Key Points from the Design Mechanics Presentation

An online portfolio should include evidence of both commercial print and web work as employers look more at skills than qualifications. Approaches to potential employers should include a written CV, both posted and emailed and followed up by a phone call to confirm receipt. Good design practice involves preparing my self mentally for knock backs from clients and design for them and not my self. This is helped by gathering detailed information from the client brief which allows for accurate designs first time.

Breaking News! Feedback needed

This week I've being trying to create a design for my CSS Beauty site, and decided some feedback might be useful. I realise it's perhaps a little late to be asking for feedback (they day before the lesson) but I've being trying to get it as completed as possible.

This isn't to say it is completed. There's still alot I need to do, and creating it all in InDesign when I've never used it before has proved quite a challenge, but the basic principles are there.

CSS Beauty Screen Design (PDF - 112KB)

Obviously I have gone for a newspaper theme, which at the moment is also black and white, but I might add some picture and colour in to it somewhere to brighten it up a bit more.

The empty box at the bottom will contain the 'About' bit and the rest of the footer information.

"We Still Blog The Old Way"

After the past few weeks of 'themed' blogs I am glad to finally get the chance to write a weekly evaluative blog like in the first year.

The first week kicked off with a slightly strange start as the first 'day' back at college after the holidays was to give a presentation to the first years. A voluntary presentation? What was I thinking. Luckily however it all seemed to go ok, despite me both forgetting a drink and being asked some very in depth and intelligent questions. Of course there was also no getting away from the question - Mac or PC?

However with this presentation out of the way, it was time to concentrate on the second year and the upcoming CSS and professional projects. Thursday was a very hard day as unlike the first year we weren't gently eased into the work load. Instead, as soon as we had received our new student ID cards, we were straight into a lecture regarding our first assignment.

The 'Box Clever' assignment sounds quite fun. It is very similar to the CSS Zen Garden website where we have to create our own style sheets for a given HTML 'template'. Although my knowledge of CSS is very limited, I am hoping that this assignment will advance my skills dramatically but at the same time it is quite a creative assignment which is always a good thing.

The big assignment of the year so far is the 'On the Job' assignment. Although techincally the iMe assignment is the longest, I feel that this assignment will be the most beneficial and make us work the hardest.

This has shown already, as only three weeks in to the second year and already I have being investigating setting up my own content management system and attempting to get my head around PHP and MySQL. This caused mass headaches for the first week but I now seem to be getting the hang of it, and with the help of Craig's books he has lent me will hopefully improve even further.

Regarding the assignment, tomorrow is our first meeting with the client and I am the 'official' minute taker of our 'company' which requires me to get dressed up. Laughs all round tomorrow then.

So far this year, one thing that I think has improved already is my time planning skills. I have managed to do my time plans at the beginning of each week, and keep them up to date throughout. This will be a massive help not only for me to plan the assignments better, but will also hopefully help in me achieving higher grades.

My aims for the next week are to:
Complete my designs for the Box Clever assignment

• Learn some more CSS
• Learn some more PHP/MySQL
• Complete any other tasks given by Craig B for the On the Job assignment
• Learn to speak in a less 'conversational manner' and a more 'academic manner'...maybe

If I can complete all these by next week then I will still be on track with my 'master time plan' for the assignments.

So Many Skills, So Little Time.

Over the past year we have learnt many things, all of which are linked to the industry. There have been times when I, and probably some others, may have felt that what we were learning at the time had no real point, but in the end it always makes sense.

Personal development planning is one of these such examples. On first glance PDP's sound a little too academic but the more I think about them the more sense it seems to make. The skills I have learnt from doing PDP exercises are vast. When I first started the course my knowledge of web design was very limited, and I had no real experience in any of the software we would be learning. This soon changed though as I soon grasped the concept of the software and learnt the many features of the various ones.

This is perhaps the most obvious task we have being given that is linked directly to the industry as with no knowledge of Dreamweaver, Photoshop, etc. then no employer would even consider hiring us. Now however, I feel I am well on the way to gaining the valuable skills needed to gain an employer at the end of the course.

Attending lectures and tutorials is another 'how does that help' topic at first glance. Although not as obvious as PDP the skills which we learn in lectures are greatly needed. Participation in group discussions is something that will be yet another valuable trait in the industry, as talking in groups with people and getting ideas/views across will be something I will be likely to do almost every day.

So far on the course we have had little time at present to participate in 'group projects'. Although we have had our feedback meetings and a few small group projects no big projects have been completed. We are currently taking part in a group project however which is making use of our communication skills, attention to detail, time planning and most importantly negotiational skills.

