What We Did on Our Holidays

After 6 weeks of writing, sketching and PageMaker-ing I finally have some time off to think about how it all went. I did enjoy doing the project, even though at times certain elements of it seemed to be against me. I think now that the first assignment is out the way, I can start to gain confidence as the up coming assignments progress. I am still anxious about what mark, if any at all, I will get for my first assignment. I’d like to say that I am cautiously optimistic, but I’d rather say nothing to stop me from looking a complete fool if I fail.

In preparation for the upcoming Photoshop based assignment, I have been familiarising myself (like I needed to familiarise myself with a program I use constantly) with the tools available in this most expansive of programs. I have been experimenting with some of the more artistic elements such as filters to modify pictures with (see below).

I have also been doing some client based work, which gave me a great insight to how the dynamics of working with a client differs from those of working independently. For this task, I was asked to design a car with a cow hide livery. I found this tutorial on the internet on how to make a cowhide pattern, and then moved the elements of what I had created onto the design template (see below).

I found the experience satisfying, yet frustrating at the same time. As the client asked that very few logos had to be put onto the design, but I thought it stopped the car from looking believable. Well, as believable as a car covered in a cow hide pattern could be.

I also had to create a logo for my client, (see below) including the name of the team written in a font they had sent me. I found that I could create the logo design almost completely on the fly, and I believe this is due to the creative elements of my Art education, and the new professional elements which I have learn on this course.
In conclusion, my half term has been a time for reflection, and a time for learning, a balance which I think will be beneficial through the next two assignments. Please feel free to ask any questions about my work on the comments page.

Panic over, Party Started

Over the past week I have been finishing off the last few bits of my first assignment. This included writing my evaluation, which I found to be a good way of collecting my thought about the progress of the assignment. I identified areas where I had done well, such as my academic writing and working with colleagues to discuss work matters, and areas where I needed to improve. These included technical aspects such as choosing screen dimensions, as well as time planning which I felt could have been better.

On Wednesday I had to print off all my work and check through to see that I had not made any silly mistakes. Printing off my colour pages was the most costly part of all my assignment, and I kept noticing mistakes with each one I had done. After several costly drafts I finally managed to get my pages up to the correct standard. There was a slight moment of panic when the colour printer in the library ran out of ink, but luckily the library staff quickly and efficiently changed the cartridge and the panic was over. I realised that this was one of the unforeseen events that Steve mentioned which I would have to have a contingency plan for.

In the afternoon on Wednesday I had finished all my work, including my merit reference page. I now only had to burn my CD and I was finished. Thankfully, Steve approved my CD label so that I could have everything except my folder label finished before the morning. After my CD had been burnt and labelled, I decided to try it in the computer I was sat at. I placed the CD into the drive and pressed the button. Once I checked that my files could be read, I again pressed to button to eject the CD. To my complete and utter horror, the CD drive did not open. I decided that I should shut down the machine and try the drive again. Thankfully, the drive did open, and I then put my CD safely into my folder before another event sent my heart rate through the roof.

Thursday morning was now upon me, and I came in early to hand my work in. I was so early that Steve was not in college yet, but the room had been opened up for us. I bound my folder with string for a second time, as I thought that with my luck the assignment would disobey the laws of physic and escape somewhere between the classroom and reception. I took my work down and handed it in, signing the sheet to confirm that I had done so.

Overall I was very pleased with the assignment that I handed in, but weather it is good enough for a pass or not, only time will tell. I would not want to make any presumptions about my work, as I do not want to look a complete fool if it is not up to scratch.

I am glad that half term is here now, as it will give me a break from the endless printing, reprinting, and wrestling with PageMaker. I am really looking forward to next half term when we start using Photoshop, and I will hopefully recuperate my energy to go into the next two assignments on full steam.

Print, reprint, repeat

This week has all been about constant adjustment. Usually more adjustment is needed in the seconds after pressing the print button.

On Wednesday morning we had a tutorial session with John about our blog entries. This gave us a chance to discuss what a blog was for and what content should be included in it.

I found this to be helpful to an extent, but I believe the time could have been better spent learning how to use some of the controls in the blogger template. As only a few members of the group have the beta account, I think that the other half find it difficult to edit parts of their page.

