Craig Burgess - HND'ed

Evaluation of two years on the HND Interactive Media course

2008-05-14T20:05:00.002+01:00

It’s a somewhat strange situation writing about the last two years on this course. Not because the course has been a strange experience – even though it has at times – but more because it’s been such a long time. At this time two years ago I was just applying to this course. At this time right now, I’m working in the industry. The best place to start for such a world wind journey is probably at the beginning.

Where I started
If I’m honest, two years ago I was thoroughly confused with what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. On the one hand I wanted to be a policeman, but I’d been told to wait a few years. On the other hand I wanted to be a games journalist, but I knew I wasn’t good enough, and I didn’t fancy going to university. Despite the lack of enthusiasm about university, I’d been caught up in the college atmosphere and I’d decided going to study games design at Sheffield was the course for me. Fortunately, I saw a poster for this very course.

Where I was
As soon as I started the course I knew that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Without ever knowing it, it appeared I had a passion for design, and as soon as I discovered the design world I wanted to wrap myself in it as much as humanly possible. I started reading design blogs. Started buying design magazines. Started discussing it with friends. Before I knew it, I had been bitten by the design bug.

After getting away with a lifetime of disorganisation during my education, I came onto a course that required me to be very organised indeed. Suffice to say, I didn’t find it easy, especially the time planning aspect of things. In early assignments time planning was a constant battle with my own will power, and this was the hardest thing for me to change within myself. After all, I’d been without time planning for 14 years and not done too badly, so why start now?

It took me a large portion of the first year to get my time planning exactly where I wanted it, and it was one of the biggest issues I saw in myself. If I was to truly take control over my own time planning, I decided it would be best for me create my own time planning document that suited my needs for the course. After I had produced this document I struggled a lot less with my time planning. My original time planning document still remains largely unchanged to this day, which I believe is testament to the effectiveness of the original document I created.

Another issue that I felt needed improving upon greatly when I started the course was my presentational skills. As a young child and all through high school I was a very shy person, but college allowed me to come out of my shell more and improve on my people skills. One thing that had stayed behind with me from the shy days was my presentation-giving skills, and this was one of the skills that most frustrated me during my early days on the course. To a certain extent it still frustrates me today as I can still find a presentation difficult to give if the mood of the room isn’t relaxed.

However, I don’t feel there is any way I could have improved more on my presenting skills during the course. If we had the option to go back I would request more presentations to do. Even though the thought of them would terrify most people, the only way to improve at something is to continually keep doing it. I feel that if I would have done more presentations throughout the two years on the course I would feel a lot more relaxed about them when we have to do them now.

That isn’t to say that I don’t feel considerably more relaxed about them now than I used to, it’s just to say that I feel there is room for improvement. I have been told before that I am too harsh on myself when it comes to presenting, and that I generally amplify the mistakes that I make. It is true that I often amplify how bad I did in a presentation after evaluating how they went afterwards, but I don’t feel it is a bad thing in this instance as it allows me to continue to improve. That said, I still don’t feel that I am where I want to be with presenting to people, and this is a skill that I am constantly striving to improve.

Some time early in the second year of the course, I started a job working as an in-house designer at a vehicle management company. I didn’t feel I had a chance in getting the job, but I went for the interview and I went for the experience. To my surprise I did get the job, and I spent the first year of my design career working there. I feel that this coupled with the second year on my course allowed me to effectively double the amount I was learning, and the experience was invaluable.

I believe it was the second year of the course where my work ethic and speed of working raised. Because I didn’t have much spare time on my hands anymore, whenever I did get the chance to do some work I took it. Before this I worked a small part time job at Morrisons, and I often found it very difficult to be motivated to do any college work. There’s a strange irony in having lots of time; you just don’t feel like doing anything. Because I was constantly saying to myself “I can do it later”, things rarely got done until they absolutely had to.

But as soon as I started my new job I had to put rock solid timetables in place to allow me to complete the things I had to on time. Due to this, I became very good at time planning and motivating myself to do things, and to a lot of people it seemed like I was working non-stop. It was quite a turnaround to go from always having lots of time to barely having any at all, but I feel that without my job as a designer alongside the course my improvement would have been a lot less advanced than it has been.

Finally – and something I haven’t really touched upon during my final evaluation – my technical skills are something I have constantly strived to improve over the two years. A lot of this has come naturally to me as I have been using the programs and coding languages almost daily for the past year and a half due to working at the same time as being on the course. This has been a large advantage to me, and has seen me make an almost natural progression in the use of programs, and especially website building.

I began the course by using CSS, but it was when I started my job as a designer and the second year that I really started improving the web design side of things. I often set myself challenges to use something new in a website each time I created one so I could continue to advance my skills during the course. If I look back at the websites I have completed on the course now, I’m very proud of the progression I’ve made with each one both technically and visually.

Where I am now
After two years of some of the most intense learning I’ve ever experienced in my entire educational life, I feel completely ready to go into the design industry full-time. I have been in the ideal situation for the last year to be able to dip my toes in so to speak, by only working three days a week as a designer. Now I am leaving the course I feel like I am in a better position than the typical HND or university graduate as I have commercial experience to go with a recently completed design course.

Due to my experience, I feel that the work I produce is now at a professional level, and I am capable of producing work with a fast turnaround and to a high degree of quality. My only issue with my work currently is that the majority of my experience is with web design, and as a result of this I feel that my print design skills are somewhat lagging behind my web design skills. This is an issue I am trying to rectify, and I have already begun to take on more print work than I have done in the past year.

The future
The very ultimate goal for my professional career is to start my own design studio. The route to that ultimate goal is considerably less defined, but I believe now my education is out of the way I must continue to keep learning, even more so now I don’t have an environment specifically dedicated to such an activity. To be out of touch with the industry is career suicide, and I must make sure I don’t find myself doing that.

Another goal for the future is to continue to advance my web development skills, specifically Ruby on Rails. Now I feel comfortable with PHP and the workings of it, I am planning on learning Ruby on Rails over the next 6 – 12 months and investigating the possibilities of how I could utilise this in future web projects.

Most importantly though – and a point previously mentioned – is that I continue to keep learning. This is the only way I can keep improving.

Word count: 1644

A14 Section of Website

2008-04-07T11:59:00.001+01:00

My A14 section (and the assignment up to date) can be found at:

http://thecraigdomain.co.uk/a14/

Please feel free to comment over there.

Final Portfolio Screen Designs

2008-02-27T16:15:00.005Z

I have completed the final version of my portfolio screen designs, which can be viewed by following the links below.

Home page for portfolio

Interior page for portfolio

I have bumped up the font size slightly on the interior pages, and changed a few of the link names on my navigation. Nothing much else has been changed, apart from the image viewer.

I have decided to drop the idea of using an AJAX image viewer, and I am just going to use a slide-type feature - note the numbers underneath the image. The image would also be a link, allowing the user to open up a high resolution version of the image to take a more detailed look at.

I'm very keen to hear people's opinions on this part of the design especially, and of course anything else.

Portfolio Screen Designs Version 2

2008-02-20T17:01:00.001Z

I've just completed version 2 of my screen designs, and I would appreciate some feedback.

Home page screen design

Interior page screen design

I've added an image viewer to my interior page to attempt to make the viewing of images a little bit better. I would like to make it in Javascript, but I'm not sure if it might be a bit too complicated. The thumbnails display could be done easily enough, but I think I would struggle with the zoom in, zoom out and drag features.

Screen Designs for Portfolio Site

2008-02-13T21:11:00.005Z

I have just completed my first screen designs for my portfolio website, and I'd appreciate some feedback on them. I've kept a separate identity for this to the one I have been using a lot recently. The slides of the images you can see on the interior page would open up when hovered over (like on my current Notfree site, just because I believe it is an easy way to view work)

I've gone for a very clean and simple design style, primarily to let the design work talk for itself. Up until very recently I was going to go the complete opposite way, but after spending a large amount of time over the last couple of weeks looking at design portfolios I am now of the complete opposite opinion. Anyway, here they are:

Homepage design

Interior page (sorry there isn't much example text on there)

Please note: I have left off all the colour notation and sizes purely because I think it easier for people to just see the design. If anybody wishes to see this version please do not hesitate to ask.

iTunes Redesign Screen Designs

2008-02-08T21:16:00.000Z

I've just completed some early screen designs for my iTunes store redesign and I'd welcome some constructive feedback.

The screenshots can be found on my A13 blog.

Thanks in advance.

Competitve Analysis for Portfolio Site

2008-02-06T16:33:00.000Z

Professional Portfolio

http://www.thinkology.co.uk/

The website is all flash, which unfortunately reduces the functionality and limits the users to people with only Flash installed on their computer. There is no alternative HTML-based version of their website which would have been helpful, but might have detracted from the overall effect. Because of the large files the occasional page stuttered while the page loaded, but overall the Flash loaded surprisingly quickly. Other than the problem of it being all-flash, Thinkology’s website works very well and how you would expect.

The website is clearly pushing a very minimalist approach to its design and this portfolio clearly falls into the “let the work do the talking” category. However, the design is still very impressive with its restrictive colour palette. White space has been used to very good effect as it allows the user to only focus on one area of the website at all times with nothing else in the background distracting them. The occasional use of bright green adds a nice bit of contrast to the almost completely white design, and highlights important places to click.

Their method of presenting work is a nice idea, and slightly different from the norm with work coming in at random angles. This gives a nice care-free feel to the display of work and allows the work to standout a bit more. The angles is in contrast with the website’s minimalist approach of letting the work speak for itself, but it still works quite well.

I think this is where Thinkology’s website really excels – making it easy for the user to find work and to navigate around the website. It is clear that there was a very considered approach when thinking how to section the website, and that effort has paid off with a website that is almost effortless to use. If anything could be different, I would say that the website needs a back and next button when viewing work instead of having buttons on the far right hand side of the screen, as I imagine when somebody is using a very large monitor these would be very far to the right hand side; out of the way of the work.

If I decide to go for a minimalist approach to the design of my portfolio I would say that Thinkology’s website would be a perfect example of how to do a good job at creating a very simple website. The user doesn’t have to think at all to view this website. I must make sure I take such a considered approach when thinking about the user’s experience of the website.

Student Portfolio

http://www.weshallsee.co.uk/

Functionality
The website has no problems whatsoever when it comes to working exactly how you would expect, and there is no features of the website that had problems. My only worry would be that after more products were added it may take a while for each item to load if they were all stored on one page. If I use a similar chronological-based design I must make sure that I consider this potential issue and take preventative measures to make sure it doesn’t become a problem.

Once again, there is quite a minimalist approach to this design, but displays a different way of organising the information. Giving the majority of space to the images is a very good idea, and works well in this design. The slides feature also allows the user to see a project in several different lights – often from conception to completion – and is a nice touch. Overall the design of all the elements has been handled extremely delicately and it allows all the fantastic work to really shine.

My main usability issue with this site is fact that you have to scroll quite a lot, and it becomes arduous after a while – especially if you are wishing to select a specific piece. The site really needs some form of navigation to display the content from various disciplines so people can search the content faster. Currently this doesn’t pose much of an issue as there isn’t a lot of content on the website, but this could pose a large problem if more work was posted.

Overall, We Shall See is a site with a very solid layout that is let down by its lack of a search bar or any ability to organise content. This is something that I will add to my portfolio no matter what the design may look like as I feel it is important to be able to see at a glance specific work from specific categories e.g. print work and web work. I believe this would also be something that employers would be very interested in seeing easily too, so this is a feature I intend to implement.

Technologies to be used on portfolio website

2008-01-30T15:27:00.000Z

List of technologies

XHTML 1.0 Strict
CSS1 and widely implemented features of CSS2
PHP 5
MySQL 5
POP 3

XHTML 1.0 Strict
Back to top
XHTML will be used to mark up the content, set out my page structure, and declare links to external files e.g. CSS.

CSS1 and widely implemented features of CSS2
Back to top
CSS will be used to style my website's content, and to give my web pages their layout.

PHP 5
Back to top
PHP will be used to provide the dynamic features of my portfolio, such as showing articles from my database and providing the basis of my Content Management System. PHP will also be used for my contact form.

MySQL 5
Back to top
MySQL will be the technology used to power my database, which will store all the information I upload to my site via PHP. This data will be accessed and displayed throughout my website with PHP.

POP 3
Back to top
I will be using a POP 3 eMail account to allow people to contact me through the website's contact form, and by the eMail address that I will publish on the website.

Target Audience Profiles - Portfolio Website

2008-01-23T16:50:00.000Z

Primary Audiences
Educationalists
Typical user is a male/female between 30 – 50 years old. Educated to degree level, and likely to be an intermediate to expert computer user with high speed internet connections at work and at home. Possible areas of specialisation in education are the creative industries, specifically web-based. Goes online 6-7 times a week to conduct research, purchase products and read articles, using 6.0 browsers and above. Probable browser usage is Mozilla Firefox 2 or Safari 2; likely to be savvy with both PCs and Macs.

Representatives from small design agencies (1-10 employees)
Typical user is a male between 25 – 50 years old. Educated to college or degree level; expert computer user, with high speed internet connections at work and at home. Area of specialisation is interactive media. Goes online multiple times a day to test websites in development, research and read articles, using a range of browsers from 5.0 upwards. Main browser usage is Mozilla Firefox 2. Likely to work on the Mac platform.

Secondary Audiences
Students
Typical user is a male/female between 18 – 25 years old. In education, and likely to educated to college level. Intermediate to expert computer user with high speed internet connection at home and at college / educational institution. Likely areas of study are interactive media / creative subjects, with specialism in web-based technologies. Goes online 5-7 times a week to perform research, read articles using 6.0 browsers and above. Probable browser usage is Firefox 2, and likely to work on a Windows platform.

Evaluation of existing Content Management Systems

2008-01-23T15:32:00.000Z

Goal:To evaluate exisiting CMSs and their use within a portfolio context.

Wordpress
Example portfolio: Cognitive Creative
Very simple layout and very easy to see what everything does. In its default state, it is very geared towards blogging and uploading text-based articles, so there isn’t much support for portfolios. The major feature of Wordpress isn’t its functionality however; it is the usability of its back-end system.

The 2-deep navigation system works well for a CMS, and is something that I will use. When viewing the list of articles you instantly get a choice to view, edit, or delete all on the same window, and this is something I would like to do too. I want to make sure that my CMS has as few pages as possible, and as simple to use as possible. Wordpress is a good example of a powerful CMS but with a very simple user interface.

While Wordpress has a simple user interface it is not very good for creating portfolio-style websites. As Wordpress is a blogging tool by default, it takes a lot of customisation to change its function to a more portfolio-based CMS. Its implementation and displaying of images is lacklustre at best, so I will need to find a better example of more portfolio-orientated CMS.

The idea of having a dashboard-style homepage with lots of relevant information is a good one, but its potential is underused in this CMS. Instead it serves as a marketing tool for Wordpress, but it is a good idea nonetheless. I will implement some kind of dashboard homepage too, but I will simply have custom information and buttons to perform popular tasks.

In summary, Wordpress provides an excellent example to showcase what a good CMS user interface should look like, but is less useful to provide an example of a good portfolio CMS, and the kind of features I should implement.

Indexhibit
Example portfolio: Eatock.com
Try out the CMS user interface
Very simple to use and upload new work, but is very limited at the same time. Indexhibit’s basic idea is when uploading work you create an “exhibition” (or several) of work that you then upload images of your work to. The idea is a nice approach, but the installation is clumsy and is its biggest downfall.

There isn’t much option to upload text, and the display of those exhibition images is basic. If I wanted to just upload images with small amounts of text then this would be a perfect example to take from, but I would like the option to be able to upload both.

I think the major downfall of Indexhibit is its lack of flexibility with text and images, and the ability to manipulate them in a more robust way. But used solely as a portfolio CMS, the effect can be powerful.

In summary, Indexhibit is a slightly more useful of an example to take away as a portfolio style CMS than Wordpress, but it is still lacking somewhat. The idea of making this as simple as possible has possibly been taken a step too far, but the idea of making a simple CMS is an extremely good one and worth noting for my CMS.

Textpattern
Example portfolio: Notfree
Textpattern is similar to Wordpress in its blogging features, but it is much more easily extendable due to it having its own simplistic Textpattern coding language. Whilst I don’t plan on implementing my own XML tags and language, Textpattern is a good example of a more flexible CMS. Since my CMS isn’t going to be a commercial product, I don’t have to worry about making my CMS flexible, but I do have to make sure I make my code modular like Textpattern so I can add and remove parts as it expands in the future.

The CMS interface is quite daunting, and its implementation of the 2 level navigation doesn’t work as well as Wordpress’. I like the idea of being able to create pages through the CMS, and everything being online, but this would be too difficult for me to implement in my first CMS. In general, Textpattern’s CMS user interface isn’t as user friendly as it probably should be, but its flexibility is worth noting.

In summary, whilst Textpattern is primarily used to upload more text-based articles, the functions are there to allow you to extend it into a portfolio context. The main good example I will take from Textpattern is its ability to produce accessible code, which is something that I must make sure I do too. I am going to experiment with the use of the Textile WYSIWYG editor in my own CMS early on to see if it would be conducive to what I am trying to achieve.

Expression Engine
Example portfolio: Mark Boulton Design
Try out the CMS user interface
Expression Engine has a very clean back-end system, but it seems to be a little more complicated than Wordpress. Due to the scope and possibilities that Expression Engine allows (such as multiple sites running on one CMS), the CMS feels cluttered in places and wouldn’t be very effective for me to use as a portfolio system, or even as an example.