With the industry we are aiming to work in, one skill I will need to have perfect is our oral presentation skills. Speaking to clients and pitching for work will be a must if we are to survive in the competitive market of web design and so far the course is teaching us this skill well.

Group projects are probably one of the most obvious skills related to the industry that we will learn on the course, as working with people in a group environment will again be most likely on a daily basis.

Already we have had numerous presentations in both individual and group scenarios, and there are still many more of them to come. Before starting the course I had not done many presentations before and I feel that from being on the course my presentational skills have greatly improved.

Writing essays and other forms of academic writing is something that I have had to do throughout my educational life. However because I aspired to be a journalist at one point in my career my written work can sometimes reflect this a bit too much and I can tend to 'waffle' on. Because in the industry time will be essential I will not have time to do this and since starting the course I think that my written work has improved when I need it to and is more formal.

In this industry observation is everything. If you walk around with your eyes shut then you will get nowhere. The course has taught me so much about looking at designs that I know struggle to just see something and not analysis it. This will be a huge help in the industry as it allows me to easily take inspiration from designs and store it in my mind for future reference when needed.

Research is something that has been done for almost every assignment that we have completed. It is the backbone to the course almost as finding out about what we are about to undertake is a must. Although time will be a factor again in the industry and research may not be taken for individual projects, we will probably research into the industry in our spare time to keep up to date with the latest technologies and such, especially if we go in to the freelance sector.

We have had very little in the way of 'exams' on the course which meant we had no real 'revision' to do. However, when it has come to writing essays we have had to review our notes that we have taken in lessons and put them into our own words. This will again be a much needed skill in the industry as reviewing notes we have taken from client meetings and such will be something that again will be done regularly.

The things that I really need to improve on to do well in the industry is my presentational skills and my written skills. Although both have greatly improved since I started the course I still find it hard to distance myself from my journalistic traits and to present confidently.

Ready, Aim, Fire!

The second year officially started today and with it many changes. The first being having 5 less people in the group, the second being our 'blogs now being called 'Online Learning Journals' and being 'themed'. Lucky for me then that the first week's theme is on targets both the next 6 months and the next few years.

The next 6 months or so is easy enough. Come February time we will be onto our 5th assignment of the year, with 3 handed in. Looking back to a previous blog I set my self 4 main goals for the year as a whole.

• Get onto the second year

• Get at least a pass on every assignment first time

• Obtain at least 4 merits on assignments

• Improve on my design process (Design more than 6/7 thumbnails)

Now, one of those is already met, so that only leaves me with three to go. Improving on my design process will be the easiest goal for me to meet, as it is something I can do on every single assignment (starting now) and is something I will really concentrate on this year. Getting a pass on every assignment first time will hopefully be relatively easy too (so far so good anyway) but meeting my goal of 4 merits will be the most difficult. Out of the assignments we will have done in 6 months I will hopefully have gained 3 out of 3 merits for them. If I complete this goal then that means I am well on track to get at least 4 merits this year, if not 5.

With Steve's new Merit/Distinction criteria sheets this should be even better, as first impressions seem to be that they are a lot better than last year, and on the whole a lot more obvious as to what we have to do to achieve the higher marks.

This of course then leads me onto my mid-range targets. In 2 or 3 years time, what do I want to be doing. Now I have never made any attempt to hide the fact that my career prospects are all over the place, and even after completing the first year and getting onto the second year I am still unclear about what I really want to be doing. For this reason this is perhaps one of the hardest 'Online Learning Journals' I have had to do so far, and probably will have to do. I have learnt so many skills in such a little time on the course that by the end of this year I will hopefully have enough skills to be able to go into whatever career path I choose.

Perhaps the most worrying thing is that if the second year goes anywhere near as quick as the first year then my time to decide is quickly running out. The best response I can give is that if I do decide to go into teaching (or any other random career that comes into my head) then no doubt in two years I will still be studying (be it for another HE level course or to get a top up to a full degree), if I decide to go into the web design career route then hopefully in two years I will be in the industry working. Who knows...

Like with real targets the wind affects the direction the arrow travels in, and at this moment in time the arrow is still being blown in different directions whilst traveling towards it's final point.

Take A Shot

Just a quick blog regarding testing of websites. For the last assignment I used the BrowserCam website. It was a really useful website that gave you screenshots of your website in all different browsers, sizes, etc. The problem with this website was that it costs money to sign up for it (though you do get a free trial).

