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