The dashboard feature on Expression Engine is an area that it has improved over the Wordpress system, so I will take ideas from both of these two systems. The ability to add a new tab to the navigation is a very good feature, but seeing as though mine isn’t going to market I do not have to worry too much about such features. I could just change this in the root files.

In summary, Expression Engine reinforces my feelings about having a dashboard feature on my CMS, where important information and popular tasks are shown so they can be accessed straight away. EE also reinforces my feelings that a simple tab navigation is probably the best way to go with the user interface, as both of the CMSs with the best user interface designs (Wordpress and EE) have used a tabbed navigation system.

Joomla
Example portfolio: Freestyle Web Solutions
Joomla has an extremely complicated back-end that is very difficult for beginners and intermediate users to comprehend. Everything is on one very large navigation system, and overloads the user drastically. If I am to create a CMS, I must take the bad example of Joomla and make sure I do not repeat it.

Joomla would be a poor system to choose for a portfolio content management system as it is extremely complicated and too bulky for what I need.

In summary, I have researched into Joomla to find an example of exactly what I don’t want my own CMS and user interface to be like, and Joomla has provided the perfect example for this purpose.

Website Goals - Portfolio Site

2008-01-16T16:31:00.000Z

Accessible on a variety of user agents
Including PDAs, mobile phones and internet browsers (IE 5+, Firefox 2, Safari 2, Opera 9+) to make sure that my portfolio is accessible and viewable by as many potential employers as possible. It is also important that I create a good print stylesheet to allow people to print out my portfolio if they so wish. I will ensure I meet this goal by testing my portfolio in the internet browsers listed and a variety of other user agents. Because many mobile phone browsers are completely different, I will test my portfolio on a Sony Ericsson P1i, Samsung E900 and an iPod Touch for another portable device.

To produce a website that is appealing to the target market
Target audience: designers, design agencies and other creative industry employers. I will ensure I meet this goal by posting my portfolio design on a variety of design forums for design professionals to give critique on. I will ask them to specify whether or not the site appeals to them, and will consider this goal as being met if the majority of design professionals asked declare the site is appealing.

To employ specific SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) techniques to achieve high results in SERPs (Search Engine Results Page)
High results in SERPs specifically for Craig Burgess, Craig Burgess Design, Craig Burgess Graphic Design. Search engines to optimise for to include Google, Yahoo and Ask. I have added this as a goal to ensure that when potential employers have received an eMail from me or heard from me, the highest link in the SERPs would be my portfolio. To ensure I meet this goal, I will check my website weekly after launch to check my positioning.

To produce a portfolio with a CMS (Content Management System)
This goal is to allow me to easily update and populate my portfolio without risk of affecting any of the mark-up I have written. This has a secondary purpose; I can use my portfolio as an example of my skills with PHP and MySQL.

To achieve level A conformance as specified by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 as set by the W3C
This is to ensure that my portfolio will be accessible to as many potential employers as possible and so I can target more specific details such as creating effective semantic mark-up and clear ALT and TITLE tags.

Trexi Feedback

2007-12-12T16:37:00.000Z

As part of our Culture Vulture assignment we have to wrap a design that we have previously made onto a product that we have been assigned after the design process has been completed. I had to design a Trexi, and my front and rear view can be seen below. Any feedback would be great help.

Evaluation of Third Semester

2007-12-12T14:53:00.000Z

Now that the semester is nearly at a close, I can honestly say that this has been one of the most demanding semesters we have completed at college. At times the On The Job assignment has been completely draining with an almost constant stream of tasks to do, and Culture Vulture has been much harder than I expected too.

Looking back at On The Job, – the professional project working in a team for a live client - has been quite a demanding project and I have learned so many valuable skills and knowledge from just the one assignment; handling clients, handling teammates and just general project management. If I think back to the beginning of the assignment and contemplate that I didn’t have any kind of clue what or how to project manage a team, I can see how much I’ve learned. The experience has been one of the most valuable ones I have had on the course so far, and has come at a perfect time on the course when we are almost ready to go out and find full time creative positions (more on that later in this post).

Handling clients is one thing in my current job that I don’t get much experience of, so this assignment has taught me a lot about customer service skills that I can take away with me and put into practice. Also, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed being a project manager for a few months, and I think it would be something I’d love to do in about 10 years time or so. Never for one second have I felt bothered about not getting to do the designing of the website; I’ve just enjoyed being in a more advisory and managerial role for a change. And comments from the client and Craig and Mirhad suggest I haven’t done a bad job at all.

The Culture Vulture assignment however – reverse design process to design a Trexi – has been worlds apart from On The Job. I originally said I wouldn’t find it much of a struggle to come up with new and fresh ideas, and to that extent I don’t think I did. When it came to coming up with good ideas though, I struggled towards the end of the three weeks. On reflection I think it would have been better to have just two weeks of being creative and three weeks building, as I think we all underestimated the size of the feat of creating our products and displaying them on a website.

Even after completing the reverse design process I still struggle to see the merit of being creative towards an unknown finish and then choosing a previously conceived idea once you have been told the product. It isn’t a method you could repeat in a real design situation, and it wasn’t a method of working that I particularly enjoyed. I did gain many things out of the working this way and I think I became more creative as a result of the process, but I just don’t see any practical benefit of working this way in the future. Maybe that was the intended purpose. All that matters is that I have got something worthwhile out of the assignment, and I most certainly have. This assignment has revealed all sorts about my method of working, and most importantly has made me appreciate the usefulness of the sketchbook when designing a lot more than I previously have done.

And finally we come to the realisation that we are fast approaching the end of the course, and ultimately – full time jobs. A scary and exciting prospect all at the same time, but a very real end is fast approaching. I’ll miss the course that we’ve been studying on for 2 years for so many reasons, and the course has taught me so much about design (and essentially fuelled my passion for the design industry to begin with) that it will be sad to see it end. I’ve still yet to decide exactly where I want to go when I’ve finished the course, but this is something I will be seriously considering over the Christmas break. Bring on the final leg.

A Few Interesting Posts

2007-12-10T13:29:00.000Z

I was looking around the Internet this dinnertime and I discovered two extremely interesting posts from Coroflot's Creative Seeds Blog.

The first post is about a designer's resilience, and a very interesting case study. Excerpt below:
"This brings attention to one of the most crucial traits a successful creative professional needs to have these days that hardly anyone talks about: resilience. The creative field is a brutal one, in which jobs are lost frequently, often without any correlation to competence. There's a crucial truth to creative employment that makes this happen; a truth that very few of us are comfortable acknowledging: our jobs are dispensable.
The Bemused Optimism of the Dispensable

The second post is an interview with Yang Kim, Vice President / Creative Director of People Design. The interview mainly centres around what Yang looks for in a potential employee.
"If they start asking about who they will be working for, what types of projects they would be working on, when will they get a project of their own to work on, or what will their title be, then we know that they might not have the right attitude.
What do you look for in a designer? : Yang Kim, Creative Director, People Design

BTEC and Skillset - Relevant or outdated? - Part 2

2007-12-05T17:21:00.000Z

The Skillset standards doesn’t take into account that the majority of this country’s design studios aren’t any more than 10 people strong, so such refined job roles as Asset Manager very rarely exist. They don’t acknowledge that a designer would require knowledge of such practices, and in many cases may have to collect and record the assets himself.

This kind of view was always going to happen when you realise the contributor’s list is made up of (largely) managing directors and head of departments. Whilst the Skillset standards are indeed relevant, they would undoubtedly be more relevant and specific if they had a more representative example of the industry on their advisory board. This isn’t an area on which the BTEC syllabus improves on either, because – as previously stated - the syllabus is for an educational purpose and therefore requires educational contributors.

It is probably because of the list of contributors that Skillset’s standards are almost exclusively leaned towards technical skills. Creativity skills are vital to any job role in the IM industry, whether you’re a programmer or a graphic designer. So it is a gross misrepresentation to almost completely ignore the importance of creativity skills in the industry. Thankfully this is where the BTEC syllabus has its positives, with a lot of focus on personal development and creative development. If there is a vital area that Skillset need to improve on it would be more focus on personal and creative skills as well as technical skills.

Focusing on personal development does have its downside’s however, and that is seen by BTEC’s mammoth 198 page tome. It is a very real area of improvement for the BTEC syllabus to try and reduce the amount of pages and refine the format of their criteria. If this syllabus is to become more accessible to students BTEC need to start by changing their presentation format. Whereas Skillset’s standards are presented on a concise page each, BTEC’s are regularly four times larger than that for each unit. BTEC could certainly do with taking many pages out and taking a few from Skillset.

Regardless of the amount of pages either has, both BTEC’s syllabus and Skillset’s standards are vital areas of reading to progress into an interactive media professional. Like most things in life, there are areas that can be improved and refined to make each more useful. In an ideal world BTEC would combine with Skillset to create a very relevant and current syllabus. While we’re waiting for the big red man to start wearing ice skates, both will have to suffice.

BTEC and Skillset - Relevant or outdated? - Part 1

2007-12-05T17:14:00.000Z

BTEC Syllabus
http://www.edexcel.org.uk/VirtualContent/94798/BH015809_HNCD_Interactive_Media_L5_specification.pdf

Skillset standards
http://www.skillset.org/uploads/pdf/asset_11296.pdf?1

For the purposes of this discussion I will be referring to both the Skillset standards and the BTEC syllabus, both of which can be found by following the links at the top of this post. Is the BTEC syllabus representative of the true Interactive Media industry, or does the Skillset standards provide a much more useful insight for budding IMists?

A good place to start would be to point out the differences and limitations of the two. The BTEC syllabus has many academic loops to jump through, as it forms the basis of an education. The Skillset standards are in the fortunate position of not being part of an educational environment, and as such are purely dedicated to the industry. In some senses this approach has its limitations – a lot of the personal development focus from the BTEC syllabus is almost completely ignored.

On the other hand, the Skillset standards have a much stronger focus on the more technical aspects of the industry, especially with regards to programming languages. The BTEC syllabus lacks the depth of technical skills to the same extent as Skillset’s offerings, which is a major limitation. As the industry starts moving more towards web applications and the possibilities of using the internet in unique ways more than just a website, knowing programming languages such as PHP becomes ever the more important, and BTEC’s lack of consideration of this only becomes more obvious. This stems from certain areas of the BTEC syllabus being outdated, and as such the more current web trends are often omitted, especially referring to the BTEC’s syllabus use of technologies such as CGI.

Although Skillset’s standards may be current, some may question its industrial relevance when you begin to look at exactly how some skills are assigned to job roles. For example, if you glance at the pages regarding assets collection, it is stated that an example job role for this would be a production assistant. Does a designer not have to do this job? Is it not a designer’s role to consider copyright sensitivity and abide by these rules?

Discussion continued in the next entry.

CD Track Listing

2007-11-28T21:03:00.000Z

Low Rider by War
Goodbye by Mudvayne
Lay My Burden Down by Seemless
God Put A Smile Upon Your Face by Mark Ronson
Jeepster by T Rex
Armchair Detectives by Reverend and the Makers
Ghosts (Live) by Japan
December by Static X
Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana
Out Of Limits by The Marketts
Lullaby by Editors
Grindhouse (Main Titles) by Robert Rodriguez
Lesion by Stampin' Ground

Why you should pick Yellow and Red as your favourite colour combination

2007-11-15T20:29:00.000Z

Yellow and Red. They flow perfectly together, and if you were to mix them, you’ll come out with orange, widely used to catch people’s attention the world over. But let’s get back to red and yellow. They’re the staple colours of many a clown’s boot, and for the romantic amongst you – you can buy yellow and red tulips.

Red can be seen in the emergency services within the fire service, but even yellow is starting to crawl it’s way in there – an insurance broker recently stated that fire engines should be yellow instead of red after recent studies. Just by seeing that these two colours are playing such a strong role in the emergency services is reason enough alone to consider yellow and red to be one of the greatest colour combinations known to man, but the reasons don’t stop there.

Red is the colour of Valentines Day and Christmas, two of the most important times of the year. Red can mean power, purity, joy and celebration. And to top it all off, Red is the warmest colour. Yellow is no less diverse, primarily being the colour of sunshine; quite possibly the single most important light in the universe. Yellow is also a happy colour, symbolising joy and happiness and again is one of the warmest colours in the colour spectrum.

If you’re after two of the brightest, most attractive and stand-out colours available to you, then you need to get your hands on red and yellow.

Yellow and Red – the happiest colours on the planet.

Pictures from today's trip

2007-11-07T21:22:00.000Z

As promised I've uploaded some low-res versions of the images I've taken today. A fun day was had, and towards the end we really started getting creative with our cameras as you can see from the images below.

Reflections on Art

2007-11-07T16:25:00.000Z

After the presentations in the morning, we all trundled off to Yorkshire Sculpture Park to go have a look around and to see if we could go get inspired for next week when we're starting our creative process for our still as yet unknown product.

If I'm honest, I didn't find that much of the phsyical objects in the gallery all that inspiring. Many people know that I'm not much of an arty person, and I do find it difficult a lot of the time to appreciate art. What Julian said on John Browne's blog is bang on; I see art a lesser discipline than design. I find it annoying that a lot of art doesn't appear to have a purpose, and I find it hard to appreciate things that don't appear to have a purpose. I'm definitely more of a technical person than an arty person, which is probably why I enjoy design so much.

Today did amplify this point that I don't like much art, and I feel it's something that I should work on to appreciate more. I'm quite pompous when it comes to most art and I just flat out refuse to accept it for what it is, so in future I'm going to be more open with my feelings towards such things. Especially with the next couple of weeks coming up, I'm going to make sure that I try to appreciate art a lot more than I have done in the past.

After saying all that, I'm still quite creative and I enjoy creative endeavors, so it's probably quite strange for me to say that I can't appreciate some other people's creative outputs. I think I'm going to be able to let myself go quite easily, and I can't wait to just be creative for a couple of weeks and really let go.

When it came to us taking pictures of the day, I wish we would have had a couple of more hours to take some more pictures because we'd started to get inspired towards the end of the day. Some of the pictures we came up with will be useful for the next few weeks.

I'm going to upload some of our pictures from earlier today later on tonight.

A 3 Track Preview of Creative CD

2007-10-31T17:02:00.000Z

I’ve spent a lot of time mulling over my CD for our creative sessions at college, and I’m going to give you a three track teaser and tell you why I’ve picked them.

Goodbye by Mudvayne
Originally I had the idea that all the tracks on my CD were going to be B-Sides or the very last tracks on albums, but I quickly stopped with that idea when I realised I had very few tracks that were worth it. This track by Mudvayne is one of my favourite tracks that they never really released properly, and I always use it as a track to show people that I don’t just listen to music that is lots of shouting and screaming. I mainly picked it for the distinct mood it has around the song, and will hopefully get people inspired in a different way to the rest of my tracks.

Out Of Limits – The Marketts
I’m a big fan of movie soundtracks, and this is one of my favourite tracks from any movie soundtrack ever. I mainly like it so much because it always makes me think about surfing, beaches and holidays. It’s a very typical surfing song, with twangy guitars. Also, it sounds like The Twilight Zone at the very beginning. I picked it because I doubt very many (hopefully none) of the rest of the CDs will have any surfer music on it.

Armchair Detective – Reverend and the Makers
This is another one of those end of the album tracks that I originally picked when I had the idea. Before I even thought about the CD I knew that I had to stick some Yorkshire music on there, and this is that track. I didn’t want to be obvious and stick on some Arctic Monkeys. Again, it’s got a very funky tune and quite a distinct style. It’s quite easy going too.

Evaluation of First Half of Semester

2007-10-24T12:35:00.000+01:00

It’s been an odd combination of two assignments for these last 6 weeks. We had the incredibly structured Box Clever assignment (where we had to build a CSS website in a similar vein to CSS Zen Garden) and On The Job, where we had to create our own structure to tackle a client’s website.

Although I had done CSS before and was quite experienced in using it, I still found Box Clever a very useful assignment. For the first time – although I should be ashamed to admit it – I’d taken the W3C Content Guidelines seriously, and considered them carefully. I also discovered the methodology behind naming divs by the content inside them rather than referring to their position, which was another crucial point that has changed my working patterns permanently. I now feel that my website development skills are a lot more clean and standardised as a result of this assignment. For future websites I will be taking a similar more serious approach to guidelines and standardisation that goes beyond making sure the page is valid XHTML 1.0 Strict, as I think it is an extremely important skill to have.

Like I mentioned previously, the On The Job assignment has been a completely different kettle of fish entirely. As project manager I had to set up all the systems and pitch within the first week of the assignment, which really set the tone for year two. We wasn’t eased in gently like the first year; this time around we were dropped a bombshell and expected to deal with it. After the relaxed nature of the summer assignment I was very pleased to feel the pressure again and I was pleased with how our team reacted to it. Our project is still going fine, and I don’t think we could have a better team if we tried.

I’ve already learned so much as a project manager for six weeks in the On The Job assignment. It’s a completely different way of having to deal with an assignment; I don’t do any of the designing or building, but rather I tell other people when to do it. It’s a very strange experience, but one which I am finding of great value. Almost having a responsibility over the two other members of my team can seem daunting at first, but in many ways it’s driven me to be more organised and proactive for the team. This is the first (and last) team assignment we do on the course, so I want to make sure we do a good job of it the first time around.

In a general sense, the most I’ve realised in these last six weeks is that I’m now a lot more grown up with everything I do. Just by looking back at some of my early journal posts and comparing those against the ones I can easily see a massive change. Most importantly, I feel like a second year.

New Unbound Logo

2007-10-22T13:18:00.000+01:00

I've just been looking around the Internet when I spotted this fantastic new identity by j ohnson banks for Unbound.

It's one of those ideas that you look at and think; "I really wish I'd thought of that".

One of my favourite identities of the year easily.

