'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.