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.

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.

CD Selection tracklist

Below is the track listing for my inspirational music CD.

1. Accordion Song (Accidental Saturday Night Kitchen Mix) - Red - Eliza Carthy

2. Sexual Harassment In The Workplace - Guitar - Frank Zappa

3. String Quartet: Assez vif. Tres rythme - Ravel: String Quartet in F, Introduction and Allegro - Maurice Ravel

4. Charlie Big Potato - Post Orgasmic Chill - Skunk Anansie

5. Maid On The Shore - Rough Music - Eliza Carthy

6. Comin' On - Buddy Guy & Friends - Buddy Guy

7. How Long Will You Stick Around? - Tales - Mouse

8. Come All Ye - Liege and Lief - Fairport Convention

9. Journey To The End Of The East Bay - And out come the wolves - Rancid

10. How Does Your Garden Grow? - Front Parlour Ballads - Richard Thompson

11. Face to Face - Discovery - Daft Punk

12. Blackbird - Rolling - Martha Tilston

13. Highway Jones - Brother - Cry of Love

14. Jack Frost - Holy Heathens And The Old Green Man - Waterson Carthy

The best colour combination: Black & White

Black and white: the most elegant, powerful and engaging colour combination. Black and white come from each end of the colour spectrum, and therefore has maximum contrast. This can be used to draw the viewer’s attention, giving your piece of work full authority on the page. Below we see the Apple logo, in essence just a collection of simple shapes, in practise, a strong, resounding and instantly recognisable black and white logo.

Black and white can also give elegance; smart and uncompromising, it can instantly set a sophisticated and fashionable tone. Some colour combinations drift in and out of fashion. Not black and white. It’s always there, it’s always being used and gives brands a timeless basis on which to establish themselves. Below, the Hugo Boss logo exudes connotations of class, quality and power when combined with a strong, well balanced typographical logo.

Black and white is understood in every culture, can be clearly seen by everyone, and is simple to use effectively. It can represent confidence, power, quality and class without losing its effectiveness in different types of media. It is simply beauty from simplicity. Choose black and white as the colour combination of the sophisticated interactive media designer.

Presentation, Pie, and the Sculpture Park

The day of the presentations had arrived, after a 2 weeks of holiday and self study. I did not feel awfully well this morning, but soldiered on regardless. I felt less nervous about this presentation, and I feel that as I do more my confidence grows.

This confidence came from having reliable research which I gained from getting the The Stratocaster Chronicles: Celebrating 50 Years of the Fender Strat book, which contained a lot of detail about how the Strat became so popular. I focused on how the product itself became an icon through its design, and I’ve now become aware about how much the small details count – something which I hope to emulate on the course.

My presentation was pretty well timed – I went with the principle of making 1 slide for every 30 seconds, plus a start and end slide which would only be on screen for a couple of seconds. I think I covered all the bases, as I talked about how the Stratocaster has affected our culture, as well as foreign cultures and what features set it apart from the competition.

In the afternoon we went on a trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. It is one of my favourite places to visit, not only because they sell Samuel Smiths and Ossett Brewery’s finest ales, but because of the rich natural environment.

After a lovely steak and potato pie (made with Ossett Brewery’s Treacle Stout) Chris T and I wandered around the park looking at the exhibits and taking many pictures of anything which caught our eyes. I found that at this time of year there were many beautiful colours in the trees, and many textures on the bark. I’m hoping that these will come in useful when putting together creative work for the new assignment, and I will continue to use photography as part of the process. Some pictures from today are posted below.
For my creative process for this assignment I am going to use many other different types of media, including collage materials, paints, pastels (oil and chalk) as well as pencils and paper. This should give me plenty of ideas to work from, but I am expecting that turning my creative work into a commercial product will be very tough. I would think that the reverse creative process may be a good way to work with artistic clients, as they could produce documents such as ideas boards which could then be converted into a final product.

After returning from our trip out, we were told our grades for the CSS Beauty assignment. I have received a merit for this assignment, which means I have already filled half my quota for my goal of getting 4 merits in this final year. Apparently I just missed out on a distinction which is a bit disappointing, but I was only aiming for a merit anyway. I think having the dreaded man flu the day before hand in may have had an effect, but that’s life. My official assignment feedback will be next week, which I am looking forward to.

I recently purchased a book called Fingerprint: The art of using handmade elements in graphic design. This book has shown me that you can combine graphic design with traditional print techniques. OpenType fonts look very interesting, as you can randomise characters within a font library to generate hand written looking type.

I have also purchased Caffine for the Creative Mind which I am hoping will give me some ideas on how to get my creative juices flowing for this assignment. It is yet to arrive, but the synopsis looks promising.

Inspirational CD choices

Choice 1: Sexual Harassment in the Workplace – Frank Zappa - Guitar

This is one of the very few pieces of Frank Zappa’s music which I have been able to find which I could stand to listen to. Frank Zappa was a very experimental musician, who usually blended orchestral scores with stand up comedy – a very odd mix by anyone’s standards.

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace however is much more simple. It is a 12 bar blues song with Zappa sensitively playing his guitar in his typical quick fingered manor. I find this inspirational because you can hear from the recording (which is at a live gig) that the volume is incredibly loud, yet Zappa manages to play so delicately and with so much feel.