Evaluation of Second Round of Interview Questions

2007-10-21T21:10:00.000+01:00

After struggling the first time around to get into the interview mind set I made sure that I tried a lot harder to answer the questions a lot more realistically this time around. I believe I achieved that this time around, and think I answered the questions a lot better.

Undoubtedly I struggled with the first question the most. Although I wouldn’t have had the chance to come back to the question in a real interview situation, I had to come back to it with these questions and leave it until last. This was the only question that I couldn’t answer instantly, but I do believe if I would have been in an interview situation I wouldn’t have had a problem with this question.

I do think that I could have answered the second question better though. After re-reading the question I noticed that I did not mention the client in the answer, which is probably the number one way to measure any product. If was to answer the question again I think I would have mentioned the client, and I need to remember this important point for the future.

I’m not sure whether or not I should have mentioned in the criticism question that I used to take criticism badly. To one employer this may have shown an improvement, but to another employer this could have shown a weakness. I’m of the school of thought that it’s important not to show any kind of weakness in an interview, and to not show bad pieces of work in your portfolio to show your improvement. The employer is employing you from where you are at now, not from where you’ve been. So if I was to answer this question again I would have probably left the first paragraph out. It sounds too negative.

I feel that I answered question four well. I kept it relevant to industry, whilst at the same time reinforcing another skill that I have. If I would have been asked in an interview I would have probably waffled on for a bit longer than in my written answer, but I think I got the perfect length here and I should try and make sure I answer questions in a similar fashion if another similar question arises in an interview.

I also think that I picked three balanced questions that could challenge the employer with, especially the accessible websites question. This is an important issue to me as it is something I have become quite passionate about. Asking questions like this would allow me to get a feel for what kind of company I may be working for, and to make a considered choice to whether or not I would actually want to work for them if I would have been offered the job.

A List Apart Survey Results

2007-10-19T16:19:00.000+01:00

I've just found the survey result's from A List Apart's research into the interactive media industry.

It makes for an interesting read, and as far as I'm aware this is the first time something like this has been conducted on this scale.

Do you have any further questions?

2007-10-10T17:01:00.000+01:00

Describe yourself in three words.
Friendly. Passionate. Conscientious.

How would you measure the effectiveness of your interactive media product?
I would first measure the effectiveness of my interactive media product against any project goals that were set before the product was created, and then I would continue to test the product during production. Close to the launch of the product I would make sure that my website meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 to the best of my abilities.

An effective interactive media product to me is one that is created with clean code, fits the purpose of its target market and above all; is usable.

How do you handle criticism?
When I first started in the industry I found it very difficult to handle criticism. It is – without a doubt – the most difficult skill to master. At first I found it difficult to understand that it wasn’t a personal attack on myself and they are just telling me what they thought of my work.

Now however, I handle criticism very well. When somebody gives me constructive criticism I ask them to explain exactly why they don’t like the said feature or design and ask them to offer ways they think I could improve it. Being able to take feedback and criticism is one of the single most important areas of the design industry, so I take criticism in my stride.

Describe a difficult problem you’ve had and how you’ve solved it.
About two months ago I had to create an interactive media product using Actionscript, but I had extremely limited experience with it. At first I tried creating the product just using Flash on the time line, but it became apparent quickly that this wouldn’t be possible.

I then had to go away and learn Actionscript to the best of my ability so that I could create the product. I started some Actionscript training and created the product within two days. This was easily the most difficult challenge I’ve faced to date in my career and the product I am most proud of.

Describe how you fit into a team.
I work just as well in a team as I do independently. I have a friendly, enthusiastic personality which allows me to fit in to any team effectively. My previous experience as captain of my local American Football team for many years built up my confidence as a team player and also as a team leader.

I work well in any role in a team and greatly enjoy working as a team towards one goal.

Do you have any questions?
What are your policies on producing accessible websites?
Do you ever pitch for new work?
What are the opportunities for career progression in your company?

Understanding Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

2007-10-09T16:39:00.001+01:00

The following post is a stripped down version of the full Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. Many a time I've tried to decipher what some of those points actually mean, so here I've stripped out all the rubbish and tried to distill them down to their basic components. Hopefully it will be as much of a help to you as it has been to me so far.

I've taken out points that I don't feel are that important. If you think I've taken something out that's really important, drop me a comment and I'll consider adding it in.

Please note that at certain points I'll have to go into a bit of detail to fully explain some guidelines. But first, let me explain some conventions I'll be using in the following post.

Each subheading under a guideline is provided in a list. Each subheading is assigned a colour, according to it's priority. The colours associated with each priority are as follows:

Priority 1 - A Web content developer must satisfy this checkpoint.
Priority 2 - A Web content developer should satisfy this checkpoint.
Priority 3 - A Web content developer may address this checkpoint.

Each level is also defined in brackets at the end of each point.

Guideline 1: Any content that isn't text needs a suitable text-only alternative

This includes: images, animations (e.g., animated GIFs), graphical buttons, sounds (played with or without user interaction), stand-alone audio files, video. [Priority 1]

Guideline 2: Don't rely on colour alone

All information that is displayed using colour should also be available without it. [Priority 1]
Ensure that background colours and foreground images have at least 70% contrast between them. [Priority 2]
Ensure that background colours and foreground text have at least 70% contrast between them. [Priority 3]

Guideline 3: Use markup and style sheets properly

If a suitable feature exists, use it. Try not to convey text using images if a suitable feature exists within CSS. For example, if you need to make all text green, don't create an image to do it for you. [Priority 2]
Include a DOCTYPE at the beginning of your document. [Priority 2]
Use style sheets to control layout and presentation. [Priority 2]
If it's possible, use relative units (like em) instead of absolute (like px). This is especially important with text. [Priority 2]
Use headers properly. For example, use H2 to show a subsection of H1. Generally speaking, there should be one H1 on a page. [Priority 2]
Use lists properly. For example, nest LI inside UL. [Priority 2]
Use the Q and BLOCKQUOTE commands to mark up short and long quotes respectively. [Priority 2]

Guideline 4: Clarify Language Usage

Specify the language of your XHTML document at the beginning. Use xml: lang="en-GB". [Priority 1]
If acronyms or abbreviations are used, specify their meaning in the document. [Priority 3]

Guideline 5: Create tables that transform gracefully

For data tables, identify row and column headers using TD and TH. [Priority 1]
Do not use tables for layout. [Priority 2]

Guideline 6: Ensure pages still work when new technologies are turned off

Organise documents so that they may be read without style sheets. [Priority 1]
Ensure that text equivalents to any non-text elements are updated at the same time as their dynamic content. [Priority 1]
Make sure that pages are still usable when scripts, applets or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported. [Priority 1]

Guideline 7: Ensure that users can turn off moving content

Avoid causing the screen to flicker or flash. [Priority 1]
Avoid causing content to blink, or allow users to turn it off. [Priority 2]
Avoid movement in pages. [Priority 2]
Do not create auto-refreshing pages. [Priority 2]
Do not use XHTML to create redirects. If they are needed, configure the server. [Priority 2]

Guideline 8: Ensure that user interfaces are accessible

If an embedded object is used (such as a Flash movie) and it has a user interface, make sure it is accessible. Otherwise, provide an alternative accessible user interface. [Priority 1]

Guideline 9: Design for most devices

Create a logical tab order through links, form controls and objects. [Priority 3]
Ensure that any object that has it's own interface is device independent. [Priority 3]

Guideline 10: Use temporary solutions for the following issues

Do not make content pop up in a new window without informing the user first. [Priority 2]
Provide a linear text alternative that lays out textual information in a table. [Priority 3]
Include default, place-holding characters in edit boxes and text areas. For example, in TEXT AREA and INPUT markup. [Priority 3]
Include non-link, printable characters between adjacent links (this does not apply to links presented in a horizontal list). [Priority 3]

Guideline 11: Use CSS and XHTML where possible

Use latest supported versions of CSS and XHTML where appropriate. [Priority 2]
Avoid depreciated markup. [Priority 2]

Guideline 12: Provide context

Use header tags correctly. For example, there should only be one page title (h1) and h3 should be a subset of h2. [Priority 2]
Group form controls with FIELDSET and LEGEND where appropriate. [Priority 2]
Use nested lists where appropriate. [Priority 2]

Guideline 13: Provide clear navigation

Avoid using "click here" links - provide links that mean something out of context. [Priority 2]
Use TITLE to provide clear information about a link. [Priority 2]
Provide a site map to show information about the general layout of the site. [Priority 2]
Use navigation consistently. [Priority 2]
Place the most important information at the top of paragraphs, lists, headings, etc. [Priority 2]

Guideline 14: Ensure that documents are clear and simple

Use graphics to supplement text if it helps with the understanding of the page. [Priority 3]
Use the clearest and most simple language appropriate. [Priority 3]
Create a consistent style of presentation. [Priority 3]

PLEASE NOTE: This list is not exhaustive. I've merely picked the most relevant parts of the WCAG 1.0 and explained a little bit about them. For more information go read the full Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

Honestly Bending The Truth

2007-10-06T16:05:00.000+01:00

I found the interview-type questions exercise very useful, as you can never get enough practice at interviews. I’ve always done quite well at interviews, but I lack experience of interview situations in an Interactive Media sense. I hope this is something we can revisit at a later date, or even have a practice at the actual interview process. I think this would be extremely beneficial to us.

When I originally completed this exercise I answered with simple one sentence answers, because I thought the answers to these questions would be emailed to the interviewer before an interview process, to be sent with a CV. After the exercise had been clarified to me I extended my answers, but still no more than a couple of sentences. I would undoubtedly say more than that in a real interview situation, but I struggled being able to write down what I’d say without actually being in the situation. I found the activity quite difficult in that respect.

I also found the “What is greatest weakness?” question a challenge. Do I be honest and tell them what I’m weak at, or do I try to turn one of traits into a positive? I went for the latter, but in a real interview situation it is never so clear-cut. It would be a case of analysing the situation, and seeing which type of answer would be the most positive to give.

There has to be some bending of the truth at an interview. You can never be truly honest. I could safely say that 99% of the time if I was asked to tell them my greatest weakness I’d probably turn it into a positive. An employer may want to hear that I’m capable of improving on my weaknesses, but I’d be fearful that my specific weaknesses might be detrimental to me receiving an opportunity to work there. It’s always a difficult question to answer.

Buy Me

2007-10-03T17:14:00.000+01:00

Recruiter Name: Cope and Glory
Job Function: Junior Web/Interactive designer
Discipline: Digital/Web, Graphics
Position Type: Full Time
Location: London (Surrey)
Employer type: Consultancy
Salary: £20- 24k

Source: Design Week

Why do you want this job?
To take my design career a step further, to expand my horizons and to meet new people in a new place. Your work ethos of working smart appeals strongly to me, and it is something I abide by in all aspects of work. Working as part of such a highly skilled smart-thinking design team is my dream come true.

What’s your greatest strength?
Possessing a wide knowledge and passion of both the development and designing side of the web. I don't think it's possible to be a truely great designer without having at least some understanding of how things are built after the design is complete. I regularly design and build (XHTML, CSS) websites and thoroughly enjoy both stages of the process.

What’s your greatest weakness?
Wanting to learn too much all at once. Because I'm so enthusiastic about the industry in general I tend to be very inquistive about all aspects of the process from initial project discovery right through to completion. My inquistive nature has lead me to have a working knowledge of technologies such as PHP and MySQL and project management techniques.

What do you see yourself doing 5 years from now?
I'd like to be in a senior postion at your agency, and as my skills improve I could see myself getting involved in project management. Management is an area that is of great interet to me as well as design, and I believe I have the right qualities to be involved in management. I also believe I have the drive, determination and loyalty to successfully achieve my goals.

What current Interactive Media innovation excites you most?
The possibility of web applications. There’s already some great ones out there such as Google documents and Google Mail, but I’m most excited by seeing where these go next. I’m practically salivating at the mouth by the future of an online Photoshop.

Who is your hero/heroine?
Without a doubt, Michael C Place. I find it amazing how he’s gone from a massive design agency (The Designer’s Republic) to his own design agency (Build) and carved out a considerable name for himself. Everything he produces has an unbelievable attention to detail. A true design legend in the making. Plus, he’s a Yorkshireman.

Presentation Evaluation

2007-09-26T17:05:00.000+01:00

An impressive portfolio can be more important than any degree, and would need to include more commercial work than creative.

Ring up before you send your CV, and follow up with a phone call. Key points must go in the CV, including experience.

Enthusiasm is important. Good social skills are a must to fit in. If you wish to stay in a company for any period of time it’s a necessity to get on with everybody.

Final thought; writing concise prose is extremely useful, and I’m going to take this approach in future journal posts.

Presentations Make The Heart Grow Fonder

2007-09-19T16:36:00.000+01:00

If there's one thing I could say about the last three weeks it's that it's gone very quickly. By the end of the first week we'd settled on our team roles, and received our first three assignments. By the end of the second week, I'd done a presentation/pitch on our team's systems. Let's start there.

After the last presentation that I'd done being only a couple of weeks before with Craig and Julian, I was feeling confident that I would do well. After all, the fears of doing a presentation have all but disappeared now, and there wasn't anything to worry about. We'd settled on the way that we were going to work, and we'd set up all our systems.

So it pleases me to announce that it did go well. Apart from getting confused with the Scope Creep concept during a grilling after the presentation it all went fine. We performed a good pitch, and now we're creating the website for Crigglestone Nursery. This the assignment I'm most looking forward to as I've never been a project manager before and I'm looking forward to the challenge. Although we've still got to get our website finished, which is hopefully going to happen at some point this week.

I've already learned a lot in the first couple of weeks being a project manager, but if there's a major thing I've learned in first few weeks it's that there is a lot of work to do. It's increased even more now that we've only got three to a team, so I'm having to do the administrative tasks as well as the actual project managing. I'm enjoying the pressure however, and I'm loving the challenge. I've just got to remember to keep 100% on top of my time management for me and my team. And make sure I evenly spread out tasks amongst my team members, which was originally a difficulty.

I'm also thoroughly enjoying the Box Clever assignment. Even though I already knew a lot about CSS I'm still learning new things with every lecture. It's nice to know how to do it right, and confirm some things that I was already doing. Because I already know a fair bit of CSS I can get really creative with this assignment, so I'm hoping for another distinction. I've already got a couple of ideas in my head, but this time around I'm determined to be as in depth as possible with the ideas generation section of the assignment.

A quick list of things to remember from these last couple of weeks:

Spread tasks evenly amongst team members to make sure you get full use out of everybody
Keep on top of your time management - you're looking after two other people's assignments now

Softening The Soft Skills

2007-09-12T19:44:00.000+01:00

It's one thing having skills, but it's another thing completely fathoming out how they apply to a "real" job. I think it's about time I discussed what skills I've gained over the last year and how they might apply to the industry for when I finish college.

Personal Development Planning
I think personal development planning has been something that’s helped me immensely over the past year. Constantly evaluating my performance in my sketchbook, end-of-assignment evaluations and through my learning journal has allowed me to pick up on where I could improve and then go away and do it. Improvement is a big thing for me.

As it is for the industry. With new technologies coming and going nearly every other week it’s important to keep up with the competition by constantly improving. Naturally, it makes you a valuable prospect for an employer if you can show that you’re constantly improving and actually want to improve.

Attending lectures, seminars, tutorials
Attending lectures is something we’ve done a lot of over the past year, and they’ve always been very useful. I’ve certainly learned a lot from the initial start point of lectures, as well as the ideas they have opened me up to. Over time, they’ve taught me how to listen better, take better notes, and to a certain extent engage and participate a bit more.

All three are vital in the industry, but I think listening is one of the most important. If you don’t listen when you’re being communicated a brief, told a client’s needs or in almost any other situation when someone is talking to you then that might have been the last chance you got. Note taking is also vital in the industry, to remember those conversations you’ve had with the client or to dumb down that complicated brief.

Seminars, group work, team projects
Like everything else, these have been a great use to me. Interacting with people outside of the learning environment and chatting about course-related topics and issues was (and still is) always a real help. Plus, you get to know everybody better and it helps develop the old social skills.

Obviously, it’s the interpersonal skills at work here. In the design industry, these are easily one of the most important “soft” skills that anybody can have. Being friendly, presentable and being able to communicate your ideas are essential.

Oral presentation
Similarly to seminars, I feel I’ve developed my interpersonal skills with the presentations, as well as my general presenting skills. At times I’ve struggled with presentations, but now I feel a lot more comfortable performing presentations.

Presenting – just generally – is a difficult skill to master. However, it’s a vital one for the industry and one that I hope to continue to improve. I have improved though, which was evidenced when I delivered a presentation to the first years with Julian and Craig the other week. We’ve had positive feedback from everyone I’ve spoken to so far.

Writing essays and other forms of academic writing
Writing essays has been part of life long before this course, and just writing even longer. My writing has improved a lot since I started this course, especially the academic writing. I’d never done academic writing before this course (amazingly), so I’m glad that I feel I’ve improved.

Writing I see as a big part of any job. In some jobs it might just be sending an email, but if that email looks presentable then it’s better than one in text-speak. Also, writing well is a big part of the CV. Plus, it’s important to understand writing to a greater degree when you’re designing something.

Maths and statistics
Statistics have played a part in many of an assignment we’ve done over the past year and it plays an important part when you’re looking at web trends statistics and site statistics. Being able to read them and produce them is a useful skill to have. Maths always plays a big part when coding CSS, and doing the screen designs for each assignment.

CSS is an industry-leading skill. So is reading statistics, especially if you want to assess whether a website is successful, or if you ever get asked to produce a pie chart or something similar on an issue.