Today however, whilst using StumbleUpon I came across BrowserShots, it's basically the same principal as BrowserCam - but free. Now it does take absolutely ages to get your screenshots, so don't use it if your in a hurry, but if your testing can wait and there's other things you can be getting on with in the mean time it's a cheap way to get screenshots (especially if you don't have a Mac/PC or the browsers you need).

Because it takes so long I've yet to see the images to see how good they are, but I will try and update the blog with some examples ASAP. If anyone else has any similar sites then feel free to leave me a comment and I'll make a list of them.

No Blog Title.

As it is the holidays, and my assignment is now finished I decided to take this time to write a less academic blog but which got me thinking about my previous CD artwork assignment and how I tried, and quite possibly failed, to be different.

Now, being fortunate (working for a street team) I have had the chance to meet one of my favourite bands (Hard-Fi) on numerous occasions throughout their careers and they are as a normal indie band who have been around a few years now and have got relatively successful on the indie scene as any other band in the genre.

Their debut album (Stars of CCTV) featured (as can be seen) a very simple cover. The CCTV camera reflected both the album name as well as accompanying some of the inner artwork (images from CCTV cameras). The impact that this cover had on people was immense. On numerous occasions I remember people seeing a CCTV warning sign placed somewhere and them shouting 'Hard-Fi'. Now yes this may be a little sad of people to do, but it worked. People remembered the artwork, the band and the album because of one simple picture.
This was perhaps helped by the promotion of the album with various stickers, posters, etc. all depicting the same image.

Anyone who has seen the infamous 'Embrace sticker pic' will no doubt realise what I mean.

As I said before, this album (and it's artwork) has made the band relatively successful, and with any successful debut album comes the rather dreaded and difficult second album. The 'make or break' album. This of course then includes the rather dreaded and difficult second album artwork.

With the thought of a new indie album coming out, the mind automatically springs to a moody looking band standing in front of a wall strewn with graffiti. But not Hard-Fi. No. They want to be 'different'.

With the new artwork they've tried to be clever, but have just come across as being pretentious. As one of my friends put it:

'This particular album art reminds me a little of the t-shirts currently on sale in TopShop, you know the ones "save the rave" etc. except with slogans such as "Make music, not bombs". Fair do's, you should make music and not bombs, but wearing a t-shirt made in China, that you bought from a high street chain store, printed in neon colours just makes you look like a prat instead of someone who is actually concerned about war.'

Personally I think that the whole idea of the album artwork looks like they are trying just too hard, and that the whole design will backfire on them. Yes the Beatles may have gotten away with it for their 'White Album' but they did this with Sgt. Pepper behind them. Not a CCTV camera.

From speaking to others about this topic they say it has actually deterred them from buying the album, despite them being fans of the band. Amazing how a CD cover can change peoples minds in such ways.

So this brings me back to my original point of the blog. My design for CD artwork and how I tried to be different.

With very little knowledge of who I was making the CD for, I went ahead and created some album art which was different to other electro/trance CD artwork I have seen. But was that the right choice? Did Pete Namlook and Pascal FEOS have enough credibility to break from the loop and do something different? Or would this have alienated both old, and new fans?

It is just another thing to add to the ever growing list of things to consider when designing something.

It's just a bit of Monkey Business

For the assignment we were asked to do a series of tasks including looking into copyright legislation, come up with our idea of a good team roles combination, create a valid CSS/XHTML website, note the differences between various browsers, and create an executive business summary for our own freelance web design company.

This assignment was a relatively simple one once it got going, though there was a lot of research to be done prior to starting. The majority of this research came into play when researching for CSS web design as this is something I had no prior experience in at all. Other parts of the research, such as the copyright legislation I had some prior knowledge in. Even the business summary I had some knowledge of from my GCSE Business lessons.

Though it is quite easy to say that the assignment was simple looking back on it, I have had quite a stressful time trying to do parts of it, sometimes staying up until midnight trying to figure out what I was missing, or where I was going wrong – again mainly with the CSS website.

One of the most beneficial parts of the assignment would have to be the team roles part of the assignment. I think trying to work out just what members would be needed in a team and especially what documents would be required will help immensely in the group assignment next year, and it will be interesting to see just what other members of my group have come up with in respect to their ideal ‘team roles’ scenario.

The business summary was also a vital learning experience for me, as if I were to go into freelancing, then I would need to know about business summaries to even get my business off the ground.