Choice 2: Ravel: String Quartet in F – Assez vif. Tres rhytme - Debussy / Ravel string Quartets

Maurice Ravel was part of the impressionist movement in classical music at the turn of the last centaury. This basically means the music was about setting an atmosphere, and this piece of music contains a lot of this.

Although I’ve not heard a large amount of classical music, I do like the smaller groups of instruments, such as a string quartet. What I like about this type of music is the images it paints in my head, as you think of all sorts of settings and colours. I often find that this can help the creative process when I am thinking of ideas.

This piece of music has many different tempos, and constantly changes its depth as different instruments come into and go out of the composition. There is a strong feeling of movement as the stringed instruments swoop in and out, constantly giving quite an intimidating edge to the music.

Choice 3: How Long Will You Stick Around? - Mouse - Tales

Mouse were a duet consisting of Martha Tilston and Nick Marshall who had an acclaimed reputation on the folk scene a few years back. Martha Tilston would go on to become a solo artist, with an even stronger reputation than she did when performing in Mouse.

After being turned down by several record labels, she decided to set up her own label. She raised the funds by auctioning paintings which would be used on her first album cover, which I think is highly commendable and very industrious.

This song is very delicate, with Marshall’s guitar and Tilston’s voice being the only two elements in the song – but nothing else is needed. This song always reminds me of summer, and the rich, natural colours associated with it.

The first half-semester review

The past seven weeks seem to have flown by, and we’re now half way through the first semester. There was a definite change in the feel of the group compared to last year, probably because there were less people around than before.

I found that the first week was probably the hardest so far on the course, as there was a lot to take in with the new assignments. The pitch for one of the team project clients was a struggle to put together, as our team didn’t really know how to approach pitching for such generic briefs. We persevered, however, and managed to get the in college project to design a website for the athlete development program.

The team project seems to have been like swimming through treacle right from the start, as we have top juggle the needs of our client with what can be done with the college system. I guess this is what a lot of projects in the industry are like, as some clients have specific requirements which need to be carried out in specific ways.

The perseverance and endurance needed to do a project is one of the things I’ve learnt most while doing it, and keeping momentum in the project can only be done by doing hard work. As designer/PA I’ve also had to look after the documents which the team produce, which I have enjoyed quite a lot.

Doing the minutes has been something which I have got use to doing, and some weeks there can be as many as 3 or 4 meetings to do minutes for. This is quite a monotonous task, and the only way to do it is to get on with it straight away. Again, taking the rough with the smooth is all part of working in the industry, and I think I have learnt this during the team project.

The CSS beauty project was an interesting project, and has filled a lot of the gaps in my knowledge of CSS. I now understand how things like selectors work, where as before I was just using them without knowing what they did.

I did find that the ideas generation was quite a hard part for this project, as I didn’t find any of the themes particularly exciting. To combat this, I used spider diagrams to outline what ideas I had for each, and then selected the one which I had the most ideas for. I will use this process again if I am stuck for ideas, as it helped me to find an appropriate theme to generate my site with.

In some ways I still feel that I am bumbling my way through with the CSS. I can create a site, fix a lot of the problems in it, and test it in a lot of browsers. The thing is, I don’t always understand why the changes I have made have worked. The question is, do I really need to? Or should I just be content with the fact that it is working? I’m not really sure just yet.

The PDP part of the iMe assignment has been a nice change to do on Wednesday afternoons. I’ve found the prospect of thinking about applying for jobs and going for interviews quite horrifying, as I don’t feel anywhere near ready to do that just yet. I don’t think my answers to the interview questions have been wonderful either, especially after ‘the passive debacle’ in my previous post.

I’m not even sure what the ‘describe yourself in 3 words’ question is all about, what does it matter what I think of myself? Surely it should be what they think of me and my abilities, as they are the ones who are going to be handing over the cash.

I think my answers have been far too wooden. I think that talking to a person would generate a different set of answers as you can get some kind of reaction or feedback to what answers you are giving. I don’t even think a faux interview would change that, as it would still feel forced, and nothing would be riding on giving the right answers. I think I’ll just have to sort in my own mind answers to potential interview questions.

Over the next half semester I will be looking forward to completing the team project, as well as doing the Culture Vulture assignment. For this assignment, I will be looking to do a large range of experiments with a variety of media, including collages, photography, drawing and other methods. I think this approach should give me plenty of options for the production of whatever product is revealed in the assignment.

Interview questions: Part 2

Describe yourself in 3 words.

Calculated, observant, passive.

How would you describe the effectiveness of your interactive media products?

To test the effectiveness of my products I would conduct a survey with a sample of the target audience, as well as record statistics for a website if this was applicable. The questions would be based around the goals of the project, which would be stipulated in the initial processes. This would include a selection of measurable and subjective goals, which would be evaluated after the survey had been completed. Amendments would then be planned, if needed, to suit the target audience better if any issues arose from the survey.

How do you handle criticism?