Observation
On a design course observation plays a massive part. Collecting research, collecting inspirational material, and just looking at things generally in a design sense are all something I’ve developed greatly over the past year, almost to the point now where I can’t walk past anything without criticising the kerning between the letters K and I or being annoyed that it’s just slightly off centre.

All these skills are important to transfer to the industry, especially to improve your design skills. It’s also important to develop your “designer’s eye”. Observation widens your design knowledge too, making you a more diverse designer.

Research
This is a skill I’ve improved on in buckets. Before this course I’d never done much research, but now I feel comfortable in creating research plans and carrying out the research.

Researching in the industry is always important when you’re looking to design a new website or design anything. Plus, it’s also important to carry out research to develop your designers knowledge, thus widening the possibilities you can approach a brief with.

Exams and revision
Although we’ve not had any exams on this course, I did do a lot of them when I was doing my A Levels 2 years ago. Actually, before I started this course I’ve done exams every year for about 13 years. They do teach you a lot of discipline and how to revise, so after about 13 years I could probably call myself an expert at revising.

With regards to the industry though, revising skills certainly help you in trying to remember everything to do with the industry. Also, it helps you in learning new things too because you’re already aware of your best way of learning.

Overall though, if I had to put my finger on one thing that I feel I need to improve on the most it would probably be my design skills. I sometimes find myself coming up with similar ideas for projects which is down to me being inexperienced at designing. It doesn’t become an issue all the time, but enough to say that I need to improve on that particular skill. To improve my design variety I just need to carry on doing what I’m doing; soaking up every piece of design that I see, analyse it, and just generally live, eat and breathe the industry.

Question - Do you want the forum back?

2007-09-11T22:07:00.000+01:00

Hi all, I've had a couple of enquiries about our design forum we had set up before when we were in the first year, and I'm wondering what the general consensus is on the topic.

So I pose the question (both first years and second years);

Design forum, do you want it back?

Please reply, it will only take a second.

A 1000 Words of Advice for Design Students

2007-09-10T14:03:00.000+01:00

I found this earlier today over at core77's website offering 1000 words of advice to design students.

It's in a similar vein to the presentation that we did for the first years, and there's some fantastic advice on there. It's definitely worth a look whether you're a second year or first year student.

There's also the forum post following on from it that's got some useful advice from guys in the industry and things they'd do differently if they got a second crack at education.

1000 Words of Advice for Design Students

In Two Years Time It'll Be Two Years Gone

2007-09-05T16:40:00.000+01:00

I think it would be a fair point to state that there are times when I go on for a bit too long in my learning journal. Sorry about that. To balance that out, I promise a bit more of a concise entry this time. So where do I want to be in 6 months time and 2 years time?

6 Months Time
I think one of the major things I want to be a bit better at in 6 months time is PHP. I think before I may have tried to do too much way too soon, and I feel ready to tackle to challenge of learning a new piece of software now. I've touched over some of the basics over the summer using the excellent PHP Quickstart Guide, and I've made a couple of extremely simple applications. I just think now I've got to push myself a bit over the wall, and take the plunge.

The next one is a bit of an odd one for me. I half want to say to myself I want to get distinctions on every assignment in the second year, but I know that's really unrealistic. I've decided to start with getting at least 2 distinctions, and see how I go from there. If I get those 2 distinctions earlier than expected then I'll consider this target again.

Obviously - like every other designer on the planet - I want a well-designed portfolio. I've decided to set this as a target for me because I know this will probably the single most important piece of design on the course; after all it's going to sell me to potential employers and show off my design skills. That's why it's of paramount importance for me that I do it right, and well.

And as a last one for the 6 month side of things, I want to continue to improve my design work over previous assignments over each new assignment. I think this will probably a quite easy feat to do with the latest assignment we've been given as it's been a long time since I've last done a college assignment. I'm eager to see how much I've improved, and to improve again and again over each assignment is a big target for me.

2 Years Time
There's only one target I have for two years time at the moment, and that's to be working at a design studio. I'm confident that I'll achieve that before 2 years time, but right now that is the only thing I'd like to focus on. Obviously there's sub-parts to that target, such as creating a good portfolio, but I've already mentioned that one.

446 words. Not that bad I guess.

It's Been A Long Ride.

2007-05-12T20:18:00.000+01:00

Around about this time last year, I was almost ready to go to university and study Games Design. I was all set to go into what I thought was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Let's just say thank the heavens that I saw that poster for this course up at Wakefield College.

Like I said in my first ever post to this blog, web design has always been something that has interested me. I made my first website (I hand-coded it again in 2006 for a bit of practice) when I was about 15ish, and I loved the whole process. Ever since then I've been fascinated, but I never saw it as a valid career. Now I do, and it's essentially 8 months that's changed my whole idea and practically changed my whole life.

If there's one major thing that's changed in the last 8 months, it's been my outlook on my career path that's changed the most. In my first post I mentioned that it was important to me to advance both my journalistic skills and design skills alongside each other to allow me to be a more attractive offer to employers. The whole games journalism side of things has almost vanished now, mainly because I've been so wrapped up in design. When I first started the course it was clear to me that some people had a lot more experience at this design malarkey than me, so I set out to make sure I caught up. Since then I've been lapping up every aspect of design that I could, basically living, eating and breathing it. At the end of the day, if you're serious about going into web design it's pretty much the only way you'll gain any experience if you really enjoy every aspect of it.

When I do look back at my first week though, it's hard to believe how much I've changed since then. Our first assignment was to create a web plan and a screen design, and I almost burned out at the prospect of just doing that. I was so hopeless at time planning anything and even more poorly disciplined that I found it very difficult to organise myself properly. And that's even before I got to the screen design, which was awful. I made a pledge that my next design would be a lot better, and my time planning would improve. I think the main reason I produced the design that I did was because my idea generation skills were pretty poor to say the least, and I just wasn't being creative enough.

After what in my eyes was an atrocity of a first assignment, we started with two more. We had two assignments to plan over two days, with the first one being another web plan, and the second one being a series of portfolio pieces including two essays and two pieces of design. My time planning did go a lot better in these two assignments, partly because I made a pledge on my blog to improve the amount I did each week before it got too late.

My page design was a massive improvement over my original, which was something I was very glad of. My banners were the first banners I'd ever designed before as well, and I was happy with the finished product that I produced. Looking back now the web page design looks dated and a bit nasty, but that was my pagemaker document. When I did make it proper it looked almost exactly like the design I came up with, and I left it like that for a couple of weeks. There was something about it that I didn't like though, and when I made my final effort I really liked what I came up with, and I still think to this day it's a clean and pleasant looking site. The one thing I still wasn't happy with at the end of this assignment however was my timeplanning, and I once again endeavored to improve it by making my own timeplanning document.

The next two assignments we did was the building of the aforementioned site, and a series of timed tasks that tested our design skills. At this point, it was the most enjoyable assignment we'd done so far and I was determined yet again to improve my design skills a bit more. This was the first time also that I started being a bit more creative with my sketchbook ideas and I used some other idea generation techniques that I'd not tried before. They worked really well, and it was something that I intend to carry on improving on. The range of work that I produced I thought was once again better than any previous works, and I was happy with the final results once again. I think it was testament to my improved ideas generation that my designs were better, because it wasn't that I lacked technical skills it was that when it came to coming up with ideas I was lacking creativity. I think this assignment improved on that once again.

Our final assignment of the year - The Fax of Life - has undoubtedly gone more smoothly than any of my previous assignments, which has been testament to my much-improved time planning skills. I now no longer feel that it is a problem to accurately time plan things, and I feel that I know myself quite well as a worker and my pace sufficiently enough to time plan quite effectively. Creatively, this assignment has shown that this is another skill that I've improved a lot on. I believe that I've created a logo that's original and memorable, and once again that was testament to my improved design skills and ideas generation skills. I think my CD cover that I created has been my best piece of work I've ever created, and accurately shows just where I am about now with regards to my design skills. I also dabbled in photography for the CD cover, which is something that I've never done before.

So where does that leave me now?

To say I started the course with practically no experience designing anything, I think I've managed to make quite an improvement in 8 months. My time planning skills have lead to me being a lot more of a disciplined human being in general, and I also feel a lot more mature and clued-up to the design world. My ideas generation skills have improved a lot as well, and I think the only part of that I've left on the way-side and not improved as much as I would have liked is sticking in inspirational pieces of design. It's something that I've done in bursts instead of consistently. I do think I've done quite well on my sketchbook assignment though other than the inspirational work part of it.

So what's left to improve?

Everything. I'm far from the finished article, and it's arguable if I'll ever be. I don't think it's possible to ever stop learning new design techniques, so this is one part that I hope to keep improving on. If I keep a conscious eye in each design piece that I do on the course and make a conscious effort to improve on each new assignment, then I can't see this being too much of a problem. If I could continue to improve my design skills as much as I have in the first year of the second year then I would be extremely happy. And not just to the end of the course, all the way past the course too. To measure this, at the end of every assignment from now on I will assess whether I feel my design work has improved. I will look at the assignment before it, and make a qualitative statement as to whether I feel I have improved in my opinion.

Ideas generation. This is another area I want to improve on in the second year and over summer. Over summer I intend on still keeping a sketchbook to record any design I do, and also a second sketchbook to collect inspirational pieces of work. That way I'll be able to see a record of my continued improvement over summer. To improve this, I intend to take out some self-initiated design briefs, and I'll keep you updated on my progress over the summer. To summarise this down into a goal, my goal for next year will be to use at least three different ideas generation techniques in every assignment that requires creative work.

Presentation skills. Although I didn't mention this in the main part of my blog, I did feel that my presentation skills were somewhat lacking over the first year. I didn't do awfully, but this is something I desperately want to improve upon in the second year, before I get to my final end of year presentation. Hopefully the presentations next week will give me an indicator of what to expect. To assess whether I have achieved this goal, I will make a qualitative statement at the end of each presentation as to whether I feel I have improved over my last effort. This will be contrasted with previous presentations.

Time planning. I do feel that my skills have improved a lot over the year, but I still don't think they're perfect. I want to try and be a bit more precise with my time recording in the second year, and this is something I will be working on over summer to improve. To be able to assess whether I have achieved this, I will summarise this into a goal: To produce a working macro time planning document and to use this on a weekly basis. If I find that I am not using it on a weekly basis as a secondary document to my weekly time plans, then I have failed this goal. I do feel capable enough of being able to plan out 3 other people's work in the second year though...

Grades. I've missed out on the elusive Distinction grade in the first year, which I think was more or less unattainable for me in the first year anyway. I'm setting a goal to get a Disctinction, so here goes: To achieve at least one Distinction in Year 2.

These goals will be reviewed on a 2 monthly basis.

Word count: 1735

Whatever Happened To The Winter Months?

2007-05-03T16:06:00.000+01:00

I said it last week, and I'm going to say it again - it's hard to believe that these are the last few weeks of the first year, and if the second year goes as quick I'm going to be sat here in what will feel like next week in a year's time saying the same thing. It'll be a shame to see it come to an end, becuase this has been the most learning I've ever done in education in my life. Strangely ironic, and quite sad, in the fact that it's taken me more than a decade of education to actually learn a skill that will be useful in my desired profession. That's of course not just the educational system's fault, that's also down to me not being entirely sure of what I wanted to do "when I grew up", but that's always the case.

It's difficult really to put into words how much I feel I've improved this year, unless I had a book and endless amounts of energy. I still remember how I felt in the first assignment where I was close to burn-out because of my apparent workload, and I think the basic skill of time management is something that I've consciously worked on for the whole year, after seeing this as one of my weakest points. I now feel like I do have a lot more self discipline, and it's only this course that has made me realise that I'm actually pretty poor at my time management.

I don't really know what to expect from the second year though, other than I know it will be a dramatic step up. I like the possibility of having a bit more direction in the blogs, as it would be nice to have a specific subject to write about. All my life I've written for a specific purpose, and it sometimes seems odd trying to write about your week in a general sense. It is however a nice tool to reflect on your past week of learning, which is why I'm not so keen on the possibility of having to do blogs on a Wednesday next year. I do genuinely think that it's nice to just sit back for five minutes and reflect upon your past week, because it gives your blog a bit of direction and purpose. I does have a plus point though: I won't have to read 15 accounts talking about how we had a lecture on Wednesday.

I'm still intrigued as to what this Administration Week is. Steve reckons he's gave us hints - which I've completely missed - but he did say it was an "Activity". Maybe this means it's something a bit more light hearted than what I was expecting? But then that thought was blown away when he announced that its actually serious. When Steve mentioned hints, maybe he has been asking about the assignment criteria quite a lot... But then again that will be passed by then and done for the year. I don't know. Looks like I'll just have to wait.

P.S. If you don't already have a del.icio.us account, I'd strongly advise one. Before I thought this whole Social Bookmarking stuff was a load of rubbish, but it's quite useful. I've got my work PC, laptop, college PC and my home PC and trying to keep all those bookmarks the same was near impossible. Now it's easy, and if you're interested in looking at other design studio's work like I am, you can see my list of design studios, currently consisting of 49 and constantly going up.

A more complete idea

2007-04-27T16:44:00.001+01:00

Back so soon?

I'm just making a quick post to show everybody my further-on CD cover. Yesterday I needed to stick some images into my idea, and the idea was to get quite scary and obscure images to fit in with both the text at the beginning of the album - which is obscure - and my feeling of the name "the dark side of the moog". I've tried to completely avoid obvious references to Pink Floyd. Anyway take a look, and as usual any comments are welcomed. You can also see the text idea on the front cover in a more polished format now.

The outside of the cd cover booklet (back of it on the left, front cover on the right).

The inside of the cd cover booklet (centre spread).

CD inlay (the back of the cd, including spine details).

CD inlay inside (the part that you can see when you pull the cd out).

Be warned, they're big PDFs.

"Now this is Craig's latest post and I guess it will be a rather special one"

2007-04-26T16:14:00.000+01:00

So... first week back, and the first week's gone. It's more than flown by to say the least and on another plus I feel a bit more clued in about the whole team tasks of next year, which isn't very far away. I'm glad that we get to know our groups before we go away, so at least we've got four heads looking for one client, which will be a considerably easier feat than having to find one yourself.

It's mainly just been a "get on with it" week so there isn't all that much to report on the work front. I've finalised my CO-ID, so the only part I've got left to do on that is do some visual margined PDFs for the site, and present them nicely ready to go on my submission disk. The website is almost done as well. I've validated it through W3C and it seems all fine and dandy (it's the first time ever it's been fine on the first attempt) and now all I've got to do is tweak some of the text and change nearly all the header images. I'm glad I'm at such a stage to be honest, because we've only got three weeks left and I'd like to be near as dammit to submission standard in two. That way I can have the last week to check through everything.

I've started to work towards my CD as well but although I've got most parts of the idea digitised it's a fair way away from complete. My only problem currently is that I haven't used any images, but that should be sorted soon enough when I take the image I'm planning on using in there tonight. In some ways for the CD ideas I've found the learning outcomes quite restricting, because it pretty much requires you have to use images. As my CD has got a really strong speech at the beginning I wanted to make this a major part of my CD cover idea, and I didn't originally plan to use any images in there. At the end of the day though I knew these outcomes in the first instance so I knew what I had to do. I'm not too worried however because I think I've come up with a really strong textual-based idea that will be enhanced with some strong images.

On another front, we had a pre-assessment on our sketchbooks and I already knew what was going to be an issue before I went in there - my lack of inspirational work. This is something that I'm working hard on as well as the current assignment for the next three weeks in a desperate hope to reach a merit level. I know I've worked hard on my blog, but I also know I've not worked equally as hard on my sketchbook. I've found it difficult to balance the two at times and because I'm from more a "wordy" background I've found the blog more enjoyable on the whole. Having a sketchbook has taught me a valuable lesson though - as a designer you can't do without one in one shape or form. It's definitely been a useful tool, but just one I've not always taken full advantage of.

An early concept of my idea for my CD cover can be seen below.

The Holiday Chronicles – The Reflection

2007-04-23T21:45:00.000+01:00

(Read the first post...first.)

If there’s one ultimate thing I’ve learnt over this holiday it’s to stop faffing. When you get a good idea – even if it isn’t the best idea you think you can come up with – stop trying to achieve that elusive better idea. Chances are, you won’t find it. You’ll just end up stuck with an idea you don’t like and a handful of other rubbish ones.

Another lesson over the holidays has come about from work rather than doing college work. I’ve been working on a flash website almost since I started there, and nearly every time my first ideas got knocked back. At first, it devastated me. All those three hours… wasted. As the weeks have gone by though, it’s got easier and easier to take rejection. Not criticism, just straight out “I don’t like that, it won’t work”. I’m now at the point where it means nothing, and I don’t really get attached to anything I work on anymore. That’s where I should be eventually, but it seems as though I took the Crash Course to Rejection without me knowing it.

If I’m honest, my time planning hasn’t been perfect. Even though I’ve got a steady job now with solid hours due to other issues my time to do work is rarely ever concrete, so sometimes it is still a case of catching an hour here and an hour there. This I hope to change, but sometimes the factors are outside your control. Time planning is constantly in the forefront of my mind, and I do feel like I am improving. This time last year I wouldn’t even be able to handle to do it for a week.

If anything though, it’s meant I’m coming back with more enthusiasm than ever. More passion about the industry that I want to spend the rest of my life in and most importantly of all, more mental strength. I honestly can’t wait to get back.

The Holiday Chronicles – Part II

2007-04-23T21:41:00.000+01:00

It seemed as though it was time to go back to sketchbook once more. I wasn’t annoyed. In some ways I was glad that Steve had pointed out that that was the best, because when I looked back I completely understood what he meant. What had I been thinking (See my previous “finished” effort below)? My supposed finished idea was awful. It was cluttered, needless colours was strewn all over the place, and it was just unnecessarily over the top. In my bid to come up with something amazing I’d made something too complicated and completely clouded my judgement. It was time to go back to the simple.

