Steely Don

A jazz related title, for a jazzy week and half term to come. First of all, I’ll go over last week’s A6 task, which could not be covered in the themed blog entry. This task involved creating an advert with the dimensions from a rate card, which are measured in Standard Column Centimetres. I decided to go width of 94mm by 160mm, as I felt the dimensions suited the text, and would allow me to split up the page into simple elements. The final design I created is pictured below.

I was very pleased with finished result which also warranted a “s’all right” response from Steve, which is praise indeed. One area which we disagreed on though was the use of symbols at the left of each paragraph. Steve thought that bullets would look more suitable for a document of this type, but I didn’t share his view. I thought with the business being a modern telecommunications company, advertising for a creative job role would look better with some small graphical touches. What would catch your eye more when sifting though job adverts? Boring black bullets or little symbols of a globe, a money bag, and a mouse?

On Wednesday of this week we did our usability tests, which we had to create a form for. I chose to use a “agree strongly/agree/disagree/disagree strongly” arrangement of questions, as well as some more open ended questions. I found it very had to pick these, as I wasn’t really sure what parts of my site needed to be highlighted for change, and I thought a lot of people felt the same.

After about 2 hours of testing we had got through everyone’s website. I would have to pick Drew’s site as my favourite, as it was annoyingly attractive and sickeningly easy to use. I found that looking at everyone else’s website highlighted that I have along way to go to get up to the same standard of design as everyone else. I certainly don’t feel I have the ‘knack’ for web design yet, where as with print I seem to naturally be able to drop things into the right places. This is why I’m implementing a HTML/CSS “boot camp” of self study over the summer, with some of the books which have been recommended to me by others, to improve my capability, and educate myself about what features I can utilise when designing a page.

On Thursday we did 2 tasks which combined together to produce one finished piece of work. This task was to create a newsletter heading and folio, and then as the second task put the content into what we had designed. With the first task I decided to redeploy my “skyscraper” design, as I could make it with heavy stroke lines within a couple of minutes. As we only had an hour to create the header and folio, I thought I would stick to what I know. I also used symbols for a moon, and some speech marks around the title.

I chose a 3 column design, and had the title spread across 2 columns, and the skyscrapers in the third. I also placed some black stroke lines in the folio, which has probably been influenced by the Graphic Language of Neville Brody book which I had been looking though for my presentation.

In the second task I decided to put the picture 2 columns wide, and put in features such as a 4 line drop cap, a pull quote and a by line. Once again, I chose the Myriad Pro font, which I really need to wean myself off before I use it on everything. However, I did find out here that it was good for dyslexics, so in my defence it was considered because of its usability merits. Overall I was pleased with the document, but I think my header and folio could have been done better. Lines should have been used more sparingly, and the arrangements of some of the symbols could have been better. This document is viewable below.

Over half term I will be creating the slides for my presentation, and producing my handout document. I’m looking forward to doing these, as I think I’m going to really push the creativity in the design of the slide headers, which are going to reflect the work of Neville Brody over the years as the presentation progresses. As for my handout form, I think I will be creating a strong black and white header in a similar style to his Arena work. No doubt I’ll find a spare hour one evening to do another blog post, and possible show off some of my slides. As long as James promises not to pinch them.

Team Roles

After painstakingly and conscientiously looking through the categories at www.belbin.com, I have decided that I fit into the Completer/finisher category. I think this because once I start a task, I relentlessly aim to complete all the work to a high standard. I also feel that I am rather conscientious about the decisions which I have made, and will always aim to change something I feel uncomfortable with. I believe this attention to detail allows me to find errors of fix problems in the work.

There are however some drawback to this style of workflow. I often do not trust people to do something which I could do to a higher standard myself. I always think that some people may not make as many considerations in their production as I would, and this can degenerate my faith in others. I also feel that sometimes I get very anxious about tough decisions, as there is always the “should I have done the other option?” question.

As for the other types of people I would want to work with, I think that balance is the most important aspect to get right. I believe I would need a “plant” type worker, as they could generate initial ideas, which we could then discuss on a technical and implementation level. This would allow us to make a website which is both technically and aesthetically viable, as opposed to creating a design which is hard to implement and would become contrived during production.

Secondly, I believe I would also work well with a co-ordinator type worker. This person would be able to set deadlines which I could then produce work to, so that the production would stay on schedule, and amendments could be made should difficulties arise. I also think that this person would be able to help me make crunch decisions which I would otherwise cause me to become anxious, and would be a great second opinion on such issues.

Thirdly I think that a Shaper would give our team the drive and determination needed to complete tasks. As we may have to work to tight deadlines, a shaper would be able to complete any task s in a short amount of time. As problems often occur with web design, combining this type of worker and a plant worker would allow us to be flexible should problems arise or clients want things changing on short notice.