Initially, I accept that this criticism is only offered to help me find the right solution for the project. I will defend the decision which I have made when I am challenged on it, as this can show the reasoning behind the decision that I have made. If I know in myself that I have made an error of judgement, I will accept it and then focus on finding and applying a solution. Being caught up in the disappointment of having to alter something serves no purpose, and is only a waste of time. Getting on with the task in hand and finding a new solution must be the priority rather than ‘crying over spilt milk’.

Describe a difficult problem and how you solved it.

When creating my second website for the course I had to learn how to use CSS and XHTML. As I had only produced one site using tables and cells, I found that this was a very daunting prospect. I outlined a plan which involved looking through online tutorials and books to find the resources I needed to make the site. I also planned a set of mini goals so that I could focus on different areas of the site, such as the navigation and preparation of images.

As I started to put the site together I kept a record of how the code had changed for future reference. By the end of the project, I had learnt a solid base of CSS knowledge, much of which I had learn myself. My strategy of planning and my persistence to get the site working were just a couple of essential soft skills which I learnt. I gained a very good grade for the assignment, and produced a classy site which cemented my basic CSS knowledge.

Describe how you fit into a team.

In a team situation, I take my responsibilities very seriously. I believe that being reliable is the most essential part of working in a team, as a project can fail if there are any team members who do not pull their weight. In a team I like to be involved with the heart of the project, as I believe that I can constantly analyse the changing situation. I know that getting on with colleagues is crucial as it removes any awkwardness when it comes to criticising each others work. Colleagues who cannot accept criticism frustrates me greatly, but I have an ability to remain passive and unflustered whatever the situation.

Do you have any questions?

What support do you offer in terms of additional training for staff members?

What is your policy on overtime?

How would you describe the working environment in the company?

Where do you see the company in 5 years time?

What team bonding activities do you have at this company?

Job prospects review

For the first question, I thought that talking about issues such as accessibility would be a good direction to go in, and that I had some business awareness. I think that my answer was a bit vague, and I should have directed it firmly at the company I was applying to. Having only a few minutes to find a vacancy, this was not a possibility in this situation, but when applying for real I think that looking at the work the company has done and doing research into them is needed before going to the interview. This would help me construct more direct and relevant answers.

I said that my greatest strength was applying an appropriate strategy to suit each client. I think this answer was correct, but I believe I should have looked at it from a more creative point of view. I should have focused on my ideas generation techniques from the start of the answer, and not at the end. An ‘appropriate strategy’ sounds too formal, and would not suit the target audience of a creative director at a company.

For my greatest weakness, I talked about my limited technical knowledge. However, I put a positive spin on things by saying that I constantly look to build on my abilities and am willing to try new techniques. I believe this was the correct way to approach this, as it shows that I want to improve and that I can identify that this is an area which needs some work.

The ‘5 years from now’ was by far the hardest question to answer. Again, I identified that my skills would change considerably over the next 5 years, and that I would like to be managing other people to complete project. However I did not mention this company in particular, and this lack of loyalty would probably be a big negative for the employer. Next time I think that I should again focus this more on the company that I am applying for rather than generalising. I should have said that strong working relationships both with clients and colleagues at work was essential for being productive, and that jumping from one company to another would not be in the interests of my own personal development.

For the current innovation part, I said that video was something which excited my about the future. I believe this answer showed that I had a good knowledge of the future of the internet, where video will become more and more commonplace as bandwidth increases. I also mentioned that accessibility was also an important part of the future, and that the two combined created many challenges. I think for this answer I should have talked more about what clients needs would be for this, as working at this company would mean creating products for clients on a daily basis.

For the hero question I chose to a mature answer to this by naming Richard Thompson as my idol. I think that choosing someone from the industry such as Jakob Neilsen would have sounded very predictable and could have raised a few eyebrows as to if I was just saying what wanted to be heard, rather than what I actually thought. I tried to link the career of my idol with what I wanted my own to be, in general terms. I think this answer was ‘right’ because it shows that I have interests other than design, and having an interesting personality can help when working with colleagues.

Job Prospects

http://www.graduatesyorkshire.co.uk/job/32285/vacancy/?_ts=25186

Employer: Magnitude Ltd

Job Details (from source) - “Junior to mid-level web designer with good understanding of HTML, CSS and web accessibility, and basic Flash skills - to work on exciting accounts including global, consumer brands.”

Degree: Digital / creative qualification.

Location: Harrogate, North Yorkshire

Salary: £15,000 p.a.

Why do you want this job?

I would like to take up this position because I have an enthusiastic interest in creating high quality, accessible websites. I understand that all users have the right to be able to access the web, irrespective of if they have an old computer system, a slow connection or a disability. I also have a good understanding of marketing and business strategy, and have helped clients to create interactive media projects which can promote their products.

My own working practices revolve around planning and preparation. I believe that this greatly boosts confidence with both clients and colleagues. I feel that with this job position I could accommodate several different projects at once, which the modern interactive media environment demands.

What is your greatest strength?

My greatest strength is my ability to find an appropriate strategy to create a product which shows the clients products or services at their best. This comes from analysing what the target audience for the product demands. When this is combined with my more artistic abilities, strong and suitable designs are easy for me to create. The strategies which I use to find suitable designs use a range of skills, including sketches, photography and collecting other pieces of design. This has proven to be effective, as I can compare my work to that of an industry professional and constantly evaluate, adapt and improve the quality of my own work.