I think however that as a whole the CSS website design will be the most beneficial, as this will be one of the most used aspects of the assignment over not only the coming months, but hopefully the coming years too, whether I go into freelancing or into a job as a designer with an agency. By learning some basic CSS now, it will also hopefully make learning some extra CSS knowledge next year easier and allow for even bigger and better things to be built. With the assignment being quite long, it has also given me time to experiment with CSS, and although the design is a little bland, I am happy with what I managed to achieve.

Saying this, I did try to implement a Google Map into the website showing where the school was for visitors, but I struggled to get it working which is a shame, as the map is sometimes quite a useful tool to have on websites, especially when users can get directions from their own homes to the school.

Still, perhaps I should have tried to take my time more with learning CSS and learnt to crawl before I learnt to run, but this is a case of learning from my mistake and I will try not to be too down about it.

"An End Has A Start"

Since my last blog I have made a huge start on the assignment. Not only is my website finished (I think), so is my copyright essay, team roles essay, and 99% of my executive summary. My time plans are really filling up, and I have highlighted everything that still needs to be done in red so I know what is left to do. I'm glad to say that the majority of my time planning sheet isn't red which is a huge relief with me going away for almost 2 weeks on Tuesday.

The assignment has been much easier than I imagined which was a relief, though I have still struggled quite a lot with the executive summary side of things. I have even found myself pulling out my old GCSE business books for help on things. (Who knew being forced to keep old school books in case 'they ever come in handy again' was actually true?)

In fact the hardest part of the assignment has been the time planning aspect and more importantly for me, trying to stick to scheduled dates (something I have not done for the past year, and was commented on in the last assignment)

All that is really left to do is to finish my financial forecast, record the differences in my website in the various browsers (which I already have the screenshots of) and to write the results down. Add onto that referencing the assignment, evaluating it and checking it through and it will be done and dusted.

The end is once again definitely in sight for me, and it will be a relief when it's all over so I can enjoy a few weeks of free time before it starts all over again.

Website's Need a Good Stretch From Time to Time

This week I made a start on my website for the new assignment. I went out and took some pictures of various 'interesting objects' around my house, and have decided to make my website on my local high school.

Because I have never made a website solely in CSS before, I decided it was best to look into it somewhat. I looked through a few magazines I had previously bought and took a few ideas, and also looked at the website and found a few articles on CSS design.

One of the most interesting articles was an article about liquid websites that can adapt to fit the screen size. Although this is possibly a little ambitious for my first CSS website, I have decided to take the risk and attempt to create a 'liquid' or 'elastic' website. To do this I have also looked into a few other articles including an article on elastic design and an article about measuring in em's.

I have also so far completed my 'team roles' section of the website, and have gathered a few images for the first task. I still have a long way to go with the assignment, and a lot of work to do in the next few days if I am to keep on a sort of target.

One of the most difficult parts of the assignment so far is the time planning, I have attempted to create a basic outline of what I plan to do in my 120 hours, but without having set hours to the assignments as usual I am finding it rather difficult. I may try and do 32 hours a week to try and keep on top of the assignment and also so I can plan it out better like a normal college week, but with holidays coming up this could be quite difficult too.

I may use some of my 'free time' for the week to try an experiment with various ways of time keeping and see what suits me best for this assignment.

Olympic Logo a No Go?

THIS is the new £400,000 Olympic logo for the 2012 Olympics in London, and less than a week after it was unveiled it is already under strict criticism from what seems to be the entire nation.

Almost half a million pounds was spent designing and creating it and it's difficult to see what exactly this money went on. Obviously not on gaining user feedback that's for sure. And with the recent revelation that the logo is actually dangerous to people with epilepsy and migraine sufferers, obviously not basic health and safety checks either.

But regardless of the costs, is the logo really that bad? In a recent television survey, they found 85% of people disliked the new Olympic logo, which leaves only a minor 15% who actually like it, or at the very least don't dislike it. In my personal opinion I dislike the logo immensely but from a design point of view is it any good?

Well, for a start it is obviously a very distinct shape unlike any other logo I have seen before, and it is quite memorable too being shaped as the 20-12 letters. It can be used in both colour and in black and white format, and uses it's space wisely. In fact the only one of the 4 logo design principles the logo doesn't meet is that if it were to be used at too small a size the word London, and the rings may become distorted and be hard to read/see. But 3/4 isn't bad.

This is a point of which I think must be remembered, that no matter how many of the 4 design principle boxes you tick, no matter how much time, money or effort you put into designing a logo, you must do the basics things such as researching your audience, or you too will end up with something similar to the London 2012 Olympic one.