For next year, I think that the tutors should give a brief tutorial of the basic tools, so that students then have a comprehension of how blogger works. This would provide them with more confidence to use the features of blogger to their advantage in their self study time.

On Wednesday Afternoon I had been concentrating on getting all of my work put into PageMaker, which has again been causing problems for me. On Wednesday, PageMaker would not open my feedback file, and after a lot of unsuccessful attempts to do so I finally conceded defeat. This meant that I had to remake it from the template I had saved earlier. I am glad that I saved the template, and backing up my work is clearly something that I need to continue to do in the future.

On Thursday I continued to make progress on my project. I managed to put all my references in, a process which I was dreading, but I actually found it quite easy. I do get the feeling that you have to put a rather disproportionate amount of effort into proving that you have looked at someone else’s work, rather than putting that effort into producing high quality results. I guess this is just part and parcel of higher education, and I will just have to get use to it.

As the deadline approaches, I am feeling both confident about my work, and apprehensive. I feel that I have made a good effort, but there are so many little issues that could cause me to trip up.

Over the next week I will be organising and neatening up my sketchpad, so that it is ready to hand in on Thursday. I will also have to create my evaluation, and place it into the PageMaker template on Wednesday of next week.

I love/hate Adobe PageMaker – Delete as applicable

This week there was a strong contrast between Wednesday and Thursday. I found Wednesday excruciating, because PageMaker would not do what I wanted to. I kept having trouble with text boxes, pictures, and pretty much every other feature included in the package.

Thursday, however was a totally different experience. I started to put my work into PageMaker through the template that had been created for us. This did work very well, as opposed to Wednesday where I left college in a state of rage, which I stayed in for several hours after. Only a soothing session of Photoshop in the evening could bring me back down to earth, and make Thursday a day to look forward to.

I managed to get all the required work done for Thursday’s feedback meeting, including a total rework of my digital screen designs. I was surprised at how well PageMaker could work if it was done correctly. It definitely has a one track route of doing certain tasks, but once I became familiar with these then I could exploit its features to my advantage.

Thursday’s feedback went well, where we criticised each others work. I made many criticisms of Chris’s lack of dimensions on his screen designs, only for him to pick up on my lack of the same features on my own. We all managed to get enough time to look at each others work, and thankfully everyone is moving in the right direction.

This week has been a contrast of emotions; from anger and frustration, to satisfaction and pride in my own work. I believe that I should be able to move forward and tie up all the loose ends in my project, such as referencing my sources and making adjustments to my screen designs.

I think I need to plan out all the pieces which need finishing off so that I can print a draft of my finished assignment for next weeks feedback session. Next week will be all about editing, re-editing, and editing again. My printer credit will surely take a hammering next Wednesday and Thursday.

Give me back my Amiga 500+

At the start of this week we learnt how to use Adobe PageMaker, a rather basic but useful page editing software. I found this to be rather easy, as many of the controls were similar to the ones found in Adobe Photoshop. I found it reassuring that the Adobe packages all contain the same basic controls, so I am fairly confident that I will be able to use the other packages on the course to a high standard.

PageMaker reminded me of Pagesetter, a word processing program for the Amiga. It reminded me of how software has evolved from the days of 2mb of RAM and entire programs contained on a floppy disk.

During self study this week I found it easier to produce creative work on my own than essay work. I think this is because I spent a lot of time on my Art A-level trying out different designs, and doing practical things like making working prototypes of the work I would later create on a larger scale. However, I think that this course requires more planning on the technical side, and this is where I need to improve. I think that this will develop itself, once I have use certain packages and found out what limitations I have to work to.

At the end of the week, I built a PC which I will use for self study for the course. I chose components that would be able to handle large amounts of programs simultaneously, as packages such as Photoshop and Dreamweaver can be very resource heavy, as can running multiple browsers at once. The key components I chose were an Intel E6400 Core 2 Duo CPU, 2GB of GeIL 6400mhz DDR2 RAM and a Gainwald 7900 GS 512mb graphics card.

The dual core processor will allow my computer to run multiple programs at once, such a Dreamweaver and Photoshop. The 2gb of RAM will allow Photoshop to have large amounts of swap file access, which will speed up image processing, and the graphics card will give excellent picture quality through my 21” Dell monitor. I believe that this will make my self study over the next few weeks substantially more enjoyable!