'The Calm After the Storm'

Deadline day was similar to the last with a few less headless chickens running around frantically trying to tie up the loose ends. I felt a sense of 'freedom' after the assignment was handed in and am now fully in the Christmas spirit, happily singing Christmas songs at work ad finally opening up a few neglected advent calendar doors, left shut through terror of the deadline date looming ever closer!

The first semester has passed so fast but I have learnt more from this course in the first few months than I have in the full duration of any other course I have done.

SketchBlog
The first major assignment given, I have never really had to record my thoughts and feelings in a Blog before, in all honesty never having used one either, but this process is something I look forward to now as it is a great help when writing evaluations, looking back etc. The Sketchbook, another new element to the course, is again something I have never used but mine is hopefully getting better with a few pieces of inspirations (and not one comic in sight).

That's The Plan
The first submittable assignment, this was a good break-in gently' assignment although it wasn't all plain sailing. The first thing that made more or less everyone cringe was that dreaded set of initials P + M, otherwise known as PageMaker! With the template PageMaker seemed easy to use and to get used to but the screen designs were a new and sometimes painstakingly impossible to get measurements right. I think the thing I made an advantage on was the master page putting all the same elements on this page so I didn't need to redo them.

Back To BASIC
Another website plan but this time we were promised that we could make the website, first feelings were 'oh god not another web plan' but this is practice into making a web plan which is necessary to making a website. The screen designs were easier to do this time and I found it easier to do the measurements this time. I even managed to educate myself with some of the content for the site. The thing that stalled me a bit was finding the website images, this will need to be thoroughly investigated before I continue next time.

Picture This
The assignment I had been looking forward to as I finally got to play in Photoshop, looking back I could have done things better but people have to start somewhere don't they? I did not like the image restoration task and if I ever see three old men on a bench with a cup I may turn slightly mad... However much I liked / disliked this assignment it was very good practice and it was fun to complete and let me be creative and I think this has re-ignited a creative element to my life.

Overall the semester has gone fast but with fun and a lot of new friends to which I say Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year, and I am looking forward to going back in the new year to a fresh start with time planning!

'Things are Starting to Heat Up'

As assignment day is looming ever so near, I thought I had managed to get everything sorted and to submissiom standard. However the road to success is never a straight flat road as I have found out.

After the feedback meeting on Thursday this did nothing but throw up a few errors in my work and missing pieces. This felt annoying at first and made me panic again... but it has to be said that I will do a better assignment afterwards. I did think that the major part of the assignment was completed and to be honest it still is but there is still a little thought nagging at the back of my mind that it might not get finished in time.

The first hurdle to face is the fact that a website used to retrieve images has said that their images are the property of the creator and cannot by copied. This means that I have to search for the remaining images that were found on said website.

The second is the Back to BASIC assignment, this needs some tweaking although all the references are in place and so are the figures [image figs]. The only thing that needs to be done is the Budget Statement and now a table on the website hosts displaying which will be the best to use.

On the A4 assignment front all that is needed now is to print the colour images out and finish the image restoration exercise. I didn't think that I would complete the two essays as good as I have as I didn't really know what to write in the assignment and this is why I think they were left until the last minute.

The final exercise is to complete the two evaluations but with all the problems I think that I will have enough to write.

'Every Superhero Needs a Sidekick'

On Wednesday I was greeted with 'a new best friend', in the form of a Spongebob Toy. I managed to get my screen designs started and nearly completed, but another bomb was dropped when I discovered that images count as content.

I quite enjoyed Thursdays lesson as we started with a quick fire 'art attack' kind of session. We were asked to draw 6 wide skyscraper layouts and 6 medium rectangle shaped banner ads in our sketchbooks. We were given 2 minutes to draw 6 rough designs for the banner ad assignment, per photograph. I found this daunting at first but found it really exciting to do and, in the end, discovered I had completed the bulk of this last assignment task.

I feel my artistic qualities could be better but that is something I'm wanting to work on. The final designs that I came up with were interesting but a little hard to explain on paper. I have shown an image below to try and show what the effect I was after was in the form of a single sleeve from U2.

This is not so much meant by the background image but I do like the text as some letters are capitalised and some are lower case. This also shows a form of contrast in the different case of letters and colours. I also like the lines behind but I have to be wary with the file sizes. This image may even find its way into my sketch book.