Online Petition - Change the London 2012 Olympic Logo

"The Fake Sound of Progress"

Only a few weeks into the holidays and already I feel as if I am behind. With a new assignment to be done, a client to find, and almost a 2 week handicap on the deadline I can't help but think I should at least have started the assignment.

The truth is however, I haven't even looked at it since we left.

At the moment I am taking the attitude of 'it's a holiday' but that isn't going to pass me the assingment. My real holiday is just before we return, and the deadline falls smack bang in the middle of it, so why am I wasting my time that could be so crucial in just a few months time?

I need to make a big start on the new assignment, and fast. My goal is that this blog will be my motivation to start, something that I can look back on and remind me self that the work has to be done and that the first year may be finished, but the course isn't.

Also, for anyone who didn't get the eMail I sent round, the following is an eMail Richard Stelmach sent me with some links for the new assignment:

First you will need Firefox and also the "web developers toolbar". This allows you to disable style sheets which helps when using CSS.

http://www.csszengarden.com/ - Good CSS examples.

http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tutorials/box_lesson/boxes.html - this one has different layouts and tells you how to do them, it's a really good one to use.

http://www.intensivstation.ch/templates/ - same kind of thing as the last one, also useful.They're a pretty good starting point.

I'd also recommend finding a good book to use also. Remember to work in Code view when using
CSS/XHTML in Dreamweaver.

Time Has Told...

On September 14th 2006 my first blog was written, titled 'Who Am I, and How Did I Get Here?'. In it I wrote about myself, and my previous experiences and I also wrote one key paragraph:

"This now brings me to my reason for writing this. It is not so that in 50 years, when I’m old and grey, I can see what I was like as a child, but hopefully, so that in 2 years, I can look back at the end of my course at Wakefield and see what I gained from the course, and if it is what I expected."

Well now I am almost half way through the course, and already so much has changed.

A day after writing my very first blog I wrote a second blog about my first week on the course. In this blog I spoke about already having 2 assignments, the first been the Sketchblog assignment, the second been the 'Great Briton' assignment.

Once again this blog had key points to it, most notably the paragraph about the sketchblog assignment. In it, I write about the sketchblog assignment been down to 'habit' and remembering to write my blog and stick things in my sketchbook. I then write that if I remember to make my sketchbook the first point of call for all work 'I can't really go wrong' and that 'only time will tell'.

Famous last words.

I've found the blog a very enjoyable thing to do, I think this is obvious by the fact that I sometimes can do 2, maybe even 3 blogs a week. Sometimes I have written blogs and not published them for their relevance to the course was limited. Perhaps this was a mistake to make? Perhaps I should have made a more personal blog to voice my less relevant points? I have since learnt from these mistakes and can rectify them in the second year.

The sketchbook on the other hand was a completely different story. From the word go I didn't do as well as I could have done. I got a few images I liked and stuck them in, I took notes, I drew designs, but none of this was good enough.

Adding colour, getting more inspirational art, two very simple things, and yet both I failed to do until the last few weeks of the course. At this moment in time I sit still unsure whether the amount of work I have put into my sketchbook assignment the past few weeks is enough for me to pass it. I hope it is, but if it's not, there is no one else to blame but myself.

The Great Briton assignment was much better, and as the 'first' assignment, another very enjoyable experience.

I think my main problem with this assignment was that I spent too much time researching, and not enough time designing. Spending hours trying to find a copy of John Peel's book, which would most likely of had very little useful information in it was possibly the biggest waste of time. If we were actually making the website and putting content into it I'm sure it would have been very good, but just for a website plan? Useless.

Three weeks into the course and yet more famous last words - 'If I'm going to mess something up I think I’d rather mess up at the beginning of the course than half way through'. My own thoughts and yet I didn't even take them into consideration with the sketchbook assignment.

One major fear factor of the course for me when we started was having to learn new software. I had some basic experience in Photoshop, some experience using 'The F Word' and that was about that. Dreamweaver, Flash, Freehand were all new to me, and I'd never even heard of Pagemaker.

However, as young and naive as I was, and in some respects still am, I think that the technical side of the course has been relatively 'simple'. As was discussed this morning, the amount that we have to use some applications barely scratches the surface of what can be done. This is no fault of Steve's of course, to fully learn an application could take months (at least!).

With the limited time we have had in class to learn pieces of software, spending time at home learning them has been one of the most important items of self study I have done over the past year. Without knowing the software, how are we supposed to get anything else done? This I feel has benefited me greatly, probably most in Pagemaker than any other program.

