The Post That's Called "What I need to do for the next assignment post"

I was originally going to make the first paragraph of this post just about sketchbooks, but because I ended up thinking of so many ways that I need to improve I've decided to make the whole thing somewhat of a "what I need to do for the next assignment" post. There's lots of areas I think I still need to improve on, and by committing them to a web page I'm signing a contract with myself to make me do them. Here goes.

Sketchbooks. Mine haven't been going too bad, but if there's one place that I do feel I've let myself down it's in how much inspirational pieces I collect. I see good stuff (and bad stuff) everywhere I look, but it's only very occasionally that I take a picture or rip it out and stick it in my sketchbook. This is something that I really need to kick start this assignment, but I know it's pretty much a matter of "too little, too late" in some respects. There's smatterings of it in my sketchbooks - so it's not something I've completely ignored - but it's the only thing that's still not properly ingrained into my brain. My ideas generation has got better and better over the last few assignments and there's been more of it, so that's an area I do think I'm doing alright on at the moment. I will however be trying to use a bit more colour in the ideas generation section, because that's something else I sometimes forget to do.

I'm also going to start recording my reading - and research - a bit better. I'm going to create notes from what I've read, which should also help me understand things a bit more and on another plus point I'll be able to flick back through my sketchbook and find some useful notes. I'm also going to try and research a bit more into lectures than I've previously done on other assignments, because this is another area that I've not done so well.

First thing on the list this week is to spend quite a long time on researching. I want to really know what is a good logo in my head before I start designing properly (I've been throwing down some roughs for my logo already, but nothing in depth), and I want to take a look at a lot of examples so I can get in the right state of mind. Usually I'll just launch straight into the designing part, but the research behind the design is just as important and I'm hoping by taking this approach I'll make a better logo. I don't want to just make a logo, I want to make a great one. I'm really determined to spend a lot of time on my last assignment of the year, and bring together all my knowledge that I've gathered over the year.

Just to quickly scoot back to the last assignment, I've been having bad feelings about it all week that I can't shake. I really think that I might have referred on it, but then I might be just being silly. There's always the doubt in the back of your mind until you get your results, and mine is still there. If I have referred, I don't think it's going to put me down because I'll make sure it's my last. I hope I haven't, but I'm sure I've missed something out. Maybe it's because I left at 12 that I feel that I've forgotten something. We'll just have to wait and see.

In other news this week I've just got a new job working for a company called Nexus as their one and only in-house designer. As you can imagine, it was quite a daunting job to start last week, knowing that I'd be the one and only designer at Nexus - and the other parent company, Creative Acquisitions - but I'm enjoying it loads. They had me redesigning their stationary last week, so I've had a bit of a head-start on this assignment by already designing some stationary. Their old stuff wasn't particularly awful, but it had a couple of nasty bits in it. The main challenge that faced me during this redesign was their logo, but mainly the swoosh. Do I align everything to the swoosh, or do I align to the text? In the end I settled for the swoosh, but I still wasn't happy. I'd like to get a hold of the logo and redesign that too, but because they've got it on so many places - signage, walls, adverts, it would be hard to replace. I've also had to stick with the typeface that was used by the previous designer: Tahoma, but I've decided that this is going to be changed to a more suitable one next week. I'll get some examples up if they allow me later in the week.