Initial Portfolio Designs

I have finally shortlisted my ideas down to the two I think are most suitable. I will be posting these on the forum as well, any feedback would be appreciated.

Design Idea 1


Design Idea 2

Delivery Requirements

1. CMS (Content Management System)
A Content Management System will be paramount to ensure that my portfolio can be easily updated and maintained. It will provide an easy way for me to customise my porfolio for my needs and therefore purposely style it for each job situation that may arise.

At the moment I am undecided which CMS I will specifically use, but the two I have shortlisted are Wordpress and TextPattern (as I have experience with both). With whichever CMS I use, I will need PHP and MySQL available on my hosting.

2. CSS 2.1
Cascading Style Sheets are used to present the content of my portfolio. Using semantic markup, I will ensure that my CSS code is maintainable for future updates and also show my abilities to potential employers.

3. XHTML 1.0 Strict
As CSS deals with the presentation of the content, XHTML structures it. Using XHTML 1.0 Strict will ensure that my portfolio can be read across a variety of browsers - even text only browsers such as Lynx.

4. POP3
POP3 will be used in conjunction with SMTP for emailing. POP3 will receive emails that I can receive through the contact form that will be included on my website. My email address will also be included on job websites such as Monster.com and Graduates Yorkshire and therefore I may receive emails from potential employers via these too.

5. SMTP
As stated SMTP will work along side POP3 - where POP3 receives the emails, SMTP sends them. SMTP will allow me to send digital CVs to agencies/employers who request me to do so and therefore aid me in the process of finding a job in the design industry.

Target Audience Profiles

1. Industry Professionals/Potential Employers
Jim is the managing director of a small web development company based in Leeds. His current leading web designer is leaving to start a new job, so Jim is recruiting for a replacement. His current designer built websites using tables and cells with little knowledge of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), Jim has decided to take the step forward by recruiting a designer with knowledge and experience of CSS and XHTML (eXtensible Hyper Text Markup Language) with W3C standards compliance.

In both his working and home environments, Jim has access to high speed Internet connections. When at work, he uses a PC with Windows XP and browses the Internet using Internet Explorer 7. At work he uses a Macbook with OSX 10.5 and the most up-to-date version of Mozilla Firefox.

2. Clients
Ibtsam, a 23 year old businessman is looking for a web/graphic designer to produce various pieces of corporate livery for his new business venture. Due to the current economic climate, Ibtsam requires a designer who will not charge over the top for the work he requires.

To help him find a designer, Ibtsam uses Yell.com (an online yellow pages) and Google. Using his Windows Vista laptop, he spends around 2-3 hours every evening browsing the internet. He has a 2Mb connection and browses using Internet Explorer 7.

3. Students
Sarah is a 18 year old IT student who is researching courses to progress onto once she has completed her A-Levels. After seeing a flyer advertising the FdA Web Design course, she decides to browse the student portfolios to see the different types of work she could be doing while on the course and the quality of the work produced.

Sarah has a high speed Internet Connection and spends quite alot of time on the Internet (around 7-8 hours a day) browsing social networking websites and chatting to her friends via Instant Messengers. She has an Apple iMac Computer and uses Safari 3.0 when browsing.

Portfolio Goals

1. My portfolio must validate to XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS 2.1
This goal is almost a given when writing any web plan, it will make my website accessible, easy to maintain and ensure that it is display accurately across a range of browsers. It will also show any potential employer viewing my website that I have a knowledge of validation.

2. My website should conform to accessibility guidelines 1.0 Level A.
Conforming to accessibility guidelines will ensure that a wider range of users will be able to view my portfolio with ease. Again, this will show any potential employer that I have knowledge of accessibility.

3. To create a portfolio that has a working print stylesheet.
As my portfolio will be updated with new work each time I complete a new piece, keeping an up-to-date print version would be a lot of extra work. By ensuring that my online portfolio has a working print stylesheet, I can print a copy of my portfolio off each time I need a paper version.

4. To display my skills by using a variety of technologies.
Over the two years of the course, I have learnt many new skills; XHTML, CSS and PHP. I would like to be able to showcase my skills by using each of them on my portfolio – again, another way of showing potential employers what I am capable of.

Reality Bites

The reality that we’re entering our final semester has finally hit home, there is only a few months left on the course, but they’re an important few months. I’m really looking forward to finishing the course now and being able to put everything that I have learnt into practise in the outside world.

One of the most important parts of the next few months is the SMLP (Self Managed Learning Plan), where I chose a skill and manage my learning throughout the assignment. I’m quite nervous about this, I’ve never self-taught myself anything in the past but hopefully the resources that I’ve identified will aid me in the learning process.

The skill that I have chosen to learn is PHP. PHP is a skill mentioned more and more on job specifications as a required element of an applicant, so knowing this skill will increase my chances of employment after the course.

The creation of my portfolio is another very important stage of the next few months. My portfolio is the key tool to gaining employment and will be a showcase of my skills to show employers. Because of this, my portfolio needs to be adaptable. I’m nervous about doing this, as designing something for myself is my weakness, I’m never happy with anything I design for myself – or I get bored with the design very quickly – which is something I need to snap out of.

My biggest fear over the next few months is the final presentation. I’ve never really enjoyed presentations and the final one is a major jump from the 10 minutes that we’ve been presenting so far. It’s going to take a lot of work; practise and courage to present first time without letting nerves take over. I think that due to the fact the presentation is about my college work and my thoughts and feelings during the 2 years on the course, it will be easier to talk about than a random subject.

It is quite nerve racking thinking about the amount of work that needs doing over the next few months, I’ve certainly got to put everything that I’ve learnt into practise – especially the time planning aspect. Juggling motherhood, pregnancy, college work and every day life is certainly no easy challenge, but its one I’m willing to tackle.

When the course has finished, I feel that my level of employability will be at a stage where I can be comfortable applying for positions in the industry. During the course, I have been doing some small web jobs as a freelance and would like to continue this, but I feel that even though I have had some experience with clients, I would be better going into an agency or in-house job to improve my skills further.

In summary, I need to get my teeth stuck into the final few months and not fall at the final hurdle. I need to bring together a portfolio, learn PHP and tackle my final presentation in order to do so – although this is nerve racking, I’m looking forward to it!

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PHP Resources for SMLP

1. The PHP Anthology - Shafik, Turmelle et al.
A Sitepoint book which contains a collection of PHP solutions and will be a helpful resource during the early stages of my learning.

2. Build your own database driven website using PHP and MySQL - Kevin Yank
Another Sitepoint book which expands on the information in the Anthology. Combining PHP with MySQL to create dynamic websites.

3. W3C PHP Tutorial
A tutorial website run as part of W3C schools, contains complete references of functions to learn and practise.

4. PHP5 in easy steps - Mike McGrath
A step by step PHP 5 book, almost a "PHP for dummies" type of book.

5. PHPBuilder.com
Another online tutorial resource.

6. Tutorialized
Another online PHP tutorial resource.

7. Sitepoint PHP & MySQL Tutorial
Alongside the books, Sitepoint allow you to further your skills with online tutorials.

8. Killerphp
Another online tutorial website, this one includes video tutorials.

9. PHP Cookbook - OReilly
A book with quick PHP solutions.

10. Tizag
A beginners PHP learning resource.

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