In my own opinion this is shown in the 'Picture This' assignment more so than any other. I know I keep ranting on about it but the 'task bombs' as they were nicknamed produced some of my best work to date. This surprised me immensely as it was the first time that I had been forced to create something in such strict, mini time scales.

The Picture This assignment was not all fun and games however, in fact the majority of the assignment was hard, exhausting work. Probably the hardest part of the assignment was the presentation aspect of it.

Many people, including myself, have had limited or no experience of giving presentations and so this was a very nerve racking thing. The fact that we were being assessed on it made it even more nerve racking personally because I knew that if I really messed it up that I could fail the assignment and then possibly the course. This sense of unease also ran into the final 'test' of the assignment which was a lot more formal than the previous timed assignments we had been doing.

Luckily however, this was not the case with our Back to BASIC assignment, as this was much more laid back and less time restrictive than the Picture This assignment. This was quite a boring assignment as a whole as it was pretty much identical to the previous Great Briton assignment we had done, just with a different subject.

There were a few minor differences in the assignment though, the major difference was the knowledge that we would actually be making the website and so we had to find/create all of our own content for it. This was our first glimpse at not only creating a working website, but also into copyright laws and just what we could and couldn't do to obtain images. Google images was immediately ruled out of the question which left people with the challenge of finding images.

Finding copyright free images was a lot harder than I imagined because I had no experience in it before. I got most images from Wikipedia for the majority of the assignment, and it was only late on that I found out about the free image site SXC.

I think this is something that has plagued me throughout the year when it comes to images. Been somewhat tight when it comes to money, I have wished not to spend money on images that we may use just once or twice. I have since come to realise however that this is a very negative attitude to take and that if buying an image is the difference between pass and merit, merit distinction or worse pass and fail, then I should not dismiss it as easily and just pay £1, or even less to download it.

This was a fact I wish I had once again learnt a lot sooner than I did, as once again in A7 it has caused me no end of troubles. At first in the assignment it relatively easy to find the images I want, I collected the images from SXC in the correct resolution and I thought that was that, and on I got with the assignment. It is only recently that it has become clear that one of the images I downloaded was copyrighted and so I couldn't use it. If I had bought an image then the likely hood of it being copyrighted would decrease, but at the same time there is no point just buying an image for the sake of it.

The Fax of Life assignment has probably been one of the most interesting to do, and a big jump up in the amount of work we have had to do. With so much work to think about at the start of the assignment I was worried about making the deadline, but with good time management I have managed to complete nearly all of the assignment already, with a few days still to go so hopefully I won't be leaving everything until last minute.

Looking right back to my original blog, a lot has changed in well under a year. I am now more technically able than I was back in September. After all, although I mention about having self taught skills, these in no way compare to the level of proficiency that I have learnt in my first year of the course. I am also really enjoying the course, something which Steve always says is not his plan but a subsidiary of the course and I think this is really helping motivate me to get my work done and try and do the best I can.

With the first year almost over, the second year will be my chance to try and make another huge step up. In the next year my main goals are to:

• Get onto the second year
• Get at least a pass on every assignment first time
• Obtain at least 4 merits on assignments
• Improve on my design process (Design more than 6/7 thumbnails)

If I can do all these things I will be extremely happy, especially with obtaining 4 merits. Hopefully I will be able to do better than 4 merits but to start with I don't want to concentrate too much on merit criteria and end up failing the assignment for not meeting the pass criteria.

The End Is In Sight...

This week has focused mainly on copyright, and with KFC suing a local restaurant over the use of it's trademark of 'family feast' in the news yesterday, it just proves how seriously the little details should be taken.

This is a lesson I have learnt this week, and something I wish I had learnt a lot sooner. My image that I used for my CD cover was removed from the SXC website due to copyright infringement and so had to spend many hours this week looking for a new image to use on my CD designs. Not only did this completely mess up my time plans, but I was also worried that it would throw me completely out by having to change my designs to incorporate the new image.

Luckily for me however, I found an identical image to the one I already had on Wikipedia and was safe, but that doesn't mean that I will be so lucky next time - if there is a next time.

Looking on various other sites I have found out that the image actually costs to download it (and at some quite hefty prices) which I should have realised that it was suspicious that I could download it for free, but sadly this sort of research I didn't think about, and should do in future.

The image I have is still a free image, but has been given copyright free status by NASA (the originators of the image) so I am quite certain that this time I should have no problems with the image.

