"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.

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.

Mind Games, Photoshop, and Spotty Old Men?

After the 'joyous' presentation of last week, I wasn't much looking forward to college this week I'm sad to say. I was exhausted from lack of sleep, and was ill which didn't really help. College was the last place I wanted to be. So as Wednesday rolled around once again, and I dragged myself out of bed and onto the train I began wondering what Steve had planned for us this week. More presentations? Work? A new task? I remembered we were getting a Photoshop assignment on Thursday and I cheered up a bit.

When I arrived at college, Steve was standing with his usual suspect grin and my mind began to wonder. When James mentioned a 'surprise presentation' my own suspicions began to rise and suddenly getting as far away from college as quickly as possible was becoming a very appealing option. I asked Steve about presentations and he gave a very cryptic response.

Damn Steve's mind games.

For about half an hour I sat, quite nervous, about the prospect of another presentation. But luckily it turned out Steve was giving us a brief lecture on 'Type Glossary' and the rest of the day was free for us to get on with work. Once again relief set in as the extra time to do some work was greatly appreciated. I got quite a lot done, until a headache set in and I was unable to do much work for a while because of the pain.

Thursday was a completely different start. Once again I dragged myself out of bed, not because I didn't want to go to college, but just because I was comfy and warm. I got on the train and once more began thinking about the day ahead, thinking what we would be doing, how long we would get to do it, and how hard it would be. I think it's the earliest I've ever arrived at college.

Steve gave us a disk to pass round with our two tasks on and I loaded them onto the computer, I looked at the first task and immediately panic set in once more. I knew the image in front of me from my interview last year. The image Steve had shown me on last year's first years portfolio websites. A timed assignment. Luckily however Steve said we had two weeks to complete both tasks.The first task we were given was to restore an old black and white photograph of 3 old men sitting on a bench holding a trophy, that was, to put it simply, wrecked. Torn, burnt, bleached, bent, scratched. You name it, it had it.

Onto Photoshop then and out with the cloning tool and spot tool, trying to remove the deformities. Then Steve came to look at my work...

Attempt two it was. And I did the same things and once again Steve came over....

Attempt three went well. Though Steve has yet to come and look at it. Next week might be a completely statement. I'm quite pleased with my photo so far however, so hopefully Steve will be too.

In just a few week both assignments are due in, so the nerves are starting to hit, so over the next week I'm going to put as much work into both assignments as possible. Even thing's I think I've finished I'm going to go over and make sure they're right. The pressure of a referal is something I could really do without.

The main thing that stands out for me this week was that perhaps I didn't put enough effort into my contents as I could have. I didn't reference any books, in fact, I didn't even look in any books if I'm being honest, and I didn't cross reference everything that I looked at. I think that this was perhaps the 'bordem' factor that I talked about in a previous blog, but in future I will definately go back and recheck or even redo work if it is time consuming/boring, instead of finishing it and taking the 'That's It' attitude.

BASIC Principles

Below are my two 'thumbnail' ideas. Because they're 'thumbnails', they're nothing special, and are by no means finished or even correctly proportioned. But they do give a rough idea of what my final designs will look like. Any feedback on which is the preferential idea, why it is, or why it isn't, or even just what you like and dislike about each idea would be greatly received.

Option 1




Option 2

Lessons Learnt

This week has been a bit of a disaster week for me. To start the week off, my USB we were given at the start of the year malfunctioned, and therefore I lost all my work, and then on Thursday, after re-doing some of the work, I manged to leave my USB at home. Typical. Despite all this however, I have quite enjoyed myself this week.

As I said in my last blog, I ordered a new book called 'Adobe Photoshop CS2 for Photographers'. I avoided linking to the book at first as I didn't want to advertise a book for people to buy and it turn out to be completely rubbish. However, since receiving the book I have discovered that it is in fact a really good book to use. It is not a tutorial book as such, but more of a reference book that explains how you can do certain tasks within Photoshop if and when you come across them. The book may not be for everyone, as some things in the book may be too simple for the more advanced users of the software, but for anyone who has never used Photoshop, or would like a book to keep at hand in case they get stuck on the assignments then I would definitely recommend it.