Last but certainly not least is the fact that assignment hand in date is looming ever so closer. Feelings of panic are starting to set in and I can see the weekend being taken up with a lot of work, as self study hasn't been efficiently used the 16 hours and it is starting to show the effects of this. This is my own fault and I know that so tonight on the train home will envolve a little 'list making' exercise to see what needs doing and then organising it into a routine to stick to.

I can see this list getting quite long but not as long as my Christmas list, hopefully! I have an extra day off this week so that gives me another day to do some work.

'The Clone Saga'

Finally the part of the Assignment I'vae been looking forward to and I have to say I was petrified to see it. We are to take an old photograph and restore it to it's original colour state. Having never really used Photoshop I felt overwhelmed by the amount of work that I thought had to be done. For the best part of Thursdays morning lecture I was a bit unsure on what to do and where to start.

After dinner time, and a bit of coaching from Steve, I felt that I had a better insight on what to do and looking back at the original I feel I have made some progress. I think the main reason why I started to panic was because I was unsure about how I would tackle the task. After a lot of 'Cloning' a bit of 'Spot Healing' and 'Patching'. I feel I am quite happy with what I have managed to achieve at this point but there is still a lot to do.

Going back to Wednesday I feel I got a lot done, content and thumbnail wise. I originally opted for a simple website design with a left hand navigation and whilst browsing the Internet for terms I came across this website.

http://www.gpeters.com/color/color-schemes.php?search_term=computers

This site extracts colour from a related image search and creates customised colour schemes. I had decided to focus on a more blue / silver / grey colour scheme, although a cold colour scheme I feel it also has a technological feel. Another design I was leaning towards was a cartoony / comic feel to the website but after discussing it in the feedback meeting it seemed to be aimed at users a bit too young. I'm not going to totally dismiss the idea and I might develop it a little more in my sketch book.

Self study now will consist of completing a primary draft version of the restored photo so expect to see it on the Blog next week.

'Keeping Cool Under Pressure'

I have only two phobias in life, one is walking under train bridges and the second is presentations. So to my horror, when I walked in on Wednesday, I found we had a 2-3 minute mini-presentation to complete, although I did not expect the deadline to be as soon as 2pm the same day.

I have never liked doing presentations so hearing that we had one started of my primary reaction of panic. In the past presentations have always ended up with me being really nervous. This is due to the fact that I have never really planned for one properly or rehearsed them.

The presentation given was on the colour blue so in order to do the presentation I needed to research. That was the easy part... I think the initial panic had faded by then partly because I had tried to forget about the fact that a presentation was closing.

Research and presentation prepared I went off to do my presentation and to my delight there was only Steve and Diane to watch it. Still this did not stop the nerves and as soon as I walked through the door my heart rate doubled. My main aim for this presentation was not to deliver it too quick because when I panic I do tend to speed up when talking.

During the presentation I felt very nervous and I felt my words wavering and my voice shaky. What surprised me the most is I managed to get the presentation bang on 3 minutes. What surprised me even more was the fact that I had delivered, according to Diane, an excellent presentation. Even Steve said it was a good presentation and if I was nervous I definitely didn't show it. Well I couldn't have felt happier knowing that a) it was over and b) it was a good presentation, which did throw me so much that I completely forgot about my handout.

This has shown me that although I may be nervous my presentation skills have improved more than I thought they would have. The main thing that I need to work on is the preparation of the presentation and how to handle my nervers. In future presentations I am going to need rehearse more, doing this will calm me down.

'You're Looking Rather Green Mr Osborn...'

This week added some colour into my life in the form of the Colour Wheel. Wednesday started with a lecture about the colour theory which had us in our feedback groups 'discussing emotions and feelings linked with colour'. i.e. White as a sheet, seeing red, green with envy etc.

Having previously done a graphics course I have already heard of the colour wheel but I did learn some new terms used such as Triadic and the Tetradic colour schemes.

Thursday's lecture focused on compressions of images which helped a little on the assignment, however my brain has hit the eh? what? stage yet again. I don't really know what I am writing only that I am comparing the image compression formats GIF, JPEG and PNG. I guess I have an idea of what I'm meant to be writing. I think that it's just the word count that is a bit off-putting.