Also this week we had yet another talk, this time from Richard Stelmach of Empiredirect.co.uk. This was yet another interesting talk from another designer and was useful that he talked about image rights and copyright of them.

It was also interesting to hear about how the site has been created using CSS to work at all screen sizes, something which I may research into over the summer break once the FAX assignment is out of the way.

In other news, the results of the 'Album VS Artist' debate are in, and it appears that with a land slide that 'artist' has won. This didn't really shock me but what did shock me was that people who don't comment much on blogs and use the excuse 'there's nothing to comment on' missed a valuable opportunity to comment and to boost their sketchblog grades. So thank you to everyone who did comment.

Even though the poll said that artist is generally bigger, I did agree with Scott's comment regarding the difference between this music, and mainstream music. This is a similar point to the one I have been making throughout the assignment with my designs, and trying to make them different to the usual electro/trance records you see every day in the shops. For this reason I have opted to keep my designs the way they are, with the album title more predominant than the artist.

Finally, my Ambient World website is complete. Please feel free to look at it and comment on anything that needs changing (if anything)

The Biggest Question Since 'Art Vs Design' - 'Album or Artist'

As last week this is blog deux. See below for this weeks main blog.

Anyway, in feedback groups today with Steve the question was posed, 'Album or Arist' which is more important. 2 of us said album, 2 of us said artist. I have since asked 2 more people and one said artist one said album.

So I now put the question out to fellow HND/HNCers. Which is more important on a album. The name of the album, or the name of the artist?

Answers on a postcard please (or just comment with 'Album' or 'Artist')

Results in next weeks blog.

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.

The Hidden Goals

*Note* - This is not my main weekly blog, more of an interim blog. For my main weekly blog, please see below.

With the assignment deadline only a few weeks away, today I began to think about the website its self. Although I already have a working progress site, it is so far just something that I have designed and created without caring about usability and other vital issues.

With my previous assignments website, I created as part of my goals for the site, to conform to Accessibility guidelines 1.1, 2.1, 5.1 and 6.1, or to be more specific, 'Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element', 'Ensure that all information conveyed with colour is also available without colour', 'For data tables, identify row and column headers' and finally to 'Organize documents so they may be read without style sheets'.

I succeeded in all four of these goals which was a good thing, but I still feel I can do better. For this reason when I have completed the CO-ID of the website, I plan to implement the same guidelines, as well as try and add a few others in too.

Something I have already considered when creating the website was the colour scheme. Although I tried to choose a sort of ambient colour, I also tried to take into account the way in which people would see the colours. I found out that some of the hardest colours for people with colour blindness to see are red's and greens, and so tried to stay away from this. I also found out that blues and yellows can cause problems for people with colour blindness, but this is not as bad as red-green colour blindness as it is just the shade of the colour that is different, not actually the colour its self.

Doing this also brings to mind the lecture yesterday about the second year, where we were told that 'if an opportunity doesn't arrise to meet learning outcomes, make an opportunity'. This I feel has already started with this assignment, as although we were not told to actually create goals for our websites, in a way we all still have to create goals, even if we are not writing them down in the same way as we have been doing.

One small step to failure, One giant leap to fix it.

The first week back from the holidays and once again back into the reality of the ever approaching deadline.

Steve wanted to pre-assess sketchbooks this week, and with the knowledge I was already failing my sketchbook assignment, I decided to leave it until almost last to go see him about it. I have actually got more evidence for the assignment than I first thought, and perhaps I'm not failing as badly as I first thought, but the reality is I am failing it at present and I do still have a lot of work to do to fix it.

The main lesson of which I learnt from this is that I must take screenshots to evidence my work. This is a point of which I keep forgetting to do and will need to keep reminding myself of more in the future.

My other main tasks for the week has been mainly trying to come up with ideas for my CD cover artwork. The title of my CD is Hearts of Space and so the obvious heart theme comes into a lot of my ideas. I also took the approach of a sort of plasma electric ball to start with as I thought this reflected the techno/electro music on the CD.

However, I was thwarted when I applied the gamut warning mask to my design as it shaded nearly almost my whole design into grey.

Back to the drawing board.

Another idea I had created was to take a character card from a deck of playing cards (such as the king) and apply my own abstract twist to it. This was once again a play on the hearts theme which I can't seem to get away from.

Firstly I came up with the idea of an astronaut card facing up surrounded by other cards. These was shunned in our feedback groups as the background was too busy. Instead I kept the astronaut idea and changed it around a little. I came up with 3 versions of pretty much the same design of which can be seen below. Any feedback on the designs would be welcomed.