Also this week I received my copies of Macromedia (Now Adobe) Studio 8, and Photoshop CS2. These are two software packages that we will be using over the course and thought that having the most up to date applications was probably for the best. I filled in my serial number applications and sent them off so I will hopefully get chance to get used to the new software before we have to use it for assignments.

A large proportion of this week has been spent finding inspirational artwork. All of the artwork that I have found so far is taken from CD covers from my favourite band - Muse. Because the A4 assignment involves discussing vector and bitmap graphics, I decided that it would be best to look into vector and bitmap graphics for my artwork this week. Funnily enough, I found a really good piece of vector art and once again, from Muse.

The image on the right shows the image that I found. It is the DVD cover of one of the bands latest singles called 'Supermassive Black Hole'. As part of my self study for the following week, I am going to try and find out what companies (or company) designs Muse's CD artwork as I would be interested in seeing other pieces of their design work, as apposed to Muse, as it may be a different style but still could be quite interesting and inspirational to me.

If I get time, I may also try and recreate a piece of my inspirational artwork to get me used to the new version of Photoshop and also as a way of getting used to bitmap and vector graphics (whichever piece I choose to recreate).

All in all it has been quite a busy week, we've learnt alot of new things of which I will need to go back over and read my notes again (although for some I have already done this) and just make sure that the information has stuck as it is all things that I am sure we will need for a very long time.

Hopefully by next week I will have my goals, target audience, delivery requirements, and competitive analysis done for the A3 assignemnent, and willl have started (or at least done research into) the compression report for the A4 assignment. I think if I can those things done then I will be on schedule for completing the assignment on time, and will probably start to enjoy the A3 assignment more too, as I can begin to start designing my pages once again. Also hopefully next week will bring better luck with USB's, although I have definately learnt my lesson now about backing up my work.

Pass go collect £200 2 more assignments

The first week back after half term, and straight back into assignments. We were given yet another TWO assignments this week. One similar to our previous assignment of which we have to create a web plan (although this time the website will be created) and one that is very Photoshop based. This it's self has already cost me £17 of my student loan as I have purchased an up to date book about Photoshop.

In general at the beginning of the week I was quite worried that having a further 2 assignments given to us (making it 3 in total) would cause me great stress and cause me to possibly panic with the amount of work load that we were given. These fears were also exaggerated by the revealing of our grades. Luckily however I passed both unit's of our assignments which has given me a new sense of motivation, not only to keep trying hard on the course, but to try even harder and hopefully get even higher grades on the next 2 assignments. Although I have yet to gain any feedback from my assignment I am looking forward to gaining criticism about my assignment so that I know what to change, and also to hear the positive things about the assignment so that I know what I did well in my previous assignment.

As well as this good news about my grades, I was also happy to find out that the amount of work we have to do for 2 assignments isn't as big as I thought it would be, although a lot of work will still obviously have to be done, it has again given me more confidence for the course, something which can only be a good thing I'm sure.

Next week is bound to be a hard slog of the assignment, as I'm sure it will start to sink in on me over the weekend just exactly what we have to do, although hopefully I shall give me time to get my head around any problems at the same time.

I also hope to get my feedback on my first assignment from Steve next week, which as I said, will hopefully give me further idea of what needs to be done for the A3 (Back to BASIC) assignment, and the book that I ordered will give me further insight into Photoshop (of which I can't gain on my own just by 'trial and error' methods of learning software) to help me not only for the A4 (Picture Perfect) assignment, but also over the next couple of years on the course.

Assignments Passed:
A2 - That's The Plan

Assignments Working On:
A1 - SketchBlog,
A3 - Back To BASIC,
A4 - Picture Perfect