Taking all my design cues from the business card once again, I came up with what I thought was a lot more of a solid corporate identity. It was cleaner, simpler and cohesive. Everything that my first attempt wasn’t. After a lot of faffing (something which I sit here and swear I’m never going to do again) I sorted the corporate identity, so it was time to move back to the website.

The second time around, I gave the website a proper go. Up to now, the website is almost complete, and I just need to tweak some of the pages and update the corporate identity specifics. I know I’ve not made a lot of it clear enough yet, which I will be sorting during the next week in the spare time.

I’m about half-way through my creative work for my CD too, and I keep thinking of more ideas as the days go on. I’m looking forward to getting back to start working on it properly.

The Holiday Chronicles – Part I

2007-04-23T21:24:00.000+01:00

Four weeks… well almost at least. It has gone too fast though, as always is with the case of holidays. This however is probably the first holiday when it hasn’t been a true holiday, with me seeing Wednesday and Thursday off and that’s it. My determination to do a lot of work over the holidays quickly waned as soon as I lost the Internet, but that only happened for a day or so. I knew I had work to do, and I was going to get it done. The place I knew I was going to start was to get that corporate identity finished. This was what I had planned to do after all, but I still needed to get my logo development finished off properly. Because I do a lot of work here and there and on the fly (it’s very rare I sit at my desk and do work) I constantly kept forgetting something. I’d remember my sketchbook but forget my flash drive. Remember the flash drive but forget my sketchbook. Remember both, then forget my laptop. Eventually I remembered everything and got that done.

It turns out that after messing about with my logo I decided not to change anything to it, but compartmentalise it. I settled on three versions of the logo – the text and the logo together on a green background (the original), the text on a green background, and the logo (dots) by itself. This was mainly borne out of experience of using my own logo, and I wanted to make sure that the identity I was creating was quite flexible. I was going to have to stick it onto a CD case and a CD in the end, and I wanted to make sure that by the time it came to that I could be flexible with my ideas instead of having a logo hindering me. I’ve had some experience over the last two months of working with a logo that was just unworkable, so I wanted to make sure I didn’t make the same mistake.

Next up over the holidays was the website. It was important to me that I didn’t create a design that was going to be too much of a mess-about to create in CSS, so I made sure I designed something that was workable, but also had a bit of flair about it. I’d designed the template before the holidays, so it was just a case of dropping the content in that I was going to write as I created the pages. Which is round about when I realised I’d approached things slightly the wrong way around; so off I trundled to finish the corporate identity.

When I went back and looked at my blog (before the Internet went off, early in the holidays), I’d noticed a couple of people had left comments on which they liked best, but at that point I didn’t like any. I decided to go back to my sketchbook and come up with a few more ideas to see if I could get something that I like. In the end I came up with something – and seeing as though I’d started with the business cards and built a concept from there – and I applied it to the letterhead, business card and continuation sheet. After a while I managed to get on the net and check out my blog to see if there had been more comments left, which is around about when I noticed Steve’s comment about number five being the business card.

To my dismay, I hadn’t chosen that business card.

The Business Card Ideas Post

2007-04-01T22:18:00.000+01:00

Hi there. I've just finished digitising a lot of my business cards, and I'd like to share some of them. These are once again ideas straight out of my sketchbook, so I am aware they aren't as polished as the final product. I'd appreciate it a lot if you could just take ten minutes to have a look at some of my ides, and maybe even suggest your favourite.

Any feedback, like usual, is welcome.

Business Card 1
Business Card 2
Business Card 3
Business Card 4
Business Card 5
Business Card 6
Business Card 7

"Let's take a look at what you could have won"

2007-03-29T15:58:00.000+01:00

Before I kick off with a bit of proper blogging about this week, I just thought I'd start with showing you all some of my other digitised designs that I was going to use. The three you're going to see now are the three that were discarded from my presentation on early Wednesday morning, along with a little explanation underneath as to why I discarded it.

I really liked this logo, but in my hearts of hearts I always knew that it was never going to work for Ambient World. It doesn't look Electronica, and even my cheesy efforts to make it more adult by making it a frowning little man was never going to make it suitable. Nice logo I suppose, but a good idea in the wrong space of time.

This started out in colour, but the colours were all over the place the colours kind of worked together, but when I created it in the black and white version I found it worked better. I didn't mind this logo, but I never liked it enough to use it for my assignment. There was just something about it that just didn't strike me as record label.

Looks like the revolution logo, which was the idea I was trying to convey through the logo. This music was such a revolution to me - because it was far from the typical growling, shouting and screaming that my ears have become deaf from - that I decided I'd try to convey it in a logo.

But on the other hand, I thought to myself, should I be trying to convey my own personal feelings towards the music in the record label logo? I didn't think so. Plus it looked too "revolution".

So by a quite lengthy process of elimination I came down to the last logo, the dots logo (it's at the bottom of the post). While I realised it wasn't the most graphically rich logo that I created I felt that it was by far the most suitable logo for a record company that I came up with. More specifically, it fitted this type of music as well, and for people wishing to delve into the logo a bit more they'd figure out that the dots were also braille for AW. So it also had that bit of depth that I was looking for. If there's one thing I've learnt so far in this assignment it's that I need to detach myself from my work, no matter how much I like it. Because in the end, it's what the client likes the most, not you. As paradoxically as it sounds, you've got to be analyse your work and be able to tell when you've come up with a good piece of design. Then in the same breath you've not got to like it so much that when it comes to the point of choosing a piece your judgment is affected by your love of one particular piece.

Now all I've got left to do on the logo side of things is finish off developing my logo that I've chosen (any feedback is welcome like usual).

Another problem this week has been figuring out which way around I do things. Do I create my corporate identity first then style guide after to coincide with that? Or do I write out my style guide first then create my corporate identity afterwards? When I originally wrote my time plans the other week I put my CO-ID first, so this week's planning and next weeks is going to be much a case of swapping things around to make sure I do the style guide specifics first. I think I've got the basics down now for the style guide in my sketchbook, and I've already started digitising a couple of my early designs:

Business Card Idea 1
Business Card Idea 2

Now it's the holidays I'm planning on getting my website built and out of the way, and with a bit of luck I'll get my style guide rules in there as well. Then I've got to finish off my CO-ID, and settle on some final designs. To finish off the three weeks, I'm planning on getting loads of ideas and inspiration together for the part of the assignment that I'm most looking forward to- the CD design.

A Red-Hot Drawing Board

2007-03-22T16:33:00.000Z

I thought it was going to be as simple as producing a lot of logo roughs, then I thought I'd make them in FreeHand and all would be jolly and right with the world. Unfortunately it's never as simple as that, because as I've found out I've not liked my original ideas very much. So far of the five I've made in FreeHand I like two, and seeing as though I need four for next Wednesday's crit, it looks like I'll be going back to the drawing board many times over.

Not that that's a bad thing though because it's meant that I've had the chance to really beef out my sketchbook and get a lot of development work down on paper. I think the majority of the next week will be much of the same, and then I'm going to start thinking about the website design over the weekend. I am enjoying all the sketchbook work though without a doubt, and it just shows that sometimes you've got to really delve deep into your own mind to come out with something really good. Unless you're extremely lucky, I don't think anyone could have done it with about 10 designs, unless these were preceded by a lot of dismissing ideas in your head before you even did a quick rough about it. I think I've turned over a new leaf with the depth of sketchbook work I've been doing, and that's something that I want to continue with over the next year. It's still unbelievable to me that it's been almost a year.

Another difficult choice this week has been cracking the target market. Actually surmising the target market hasn't been that difficult, it's been making work for the target market that's the hardest. Even if everyone in the class liked it that wouldn't necessarily be appealing to the correct target market because everyone might not like this style of music. That's why it's important for me to keep the target market in the forefront of my mind constantly. Having said that though, that faces me with a quandary. Do I do something typical of the target market, and make something very cliche, or do I try and go for the complete opposite of what I consider to be the target market and try something very different. In a commercial sense, you should try to make something that appeals to everybody, including your target market. But there should also be a gentle nod towards it.

I'm still leaning towards creating something a bit left-field of my intended target market though, just to make it so it's not typical of what you'd usually see and to hopefully create something that's memorable. The ideal situation would be to create a logo that everybody loves, but you can't please everybody all the time.

More later in the week with some of my FreeHanded logos.

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

2007-03-15T16:25:00.000Z

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.

A6 Evaluation

2007-03-11T14:11:00.000Z

I think one of the main differences from A6 to every other assignment I’ve had to do is the different level of time management. A6 was a perfect chance for me to test my skills at micro time management, at managing hours instead of days, weeks and months. For the majority of A6 I believe I time planned rather well, but as always there are places I could improve. Now the unit has finished though, I feel so much more confident in my abilities to time plan, and my confidence in my own work.

The first task in A6 came as quite a shock. I did know that we were going to be doing a timed task and I knew we wouldn’t have much time to complete it, but that still didn’t prepare me for the intensity and pressure that would ensue due to it. It came as somewhat of a culture shock – before I’ve had days, even weeks to complete similar tasks – but here I was completing the very same tasks in 2 hours. The first task did bring something home to me however: just how much can be done in two hours if you really put your mind to it. This is one aspect of the timed tasks that I will be taking over to all future assignments as it made me realise just how much time I’m really wasting playing about with tasks and spending too long on tasks that requires half of the work that these timed tasks did. Before I start any work at home from now on I’m going to plan my couple of hours work right down to the minutes so I can replicate the level of work I have proved I can produce.

I can say that this is easily the single most enjoyable assignment we’ve done so far, and the way the assignment has been set out has taught me so much about typographic techniques in a practical way that no amount of reading books or other methods could have taught me. I now feel a lot more confident with my use of typographic devices, and I feel better able to denote what typefaces are suitable for what tasks. Not just that either, because we’ve learnt some valuable newspaper techniques that have allowed me to transfer my skills over to other print tasks. I also feel a lot more confident with my abilities to “design”, because this assignment gave us a chance to be free of the constraints of web design, and really have a go at designing in any way we pleased. Positive feedback from other members of the group have boosted my confidence a lot about my abilities. I don’t face a design task anymore and wonder where to start, I just throw myself in and start putting some ideas down. I believe that extra confidence has allowed me to loosen up a bit with my ideas, something which I most definitely wouldn’t be doing if we hadn’t have done this assignment.

This assignment wasn’t just about fun timed tasks however; it was also about doing a presentation, which was another area I felt I’d gained more confidence in this time around. I do feel I left my presentation a bit late to complete, but that was due to the pressure of the other assignment. I had been collecting my research for a long time before I started to create my presentation and I had been reading a lot about Eric Gill, but I still feel I spent too long just researching Eric Gill instead of doing the actual presentation. When I did get around to it though I think I did a good job of designing the slides, mainly because I spent some time coming up with ideas in my sketchbook before I moved to the computer. This is something I will do with all future presentations.

Having a practice shot at my presentation the week before also helped me greatly, because it meant I wasn’t just practicing to myself and allowed me to assess how much I’d improved over my last presentation. I gained some valuable feedback that week that allowed me to improve my presentation, and this will be something I am going to try to do every time I have to do a presentation in future.

When it came to doing the final presentation I felt a lot more relaxed this time and less nervous compared to my last efforts. I even threw in a bit of humour, which helped me relax a bit more as well as relax the audience. This presentation undoubtedly went better than the colour presentation, but that was to be expected as we had a lot more time to create it and practice. I still felt a bit nervous however, but this will only change with more practice. I did feel that I could have talked a bit more about typographical techniques as I had a lot more prepared than I actually said, but this was due to the pressure of the presentation that I didn’t get around to saying them.

The final task of the assignment – and the part which I believe I did the worst on – was our final timed task. I knew the typographical terms and newspaper devices thoroughly (I must have written down about 60), but it soon became apparent that I’d remembered too much, and I wasn’t going to get everything into my fact sheets as I wanted to. With 15 minutes left I resorted to drastic measures, and just started to write down as many definitions as I could remember. I’d gone way too ambitious with the amount of terms, and I paid the price heavily for it. If I was to do it again, I’d focus on about 15 terms and illustrate those ones, because one place where my fact sheets suffered is the lack of any illustrations.

Although I felt I didn’t do as well as I could have done on my final task, I still think I learnt some valuable lessons. I feel more prepared to do a similar, highly pressured task again, and I think I’d do a lot better if I was to do a similar task again.

Goals for next assignments:
• Use skills in micro time planning in any future assignments
• Improve presentation skills.

Word count: 1062

A Transitional Change

2007-03-01T15:54:00.001Z

I got there in the end. It's taken the best part of an afternoon to get there, but it's nice to know now that I've got my site 100% valid according to the W3C Validator Service. It was one of my goals, so it was one of those things that I absolutely have to meet. Plus I wanted to push myself a bit. Seeing as though I already know how to make a website and write CSS and all that, I wanted to make my website valid XHTML 1.0 Strict. It started off well at the beginning of the assignment, but it's been a while since I've last checked it. In future I'm going to try and keep checking my code regularly, otherwise afternoons like this are going to be a regular occurrence. Saying that though, I've quite enjoyed myself. It's been relaxing in a weird way. Should it be? I don't know.

In other news today, it was presentations. First thing. I'm quite glad we went in first thing because it meant we got the rest of the day off to do other things, and I was glad to get it over with. Not that I was nervous, I was just desperate to find out if I was on the right lines with my presentation. Turns out I was, and I've started to make some of the changes to my presentation slides. Other than talking almost as fast as the speed of light (I had a lot to fit in), it went good.I've made the text a bit shorter because I felt I had too much on there and I was missing bits, and just added a couple of slides. Take a look if you'd like to.

And it's that time again. The end of the assignments. Apart from we've almost finished this year as well, which is a scary thought. It doesn't feel like two minutes ago that we were sat in that room throwing a ball about saying each other's names, and now we've got a couple of assignments under our belt and nearly the whole first year is gone. I can't believe how much I've learned, and it feels like it's all just clicked suddenly. I can't wait for the next assignment, and ultimately the next year.

Although I'm eager to find out what this "Administration Week" task is all about.

Thoughts - Should we be writers as well as designers?

2007-02-28T22:45:00.000Z

We’re always getting hearing those old words – “design is communication”. But what exactly is communication? As designers we tend to think it’s always something visually – “I’m not a writer” most of us cry out. Well maybe it’s time we should be.

Take this simple example. You’ve got a submit button on your page, but having the word “submit” there is dry and boring. Yeah, it tells you what it does; it’s going to submit the information, but there’s a million more interesting ways you can say it. “Send it off!” tells you the same thing that the button does, but it’s just something a bit more fun, and adds character to your site in a sea of standard text., and that much needed little detail.

Even though we may not write the content a lot of the time if/when we get a job in a design studio, it’s still worth considering the little things such as the names of buttons or navigation pages. They add that little extra something to a site or piece of print, because the majority of people visit websites for the information that’s on it. Most people unless they’re a designer or in a similar profession don’t even take a stock of the design. Some may say “that’s nice that” or some other fleeting comment, but the majority of people are there for the information. And – presuming again – that the information is more than likely to be text, it should be our duty to make sure that that text is good as well.

Just in the same way that a website might be badly designed, there’s millions of websites out there with lackluster writing that brings down an otherwise cracking design. Once the design fades away, there’s only the text left.

And if that isn’t done well then you’ve just lost the whole of your target audience.

I think it's fitting to conclude with the final line of the article that provided inspiration for this post:

Design is about communication, and it takes more than pixels to communicate.

The Mid-Holiday Blog

2007-02-23T22:43:00.000Z

So lets talk a little about what I've been doing for a week.

I’ve finally nearly got my presentation cracked. I’ve got a couple more slides to create and then I’m done for the slides part. Then I’ve got to start rehearsing my patter. There’s a couple of things that I’ve got in presentation that I don’t know whether they will work yet so I’m eager to test these parts out and decide whether they work or not.

The main worry at the moment with my presentation is that I’ve gone into too much detail on my slides. It’s not that there’s a lot of text on them – far from it – it’s just I think I’ve written down practically everything I know on the slides, which means I won’t be able to do much expanding on the points I have there. I think this is something that will change before the dry-run next week, because I much prefer using the slides as cue cards rather than having all my information on there to begin with.

I’ve decided on quite a wacky design for my slides, but I’m fully aware that this isn’t really in keeping with the style of Eric Gill. I’ve used his fonts, but in a different way to what I’d imagine Eric Gill would use them. I thought because Eric Gill isn’t amazingly interesting, a good eye-catching design would spark the viewer’s interest straight away. Obviously one of the main things I’m going to be getting a lot of next week is feedback. There’s a lot of quite experimental work going on at the moment so I can imagine I’ll have a lot to change after the day. It’d be boring if it stayed the same anyway.

On the website front, I’ve changed quite a lot with regards to my feedback. There’s still some stuff to polish off, but I’m pretty happy with what I’ve got at the moment. The main thing I’ve still got left to do is create some kind of caption to my images so people don’t get confused. I’m thinking of making a simple HTML image holder page that pops up when you’ve clicked on an image, because I’m aware I’m fast running out of time.

So there you go. That’s about it really.

See you soon.

A Series Of Yes or Nos

2007-02-16T19:06:00.000Z

This week we got around to doing the much anticipated user testing of our websites. I knew it was going to help me greatly to finally get a lot of people looking at my website and giving opinions, and I made sure that I made full use of it. I mainly approached user testing in a way that I wanted the majority of the answers to be yes ir no. This probably isn't the correct way of going about it, but it got me the feedback I needed and that's all that really matters. I've figured out by popular consensus that my text width was in fact too thin which was a major issue with my site that I desperately needed an answer for, and a lot of people picked up issues with my images.

