Wednesday, December 12, 2007

M5 Coke bottle feedback

For my A12 assignment I have come up with 3 designs for the M5 Coke bottle product. I would like some feedback on which idea I should make my final product.

Arrows This design originally started as a oil pastel drawing on red paper. I have modified the shape of the canvas to fit the bottle, and made the arrows different weights to promote a feeling of moving.

Party On

This idea initially started as a scrape of ink on a page. I thought that this looked like a little person, and then developed it into a party scene.

Hand Print

This started with my painting my hand red, adding blue stripes down the centre of my fingers and then printing it onto a page.

Please give comments on which design you think is most appropriate for the M5 coke bottle. Cheers in advance.

Reflection of the last half semester

The past half semester has been a mix of diverse creativity on a Wednesday, and continual frustration on a Thursday. I have found the Culture Vulture assignment tough to concentrate on because of the pressure coming from the team project, as we have recently had an influx of content to sort out, which should really have been delivered earlier.

As my role in the team has developed into a design/PA position, I have had a lot of administration work to do. Recently I have been sorting out a final checklist for the folder, which will be used this week to make sure that we each present the correct work for each of the learning outcomes.

In the Culture Vulture assignment I experimented with a range of different materials, but found it difficult to continually come up with new ideas. I would have liked to have had more work which would have possibly given me greater choice over the final design, but having to juggle this with an increasingly heavy workload in the team assignment has not been easy.

I feel very annoyed that the grades for our team in both assignments could be jeopardised through no fault of our own. I also think that the project itself has been hard because we are effectively working as an intermediary between our client and the college system. My target of getting 4 merits in the second year could be in jeopardy, and will put me under pressure to gain these results in the last assignments of the year.

I am looking forward to some elements of the next semester, such as creating the portfolio page. For this I think I will create a corporate identity, and also creating a profile page which will use the Textpattern content management system. I have explored using this system in my own time over the past half semester, firstly by creating a personal blog, and secondly by redoing my Shark Racing website with the system. I have found it easy to use once I had got my head around it, and should be an efficient way of keeping my profile page up to date. If I do end up not having a job straight away, I will at least be able to show personal project on the site which will appeal to potential employers.

Having a backup plan for the possibility of not going straight into work will be something to think about. I would want to expand on my weaker skills, as well as learn new coding languages and techniques which will hopefully make me more employable.

The project I am least looking forward to is the User Interface assignment, which will use Flash. It is well documented on Das Forum that I am not a Flash fan – it’s just not the program for me. I’ve never found Macromedia programs easy to use, and Flash is one of the most complex ones. I will be hoping to find a way in which I can keep the assignment relevant to other skills I want to develop, such as accessibility and product demonstrations.

In my sessions on Monday with John we have been looking at jobs, CVs and other employment angles. I am feeling more and more confident of being able to apply for job once the course is finished. I will want to put a lot of work into the portfolio and CV as these are the most important elements when looking for job, as ex-students have told us. Tailoring both to the employer target audience will be a vital exercise in the next semester.

Over the next week I will be completing the On the Job and Culture Vulture assignments, which still have loose ends to tie up. The priority for tomorrow will be to get our site packaged up for the college web administrator, and get our feedback form off our client, which will not be easy if the last semester is anything to go by.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

BTEC and Skillset standards comparison

Skillset: http://www.skillset.org/uploads/pdf/asset_11296.pdf?1
BTEC:
http://www.edexcel.org.uk/VirtualContent/72130/BH015809_HNCD_Interactive_Media_L5_specification.pdf

BTEC and Skillset both aim to provide a set of specifications which outline the requirements needed to become proficient in interactive media. BTEC is constructed by academic individuals, with the aim to provide students with an education over a two year course. Skillset has a much different aim, which is to provide a
set of skills which people should have to be employed in the interactive media industry.

Both BTEC and Skillset understand the need for skills such as time planning, organisation and self managed learning. This is the first unit of Skillset, and unit 29 of the BTEC syllabus. I think these skills are very important for people in the interactive industry, and both specifications realise this.

However, the Skillset unit contains far more elements in its specification, while the BTEC syllabus separates out many of the skills over a number of units. I feel that the Skillset specifications are designed for a much longer timescale, where as the BTEC skills are arranged to be taught over a two year course. Due to these time limitations, the BTEC specifications cannot contain the same amount of detail as the Skillset specifications.

This could create problems when applying for jobs, as potential employers may want to see a larger range of organisational skills which may not be applicable to a two year course. This can include learning over long periods of time, as many projects in a real job could last over the amount of time the longest unit on the BTEC course.

I feel the BTEC course tries to balance traditional academic study with industry professional practice. This could be acceptable, but as the syllabus has not been updated for a considerable amount of time it has quickly become outdated. In an industry which changes frequently, this can become damaging to the relevance of the syllabus.


This can be seen most clearly with the ‘New technologies in Interactive media’ (unit 22) part of the course, which does not contain any CSS as part of its specification. However, the tutor’s interpretation of this did allow us to create a CSS project as part of the A8 assignment, which is more in line with the specifications outlined in Skillset (IM19). This shows how out of date the syllabus is, as CSS is now widely used but does not appear explicitly as part of the course.

The arrangement of the Skillset specifications is also more relevant to the industry as it has been arranged into different job roles in some sections. This is useful for showing how the skills of one job are transferable from one to another. It can also highlight what new skills may have to be learnt if a career change was being planned. BTEC does not separate out its content into job roles, suggesting that it is to be learnt as a whole, rather than to be constantly referenced to highlight which skills need to be developed for career changes.

In conclusion I think that the BTEC syllabus has the correct structure to create a good grounding in 2 year for potential interactive media designers, but due to the very infrequent updates it soon becomes outdated and, in the case of some units, irrelevant. This leads to a dependence on course tutors to interpret the syllabus in a way which explores the skills outlined in the Skillset specifications. If executed correctly, this is a sound way of making the best of a bad situation.

In an ideal situation, the course syllabus would be updated regularly, with many of the Skillset recommendations taken into account. Obviously, with the syllabus being written for a two year course, not all of the specifications could fit into syllabus. If Skillset could prioritise the skills in their own specifications, then it would make organisation for both BTEC and the individual easier if they wanted to follow the industry recommendations.