Apart from that assignment A3 is going well I have a good set of achieveable goals. Everything seems to be going to 'plan', assignment 4 is worrying me a bit but I just need to focus more. Self study is starting to be a bit of an issue what with work messing up a few days last week but now I have 3 days to nail A4 part 1+2 allowing more time for A3 to get done.

'I Need More Arms'

Time planning has to be sorted, I was with the understanding that they had to be done weekly but apparently there needs to be one that starts on the Issue Date and ends on the Submission Date. As this is a merit criteria I have swiftly amended it, or have started to. As it stands it looks like i'm not good at juggling. This is probably down to the nerves of the last assignment and the thought "Can do better".

Wednesdays lesson focused on Layout Principles, the four main being

1) Proximity - Where the Page Elements are placed
2) Alignment - How they are aligned (Not Centred)
3) Repetition - Consistency
4) Contrast - Differences between page elements

Not completely sure about the contrast bit but that could be some self study, as if I don't have enough. Rest of the day was assignment work.

Thursday turned out to be a 'Mini Adventure' but without the Mini. In it's place was a rather big green bus with a bit of a smoking problem. Sat on the back seat coming into Selby thick white smoke came out of the back seat, well I've never got off a bus so fast. Bus driver quote when I told him "Oh my god it is!"

Eventually got to college a bit late (sorry) and walked into a lecture on colour space and the different ways to show a colour. Hex, RGB, CMYK. Then a quick quiz which I failed miserably 1 out of 3 showed that I need to re-read my notes.

Anyway self study for this week is to finish of The Designers Republic essay and do a fair bit on the Back to Basic web plan. I feel I know what I'm meant to be discussing in this essay after the feedback session on Thursday, although the addition to the assignment brief.

"A particular fruitful approach may be to investigate the margin between 'Art' and 'Design'."

To which my brain said eh? what? Now I feel I can answer this better than I could have done last week. It did however spark off a good discussion in the lesson which was quite amusing to listen to.

'Between a Rock and a Hard Place'

Well this week has been interesting, firstly we received the results of our first assignment and I am glad to have passed both. Unfortunately we were issued with 2 more assignments meaning we now have to juggle 3 assignments all at the same time. This will be the true test of character, to see whether I can keep them up in the air long enough, or whether I drop them at the first hurdle.

The 3 assignment issued is a web plan, like the last one, but now we need to add the content to the plan as well. Images for this site are now an issue as I will either need to find a free source of images or I will have to beg companies to borrow the images for an educational use. First impressions are that it's another web plan but this time it's leading on to actually making a website so I guess it's not so bad. "Back to BASIC" is the assignment and I am to develop an educational website to help people understand some computing terms.

Assignment 4 is the assignment I have been eagerly anticipating, now that I've got it I'm not so sure. The assignment name is "Picture This" and implied that we would be using PhotoShop, but in actual fact we will be using it for design in 2 parts of the assignment. The other 2 parts are reports but I guess it's a start on the long road of PhotoShop... I have started the first report and I have to compare a Vector and a Bitmap from The Designers Republic. I have found one image that I think is a vector image and this is from the Playstation series Wipeout which I have played and thoroughly enjoyed.

The last assignment that has been unfortunately neglected is the Sketchbook assignment. I was supposed to look into sources of inspiration and I will now have to start filling the sketchbook with these, annotating where necessary. Sources of inspiration can include Magazine Cuttings, Artwork, Screen Designs and Layouts, Colour Schemes and Typography.

So far I have added the drawing book image to the Blog and it was mentioned that we could create an "Online Inspiration Portfolio". Although, like I said, this was just mentioned and may need some further discussion. As for typography I did find a font which I used for my folder design and my CD design and should be a recognisable font.

'Having a Fantastic Holiday'

A week away from college has given me time to think about the assignment and how it went. The most important thing is managing my time better and this will need to be looked at as this time we're getting two assignments at the same time + have to keep up to date with my sketch book.

Main task for this holiday was to look for designs which we thiink are great or sources of inspiration to put into my sketch book. I have not found much yet, I have a few images from comics but you never want to spoil them! so I'm going to have to find a scanner.