I've sorted the text width so far which has meant a slight bit of redesigning, but I'm still considering how to approach the images problem. I'm either going to go with captions or a pop-up piece of Javascript, and I really want to lean towards the former. If anyone's got any ideas or comments, you know how to get in touch.

Then on Thursday we got more task bombs. I didn’t like how I was so close to the first deadline to design a masthead for a newspaper, but I got it in just in time. The reason I ended up being so close to the deadline was because I’d gone for a sans-serif font for my masthead title to begin with. Upon creating my masthead I soon realized that it didn’t look as good as I’d envisioned, so I knew I had to change to a serif font. I still kept the idea of having the date and issue number nestled in boxes at the side which I think worked, but I’m not sure if it’s something you’d normally see in a newspaper. It didn’t say in the brief anywhere that I had to produce a traditional newspaper masthead design though, so I tried to go for something a bit different. I much preferred my efforts after we’d done the second part of the activity which was to drop content in. Overall I think the tasks went well and as each week goes by I’m becoming more and more confident with my abilities to design properly, and I’m getting less anxious about having not very long to design. The task bombs are always the favorite part of my week.

When we go back we’ve got the dry runs of our presentations. This is making me slightly apprehensive at the moment because I’ve woefully shunned it to one side for a couple of weeks, so this week I’m going to be working on that properly to get my presentation together and cohesive. I can’t wait for the dry runs though, and I think it’s a great idea. Especially for our group as well, because it will mean we’ve got two practices in two weeks as for that week (or the next week) we’ve got presentation practice again. I really want to make a better effort this time of my presentation because I felt my last one left a lot to be desired.

A couple of useful add-ons

2007-02-09T23:09:00.001Z

Although I know a lot of people have got it by now, a new version of the Web Developer's Toolbar for Firefox has been released. It allows you to view the CSS or HTML of any website you come accross, and even live-edit them. Obviously it doesn't save onto the website you're viewing, but you can save it to your hard drive and upload it later if it's your own site you're working on.

Next up is a couple of browser viewer add-ons for Firefox. I find the IE View for FF very useful (not sure what version of IE it is) when doing cross-browser testing, and there's also an Opera View add-on kicking about as well.

For my blogging I use Performancing that allows you to just stick in your username and password and start uploading to Blogger (or any other blogging program near enough) with in minutes. It gets a little iffy when you copy and paste stuff from Word into it, but that's because it's the Devil. Other than that it's cracking. It got it's own built in spell checker too so you'll be alright to use it to type up your blog straight away.

Another nice add-on that goes woefully underused is the search engines that you can add to your FF. There really is a lot, so go check them out.

Although it's neither productive or helpful, if you've heard murmurs around the class about StumbleUpon, it can be found on the FF add-on site.

If you don't have FF, shame on you. Download now. It really is immensely faster than IE, and so much more customisable. Some people have had issues with Firefox 2, but so far mine has been fine.

Another useful website to check out is Portable Apps, as they've got a lot of little applications that are very useful and tiny in size to stick on your erm... stick. The Suite is especially useful.

One last thing, the home page for the Firefox Add-ons can be found by clicking any part of this text (I tried desperately not to use the "click here" and failed miserably).

A Team of Plants

2007-02-09T22:44:00.001Z

This week for the first time since I began the course (which seems like an eternity ago now), we were asked to think about teams. What kind of people would you like to work with? What kind of person are you when stuck in a team situation? What would you like to be when stuck in a team situation?

Well, I do think there has to be a variety of people in the team. That goes without saying really, because if you were to have four people all wanting to lead the way then you'd have a team that are more than likely to go nowhere. There needs to be some kind of balance. I think that there does need to be a team leader of some semblance, but I'm not big on the idea of a team leader that doesn't chip in with any of the designing ideas. I think if you're going to lead your team especially in a design situation, you need to be as close to the project as possible. Even it just means helping out with ideas generation at the very beginning, you've been part of something then. If you're just telling people what to do and when to do it, then you don't necessarily need a designer in that role. It could be the manager of a toaster company and they'd be able to do just as good of a job as the designer. Maybe that's the reason for having the person you pick in that leadership role, because maybe they aren't as good at the creative stuff as everyone else.

To help out trying to figure out the whole team roles and what they mean, I've been having a little look around Belbin's website, and to be honest I find a lot of the trying to categorise what kind of person you are wholly unhelpful. I think to be an effective member of a team you should be able to do most jobs. It's going to be impossible to have a team of four multi-talented people in our situation, mainly because there's going to be so much to do when building a website. Sure, some people are going to be better than others at certain things - that goes without saying - but everyone should at least have the core skills there to be able to chip into everything if need be.

If were to have a four man team to build a website, I think first and foremost you need a team leader. Someone to rally up the troops so to speak, and someone to keep everyone's enthusiasm in the project high. So naturally the leader would have to be enthusiastic, and someone who is well respected. I think it would also be someone who would be able to lead by example, and have a good ability to visualise where the project is going. I suppose I'd like a leader a bit like a Shaper from those team roles of Belbins. Then of course you need a good designer. Someone who is really creative, and who is good at bouncing ideas around and communicating them. Ideally they'd be good at interpreting other people's ideas too, but that's going into an ideal world. The lead designer absolutely has to be a Plant in my eyes.

I think then I'd like a Coordinator as an admin person. Someone mature, definitely confident, and very good at doing all the little jovs that people usually forgets - reminding people about meetings, setting agendas, taking minutes, those kind of things. And then for the final person I'd love to just have someone who is multi-talented. It isn't any of Belbin's team roles, I just think that one more person who can do all the in-between jobs would be really helpful. Ideally I'd my team working a lot more fluidly anyway, with few specialised jobs and lots of little jobs split in between four people.

For me, the more jobs you can do and the more muli-talented you are, the more useful you are in a job situation.

Task Sparklers?

2007-02-02T00:34:00.001Z

I’ve got to admit: the “task bomb” phrase was starting to become worrying. It sounds so violent, so heavy going, so… extreme. Luckily, thankfully, the task bomb was quite an overblown phrase and we were presented with some tasks that were much nicer. I had envisioned having to design something in 5 minutes. The most intense part of the task bombing was the trial run in the morning that I narrowly missed out on getting it in. I’d been playing about with InDesign but the one thing I’d not messed with was printing. It’s a good job I made the mistake in the trial run.

When we got a crack at the proper one though, I was all geared up and ready to go. I was looking forward to trying some new sketchbook ideas generation and development techniques which I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they worked. Coupled with reading through the latest issue of Creative Review the night before and having a head filled with Alan Fletcher inspiration I was ready to go. I also found some of my presentation research creeping in when I decided to use Gill Sans for my headline font, which in retrospect I think was a poor choice. Because it’s used by so many other companies and places everyone has a different feeling and image in their head of what that font means. James kept telling me he could have sworn that it was the Franz Ferdinand font (you might be right James). It made me think twice about using the font again in a different context, but for my newspaper I think it gave a bit more of a edgy feel to it. Take a look.

The next task in the afternoon was something a bit more interesting – paint tube design. Oriental to be more specific. I didn’t have a clue where to start. After looking at some Japanese design I ended up deciding on quite a clinical feel to the design, and settling on a very simple, clean and technical layout. Once again, take a look at my offering. I’ve blown it up 200% to make it easier to see.

Oh yeah. And we went to a little place called London. You might’ve heard of it at some point. Little town down south somewhere. Anyway, when we arrived and after a little bit of tube jumping we got the Tate to find it was open but with no real reason to go inside. I wasn’t particularly disappointed as I’m quite impartial to art most of the time, especially the kind of artist that plonks a toaster in the middle of a room and calls that art. Instead of looking at the art we couldn’t look at anyway, we went to have a look around the book shop and ran straight to the design section. There was so many books I saw that I want but I can’t afford… there’s not a day that goes past when I regret not going for the full student loan so I could actually afford lots of books.

After that a couple of us trundled over to the Design Museum (nice website), which was far more inspiring than anything else I’ve been to so far. It also lead me to discover Creative Review, which I’ve now got a subscription to. Just in general the Design Museum opened my eyes a bit and made me want to put more effort in now in and out of college so at the end of the two years (or maybe three if everything goes to plan…) I’ll be as good as I can be in the design industry. I’ve packed in the writing semi-professionally.

It’s time to knuckle down and get serious.

Let's see what you could have talked about...

2007-01-26T22:57:00.000Z

I could tell you about Wednesday. I could tell you that I had a very productive day, that I got a lot done, and that I fixed some CSS problems that I was having (thanks John). I could also talk about Thursday morning, but I'd much prefer to talk about the afternoon. The Industrial Liaison Meeting.

After what seemed like an hour of riding along hideously neglected roads and steep hills that almost put Mount Everest to shame we finally got there. I'd previously been told that The Design Mechanics worked from a porta-cabin which naturally got me thinking about what kind of company we were visiting. It's impossible to not gain a first impression from a first glance at the outside of a company, but it became apparent very quickly that the fact that The Design Mechanics were being run from a porta-cabin meant nothing. To put it into an effective analogy, I'd say what TDM are doing are starting a revolution from a matchbox. Yeah, a revolution.

After we'd walked through the doors and got treated to our first sight of a design studio in use, we went through to the office with Dave Pannell (Creative Director) and Paul Greenhalgh (Lead Designer) to have a little chat. Dave proceeded to tell us about his and Stuart's philosophy behind The Design Mechanics, which as far as I could tell boiled down to one thing: to remove the nonsense that usually surrounds a design studio. Instead of having lots of hidden charges and umming and ahhing about prices, they've come up with a fixed price list that they stick to for all their products. And they certainly are very cheap. As Dave explained though, cheap at TDM doesn't result in a loss of quality, as we cottoned on to when he showed us some of TDM's past work.

Basically, their process works like this: client gets in touch with TDM, and they send out a representative to conduct an interview, which is then passed onto the designer so that they can create the designs. It's as simple as that really. Listening to Dave signified to me how passionate he is about the company he has created, as he's not just come up with yet another design agency, he's come up with something that no one else is doing in the industry. It was hard not to become drawn into Dave's passionate musings, but I could see they made absolute sense. Clearly it was working, as Dave also said that he's gone from 14ish steady clients working before to 200+ working with TDM. It's unbelievable really.

When we went outside to go have a chat with the designers I was amazed how nonchalant the designer I was talking to seemed. He was six months out of university, and here he was creating a business card in an hour and knocking out good quality corporate identities as easy as a fast food joint knocks out food. It was quite unbelievable in that respect, and it taught me a lot about the direction that I need to be taking myself in. When it comes to the real world, you can't sit around pondering about whether that line should be 0.5pt or 1pt, you've just got to do it. But like Dave also said, "college/university is the time to experiment with ideas".

And I'm thankful for that. For the next two years I can experiment with ideas, and I've got plenty of time to learn about myself and grow into a fully-fledged designer. As much as we're always being told by Steve that we need to do things quicker, we're also here to sometimes just take a step back and really look at ourselves. Because if we don't, they'll just be someone else to take your place at that interview in two years time.

If there's one more thing the trip gave to me, it was hunger. Hunger to do something worthwhile. Or more accurately, a massive, beating hunger to become the best designer I can possibly be.

Wryly Smiling

2007-01-18T17:32:00.000Z

It came around quick, but we’re now back at college and once more we’ve got two assignments waiting for us. It has been quite a relaxing week to get us back into the swing of things, and I’m feeling confident that this time there’s some things I want to improve on again. I’ll leave that for a bit later though, because there was something else praying on my mind to begin with. So in the true essence of chronological order, I’ll go back to the point where we got our results.

I was anxious. There was only once over the Christmas period where I thought about my results, and that was in the form of an uneasy pang. What was wrong? Had I forgotten to do something? Did I deep down know that I’ve not passed? There was something there that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but I had bad feelings. They didn’t surface again until the break before we got our results, and I started questioning myself again as to whether I had passed or not. It turns out I had passed, and all my uneasy feelings were just rubbish. I was also pleased to find out that I’d got a merit, which shows that I had at least took criticism on board and I’m continuing to improve. It was satisfying to see that my efforts to improve had paid off. I got a pass for the Picture This assignment, but I’ll have to wait for my feedback to find out why I didn’t manage a merit. I have ideas, but after the uneasy feelings of before I’ve decided not to pre-empt.

Now I’ve realised I’ve passed and I can put those assignments to bed, I’m going to try and improve yet again on time plans. Last time I was planning too big, so now I’m planning overall and I’ve just created a weekly time plan so I can be more flexible. This is all done on pen and paper again with lots of room to scribble out, so this time I’m going to try and stay on top of them and keep amending them. I’m also going to be looking to improve on my research, which I will be able to do very strongly for my presentation topic, Eric Gill. I’m going to research more thoroughly this time.

On Wednesday morning we received our Builder assignment, which I’m looking forward to completing. I finally feel like the hard work part has come to a point, so all I have to do is create the website. I imagine this could be quite a task for some people who have never created websites before, but I’m glad that in this section at least I have a fair bit of experience. I’ve been helping a couple of people getting their heads around Dreamweaver, which I enjoyed doing. If anyone else needs a hand you know how to get hold of me.

The other assignment is the Revert To Type one. I knew it was coming, so it came as no surprise when PRESENTATION was written across the brief. There’s also some other timed presentation in the afternoon of deadline day, which should make things interesting to say the least. Chuck in the random assignments as well, and it seems as though we’ll have a very interesting semester indeed.

Wry smiles all around?

Pizza Flyers: Good Design?

2007-01-09T19:41:00.000Z

According to Jonathan Baldwin, they are well designed because they communcate the information intended and set up the viewer's expectations.

Go read it, it'll make your head hurt to begin with.

If I've read it correctly, what Jonathan is saying is that it's not the design that is bad, it's the style that is expected of a pizza flyer that is hopelessly disgusting. It just goes to show that it isn't always the case of designing a visually attractive piece of design, because that doesn't directly correlate with good design. Sometimes the most awful design - as is depicted perfectly with the pizza flyer - is the best design for the job. As Jonathan outlines, it gets the message across, it's easy to use, and it signifies what a pizza takeaway is all about.

Separating good design and visually appealing (and unappealing) is like separating a car from it's wheels when you first think about it, but it would seem that creating a good design isn't always about flattering your ego.

What do you lot think?

It's like Art v Design all over again.

A Speedy Interlude, Gone Long

2006-12-29T00:11:00.000Z

Well the whole Christmas thing is well and truly over now and I’m afraid it’s back to the grind for me. I’ve been busy working on my portfolio site some more, and I’m almost ready to announce it to the world. You can go see it now by clicking the link on the right. I’ve gone for a newspaper style design. This was for a couple of reasons, one: because I also write, two: because it was a unique looking design that tested my skills (?) to the very extreme, and three: because I wanted something a bit different. Presenting a challenge on another front, but something I really wanted to try, was creating the whole site in CSS. I feel this task alone has taught me a lot on how to handle coding a whole site in CSS, and it should make the Builder assignment after Christmas infinitely more easy. As usual, you’re all free to leave the odd comment or two telling me your opinions.

On the second front, I’ve just found a site called The Creative People's Network and I’m adoring the flash-based magazine style it’s got. Basically you drag the corner of the page - just like you would a real magazine – and it flips! Properly and everything. It’s amazing that something we take for granted for doing in our everyday lives provokes such awe and inspiration when it’s digitised.

On the third and final frontage, I’ve just picked up Jim Krause’s Design Basics Index. I’ve not had the chance to look through it properly yet, but from what I’ve read already it’s taught me a lot. It’s amazing to see that now I have a bit of tutoring behind me that my designs already look a million times better than they did a couple of months ago.

Anyway, that’s all for now folks. I’ll be back in a while, mainly when I’ve finished my portfolio site.

Performance Evaluation: Semester 1

2006-12-22T23:47:00.000Z

That came and went a bit quick didn’t it? I can’t believe that already I’ve got three full assignments under my belt, and I feel so different and more like a designer already. Most of all: I feel more confident in my abilites. No more do I worry when I’m presented with a design problem, because before I used to not even know where to start. Now I’m confident how do go about it. Anyway, let’s take a look back at the semester, assignment by assignment.

That’s The Plan
It was the first time back into an education situation after a long couple of months, and it showed. I panicked like mad when I started getting into the assignment proper, and started getting really flustered and not knowing where to start. Even though I had time plans, this was the first time I’d ever used them, and after a couple of weeks they went straight out of the window. Overall, I was pretty disappointed with my performance in this first assignment, but it taught me some valuable lessons about myself, and just exactly what I needed to improve on.

I made it my action plan to improve on my time planning.

Back To BASIC
This assignment was very similar to the last, apart from with the added stress of sorting out content too. I actually found the content section of the assignment the most relaxing and easiest to do. Time planning went a lot better this time, but I found that I wasn’t planning on a micro level enough. The main problem I found in this assignment was my annoying ability of writing too much. It added a lot of stress onto the web plan for me because I found myself having to edit a lot.

This time, I’ve made it my action plan to continue improving on time planning and to write more concisely.

Picture This
Picture This ran alongside Back To BASIC, and I found it to be the light relief to the stress of the other. A nice bit of creative work was thrown in, and I was happy for the difference in tasks. I felt I used all the knowledge I have so far effectively to create my banners, and took into account everything I had learnt. I was happy with my final designs that I created.

The problem I had was with the essays, which were getting the word count down again. I created a similar action plan for this assignment too, to make sure that I wrote more concisely.

