Thursday, May 03, 2007

The Holy Grail (Sort of...)

With less than 2 weeks to go before the final deadline of the year, the class has had a serious feel to it this week. The usual banter had subsided and all faces were fixed at the screens, with the work load slowly reducing, and the the time quickly running out.

Perhaps this is just me, but the room was definitely a lot quieter this week.

This time last week I was nervous about failing my sketchblog assignment, and the amount of work I had still to complete was massive. Today however, I sit here a lot more relaxed about both assignments.

First of all, the thought of failing my sketchbook assignment spurred me on to spend a good few hours looking for images for my sketchbook. I may have only come up with a few, but in this time I found not only individual images, but groups of images that are closely linked with ideas, but to look at them separately are wide apart. These images also included ideas for my portfolio website, which I am hoping to pursue designing and completing once again in the summer.

The main amount of work came from the Fax assignment however. A few days ago I had no finished CD cover, no designed inlay or pages 2/3 of my booklet, I had no CD label created, no preflight checklist written and hadn't even thought about creating my CO-ID (though at least the majority of this was already designed). I decided that this would be the week to get it done, whether it meant crossing the 32 hour study time or not, it was required.

In one week alone I have managed to create the whole of my CD content (including the preflight docs) as well as create my business cards and both letterhead and continuation sheet (though admittedly there is not much difference between them). Not only this but it I personally don't think that the work looks like it has been rushed (it hasn't), in fact I think the complete opposite and think that it is perhaps some of my best work to date. My thoughts go back to the Picture This assignments mini deadlines, and the amount of work we got done in such little time. This was also confirmed with Steve saying on two occasions, 'It doesn't look too bad', a sort of holy grail in Steve comments.

Another comment of sorts, which I am pleased to hear from Steve just a few minutes ago is that if I keep up the work I am doing with my sketchbook assignment that I can actually pass it. This is a much welcomed relief, but is not an excuse to let my workload slip, and I plan to do as much, if not more sketchbook work this week.

I have just a few minor tweaks to make to my CD designs, before I will upload them (along with my CO-ID content) for your viewing pleasure.

Watch this space.

2 comments:

Dean said...

If you've finished your preflight document (which sounds like you have done easily), do you have any tips, websites, reading that will help the rest of us?

Ive seen preflight documents before that the printer supplies to the client but not many that work the other way.

Craig Allington said...

I looked at Scott's preflight document that he had printed off from InDesign. Steve has said that we have to make our own however so InDesign isn't an easy scapegoat.

To explain what I've done could take hours, so if you take a look at my preflight document if it will help.

Any more help just let me know.