What is your greatest weakness?

I feel that my greatest weakness is that I limit my designs to the technical skills which I know and am comfortable with. I think that over time this will improve as my technical knowledge becomes greater, which will only come from trying out new techniques either in the workplace, or outside of work in my own time. I do find it frustrating that I do not yet have this technical knowledge, and this gives me more drive to overcome this. To do this, I employ a strategy of doing small tasks to try out new techniques to improve the palette of skills and build on my technical abilities.

Where will you be 5 years from now?

In 5 years I hope to be in a position where I am doing both print and web design, as I enjoy both of these areas. I would also like to be in a position where I am managing others to complete projects, as my ability to plan and prepare will be of great use to an interactive media team. With my evaluative abilities, I think that I would be good judge of other peoples working strategies and design ideas.

By this time, I will have learnt a lot of new technical skills which will have vastly improved the quality of my work. This will be achieved by on the job experience and by undertaking exercises as mentioned previously. As the industry will change greatly over this time, I know that my skills will have to change considerably, and over the next 5 years I will be looking to invest my own skills from tackling the challenges of the future.

What current innovation excites you most?

I am currently very excited about the use of video on the internet. I believe that as internet connections get faster more and more people will want to have video media on their website. This is a totally different type of media in comparison to a static or flash page, and provides challenges in regards to accessibility. Implementing this technology into websites will change vastly over the next 5 years, and the design of video is a challenge which I have already started to experiment with in my own time with a lot of success.

Who is your hero and why?

My hero is the guitarist Richard Thompson. He has constantly been an innovator throughout his career, and has both amazing technical skill as well as a vast imagination. I would hope that in my own career I could be as innovative and have the such an endless well of creativity.

Design Mechanics visit

I learnt to design for the client, not yourself. CVs sent to prospective employers should be followed up with a phone call, as this shows enthusiasm. Dave Pannell believed the portfolio should include commercial pieces of work. Web and print pieces are needed to show a range of abilities.

Technical skills form part of the requirements, and a willingness to learn. Finding information clients helps create designs which they like. Getting them to commit to work reduces the chances of a redesign later. Print and web design are valued equally in the industry.

Back on track

After being back at college after what felt like a 5 minute break over the summer, the course continues at an unabated pace. I found that the first week was the most difficult, as there were new and confusing assignments, and a lot of anxiety over the summer assignment. As we had not been in contact with each other all that much, it was always hard to know if you were on track with the tasks which needed to be completed.

As I had volunteered to come in with the Craigs and talk to the first years, I had to start doing some work before we returned to college. I had to collate the information each of us wanted to put onto each slide, and assemble a simple template to put the content in to. I realised that all we had to put together were the things we wish we had done at the start of the first year. We even produced a handout with lots of useful links, as well as our email addresses if they wanted to get in contact with us.

The actual presentation itself went really well, and I was surprised at the amount of questions the first year students have to ask. I think I should do more of these types of events if the opportunity arises.

In the first week we looked at some of the basic CSS functions. I found this rather hard to understand what they meant without seeing them in action. I have always known that I need to see how things work and experiment with them before I can feel comfortable with using them. As the weeks have progressed I have got back into using the CSS, even after doing the summer assignment.

The team project has already thrown up a lot of challenges. The assigning of roles was very hard, especially in our team where there are 3 very capable people. I did think seriously about becoming the Project Manager, but we decided that Scott had the experience to make the most of this position in the team. I then became the designer, and Chris was best suited out of us to become the developer.

As there were 2 clients and 3 teams, we had to pitch to Steve so that he could decide which teams got these projects. This meant a presentation had to be constructed, and as designer a lot of this was down to me. I spent most of my self study time creating the presentation, which was a lot of work to do in the first week. Our team did manage to get it finished, and did earn us one of the projects. This was to create a site for the College’s sports team.

As part of this year’s ‘goals’ I have to provide some a course related article, as well as a tutorial. I can easily accommodate for both of these, by providing a link to the Boagworld podcast, available at http://www.boagworld.com/ . This podcast provides a wealth of information, and literally everything which we do on the course is mention somewhere on the 90+ episodes of the podcast. I would recommend looking at this in itunes, as you can see a description of what is in each show, and then you can download ones which are appropriate to whatever we are covering at the time. I believe that the episode 91 edition may prove helpful in the future, as it has a section on ‘Dealing with the clients from hell’ which will probably happen to all of us one of these days.

On the show there have been some really eye opening sections, such as show 86 where a recording of a screen reader is played. This exposes how difficult it is on a lot of sites for people with impaired vision, and sounds totally unfathomable. I believe that designing to suit the needs of others should be incorporated into the design process, which will be happening in our team project this year.

All in all I feel that this year has got off to a reasonable start, and I now feel a lot more organised and capable of sitting down in self study time and doing more work. The summer assignment helped alot with this, as I only had myself to rely on to get the work completed to a good standard. Hopefully when I do my next evaluative blog, I will have finished the Box Clever assignment.

