughter is in bed), this will ensure that a minimum 20 hours per week is done and should make sure that I keep on top of things. I will then have my weekends free to have family time or continue to do work if needed.
• Referencing – although I haven’t had a problem writing down the references that I’ve used to include in my work. I find that sometimes I’m almost forgetting to write down the date I’ve accessed the websites. From now on, I should write down all websites that I’ve been on, regardless of whether or not I have used anything from them in my work. This will show that I am capable of deciding what makes good information and will enable me to cross reference.
• Check my work more thoroughly – stupid mistakes were pointed out today that when I looked at them made me think “Well, that was stupid. What a silly mistake to make”. Therefore I need to set more time aside before submission date to proof read through my work and leave myself extra time to amend mistakes, just in case any are made. This will help me to decrease the number of mistakes I’m making.
  

So, with a lot of work to be getting on with, my time planning for the next few weeks will be definitely over 24 hours of self study per week. I feel that this will help me to get out of the ‘referral trap’ that was mentioned in class yesterday.

Thanks for reading.
Sue