Anyway back to enjoying the rest of my holiday.

'Almost Doomed'

Sat at home night before assignment, all that's left is to burn the CD and what happens? My CD burner on my laptop decides not to let me burn a CD so as you can guess panic sets in. Thank god for a friend who lives in the next village so managed to burn the CD with a back up just in case. So now that my assignment is handed in I can now get back to the relaxing holiday.

'The Man Without Fear'

The final hour is upon us and my assignment is finished. All that is required now is for me to have another proof read just in case anymore errors have been made, but unless Dean's keen eye is faulty, I think I'll be okay. There is a huge feeling of relief knowing that the assignment is complete, and I have to say that this has to be the best piece of work I've ever completed, but then this is a design course.

The next hurdle is the assignment hand in tomorrow. I can guarantee it's stil going to be a 'nerve-filled' morning and there will be a lot of 'headless chickens' running around but having completed the assignment I have no need to be.

We've already been told that the next assignment will be up before we come back from a half term break so I guess that's something to look forward to, the next assignment apparently covers Photoshop so I'm looking forward to that as I want to learn how to use the software.

All thats needed now is a long piece of string, and a train running on time!

Anyway for the holidays I think I might practice some drawing, and find some sources of inspiration and good design to put in my sketchbook to help my designs next term.

'Defying the Sands of Time'

Well the assignment is nearly finished just need to complete the evaluation. I have to say I am very pleased with the whole weight being lifted from my shoulders, although to be honest I can't say i've really felt it's been there... This must mean that I have managed my time better, a lot better than on previous courses.

The most costly thing that I need to remember is to check the work before I print it, today alone I managed to spend a staggering £1.68 on printer credits alone. I know it doesn't seem that bad but on hand in day it could prove to be a problem, especially if I have no change...

Wednesday went well with a lecture from John about blogging, which in my opinion was helpful, having played with it for a couple of weeks I think i'm starting to grasp the concept, bearing in mind the do's and don'ts of blogging. Apart from this I do believe my blog is improving and you will notice all the new links to the right.

Later in the day we had a visit from Diane but this time she spoke to the people she missed and I was quite happy when she found only 1 mistake in my project where other people were getting a bit of a grilling. The only mistake I found was that I had some references did not match up.

The feedback from the tutorial was helpful mainly telling me that my pages weren't in the correct order (thanks Steve for putting me right) and that is now sorted. Thinks to do now are: - Evaluation, CD design, burn the CD, and decorate the spine of the my folder.

In this tutorial I also found out that our lecturer is a Marvel fan too, and this has inspired me further as he asked me if I ever drew any of the characters or art. I have a book called "How to draw comics the Marvel way" but I haven't particularly done any drawing but I think now that is certainly something to look into as this is a big passion of mine and in the end a personal goal to actually work for Marvel (even if it is making cups of tea!).

PageMaker, 'No longer my enemy!'

What a turn around, last week I couldn't work PageMaker but this week I seem to be getting on well with it. I know I don't know everything, in fact this is probably the 4th time I've used it, but I think I finally have the hang of it. It feels good as well to find that I have nearly finished the assignment, as on previous courses at this stage I would probably still be 'messing around'. I know the importance of the coursework I seem to be managing my time better and doing more work in lesson time and have a better chance of doing well in the assignments.

The main task for this week was to complete the Template and the Feedback form designs from the none-digital designs. I found this to be a bit difficult at first but as I've already said practice really does make perfect, or at least I'm on my way. I had one or two problems though, the first being that I couldn't get the images right on the page. I wanted a wooden effect for the background of the website layer but, as I don't know PhotoShop that well, I gave up on the idea when my cloning went a bit funny.

Yesterday we had another visit from Diane, an ex student who now designs quite regularly, she sat down and had a chat with us individually and gave us help and advice. It was interesting talking to someone who had completed the course and done the work and she was really helpful.

Friday's discussion group went okay I got a bit of constructive criticism which has helped me and showed me that I need to adapt my designs. Below is my final screen design, minus the header image, I feel that this is a good achievement to say I have never really used PageMaker.


Self study I guess is just making the changes to the screen design master template and creating the header. After that it will be a case of getting everything ready for next week and to make sure it is all correct.

Finally I get to draw...