Soft Skills

Personal Development Planning
This is a skill which I have been using over the last year of the course. On several occasions I identified that certain parts needed improvement (e.g. time planning, sketchpad work). I then formed an action plan on how to improve these skills, and then evaluated my progress at the end of the allotted time. In the industry, this is an essential skill, as I may have to learn new languages or new techniques to improve my skills. Now that I know how to form a suitable plan and set goals, I am capable of doing this comfortably.

Attending Lectures
I have always made an issue of being punctual and on time for lectures and tutorials. I find that this gives a good impression, and allows you some time to prepare to take notes and get in the correct frame of mind for learning. This will be important when I get a job, as there will be many meetings with clients or other members of staff who may have to rely on me being there on time and being prepared.

Lectures
In lectures I have developed my listening skills, and have taken more notes than I did before coming onto the course. I also highlight important parts which I know I will have to refer to later, for example references for essays which I may note down. This preparation will be useful in the design industry, as meeting with clients will mean that I would have to record many specific facts, and not recording them could cause problems. This is something I always try to avoid, as it gives an unprofessional impression.

Oral Presentations
This is one area which I have found hard to do on the course. I usually find myself feeling nervous before hand, even when I know there is nothing to get nervous about. I believe that I have improved my skills in this area, and this is down to me being more prepared before hand. I find that this gives me an extra confidence boost, and now I must concentrate on improving my verbal delivery. Again, this skill will be helpful when presenting ideas to potential clients, as well as being able to do the end of year presentation.

Write Essays
As I have an academic history of writing essays, I found that this was one of the easier parts of the course for me. I have improved how I plan out these essays now, which has made them even easier. This usually involves using a bullet pointed list to set out what points I need to make, and linking them to the references which I collect during research. This ability to plan ahead and bring a project together will be valuable to potential employers, as this is a progressive and professional way to put together large tasks.

Maths & Statistics
On the course I have used maths and statistics to analyse which browsers are most used, as well as putting data into bar charts and pie charts to illustrate certain points. This ability to analyse will help with my own development, as well as when finding out information which will be used in a project.

Observations
During my time at college I have collected and analysed many pieces of both web and print design. These observations have vastly improved my ability to design, and I feel that I have gained a greater attention to detail. This is an essential skill to have to be able to do professional work, as small mistakes can detract from the quality of the finished product. Observations of other peoples work has also allowed me to offer feedback, and this is a skill which will help in a team situation to produce a quality product.

Research
This is an area I feel I have improved on the course. I use many more resources than I have used in the past, and I find that this actually makes it easier to put the projects together. This is because I can pick the best elements and bring them together to make a good finished result. In the design industry, this will help me to make the most appropriate product for the target audience, and therefore best creative solution.

Exams & Revision
As I have done many exams in the past I know the pressure that comes with them, and the preparation needed to do well in them. This has taught me to prepare in advance and to get a lot of practice in, as on the day you need the confidence that you know what you have to do in the exam. On the course the learning outcomes are essential to getting a good grade. In the industry, I will have to deal with this kind of pressure on a regular basis, as deadlines are much shorter, and projects are much bigger.

The Future
For the future, I feel that I need to work on my presentations skills. In terms of preparation I think I do well, and in terms of ordering information on the slides. However, when I am actually stood there I usually become nervous, and this will only improve with more practice. This is why I volunteered to talk to the first years earlier this year, and I found that I coped better with the anxiety better than I have done in the past.

Development plan for the short term

Over the next 6 months of the course I hope to start to make progress at becoming a more rounded, more professional person. To do this I will be required to make changes to how I work outside of college, as this has been an area which I have struggled with so far on the course.
Firstly, I will want to get into a better working routine, as this will be an important skill to learn for the future.

This will include having more self discipline, so going to bed early and getting up earlier on a regular basis is something I will be implementing over the next few months. Secondly, I will continue to improve my time planning, and have already designed a new system of planning and recording my time over the summer. This includes colour coding the time which I am in college, doing self study, and also my free time so that I can create a better balance between all 3.

I will also be creating a checklist of the tasks needed to complete the assignments, so that I can constantly keep perspective on what has to be finished when. This will include building up my folder right form the start of the assignment, as I can feel more confidence from seeing the project take shape.

Finally I will be making more effort to find a larger range of sources when it comes to the written parts of the course. I have found that collecting more resources can actually make writing the essays easier, as I can take the best elements and focus on them to maximise my understanding of the various topics covered.

Over the next 6 months I want to be well on my way to reaching my goal of having 4 merits for this year. As I now have a greater understanding of the criteria required to do this, I can again focus my efforts on providing evidence to reach these important levels. After feedback from the A7 assignment last year, I feel that I should improve the depth at which I experiment when doing ideas generation for the assignments. To aid this, I will be using a Flickr account to upload photographs to. This will provide a place to collect images I could use in my projects, which will hopefully improve my inspiration. This will be used in conjunction with the more general improvements I will be implementing.

Over the medium term (3 years) I have 2 ideas in mind. In one instance, I could do a third year so that I can obtain a degree. This may prove to be better in the long term if I decide at a later stage in my career that I want to go into teaching. I find helping people to improve their skills is a very satisfying task, and something which I have done with various projects in the past.