In the past I have worked in group situations which have been successful. I think this is because I like to do a lot of the task myself, and I don’t really like relying on other people. I think that I have to become more willing to delegate roles to other people, as there will come a point where I simply cannot do all the tasks which would be set out.

InDesign, out of time

I must first apologise to my colleagues for being unable to join them on the trip to London on Wednesday. My ribcage had decided not to cooperate with the rest of my respiratory system, leaving me short of breath and in a lot of pain over the weekend. I felt really annoyed that I could not go, but would have been more annoyed if I had decided to go only to find the Tate Modern to be closed, as it was on Wednesday. I also missed my meeting with John on Tuesday about ideas generation, which only frustrated me more.

Armed with some anti inflammatory pills for Thursday, I managed to make it into college. After a lecture on more typography, it was time to start the first of our timed tasks. First, we had to create an exact copy of Steve’s version of the article which he had put up onto the projector. We had around 20 minutes to do this, which I thought was a little on the tight side, and was confirmed when the last 3 minutes seemed to disappear in 30 seconds. About a quarter of this time was taken looking up things like drop caps which I did not know how to do in InDesign, and are not immediately apparent. Between now and next week I should probably find out how to do some of the paragraph formatting techniques we learnt in the morning, so I am not wasting time cutting through the jungle of help topics should they appear in a new task.

After missing the deadline for handing this first task in, I was determined to complete the first real task. This was to redesign the article, using the same components as Steve used in his. We had a substantially more generous 90 minutes to complete this, which I knew would generate better results. I tried to use the formula we had used for the banner designs, which was to do quick sketches, pick a design, draw a neat sketch and then go into production. This worked well, and the design I created can be seen below.

I was very pleased with my design, and the Myriad Pro font I used is fast becoming a favorate: easy to read at small sizes, conservative proportions, and very effective when used with the standard 120% leading rule. I used grey lines (black set at 30%) to add some feature to the banner, and it was also useful for filling the white space under the picture. I used the same copperplate font from my banner designs for the title, and a 3 character cap drop for the letter “I”. I also used a thick/thin line to separate the text and picture, and the same line for a stroke around the picture.

Overall I think my design looks rather classy, but I think the lines under the picture should have the same gap as between the banner and the top of the picture. I also felt that the ideas generation went really well, as I scribbled down some thumbnails, drew a neat version of the one I had chosen with feedback from my team, then noted down the changes I made when I went digital. What do you think of my design?

The second task was to create a paint tube label. As my method in the morning for ideas generation had worked so well, I decided to repeat it in the afternoon. However, the stoppers were soon put on my chosen design when Steve advised me that some element could cause problems during the print process. I had to do a lot of redesign, but didn’t really know how. I made a note of the changes, but was this the right thing to do? Should I have started the ideas process over again? I’m not entirely sure, but either way I got a design which I was really happy with. This can be seen below.

I used the Isabelle Std font for the oriental style typeface, which I think suggests the correct themes, yet remains readable. I decided to centre my front label font, as this would allow the viewer to see at least some of the type if the tube was rotated on the rack, or in a display box. Again, I used the Myriad Pro font on the back panel for the address, and on the front for the fluid ounce part. I was very happy with this design, and making the leading smaller helped the name of the paint to breathe, allowing more room if a larger name was going to be put onto it. Even Steve said it was “nearly there” when I showed him, which is praise indeed.

Thursday was also the day when my magazine article (for Auto Sim Sport) was finally released, after a couple of weeks delay. The magazine also contains an interview with me about the article (college gets a none-specific mention! [worth the download]). I was also asked to design the cover of the magazine, and a page for a guide. For the front cover, I was given an image from a game which is about 7 years old (DirectX 7 technology, for the gamers out there) and a picture of a Mclaren F1 supercar. There was not really a lot of scope for design here, but I managed to throw something together. Originals and finals can be seen below. The second picture I had to make was from a selection of screenshots, and the brief was simply to create a cover with “atmosphere”. With some careful selection processes and filters, I came up with something which the editor was more than happy with.

It’s hard for me to comprehend that something I have made will be seen by thousands of people from around the world, but I guess that is the power of the internet. Hopefully in the future I can do more work for the magazine, and hopefully try to steer them into a more professionally designed look to their format.

This week also saw the acquisition of a new monitor, as my faithful 21 inch CRT was simply taking up too much room on my desk, stopping me from spreading all my sketchpads out in a creative sprawl. I decided to go for the 24 Inch Dell2407, which can only be described as phenomenal. With compressed images which I created on my old monitor and though “yeah, that’s good, there’s no damage on that” now look dreadful, as the clarity of the display shows up jaggies and blockies.

As I have to run the desktop in a native resolution (as an LCD does not scale as well as a CRT) I am quickly learning that liquid web pages are a really bad idea. I resemble a dog watching traffic when trying to read a page which is being stretched to accommodate a 1920px screen width. I would definitely recommend the monitor to anyone who wants a stiff neck, to become poor quickly or who wants a display without compromise. Pic below.