The first images font is not the font I would be using (unless there is massive appraisal of it) it was just to show the image in relation to the text.

Now my CD cover ideas are almost completed, I feel like I can concentrate further on my sketchbook assignment, and try and improve it so that I do not have to retake the whole unit again next year. I think this is one of my biggest fears of the moment and am now regretting my decision to sort of ease off on the sketchbook assignment to concentrate on other projects.

Another large topic which was discussed today was about next years team assignment and the various roles within the groups. Steve said that in most cases the project manager of the group is forced into the role as no one wishes to do it. This was then followed by a brief description of the roles of the PM. As this was been said I looked around the room and saw quite a few faces of worry, obviously hoping that they wouldn't be chosen as project manager.

Personally for me, if I was in a group and was nominated as PM I would agree to doing it. Not because I would be being forced into it, but from my previous course and experiences of team projects on that, I found myself quite enjoying taking on the role of being PM.

That is quite a while away now though, and my immediate plans over the weekend is to bump up my sketchbook work with examples of inspirational art work and idea generating techniques for further designs of CD artwork (as the inside and back of the CD still need to be designed for). I have also found myself behind in my time planning for this week already too, and may put in a few extra hours this week to get further ahead both in the project and to catch up with what I have failed to do so far.

After all, the deadline is slowly approaching all the time.

Travellers Tales

After spending the last 2 weeks away on holiday, the past few days have taken on some serious work.

Although I had planned to do some work over the holidays, I just didn't get the chance to. I managed to do an odd hour here and there but nowhere near as much as I had hoped to. However, the past few days have allowed me to catch up with some of this work, and I pretty much have all my designs done and dusted. I've yet to scan them in so I can't host them onto my blog, but I will ASAP along with my new site structure (as requested by Steve).

With only 3 weeks left until the end of the year, and therefore the end of the assignment, tensions are bound to be running high this week. Where as in previous weeks the atmosphere seems to have being quite relaxed, there is no doubt what every ones minds will be on come Wednesday.

Another bombshell was also dropped this week by Steve, when he announced that he would be pre-assessing sketchbooks. My sketchbook is still lacking (although I do have quite a few images that need printing off and sticking in when we return this week). Although my sketchbook work has improved over the past month or so, the thought is still in my mind of 'is it good enough?'.

Once more, I need to 'step-up' my sketchbook work this week and make sure that I pass the sketchblog assignment. Not only will this include finding more inspirational artwork, it will also include further use of my sketchbook for idea generation (if there is any left to do) and also concentrate once again on commenting others blogs.

This is something that I feel I need to remember at present. That the sketchblog assignment isn't JUST about the sketchbook and the blog is just something we are doing for evaluation purposes, but in fact that the blog is ALSO as much a part of the assignment as the sketchbook, and that by putting all my time and effort into the sketchbook, perhaps over the past few weeks I have let the blog slide a little too.

Finding the right balance is the key.

When Does The Holiday Start?

Almost a week into the Easter holidays and the 'holiday' has yet to arrive. Due to me going away for 2 weeks, the whole week has been devoted to trying to get my work done.

So far, I've completely changed my mind about the website site structure, and made that again (luckily however, before any work had gone into actually making the website content), created a page for my website, and began designing the co-id. There's alot I still have to do, and perhaps with it being the holidays I have slacked off a little in my work efforts and not done as much as I normally would have done in the time, but this is all going to change.

Over the next day or two I am planning to finish what I had planned to do for the whole of the holidays. It sounds like a big task, but I only planned 32 hours so it's not that bad.

One thing I have concentrated on quite alot this week is the sketch book. I have stuck in the co-id items I received from Atlantic Records, and have also been researching into e-mail templates and signatures.

I used an e-mail from Dave Pannell at TDM and an e-mail from Steve. Dave's e-mail contained a template and the e-mail size was a whopping 53kb where as Steve's e-mail with only a signature was only 6kb. Dave's e-mail was just quite a short, simple, text e-mail and was over the 50kb maximum page size that we have been taught to stick to. I found myself thinking that if a real attatchment were to be added to the e-mail (such as a document, file, image, etc) the size of the e-mail could be quite large.

I have still yet to decide whether to create an e-mail template or not, using the information I have gathered over the past week I don't think I will, but it's not just a answer you can pull out of nothing. Serious thinking has to go into it.

I shall let everyone know my decision, and what happens with the rest of my work when I return from holiday in 2 weeks time.

Watch this space.