Alternatively, I could finish the second year of the course and get a job as a web and print designer. I would ideally like to do both, as I find print exhilarating, and web design a satisfying challenge to master. Currently, I do not know which route I will take, as I will want to see how the second year of the course develops, and how my skills improve with the changes I am putting in place to help me work.

Self Study Stunner

For a substantial amount of time I’ve been yapping on about how important the summer will be for undertaking some self study. As there is a generous 3 and a half months off college, it is simply too big an opportunity to miss doing some interesting new projects, without feeling under the cosh of impending deadlines.

Since college ended a couple of weeks ago, I have been doing some projects to try and keep my skills sharp, while adding some new abilities to my web designing toolbox. After the last website I made for the A7 assignment, I have wanted to gain more experience with CSS, as I could see its potential.

My chosen project was to create a website for my online racing team (geeky, I know) which would use some of the techniques I didn’t have chance to use on my Ambient World website. I initially started with a few basic sketches (which I have tried to do a bit neater!), just so I could get my head around what pieces of the site needed to be where.

To be totally honest, I didn’t do all that much designing. I wanted to find out how I would cope with designing “on the fly”, much like the ex-students do in their real jobs. My initial roughs can be seen above.

My design consisted of a header, horizontal navigation, and 2 columns – one for the content, and one for any links that were relevant to the content of each page. I knew from the start I would be using the ‘faux columns’ method, as this is a technique which I did not get chance to use on my Ambient World site.

Faux columns are basically a horizontal background image split into blocks for your columns, and then it is tiled vertically down the page. It still amazes me how Heath-Robinson this technique is, and how it is the only effective way to do column designs easily.

Once my background was in place, setting up my divs was fairly straight forward, as I could use similar code to what I had used in my Ambient World site. This time however, I decided to float them rather than use absolute positioning. This method is supposed to be better, and it worked a treat once all of the sizes had been set up correctly.

For my navigation, I looked for a tutorial, and found out that this was also very similar to my Ambient World website. This time however, I found that showing the active page could be done in a more streamlined way, as the ID part of the CSS could just be called active, and could be added via the class=”active” command of the button which would be highlighted.
For my text I had decided to use classes, as styling text in the divs would override the h1 and h2 tag’s size attribute. This worked well, and I used Arial for a simple, clean and uncluttered look.

As I wanted a news page for my website, I needed to search for a simple method where I could add news to the page without having to mess about uploading pages. My research lead me to a program called CuteNews. This uses PHP to draw information from a file on the server, and place it into your webpage. I had to install this feature into a folder in my hosting, and then put a reference to it in my HTML. This was easily achieved, and adding news was simple. However, this was not styled into the correct texts, so I had to add some HTML to the templates which the software provided. After a little bit of playing about, I managed to get my text to style in the correct way, and it now matched the styling of the rest of the website.
Now that all the structural elements were in place, it was just a case of putting content and pictures into my website. For the ‘Teams’ page I put a faded border onto the pictures, which was the same colour as the column. This subtle effect makes the images blend into the page, creating a more cohesive, and in my opinion, more attractive look. For the gallery, I made the thumbs so that they showed an oblong section of the full size shot, and again used the faded edges (or selection > border 10px > then fill in PS). I then put all the images together by just using HTML. This creates a simple but effective looking gallery, without having any complex CSS or Javascript.
My website was, on the whole, pretty much complete. All I needed now was a domain for it, which I had bought on my hosting company’s site. It was pretty simple to get it pointing in the right place, but I still find all the hosting and Cpanel side of things a bit perplexing. I think it’s something I’ll just have to dive into and get my head around, as I’ll be using it more and more in the second year.

There were now just a few small elements to implement. I wanted to find out how websites got the little icon to appear in the favourites list, and found this tutorial, and this Photoshop plug in which would allow me to do this.

One of the last things to do was also one of the most important: validation. I did this by using the link in the web developer’s toolbar, and thankfully there were only a few small things to fixed, like unclosed tags and pieces of CSS without closing brackets. I chose to use the blue w3c logo on my site to complement the design, and they are proudly displayed on the front page. If you click them, it will take you to the validation page and will (hopefully!) say that the website is validated.

My website is now complete, and is available to view here. I think it is a big step up from the website which I only created a few weeks ago, and goes to show just how quickly you can pick stuff up if you apply yourself to it. Validating my site is also an important milestone, and should set me up well for the summer assignment. I’d be most grateful for any constructive criticism which you have.

Over the next week I am planning on doing some small pieces of print design, and also making a start on the summer assignment. I am hoping to create some simple postcards, as a trip to the Sculpture Park the other day highlighted the amount of design which goes into making a postcard in terms of positioning of the picture, using bleed on the front picture, and where the various elements on the rear are situated. I’ll keep you posted on them as I make progress with these designs.

It's flown by...

The Past

In my original blog post, the Formative Statement, I set out my goals for the future. At the time, my goals for the future were rather vague, as I only mentioned that I wanted to learn “different techniques and procedures” with new pieces of software. Since then, I have learnt substantially more than just software, which I will talk about in this post.