Here’s to hoping I’ve at least passed these two assignments.

Have a good Christmas everybody, I’ll see you on the other side.

Page Designs

2006-12-16T15:01:00.000Z

For some reason, some of my page designs look really muddy in PDF format, but here they are for your viewing pleasure anyway.

Home Page Design
Page Template
Contact Form Design

Again, comments welcomed.

The Two Final Banners

2006-12-16T14:41:00.000Z

Hi there. Here's the two final banners I've decided to go for. They may get a little bit more tweaking over the weekend, but these are more than likely the final product.

I tried to get a little bit of consistency over the two with the logo design.

Comments welcomed.

The Breath Of Pressure

2006-12-14T16:21:00.000Z

With deadline day slowly breathing down my neck, the pressure is starting to ramp up. I’ve got the majority of the Back To BASIC assignment complete, but I’ll be spending the most of this week getting my Picture This assignment up to scratch. It’s close to being finished, but the biggest task this week will be putting the Picture This assignment into the template as I’ve learnt the hard way a couple of times now that it takes a while. Because I’m so close to the deadline, I think it’s about time to start considering how the two assignments have worked out.

The main difference over these two assignments and the last one is the simple fact that there is two. I’ve had to balance a lot of my time between the two assignments and because one of the assignments is considerably larger I had to time plan accordingly. So let’s start with how the time planning has gone.

Simply put, a lot better. Last assignment I was panicking and getting all flustered because I couldn’t handle the size of the project and this time with focused time planning it’s gone a lot better. I started out by using Google Calendar but I’ve found that just printing off a blank template from there and writing on it has worked a lot better. While GC is really simple and flexible, I’ve come to realise that the immediacy of the good old pen and paper works a lot better when I’m constantly amending them.

I do feel though that it may look like from time plans that I’ve not planned small enough. I’ve used two monthly templates and nothing any smaller, and amended my weekly planning on to this. I’ve basically just been using a master document for each month, while when it comes to breaking down days I’ve used pieces of paper which most have unfortunately ended up in the bin… For future assignments I’ve got to remember to save these, no matter how scruffy and what state they are in.

I did however lose my way half way through the assignments. I became lost in a sea of time plans and work, and didn’t know where to continue from. I spent a while procrastinating so in future I’ve got to just crack on with it.

I’ve found it ten times easier writing a website plan this time, but I’m still having to edit things considerably. Being a writer at heart, I still have the habit of sticking in the odd flair adjective to make my work seem more interesting, and I have a habit of writing in too much detail. Usually I’m trying to keep the word count high instead of low. I did struggle to begin with to get my assignment down to 4500 words, but now I think I’ve cracked it. I’m slowly getting there with my word counts, and writing the content certainly helped me practice the skill of writing less.

Overall, apart from the odd pothole in the road, it’s been a fairly smooth ride.

As far as the road ahead and finishing off this assignment goes; it's going to be tough but I wouldn't give up this pressure for the world.

Skyscapers In 30 Seconds

2006-12-07T16:43:00.000Z

In contrast to Wednesday’s production day (which I managed to get a lot done in, thanks for asking), Thursday has been extremely different indeed. In the morning we started creating a couple of advertising banners in 2 minutes, a minute and half, a minute, and then 30 seconds. Being timed made me wake up quickly, and forced me to put the first thing down that came into my head which as it happens have turned quite well into designs.

Usually when I do thumbnails in my sketchbook I have a tendency to ponder over things, instead of just breaking out the pen and paper and just doing it. Today has made me realise that when I’m a little less reserved I can come up with a couple of decent ideas. I’ve decided I’m going to make it a regular challenge for myself, to create some piece of design work using some pre-set pieces of text, images etc., and go through the sketchbook stage right to production. Today has already helped to loosen up a little so to speak with my creativity and it can only help more to do this activity on a regular basis.

On the thumbnail designs for my assignments, starting from now I’m going to try and ponder less over them, and be a little bit more creative and free thinking instead of stifling it.

After reading James blog on the books he picked up and having a little read through some of them I can announce that they are well worth a purchase, especially the Jim Krause ones. I’ll be buying these shortly. The Jim Krause ones really get the inspiration flowing, and show you things – as a young designer – that you’d never usually think about.

And the 10 hour self study challenge from last week? I exceeded it. I did 11 and half hours, genuine hard work. What’s even better is that I’ve realised that breaking it up into chunks it isn’t that hard to focus on doing it, so this week it’s time to ramp it up again and declare that starting from now I’m going to do 13 hours this week.

I’ll probably end up doing more however, seeing as though it’s a submission-ready assignment next week.

Erk.

The Image So Far

2006-12-01T00:28:00.000Z

We've been doing a little bit of photo restoration this week, which has once again opened my eyes to how much Photoshop can do. You can see my efforts so far, and the original, below.

Feedback welcome, although I am aware the face currently looks like he's wearing make-up.

Doing badly to do greatly

2006-11-30T16:57:00.000Z

Sometimes - it would seem - that losing your way in the middle of a project and not doing as much as you should be doing proves helpful. Because, for the last two weeks that’s been exactly me. I’ve never to date hit that 16 hours a week, but now I’ve decided it’s about time to make sure I’m working towards it. So since that the last couple of weeks I’ve been doing about 4 – 6 a week, it’s time for me to be doing more.

10 hours a week.

Yes, I’m making the commitment right here right now, in the big dark expanse of cyber space, that I’m going to do 10 hours this week. Passing the course is a no-brainer, but passing the course well is a different point entirely. It’s time I put into action a little bit more action, and started working towards 16 hours a week.

I don’t feel that this week it’s important for me to talk about what I’ve been doing, as I just want the fact that I’m going to make more of an effort to take my time planning more seriously the central theme of this post. It’s not that I haven’t been taking time planning seriously, it’s just that I’ve been grossly underestimating the amount of time I need to put in to pass the course well.

Plus, it isn’t just about passing the course, don’t we all want to be employed at the end? Do we not all want to be good enough after two years to actually take a career up in web design, self employed or not?

I know I do, and it’s time I started showing it by putting the hours in at home.

I don’t want to leave this course after two years with straight passes.

Simple as.

A Situation Paints A Thousand Nerves

2006-11-24T00:53:00.000Z

I knew it. I knew it was going to come. I’m not the kind of person to cower in the face of confrontation, and I was positively looking forward to the day that I got to do a presentation. I love new challenges, and as soon as Steve announced that we would indeed be doing a presentation and it would be today, the wry, cheeky smile couldn’t be hidden on my face. When Steve then asked if there was one person willing to work by themselves I couldn’t help pushing the challenge a bit further and sticking my hand up. The challenge was on, and I set to work.

It was time. I still didn’t feel nervous, I’d be quietly rehearsing for about 40 minutes prior and I just tried to relax for a while down in the refectory. I began my walk up the stairs, and I still felt fine. I was that usual, up-for-anything Craig. I walked in the room, said a nonchalant “Hi” while I got my USB pen, which made Diane wonder if I was actually doing my presentation next. She commented on the fact that I sounded so calm. I told her that inside my body the feeling was extremely different. And I most definitely wasn’t lying. I stuck in my USB pen into the PC, started up my presentation and something changed.

I suddenly felt choked by nervousness. I remembered little about what happened in the presentation, apart from the feedback. Both said I did fine apart from a bit of shuffling. Steve asked me how I did, and I shook my head. I thought I’d done badly. But where did that nervousness come from?

I’m never usually nervous during presentations, and I tend to be extremely relaxed when talking to strangers and other people. I go through all the niceties, the hand shaking and the how-are-yous, but the fact that I knew Steve and Diane wasn’t the problem either, because as soon as the presentation ended I was still stood at the front and suddenly felt completely relaxed and natural. In a way, I believe it was the content I was presenting. I felt nervous that if I got a question posed to me, I didn’t know enough about the area to be able to effectively answer such a question. But there was something else there.

After talks with Steve later in the day on Thursday I figured out that it was the fact that I had a reputation to live up to. Because I’m always naturally confident and quite confrontational, I felt that if I didn’t show this in the presentation that Steve would in some way think less of me. Slightly silly I know, but in pressure situations you have very little time to think rationally. If the audience was full of strangers I would have been fine, but it was the fact that I knew the people sat there, and I knew that they knew what I was like.

I honestly don’t think that there would have been much I would have done differently if I was to do this again. I think I needed to be a bit more of myself, instead of treating this as a different situation. Usually I treat all situations the same, but this time I believe I hyped it up too much in my head. I must try and make sure I keep myself calm and considered, and just be myself. But these things will only get better with more practice which is something I am looking forward to already.

This has been the first challenge on the course that I feel there is major improvement for myself, which gives me something to work on for next time. It’s been a more than interesting challenge, and once again revealed a lot of food for thought about myself that I’ve never seen before.

Next.

Honestly Evaluating

2006-11-21T00:40:00.000Z

I think it’s finally time to be honest with myself. It’s all well and good just ploughing on with my assignment, mindlessly doing one task after another, but what’s the point if I don’t feel like I’m improving? At the end of the day, at the end of these two years, I want to be employable. And to be that I’m going to need to be able to do more than write a good essay or build a good website. “Surely that’s all it’s about?” you’re probably saying right now. Well, read on to find out that it most certainly isn’t.

If I look back at my last assignment at about the same point at where I am at now, I was panicking. It was getting to the point where my mind was struggling to think what to do next, and all the time plans were out of the window. I’d gone so past the point of no return with the time plans and left them on the way side for too long that I didn’t consider I needed them. I thought I should just do each task in sequential order. This turned out to be a complete and utter disaster, and I was getting close to burning out. It got that bad. Already I can see I’ve improved with the time planning, and instead of worrying about what I have left to do, I’m taking each task one at a time. It’s taken off a lot of stress, and planning weekly without thinking about the bigger picture has helped me to reduce the stress considerably.

Where am I at now then? Well, the time planning is working better. This time around I’ve actually realised they need to be used, but it’s going more gradually than I expected. I thought I could just launch straight into time planning and be able to do it instantly with a bit of discipline, but that’s precisely the time when I realised another cold hard fact. I have very little self discipline.

Sure, I’m good at turning up at college on time, turning up to work on time, ringing someone when they asked, but when it comes to doing activities that have no consequence whether I do them or not, I struggle to force myself to do them. At the start of the course and at the start of the first assignment, I was bloody awful for this. I smiled on the outside and said everything was going ok, but inside everything couldn’t have been further from it. I thought I didn’t need them. If I look back to now, things are much better. I’m using time plans on a weekly basis, but still not to a satisfactory level for me.

Which leads me to another problem I have, the fact that I’m constantly striving for something better. Instead of being happy with the current product, I’m always thinking that I could have done something differently, I could have done something more perfectly. The fact that I’m seeing this particular attribute of my personality as a bad thing is all the proof you need that I’m an obsessive perfectionist. Clearly this is something that will never change, but instead of changing it I must look at it from a different angle. Instead of saying I could have done this better, I need to actually do it better next time. If this doesn’t happen, I need to question myself and find out the reasons why.

I never see anything I produce as a good thing either. I always think anything I do is pants, and never see the positives in my own work. For this one thing in particular, I need to get more people to look at my work and give me feedback. When lots of people tell you your work is good or bad you know the truth then.

I’m slowly beginning to realise that although I have gripes with myself, I can see improvements in my actions already. I’m already using my sketchbook more actively and the blogs more actively, but the thing I was missing before was evaluating myself. There’s no point evaluating your current performance, because when you look at it like that you’re unlikely to change. You’ll put it down to the project rather than yourself. If I evaluate myself, I’ll realise that it’s me that needs to change.

All I have to do is take my progress one week at a time, instead of thinking I can improve instantly, and I’m going to have it cracked. Something I need to especially remember is this:

Anyone can learn a piece of software. It’s learning about yourself that’s the hard part.

“What a difference a day makes”

2006-11-16T16:22:00.000Z

Yes, that is the song lyric. If you think of it in that context, you’ll probably get somewhere close to how I’m feeling right now. In a nice, mellow, clued up mood. Yesterday was more of a Blue Monday. Let’s go back that way.

Wednesday.

I’ve been here for only a couple of hours and I already feel rubbish. I’ve done nothing all week. I’ve spent all week pushing things back and not being particularly bothered about it until I realised that I’ve just spent an entire week doing nothing at all. Instead of hiding the fact that I’d done nothing (I found it difficult to do so anyway, because I was clearly so naffed off with myself), I decided to confide in Steve and John when I went for the personal tutorial. Initially I thought my don’t-care attitude was for no reason, “just a glitch in the system” I’d tell myself.

“Just a one-off bad week.”

If I would have left it like that, this blog post would be extremely different, and I wouldn’t be looking back on myself yesterday, I’d still be the person from yesterday. After having a chat with Steve and John I realised that my problem has been that I’ve been too ambitious with my time planning, leading me to give myself 2 or 3 solid hours to do massive tasks. What I should have done was split these big tasks into smaller ones, which would have made the tasks smaller. This is turn wouldn’t have turned me off to the gargantuan tasks that lie ahead of me. Looking back, I should have realised that no one can realistically complete one whole section of a project in 2-3 hours and I should have planned on a smaller scale, which is exactly the problem I’ve had.

I’m planning too big.

What I’ve thought was a micro level has actually been a macro level, and it’s taken complete and utter self-pity to figure it out. It’s all back on track now though, and I’ve started planning on a micro level and splitting bigger tasks into smaller ones. How can one minor thing change my whole outlook on a project?

I left college feeling burnt out, run down, and worse than I’ve felt since I’ve started the course.

Thursday.

24 little hours does indeed make a difference. At the beginning of the day I was in much the same attitude as the end of yesterday, even though I wouldn’t readily admit it to myself. The burnt out feeling had gone, and I’d completed every task for the tutorial meeting, but I still didn’t feel myself. Not in that way. Where had that proactive, up-for-anything guy disappeared to? Apparently, he’d gone. Even if you look at my blog posts for the last couple of weeks they’ve not been me. They’ve been a former shell of me. Not that I’d noticed previously until a couple of hours ago, because I’ve not thought of it that way. I’m a strong believer of being able to tell what a person is feeling through writing, and when I looked back at those posts I realised that buzz had disappeared from it.

It’s all appeared back after a rousing discussion with Steve and John. It all got very philosophical and prophetic (not pathetic) but Steve started talking about what it is to be a designer. To take from a previous Steve comment: “it isn’t a creative industry, it’s a service industry”. He discussed this in some length, and I listened intently. When he talked about all the down-sides, the lack of sun kissed beaches and designer underwear, I wondered inside my head:

“Do I really have what it takes to be a part of the design industry? Really?”

There’s a simple 3 letter answer to that: Yes.

Say hello again to the Craig that had disappeared.

A Realisation Of Inspiration

2006-11-09T18:00:00.000Z

Looking at the whole week in focus, we’ve had a nice week of good lectures. First up was the lecture on design conventions, which I was very eager to listen to. It’s the lecture I’ve been waiting for for some time, and I lapped it all up. I learnt so much in these two hours on how to do more effective design, and I was really happy with what I’d learnt by the end of it. So much so that it spurred me on to go complete my portfolio site (almost… just need to stick the content in now) in essence of the lecture.

On Thursday we had a lecture on some colour conventions, which was also very interesting and informative, and helpful like usual. I feel like we’re beginning to get into the meat of the course, and finally beginning to learn some real design conventions. It’s left me feeling happy with how my learning is going, and I really feel I’m powering along now with all this new knowledge floating inside my head.

After last week’s realisation that I really need to get my sketchbook up to scratch, I’ve been nabbing things from all over the place to slap into my sketchbook. The furious scribbling next to them has helped me think more about the design than just “it looks pretty”, and some of them have really inspired me. I’ve finally realised the importance of sticking regular inspirational pieces into my sketchbook, and I’m now seeing pieces of design everywhere and taking them to stick in my sketchbook. It’s already given me lots of ideas on how to create this website when we get around to doing it, and now I’m eager to start creating.

I’ll admit, I’m not looking forward to doing all the pre-amble leading up to the website creation. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it would have been next year maybe, but I feel like I’m doing exactly the same assignment again straight after I’ve finished the one before, which doesn’t make me too happy. I know I’ll feel better as soon as I’ve got delivery requirements out of the way, but I’m strangely looking forward to the competitive analysis stage. I feel like I’m more qualified to pass judgement this time, and I feel like I know what “good” and “bad” design is more concretely. Maybe it’s because I’ve finally figured out how important it is to look at other sources for inspiration?

Top Ten Things You Absolutely Should Do With Your Sketchbook

2006-11-06T00:03:00.000Z

Right, in collaboration with Steve and my own head I’ve come up with 10 definitive things you should be doing with your sketchbook. At the moment, this reads like a list of things I don’t do, but that will soon change. Follow these simple 10 steps and you’ll realise how dispensable that book really is.

Oh no, I sound like a Delia Smith on design.

1. Order it. There's nothing worse than a messy office - and your sketchbook is no different. I simply number the pages and put a colour on the corner so I know what the content is.

2. Use colour. I don't know about you, but I find black boring. When it comes to important things like writing to-do lists and the like, I use lots
of colour and colour keys.

3. Write your thoughts and feelings. When something bad happens, stick it in your sketchbook with a date. Ditto when something good happens. It makes your blog easier to write, and it bumps your sketchbook grade up.

4. Stick in inspirational work! When you see something you like, cut it out and stick it into your sketchbook. Don't forget to write a bit about why you like it too. As long as it's not a billboard or something similarly large there should be enough room in there. I suggest organising this in some way separate of your sketchbook - use a colour on the corner of pages, stick in sticky notes or something like that.

