Monday, February 26, 2007

All work and no play makes Craig something something...

Note: Before I get full swing into my blog, I would like to point out that as Steve keeps mentioning - "Blogs should be an interactive thing and so links should be added." For this reason, I will try to make my blog a bit more interactive this week. I hope you enjoy it. (Also, before anyone comments, this paragraph is meant to be a smaller text size)

Numerous words could be used to fit the gap, but the most relevant would have to be 'Very tired'. So tired in fact that I feel it may have been the cause of my feeling unwell in the previous week at college. Luckily however with half term this week it has been a much welcomed relief.

With a week spent mostly visiting the cinema, lying down watching the first series of Life on Mars, The Italian Job, and the wonders of daytime television for students, it gave me a chance to clear my head and get some much needed work done. Over the course of the week I have been slowly adding to my presentation and finally this morning got it finished to a decent standard ready for the practice on Thursday. Also this morning I got my handout completed, both of which are available to view below. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Presentation
Handout

As I already mentioned, this week is practice presentation week. Although I am a little worried about this, I am glad that I will get to practice my presentation and fine tune things ready for the official presentation next week. The only thing I have left to do for my presentation is sort out my cue cards, of which I am hoping to do tomorrow.

Also this week is our visit from ex-student Jonny Haynes of Purple Giraffes and Technophobia. I'm quite looking forward to his visit as I think it will be a very valuable insight. After our visit to The Design Mechanics, I feel that having an idea of what another design agency is like will improve my (and hopefully others) overall views of the industry, instead of relying purely on what we have seen at TDM. It is much the same as gathering research from more than one source to make sure it is correct.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Testing, Testing...1...2...1...2...

This week has been a relatively straightforward week (for a change). Wednesday was primarily spent testing each others websites and then fixing the problems, where as Thursday morning was spent doing 'task bombs' whilst Thursday afternoon was time for us to work on our presentations.

The user testing went better than I had imagined, most of my feedback was positive although I was quite worried that the aesthetics of my website received quite low marks. Luckily however, I had received feedback on why it didn't look as good as it could and I was able to rectify my website using this feedback.

I also used CSS for the first time this week, and to start with it was quite daunting. Perhaps if I had asked someone within the group who has prior knowledge of CSS for some help it may not have seemed so scary, but that would of been sensible.

CSS isn't as hard as I first imagined, I picked it up quite easily and manged to make my website better in the process of it. Although it is only a simple bit of CSS I have used, I am sure in later projects it will prove extremely valuable.

Thursday was a completely different day to Wednesday. I woke up feeling extremely sick, and tired (as I have much of the week), and was contemplating not coming into college. The knowledge that we would be likely receiving new tasks to do today though spurred me to come into college and battle through my ill feelings.

As I suspected we did receive tasks today. Not one, but two. The first task was to design a structure for a jazz newsletter and then in the second task to add the content. I was not best pleased with my final results of either project, although I was extremely close to the deadline on both occasions, and feeling ill wasn't helping my mindset too much to allow me to be more 'creative'. However, saying this, I don't think that they were my worst projects of the mini tasks so far.

Next week is half term, and that means that I can get some rest, relax, clear my head and catch up with some work that I have fallen behind on from being unwell most of the week. My presentation is still in it's very early stages and my handout sheet so far is non existent. Although I am slightly worried about being behind on my presentation, I know that over the next week I will be able to catch up and therefore worrying will only make it worse.

I have learnt a lot from user testing this week, and the next time user testing comes about I will know a lot better questions to ask and be able to receive even better results and feedback. My next goal once my presentation is out of the way (in between practicing) is to go through my collected data once more, and check that I have done everything that people have suggested (of which I believe is the correct thing to do).

Have a good week off everyone.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Finding My Place...

Almost at the end of the first year is not when I thought that I would be asked to decide where I 'fit in' to a team with my peers. However that is exactly what we have been asked to do this week, using the Belbin website and the Belbin team roles summary table.

Resource Investigator seems to fit me quite well. On my previous course, we had to work as a group to create a website for a given client and one of my main responsibilities was to liaise with the client, keeping in constant contact with them (and others in the company, although with less input into the project). I also feel that perhaps my enthusiasm for the project did dwindle slightly as the project went on as I was not in contact with as many people as I would liked to have been.

In the group that I was in on my previous course, it was only a group of 3. This consisted of a Project Manager, an admin (builder) and a P.A. In the group I was the P.A to start with, but it soon became obvious that the PM wasn't pulling his weight in the group. I think that this is the biggest key to a successful group (I.e. everyone does what they're supposed to do, and pulls their weight). Without this, everyone will become demotivated extremely quickly and the work will suffer as a result.

To get around this problem in my last group, we shifted the roles around a bit, and sat down as a group to discuss our progress and what we could do to get back on track. In the end we gave our 'slacker' a choice. Do the work or your out.

Although I feel this way of motivation is a little strict, and perhaps not the best way of motivating someone, sometimes you have to take the attitude of 'do what you need to do to get things done'. And it worked.

To be in a successful team next year, the first person I think that would be needed for the group would be a 'project manager' or a 'coordinator' on the Belbin site. This senior figure would be the guiding light for the rest of the group, and would allow everyone to get through the project with minimal fuss. Although I have had experience as 'project manager' before, I feel that perhaps other people within the group could be better suited for this position, though if no one felt up to this amount of responsibility, I would offer to take on this role.