In the first assignment I felt that there was a lot of new information to take in, and that the process absorbing the information was a long and slow procedure. I believe this is because I had entered the course without knowing much about the workings of the internet, or the considerations to be made when designing a page. Looking back at my first website design, it looks awful in every way. Firstly, the design itself does not look pleasant, with its colour gradients and awkward layout. All that I could really take from the first assignment is that my English skills were still adequate, and that I passed it first time round due to the substantial amount of error checking which I did.

The run up to Christmas 2006 was a tough time, as we had two assignments running in parallel. I found that making the content for the web plan was a much more time consuming task than I had anticipated. During these two assignments I started to feel a lot more settled in, having got the first assignment out of the way. My web design skills for this webplan were substantially better than the first as I had put a lot more research into the layout. I believe this will be key for next year when we will be making a website for a real client.

My strategy was to keep the design simple, even if this sacrificed aesthetics somewhat. In some ways I think that I should have challenged myself more as it would have been beneficial in the long run. In the future I think I should make greater challenges for myself, as I think this way I will learn a lot more from overcoming problems, rather than just avoiding them by staying in my ‘comfort zone’.

It was during these units that I decided to use InDesign for an outside college project. This decision would end up paying dividends further on in the year, and I now believe that doing additional projects outside of college is essential for learning new skills. This has been highlighted by visits from previous students, as it allows you to build up a larger portfolio of work. I also taught myself how to use basic video editing software, and this highlighted many parts of the A4 such as image compression. As using codecs is based around similar principles, it expanded my practical knowledge of this subject.

After the Christmas break we again had to do two units at once. As I felt that my sketchpads were not up to the required standard, I focused on improving them over the Typography unit. This involved collecting more examples of design, which I annotated on in my sketchpad. This experience was key to this unit, and I felt that my skills as a designer were improved vastly by doing this. In a way looking at professional work informed my choices of layout and typography, which became evident in the final exam for the unit. As my outside projects had taught me how to put documents together quickly and accurately, I could work under the pressure of the exam time limit and produce a good end result.

During this unit I also improved on my ideas generation, as this was another area which I had identified as needing improvement. Before I had spend a lot of time just coming up with a single design. During this unit I learn that I could jot down several small designs in a short space of time, and this allowed me to supercharge the creative process. My time planning also had to improve, as being set short tasks demanded that I monitored how much time I was taking to produce a finished product. I found that braking the time down into chunks, and setting a series of mini deadlines was a method which worked effectively, and in some instances gave me some time to check for errors and improve on my work.

In the A5 builder unit I had to construct my website. I found the prospect of this rather daunting, as it was the first website I had ever built. I made a strategy of producing the site gradually, which allowed me to monitor how it worked in both browsers, which I knew could cause problems. I feel that this approach should repeated in the future, as learning CSS and Flash will be a new experience for me. I think that not over facing myself with too much too soon helped me to get a finished product from this unit which looked very much like my intended design plan did.

With the last unit of the year I wanted to take a new and more experimental approach to generating my designs. This involved taking pictures of textures and looking at a larger range of sources. I continued to collect pieces of print design which I liked, and expanded this with the research I did into album covers. I believe that if I want to make my work more professional, I need to collect lots of example of design from many more sources. This is something I must do a lot more of next year, as we will be making a website for a client and we must show a variety of designs.

In the last unit I felt that my work looked a lot more professional, especially my logo and CD design. However, the place which I improved on most was my web design and authoring. I decided to take the jump and create my website using CSS. I again took a gradual approach to doing this, as it had worked well previously. Even though I did need some help from the staff with this, I still feel a great sense of achievement at creating this website.

Doing this website has really ignited a desire to be more experimental in the future, which is what I am planning to do over the summer as self study. I think that with every piece of print design I do, or with every website I make I will see more and more improvement in the quality of the work. Throughout this year I have struggled to attain the D3 learning outcome, I now feel that I must continue to work towards this standard and beyond over the next year.

The Future

Now that I have reached the end of the first year, I know that I must not just leave the knowledge behind. As self study I will be revisiting all of the elements we have looked at since September. Now that I have the confidence to go out and try new directions, as well as evaluate my performance, I can effectively increase my experience and knowledge base. In my formative statement I mentioned that I wanted to work freelance. Over the course of the year I have changed my mind on this, as working with other people has taught me that other people’s views are crucial when designing.

As for the learning new software, I have learnt many more programs than I expected both in college and outside of college. In the second year, this will only increase, and I now know that I am fully prepared for the challenge.

For next year I only really have one goal; and it’s a pretty substantial one. This is to become more professional in every way, from ideas generation, time planning and right up to producing the final product, I want to improve them all substantially. These things are not something that someone else can do – I must take full responsibility in achieving them. To do this I will be doing more research into other people produce quality work, as well as finding more sources to work from. I found that in the A7 unit you can find some sort of inspiration from pretty much everything – you just have to go out there and explore.

I have really enjoyed the experience of college this past year. From the times it has been frustrating to the times it has been fulfilling I have found all of it has improved my as a person. Over the summer I have to prepare myself for returning in September, to take on more challenges, with more programs and with greater expectations of myself – it is a challenge which I simply cannot wait for.

As for measurable goals, I have come up with the following ones for the second year of the course:

Build an x-html/CSS website which validates using the w3c validation service.

