Like A Day Out In Legoland...

Before creating this blog I came up with many 'Lego' related titles - 'Brickin' It', 'Riding the Emotional Rollercoaster', 'Coming Together Piece by Piece', etc.

I decided to choose a completely different title, due to the fact that all are true. Like a steady progression as the day goes on.

Starting off the day 'Brickin' It' would have been my title of choice. Arriving at college with a very uneasy feeling in my stomach. I felt like I had so much work to do today, and with so little time to do it, my nerves were at an all time high. I soon realised that I had left my sketch book at home in the nervous rush to get my work ready that morning. Could the day get much worse?

Yes would quickly declare it's self to be the answer.

Just as I had started to settle into the work, and feel like I was getting somewhere, more problems arose costing not only money to correct, but yet more time. Aiding my nerves in their goal for freedom, the fire alarm. Bring on 'Riding the Emotional Rollercoaster'. The fire alarm brought back memories of our previous pre-deadline day, once again going off to stop us working, and getting on with our assignments. Not knowing exactly how much work was left to do on my assignment, every second outside seemed to drag on and on. Eventually however, we were allowed back inside...

Slowly but surely, a pile of pages with a large X marked on them began to grow next to the computer I was using. This cheered me up slightly as I knew my work was 'Coming Together Piece by Piece'. My assignment was beginning to take shape. A few stray nerves began to appear as my stock of plastic wallets slowly dwindled, for once however, luck was on my side, as I filled my plastic wallets without even a side to spare.

All that I'm now left with is my merit/distinction criteria sheet to create. This means that I can stroll peacefully into college tomorrow morning, and hand over my assignment happily in the knowledge that it is fully completed, and that hopefully nothing is wrong with it. We shall soon see after Christmas.

Christmas will be in no way a chance to relax however, there is still much to think about. Whether our assignments will pass? Whether we will still be on the course come next semester after the exam board have had their way? Whether we will get chosen to go see Dave Pannell for Industrial Liaison groups? And what will London throw our way?

Already 2007 is looking to be a very eventful year.

"I'll have a vowel please Carol" - Not that kind of countdown!

Christmas is usually a time of joy. Sadly not this year. With deadline day looming a mere 7 days away Christmas is the last thing on every ones minds as the countdown has really begun.

This week was the week I was dreading. The last feedback meetings of the semester. An hour long special to discuss the assignments in detail. This could only mean one thing. Corrections.

Of course corrections should be a good thing. After all, I would much rather receive my feedback before handing in the assignment than afterwards and failing for it. It's just so demotivating. One day hopefully I'll get lucky, and find out that I have very little to do. Today was not one of those days.

Although the work I had to do was minor alterations here and there, the repercussions of these changes meant that I had LOTS to do. Adding a reference here and there meant altering every reference, adding an extra line meant moving all my picture content, having the wrong font size meant changing every single number on my screen designs. That's corrections for you.

But life goes on, and I suppose in a way these little corrections are no worse than the num lock key on the keyboard not automatically turning on with the computer, and as Steve said 'If that's the worst thing in life at the moment, then you've got it good'. And in a way he's right. Without getting too political, there are many people in the world worse off than me, who am I to moan about changing work? That's what life is about after all.

With this attitude in mind, my goal for the next few days is to get all my corrections out of the way, and spend the majority of the weekend typing up my evaluations for both A3 and A4 assignments. Hopefully this will then give me enough time to be able to look over my work, and get others to read it through to make sure any spelling errors or grammatical errors are removed ready for a fully finished assignment for deadline day next week.

The weeks also been a much better improvement on the last few...well months. I've managed to get a lot more work done than I usually would get done, and I'm feeling the benefits. I'm not sure if it's the deadline looming over me that's caused 'panic work' or whether Steve's 'Extreme Time Management' has just hit home or what, but I definitely plan to keep it up.

Saxamaphone!

Below are my advertising banners for two different artists for a Wakefield Jazz club. Feedback welcomed.

Extreme Time Management

The week started with a free day to simply work. A lot of work had to be done, and a lot of work did get done. Before the start of the week I still had my feedback meeting changes to complete, and my digital screen designs to design. By the end of the day it was done, and 99% of my B2B assignment is now completed. Hurrah.

Then Thursday rolled around. For some reason I always say that I like Thursdays. I'm not sure why as there always seems to be something that happens that wasn't expected. This week 'Extreme Time Management'. Steve has always said it should take no more than 2 minutes to do a thumbnail, and if it takes longer, we're taking too long. OK a given, and I'll be the first to admit that I do fall behind on thumbnails and it can take me up to 5 minutes to do 1. So when Steve said, 'right, 2 minutes to do a thumbnail' for our banners, I was slightly worried, but non the less, I got it done.

'Right, 1 and a half minutes to do your next thumbnail...go'. Oh er. The pressure was slightly on now, only 1 and a half minutes? What possible thing can you do in...'1 minute for you next thumbnail...go'.

A minute? Surely we would need more than a minute for our thumbnails? Half as much as Steve's maximum time, and 5 times shorter than my usual rate. I was worried. But somehow I managed to pull it off and get my thumbnail, though slightly scribbly, done.

'A minute is obviously too long for some of you, 30 seconds, starting now'. I began thinking to myself 'You're taking the pi...' but realised this was using up valuble seconds, and I let scribbling commence.

Once the designs were done, Steve told us that it was 'Industry Standard' how we had been working, and I knew that my working speed had to improve. I thought back to Wednesday. I thought I'd got alot of work done. But had I? To be honest, I'm still not sure.

Over the coming week my time planning will be extremely strict, no cutting corners, no leaving things to last minute, 16 set hours - no messing. I can't afford to fall behind this late in the assignments. I've got a week to get both assignments up to submission standard, and I've still got quite a bit to go, especially on A4.

If I could do the whole week over, I'm sure that my A3 assignment would be finished, because now I know Steve's idea of 'An hours work', it's hugely different to my idea of 'An hours work' before hand. I picked up the pace largely on Thursday, but Wednesday now seems such a waste, despite me thinking I had done well. I feel quite sick thinking back to the time I must of wasted in previous weeks.

Never the less, it's one week until submission standard, and a mere 2 weeks until deadline day. The 12 days of deadline will soon be upon us.

The Ol' "Before and After" Thing (Updated)

Here's my first attempt at photo restoration through Photoshop.


Before




After



Updated Version