Monday, May 12, 2008

Yo Future!

The last two years seem to have flown by. It feels like only yesterday we were writing the blog for "Where did we come from?" but now I feel a lot more confident than I did back then.

Starting this course the only knowledge of web design was some code, no image manipulation knowledge and how to use Dreamweaver. Any website work I had done for previous courses had been in tables and minor CSS.

One reason for joining this course was wanting to learn Photoshop as I felt that my Image Manipulation knowledge was not as strong as other skills. I have learnt the basics and keep doing tutorials to try and help me improve. I also wanted to learn more CSS because creating websites in tables and cells can be quite limiting and hard to update.

Upon learning CSS I could never seem myself going back to using tables and cells and would try to 'ease' the use of CSS into design companies [future employers] that still use the old methods of web design.

Something else that will help me to create better websites and 'up' my employability is the knowledge of validation and the levels to validate to. Having created all sites to validate to level 1 [either Strict or Transitional in the first website] I think this is a good skill to show employers.

Throughout the course I feel that I have become more of a developer than a designer. I think the change of direction was most visible in the Professional Project where I assumed the role of Developer. I also chose to learn PHP as it would be more of a beneficial skill to have.

Having learnt PHP I now understand how much of an important coding language it is to know. This language can make websites even more updateable with the aid of PHP Include pages [a page that is included into multiple pages and once edited will affect the whole website]. The last website also included content that was taken from a database.

Overall I have learnt a lot more than I have done on previous courses. I think one of the main skills I have developed is not a Technical Skill but more of a Personal Skill. From the iMe assignment [and others] I have now developed the discipline to help me sit down and learn a new skill, which I intend to put to good use.

I am going to continue to learn more of the coding side of Web Design but also want to develop my skills in programs such as Flash, as most Developer jobs seem to ask for this. However this isnt the only reason for wanting to learn it. I have always been fascinated by animated sites and projects and would like to develop the skill to do this myself.

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