• Reference at least one course related article on my blog each week.
• Reference at least one useful tutorial on my blog each week.
• Create a time recording sheet and use it for each assignment.
• Gain 4 merit grades over the course of the year.

Word count: 1464

Pantone Time

Production is one of the elements I look forward to most on the course, and this week has had it in spades. During self study this week, I started to put together my CD cover for the ‘Russian Spring’ album. I chose to mix the elements of nature with a hot and cold colour scheme for my CD booklet. Knowing Photoshop well allowed me to select the appropriate method to put together the picture needed.

Firstly, I created several squares of colour and then rasterized them, selected them, and then applied a gradient to them. Once this was done, I used a range of wet media brushes to add depth to the surfaces, before using the eraser tool to break up the edges. Once this was completed, I could start to merge the colours together with the smudge too, set to varying strengths depending on the effect I wanted to create. This made the colours of the skyline flow together, much like the ambient sounds on the album.

To add some sense of scale, I added a silhouette of a hillside and then added tree using one of Photoshop’s brushes. I thought that the tree should be small and that there should only be one, to emphasise the scale of the skyline. My CD cover as it stands can be seen below, as well as the inside of the booklet.
At college on Wednesday I decided to bring a CD case to see how my design looked as it would be presented to a customer or client. I’d recommend everyone to try this; it really brings your design to life and makes it look totally different. It also highlights the design challenges posed by the spines of the CD, where choosing an appropriate font is very difficult. I chose the Tahoma font for my CD, as it looks contemporary and subtle which I think suits the type of music. It also looks good at small sizes, which is handy when creating the copyright text on the rear of the CD. The rear of the CD can be seen below.

I soon discovered that my CD was crying out for a clear inlay, and this gave me the opportunity to continue the hot and cold theme I used inside the CD booklet. I also used the small window in the hinge to display the artist and title of the album vertically, in the same font used on the spine. This part can be seen below.

For the CD label itself I had limited options, as continuous tone would not look good due to the printing process. I also had a limit of 5 pantone colours to use, so I took similar colours to the top inlay (which were mainly blues) and used blocks of colour to create a digital looking skyline. I thought that giving the CD a digital look would complement it well, as the CD itself does contain digital data, and provided a contrast to the surrounding continuous tone. See the picture below for my CD design.

On Wednesday I received my fixed CSS buttons from John (thanks again :) ) so much of Thursday afternoon was spent implanting them back into my pages. I eventually managed to get them working, and much of this weekend will be taken up by the implementation of the content for my corporate identity.

There has been much talk of what the end of year ‘task’ is. I think that it will be some kind of uber feedback session on the year and the course, even though I would much prefer it to be an egg box mk2 challenge. Wishful thinking, methinks.

CSSister

After a frustrating Easter, it was back to work at usual. Over the three weeks that we had off I managed to learn a lot about CSS, yet did not make a great deal of progress with the assignment in hand. I currently have the basic elements of my website in place, but as I have had to make my buttons in CSS not JS it has made finishing it tough. Hopefully John will be able to help me code the buttons to do what I want.

This week I have been concentrating on getting the final elements of my corporate identity into place, and have started creating the remaining parts of the identity. This includes the letterhead, 4 designs of which I have made which can be seen below. I would like some feedback from colleagues and maybe a choice from “the client” as well. For my album cover I have decided to take some influence from the stock images I found, and I will create my own version of the image using Photoshop, so that I will meet the 1.1 learning outcome. To do this I will be using the gradient tools to create the basic colours, and will erase the sharp lines with the eraser tool, set to wet media brushes. As the image I want to recreate contains an elements subtly linked to the album title Russian Spring. I will also take screenshots of the image as I piece it together, to show how it develops as I manipulate the various layers of the picture. These screenshots will obviously be put into my sketchpad and annotated to describe the process.

On Wednesday afternoon Steve and I discussed the progress of the Sketchblog assignment. So far I think the work produced for this unit has been ok, but as always there is room for improvement. I will need to add in a larger range of sources, especially in terms of links on my blog to sites that I have visited. I believe a good way to keep track of sites it to get a del.icio.us account, so that I can save all my links and then put them into my blog. Craig B also alerted me to the plug in for Firefox which allows you to add them to your account in the toolbar.

One area of the assessment criteria is very difficult to pass; I am of course talking about D3, where work must be “equal to that of an industry professional”. This part of the criteria seems substantially more difficult that the ones which come before it. I feel that I have some way to go before I can think of obtaining this grade, but as we are only approaching half way through the course I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.

Over the next week I have many tasks to complete. Firstly, I must create my album cover, as well as the booklet. I think I will scan in some booklets so that I can look at the typography choices, as well as how the albums relate to the front cover of the album. Hopefully I will also be able to fix my CSS buttons and get them working how I would like them to.

Over Easter I got roped into creating a website for my sister, who is an Animation graduate. Working with a client who is able to create parts such as buttons and banners is something very different from working with a client who does not. My job was in essence to create the structure of the website, and put in other elements (such as many lightboxes) and to make the site work on a technical level. I found that making another site helped me to try new methods, and also allowed me to see errors in my style guide website, which I am currently fixing. My sisters site, in its current state (feeding off my monthly bandwidth, and not her’s :rolleyes: ) can be seen here.