The second team member I would like within my group would be a plant. This person would be the centre of the groups creativity and would really help get the initial ideas off the ground so that they can be adapted and built upon as quickly as possible ready for the client to see and for work to be started.

Lastly in my group, I think that a 'Completer Finisher' would be well suited. I think not only would this person be useful throughout projects finding little errors as you go along (instead of having a domino effect going on) but I also think that they would be useful particularly at the end of the project, to really fine tune any things that need to be changed that others may miss.

I think that perhaps a 'team worker' would be one person I would least like in my group next year. I think that perhaps a 'team worker' is a sort of get out clause and that by having a team builder in the group could affect the time management of the project as decisions would be difficult to make. However, saying this, if a team worker were in my group, I think that once the project was up and going with most of the problems and decisions worked out, that a team worker could be quite useful as part of the team.

Because of the pros and cons of all the team roles it is difficult to create an 'ideal' team summary, and there are many external factors that can affect how the team cooperates.

If there were an 'ideal' team, then it would consist of team members with various pros (and unavoidably cons) from a few sections of Belbin's 'team roles summary table'.

As well as these factors, next year I will also be hoping to use some of the skills I learnt from my previous course and also learn from my mistakes too. I feel I know now the signs of when someone is slacking off long before I did previously, and therefore will be able to stop the same problems we had before sooner rather than later, when it is easier to steer someone back on track.

I look forward to seeing who I will be working with next year, although I don't feel that there is anyone who I would dislike working with.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Projects So Far...

Below are two images of the projects we created last Thursday. My newspaper design and my paint pot design. My B2B website can also be found at www.craig-allington.co.uk/b2b.


Paint Pot Design



Newspaper Article

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Slides are the No1 Killer in the Tate Modern...

Even spending 2 hours on a train to London was going to be worth while as we were to visit the Tate Modern. And we did. Briefly. Arriving in London we walked to the Tate and saw signs exclaiming about strikes, of which we all took no notice of. We arrived at the Tate to find however that perhaps we should of paid attention to these signs. The Tate was closed.

Well, I exaggerate, the exhibitions were closed. The only thing open in the Tate were the slides and the gift shop. And let me tell you know, London is a long way to go just to visit some slides.

Don't get me wrong, the slides were fun. But as Steve said 'It's either one of those things that you get or you don't'. For me, the slides were no more than a little fun and a chance for me to show off my safety skills by donning the protective clothing they supplied.

2 slides, a trip to the gift shop, and one very expensive ball point pen later...we were back outside.

A few of the group decided to head off to the design museum, whilst the rest of us headed off to Leicester Square. Arriving here, we split into a couple of groups and set off on our on travels. Our first stop was to get some food...so we did. Or we tried.

After a very eventful lunch being attacked by pigeons we set off once more, in the direction of Oxford road. I feel this could perhaps of been a slight waste of our opportunity, being in London after all, as the majority of the time we were shopping in places we could of visited in Wakefield. Just bigger. And busier.

It did however give us a chance to 'bond' a bit more. And as usual, over a interactive quiz machine in pubs. At least we were learning. Upon leaving the pub, we decided to actually go somewhere worth while. Yet another mistake in our day.

Who knew it was so hard to find a tube station in London? It shouldn't be. Should it?

Almost an hour later, we abandoned the tube idea, and a few of us decided to go for a walk back to Leicester square. After another quick drink, it was again time to go 'exploring'. This was perhaps the best part of the day, as just around the corner from Leicester square, we realised that we were right next to Trafalgar square, with Nelson sitting upon his column in all his glory. The lights surrounding the fountains and the statues created a fantastic atmosphere, and was much better than the seedier part of London we had visited so much previously over the day.

Nothing else really relevant happened yesterday. We went for something to eat, a quick drink, and headed back on the train.

Thursday was a completely different matter however, as Chris' 'Task Bombs' came into play.

We were first told we had half an hour to recreate a newspaper article on Jonathan Gee. This I found relatively simple, although I only just scraped in the deadline a few minutes before (use all your time as Steve always says). I was quite annoyed to find that this task was only a tester however, and that our first real task would start....now.

Another relatively simple task at heart, create our own newspaper article using the same content we had previously been given. This was much harder than I first imagined however, and I quite struggled to come up with different designs. In the end I came up with a design I was relatively happy with, and was quite different I thought to a usual newspaper layout which is what I aimed for.

Our second task of the day was to create a design for a company's label to be used for a series of paints. We were told we could only use two colours, black and the colour of the paint, and that it was to be a purely typographical answer to the task.

At first again I was quite frightened at the thought of the task but in the end I was really impressed with my final outcome. Although I feel that perhaps I had not used my time as wisely as I could, I do feel that the pressure has helped me to create one of my best looking pieces of work yet. Though of course the marks will soon tell.

Next week will be a slightly nervous week for me, as we have to give a presentation about our time at The Design Mechanics. We are also been given yet more of Chris' 'Task Bombs' and this time they are going to be even harder.

All in all though it has been a really enjoyable week, and I think it has been just what was needed to get everyone back motivated in the course, as the mood seemed to be dipping a slight bit.

In the meantime, I look forward to hearing about what everyone else got up to in London, and what they thought about it. And also I look forward to reading the many Clash or Jam (the band, not the condiment).

Have a good week. Pictures coming soon.