As you can probably guess from the title this week I got to draw.

We started of Wednesday learning PageMaker, which I have to say is not easy, but as we need to use it for assignments I guess it's true what they say 'Practice Makes Perfect'.

Following Steve's clear instructions I managed to amaze myself and get the first exercise right. It felt good to be able to take 1 picture, 1 block of text, a header and a sub header and turn it into something that looked appealing. After being let loose, I found it to be more difiicult laying out the content, but I do know when a design is wrong.

Wednesday night came and, sat alone at home with nothing to do, I decided to grab a pencil and start the final [none digital] screen designs. After about 10-15 minutes I found myself designing what could be a well thought out website and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I guess anything beats report writing.

Friday came and again we had another visit from Helen Rivron, this week showing us the best ways to take notes. I have to admit that some of what Helen said made sense, and it showed me that i'm not the best at note taking. If anything I've learnt that I need a structure to my notes incase I need to turn back to them in the future. With nearly all the assignment done I feel that i'm totally in control of this assignment, something which I've never really felt before.

Too much description, not enough reflection.

I've never 'Blogged' before so I was not really sure what to write, and what I did write was too descriptive and looking at past Blogs from the HND Interactive Media Website was not a good idea. I can see that so here's attempt number two.

This week topics had been added to the group discussions, topics which were part of the assignment and which needed to be brought to the groups the next day. As most people were running around trying to complete three things at once I was happy knowing that I had already completed most apart from Time Planning. Seems ironic that I have finished the things I needed to on time. The concept of time planning isn't fairly new but I'm not really one to plan things before I do it, but it does appear that something must be working. I felt a weight lift off of my shoulders though noticing what I'd done had matched what needed to be done. In previous courses deadlines have been my enemy but in this course I intend to fight them!

Friday came and so did a lady called Helen to teach us how to research properly, at the time it seemed a bit unnecessary, but thinking back, it has helped and next weeks lecture on referencing will be helpful too.

Week 1

I received my first assignments for the course this week to plan a website. A lot of research involved but today I managed to choose a person to design it on and find at least two competitive sites to compare to.

Goals for the site have been done but was a bit unsure as to what actual goals were. One correct goal was to "Create a website with a page size smaller than 40k". This can be measured but other goals like "Create an informative, educational website" couldn't be as I can't evaluate the goal because there wouldn't be a function to measure if the goal was met or not. However I managed to get 4 goals which are both achievable and measurable.

The final thing I managed to look at was target audiences. As this is going to be an informative site it will generally be viewed by students, but a few minutes research showed that not only students would look at it.

Work for next week is to complete the target audience section and start to research into the many different technologies involved in creating and maintaining a website.

Where have I come from?

When I left school I started the AVCE ICT 12 Unit course at Selby College covering units like Web Development. In this course I discovered software such as Dreamweaver and Flash. This is when I found Web Development to be a keen interest so when this course finished I looked into courses doing Multimedia and Web Develpoment. A lecturer showed me the Foundation Degree in E-business and I wanted to do the course straight away so I enrolled and, in the end, completed the course.

From the AVCE ICT course I have practised using the software Flash and Dreamweaver, and as of lately Photoshop. As I have done this my interest in the programs has grown and have found that this is definitely the career I would like to go into.

Whilst doing the Foundation Degree I was, and still am, working in a retail shop, and 5-6 months ago I was given the job of acting supervisor and started working full time. Recently, due to the stress of the job, I have been feeling that this is not what I want to be doing for the rest of my life so I decided to do something about this and looked for a course in Web Development and Multimedia. This is when I came across the HND Interactive Media course.

Where am I now?

I am currently still doing shop work but have cut down my hours to 3 days a week which will let me focus more on the course and what I really want to do in the future. Now that I am on a course which I have a greater interest in I feel that I can progress and achieve my goals. Being on this course I hope I can further my knowledge of the software programs used on this course.

Where am I going?

For the future I would like to be the best of the best in Digital Media. I would like to see myself gain a job in the Interactive Media area, mainly in a small business to start with, and then advance to freelance when I have a bigger client base behind me with repeat work. This however will not come easily, so in order to get there I am going to work hard and to produce work to the best of my ability, learning as much about the software used as possible.