5. USE IT! It's not just there to write notes in and final designs, its there for YOU too. Use it to keep a record of to-do lists, use it to write out what needs to be done for the week, any thumbnail designs you use, and ideas for content you have, somewhere to stick research, ideas for designs - the whole works. When you realise that it really is 100% indispensable, you're half way there.

6. When doing designs, don’t forget to use as much colour as you can. Colour is about as important as the design you’re creating – just changing one colour on a design can give the whole thing a different tone or mood.

7. When you’re doing designs, you don’t have to stick to any conventions. Go wild. Any design that pops into your head can be put onto paper, so show it. Be as diverse as your mind will let you. It’s the exploration of the design ideas that’s important at the design stage. Don’t forget that colour.

8. Make your communication clear. On a design situation level, you need to be able to communicate your ideas to other people. If a colleague can’t read your handwriting when you’re showing him a new design you’ve came up with, he isn’t going to understand it. On a cynical level, it needs to be marked. If the writing can’t be understood, it can’t be marked. I suggest getting someone else to have a peek at your writing. If they can’t read it, change it.

9. Don’t forget – the way the text is shown in a design is important too. Don’t neglect typography, it’s just as important as colour and completes a design. Explore these too. Stick in bits you like, bits you don’t like, and tell people why you don’t or do like them. In writing, of course.

10. Be DIFFERENT. Nobody ever became good at anything because they copied people before them. Keep an eye out everywhere for design you like. It’s everywhere you look – on the sides of buses, crisp packets, those floor markings, those signs, on the side of that coffee you just bought, and a million other places. If you can’t take it, photograph it and stick it in your sketchbook. Explore different ideas that nobody else (included you) dare even try.

Design is everywhere.

Ideas are infinite.

"Empathy?! Empathy aint no country I ever heard of!"

2006-11-02T17:50:00.000Z

So this week was crunch time. Forget handing the project in, this was the real nerve-racking part. Funny, I felt fine when I woke up but as soon as I stepped over that threshold into the studio something happened. I tried to put it to the back of my mind, but I just couldn’t. I needed to know my grade, but I would have to wait until after break to be put out of my misery. It turned out that my misery was misplaced in the end; I’d got a PASS on both of the units. Strangely however, I wasn’t happy. I felt for the other people that hadn’t got what I had, and it seemed like I was empathising with them. I decided the best course of action would be to put some of the people’s minds at rest during dinner time to make them feel better. After all, as soon as they stopped dwelling so would I.

It was then after my empathetic experience that I realised that the group has become a whole lot closer over the last five weeks. Now when I look back to five weeks ago and consider that we didn’t know each other it seems almost like another planet back then. Everyone is getting on really well, and to consider that it’s only been five weeks together; that small fact is quite an amazing one indeed.

After we’d got the whole grades thing out of the way, it was time to discuss the new assignments. I’ll admit: the thought of receiving two additional assignments on top of the blog and sketchbook one too was a slightly daunting task. It did – dare I say it – almost scare me. Now I’ve cracked on with the planning and completed that I feel slightly more at ease. I’ve decided to go for a different approach to planning this time, using Google Calendar to provide me with email alerts when I need to do something. I know I’ll feel better as soon as I’ve started properly and wrote the first word. From there on it should be fairly plain sailing. The first task – the Back To BASIC one – is similar to the last assignment we did, so thanks to that I feel more at home and comfortable with doing it. There are no ifs, whys and hows this time; it’s just time to crack on.

One final point that I’ve discovered this week is that I’ve not been paying enough attention to my sketchbook. Sure, I’ve been active on the blogs and commenting a lot, but I seem to have neglected the other part of the assignment somewhat and not found as much time as I would have liked to do it. That’s naturally going to change starting from now, and I’m contemplating producing another sketchbook solely for inspirational work. It’s still in discussion with Steve at the moment, but I was wondering: what does everyone else think about this idea?

Please, leave a quick comment if you have the time, answering the above question.

"Did someone say CSS?"

2006-10-30T12:58:00.000Z

I’d just like to start by saying that I hope everyone has had a good holiday and I hope everyone’s ready to get cracking on with work again. I know I’ve had a good holiday. For the most part I’ve just been learning some CSS and XHTML stuff at my own pace from Elizabeth Castro’s amazing book (if you want to learn these properly I suggest you check the book out), and it’s definitely taught me a lot about the right and wrong way to code websites. I don’t tend to code websites from scratch, but when it comes to website design and building I love to know everything so I have the knowledge there if I need it. CSS is something any budding website designers really need to know in this day and age to keep up with the competition in my opinion. Once you’ve grasped the basics of CSS though, the rest is easy enough to learn and you’ll be surprised about the possibilities.

I’ve also been working a little on my portfolio website (there's only a logo to stare at), and just messing around with some more CSS styling. After I took a look at it the other day I thought to myself “wow, this is rubbish” and took it offline to work on another design. That’s just something to fill spare time really, or of the little I get. It will most definitely be put on the back burner until the next holiday now.

I’m eager to get back to college and carry on learning something I love doing.

Roll on Wednesday.

Praguetically Back To Reality

2006-10-22T17:25:00.000+01:00

Excuse the bad pun, but I couldn’t resist. The week in Prague went well, and left me with lots of time to think about an assortment of things, most importantly for the purpose of this post though; the course. It allowed me to really think how the first assignment went, and critically look at everything that happened.

I’ve come to one conclusion – that I struggle to balance many things at the same and that I struggle to do things when I say I will. Both of these things adversely reflect on time scales too. I originally said that it was poor time management, but I’ve realised that that isn’t the reason, more so the consequence of my previously outlined traits.

So what to do about my revelation? Why that’s easy, nip them in the bud. However, that’s incredibly easy to say, but infinitely more difficult to put into practice. So I’ve decided to sort these two traits in a different way, by making everything else more disciplined. Getting up earlier, going to bed earlier, and sticking to these two things to begin with. Once I’ve got those sorted, then I’ll have proved to myself that I can be disciplined, if I choose to, rather than being forced to.

I suppose I better show off some of Prague too, it’s only fair.

Lots more available on request. Lots more. 230 to be exact. Had to sell my house to get them printed mind...

Have a good holiday all.

“The end Is nigh, and the air smells beautiful"

2006-10-12T22:59:00.000+01:00

The highlight of this week and the only highlight worth mentioning has got to be finishing my assignment. It’s such an amazing feeling, to hand it in to submission standard and look through the work that you’ve created, and that actually looks good. No better than good, almost professional. It’s gave me a desire to replicate that feeling every time – and even though the path towards completion may not be as smooth – the feeling of completion at the end is like no other.

Early morning on Wednesday we got a lecture from John about our blogs which I found really helpful. He made some clear concise points about what you can and can’t do with your HND blog, which managed to clear up a lot of the questions I had about ideas for my blog. It turns out that our blog can be used for much more than I originally thought, which means over the next few weeks you’ll probably see some different things popping up here and there. I’m planning on doing a quick “how to” some day over the next couple of weeks just to help out some fellow classmates that’s struggling with some of the finer nuances of Blogger.

One thing that has been a problem this week is making changes to my final written work. When it came to it, I kept printing it off thinking I had the complete final one only for me (or James) to spot yet another minor mistake. It’s taught me to thoroughly check it before I print it off, and then to check it thoroughly again once or twice to check for mistakes. That way I waste less time printing things off all the time, and can concentrate on other more important parts of any given assignment. It’s made me realise that I need a more structured way of checking through my finished work, which I fully intend on putting into practice on any other future assignments.

Well, the assignment is handed in, the work is done, the pressure is lifted off my shoulders (for a couple of weeks at least), and I’m off to have a bit of a relax in Prague. I’ll be posting from out there too if I can find an Internet café about with (hopefully) some pictures of the beautiful architecture, and lots of inspirational design pieces.

See you on the other side,
Craig.

“Cause sometimes son, you’ve just gotta get on with it”

2006-10-05T17:25:00.000+01:00

At about this time last week, I had pretty much a mountain ahead of me. I may have not been willing to admit it this time last week – I thought I had it all in hand and only had a couple of things left to do after all. I mean, how long could screen designs and finishing off sketches really take? Well, a lot longer than expected actually.

It took me so much longer than expected that I ended up working until about 11.30 one night – after starting at 8. It wasn’t one of those on-off couple of hours either; a bit of TV there and ten minutes of TV here, it was a full on 3 and a half hours. It taught me once again that I don’t know how fast or slow I tend to work, and a harsh lesson at that. Once again I’m sat here saying I’ll learn next week, I won’t be up until half eleven again. I don’t think it’s so much of my fault though, it’s just the fact that I still don’t know how long certain things will take as I’ve never done them before. It’ll get better with time, and I’m already getting a bit better at anticipating how long things will take me to do. I’m finally starting to figure out my work patterns again and what days are best for me to work. It’s slowly but surely coming together. I’m still going to say though: next week I’ve got to try a bit harder to be more disciplined and force myself to work when I say I will.

Slightly linked to the last paragraph is the program we’ve been using to create our designs – Pagemaker. I must admit, after having to actually use it for more serious work it has started to aggravate me a bit using it. I find it to be awkward at times, and I seem to be going the long way around the houses to get things done by using Pagemaker. Having to lay out my text to get it to submission standard has been even worse, and I’ve literally spent 7 hours trying to get it in there today. That has most definitely annoyed me a lot, as I feel I could have spent my time better making changes and completing other bits and bats I had to do.

Something that has helped me a lot this week though, and that was feedback. I’ve been getting a fair bit from other guys on the course this week, and asking other people’s opinions including the feedback group has helped me form my designs into a more complete stage. It’s left me feeling ultimately satisfied with what I’ve come up with, and nice to hear some positive comments to support what I’ve designed.

I’m a long way from being a proper designer, but it’s getting there.

“It’s time to learn Pagemaker and chew bubblegum… and I’m all outta gum”

2006-09-28T17:53:00.000+01:00

Indeed fellow blog title, we learnt Pagemaker this week. It was a relief to finally get down to some nitty gritty learning work, and although the program itself is fairly simple and easy to understand, it was impossible not to feel a little bit of pride when you get the hang of it. I quickly found out it was extremely similar to Microsoft Publisher, and I used that for years when I was littller so it was like a home away from home. The familiarity came flooding back straight away. I definitely felt it was a worth while lecture not to mention very enjoyable. It was nice to be back in the software learning seat, because I love learning new software.

On the Thursday we got another chat and lecture with Helen (the Teacher Trainer Teacher) and I’ll have to be brutally honest – I didn’t get much out of it. She talked a bit about note taking, but unfortunately only showed us one actual method of note taking which was some bizarre picture mind-mapping image. Strangely, she also told us we didn’t have to take notes on the note taking lecture, as she’d printed it off for us. How poetically ironic. I came out feeling a tad disappointed, as I’d found the first one to be of some considerable use but today her lecture seemed to have no purpose to it. I found it very difficult not to feel bored either, because Helen really wasn’t engaging us in the lecture at all.

On the assignment side of things, it’s going well. I feel comfortable with what I have left to do, and I’m 100% sure of what has been asked of me for every task. When I think back to the second week when we got this assignment and how different it was then, it seems so much clearer now and so scarily long ago. I’m pleased with my work rate and how far on I am, and feel I’m exactly where I want to be.

Seeing as though I wanted to make sure everyone had each others blog addresses, I decided to take the efforts into my own hands this week and make sure I had a list of everyone’s (if you’ve not got an email yet, get in touch) blogs so I could pass them around so everyone can see what people have been saying. I thought it was time the group gelled a bit more, so this was a first step in the right direction.

Which leads me onto something else – the group. It seems as though the group gels a bit more and more every week, and this week it felt a lot closer. I was chatting to everyone, and I no longer felt closer to one group than the other. It doesn’t feel like an “us and them” situation, but there are still a couple of people I feel I need to get chatting to so next week that’s my task – talk to everybody.

It’s gone well this week overall, not just in a work sense either, but in an everyway possible sense. If it continues to feel like this every week, then I’ll be flying.

“The road ahead is long and winding my son, persevere”

2006-09-21T17:16:00.000+01:00

Week 2

Once again, I’m presenting you with a saying that never got said. Sounds very Karate Kid doesn’t it? That seemed to be my overall feeling for the week though, but that’s how it goes – the first task is always the most mundane. It had to be expected, although I’d be lying slightly if I said I that I expected to be doing a lot of researching and boring old writing in the second week. Writing is a small passion of mine as well, but with all the strigent guidlines on academic writing from the exam boffins, I find myself having to tone down my style which takes half of the fun out of it. “Where is all the learning of Flash and Photoshop?” Etc….

Nevertheless, it’s been a busy week for me, after rounding off the end of last week finishing off my goals of the project and the target audience, everything looked all fine and dandy and a bit of breeze. I had planned to do the competitive analysis this week, then the delivery requirements the week after but Steve thwarted that idea quickly when he asked to see both at the focus group. It did begin to worry me slightly - as I thought these two would take me at least a week a piece – but I knuckled down and spent a lot of time getting them practically complete. That sense of satisfaction when you’ve wrote the last word and you hit that last full stop is so good. I’ll be honest: I even surprised myself by how much work is possible if you’ve got that big looming weight on your back called pressure. I’ll have to make my brain worry more often. Now I’ve seen how much work is possible first hand, I feel I’ve discovered something about myself that I never knew: that I’m actually a rather quick worker when I try, but I tend to be one of those people who like doing things in short bursts. If I just worked that little bit longer like I did on this, I’d get so much more work done.

With those two done and only the references to stick in, I set about starting on the designs. This was the bit I was most looking forward to, as I’ve always had a small love for drawing. I used to draw regularly at high school, but it never developed into anything else. If it had, we’d be in a very different place, and I wouldn’t be writing this right now. Ooo… how paradoxical. Anyway, I once again knuckled down for a whole afternoon and drew out a ridiculous amount of thumbnail designs – and loved every second of it. I love the whole process of the design section – starting small and developing your ideas up to the bigger picture is a really satisfying feeling. I think I’ve just about arrived at my final choice for the design, but I’m going to spend a little longer tweaking and making changes because I’m an awful perfectionist. It can be a problem sometimes, but in this case if it means spending a little longer on the designing I’ll love it.

Everything is starting to fall into place now, and gone are the feelings of dread and worry. I’m even beginning to get the hang of time management, which is a personal demon of mine that I intend on banishing. The whole situation has just turned over a new leaf inside me – the feeling of determination.

"Welcome to HND sucker"

2006-09-13T23:48:00.000+01:00

That quote in the title wasn't actually said, but if my HND class today was a super-cool movie, that's what would have been said to sum up the situation. In fact, I'd be so bold as to say that if the assignment brief was published in Swahili it wouldn't have been any harder to understand than when it was written in (Plain, thanks Steve!) English.

I've always been used to having very specific criteria to meet, and each one being clearly defined so you understand fully what you have to be doing. That seems to be the exact idea that HND is trying to kick out of me, which for my first assignment is obviously quite a big shock. It did get a lot of explaining though, thanks to Steve's afternoon lectures, so I now feel in a better situation to approach it.

The only other thing that is bugging me right now is researching. Again, the emphasis is on doing a LOT of research, which is another thing I'm not used to. Yes I should be, coming straight off the back of 3 A Levels, but anyone saying A Levels are too easy wouldn't be too far from the truth.

Nevertheless, I'm ready for the challange and I'm going to go at it with all guns pointing forwards. And blazing. Naturally.

“Where I’ve come from, where I am now and where I’m going”

2006-09-12T15:35:00.000+01:00

Regarding the "where I have come from" question, my educational background has always been one of the strictly academic side (some know it as “the dark side”). Having studied A Levels for two years in Sociology, English Language, and ICT (A, B, C grades achieved respectively) I had become tired of the constant examinations and purely classroom, non-hands on work and desperately required a change. I had always been interested in website design and everything that surrounds it, which lead me to pick this specific course. Which leads me nicely on to where I am now.

For about a year now I have been gaining knowledge about website design and the technologies that surrounds it. I have dipped in and out of designing websites for even longer, my first ever website that I created was for my local American football team which at the time required a website. The first time around, I created the website using strictly the design side of Dreamweaver, but after a while I noticed the limitations and set about hand-coding the website, leading to a full redesign in the process. Since then I have moved back away from hand-coding and have been focusing more on the design side of website creation. Even more recently so I have been acquainting myself with the “blog” software Wordpress and have made my first step (I use the word step rather than steps because it hasn’t been a very significant one) into PHP. I am now studying PHP further as I believe it is – from my experience – the best way to make a website and keep it updated without having to mess about with the code. I have also taught myself how to use other website design software such as: Adobe Photoshop, Flash, and Frontpage. Although not strictly website design related, I have also been building my skills in the video games journalism industry, and I currently write for a couple of websites whilst also performing freelance writing. All this has given me experience in working with clients professionally, and moderate skills in most aspects of website creation.

I intend to continue building my skills up in these two areas – interactive media and freelance journalism – to hopefully gain a job as a freelance website designer with exceptional copywriting skills to go with it. I believe this will make me a more attractive offer to many an employer, so I would like to advance both skills to as far as my body and mind will let me. Learning many skills also allows me to have more to “fall back on” so to speak if something goes wrong. This is where I would like to think I am going.

To get where I want to go, I believe it is important to complete the HND course I am currently doing in website design, but not only because this will advance my skills in website design, but also provide me with other essential more broad skills such as how to effectively work as a team, how to work with clients professionally and other skills which are equally important for me to become an attractive offer to employers. After my HND, I intend to top it up to a full degree at a university to further advance my options of employment and continue to make me an attractive offer to employers. More importantly though, to get where I want to go I need to grab every opportunity to better myself with both hands – and continue to work at as a high of a standard as possible in every single task I perform.