A Year In The Life Of My Course

Love You And Leave You

2007-08-27T11:50:00.000+01:00

Well, after a 3 month absence in the blog I feel it is now time to update.

I have decided not to come back for the 2nd year, I have a job hopefully lined up in web design. The company I work for is getting the contract in October and they say they need a couple of web designers so I decided to get myself in straight away. It is a big risk not getting the qualification at college but one I feel is worth the risk!

I have learnt so much in the past year at college and met some great people along the way who have helped with my progression through the course. I hope you all get what you want from this course just like I did and I hope to see you all qualify with your hat and gown walking down Wood Street next year,

All the best, love one another.

Chris

Web Site Designs

2007-06-06T19:34:00.002+01:00

www.yell.com

As far back as I can remember, the yellow pages has always been known as the big yellow phone book with all the numbers you need. Now online, it is one of the easiest and recognisable websites out. With 3 different shades of yellow it is very eye catching and a good example of that a website dosn't need to fill everything with colour with the mass amount of white outside the yellow. When you search for a number, the layout changes a bit but the search bar is always the same.

www.hmv.co.uk

One of my personal favourite websites, the logo is just as popular as they get and the whole site is focused around the colours pink, black and white. The pink on black always makes it very eye catching and when the pink isn't used them its either white on black background or vice versa with both having the same kind of impact, easy readable and they stand out. Any new special offers they have also get created by using the same colours which makes the whole colour scheme of the site very consistant.

www.seetickets.com

A website that I use quite alot, and find it so easy to use. The black background makes you take more notice of the bright blue text and the use of other bright colours used on the buttons. When you move your mouse over a button, the button changes to the text colour and the text changes to the button colour which makes the buttons seem like you have activated them, a really good feature for users of all ages. The images are used well on the home page all suitable sizes and relevent to what is being bought. The colours are used throughout the site and is very consistantly used.

Designs

2007-06-06T18:59:00.000+01:00

This design stood out for me, with the brightness of the yellow it catches your eyes and then with the text on the yellow background in blue it takes you straight to the message. The way the lighter blue has been used as a football player to seperate the darker blue has also been designed well as the colours suit well together but something not so outragous just to split the colours easily. Also the white line between the 2 different shades of blue also gives it that extra bit of seperation between the 2 colours. The logo of FIFA has also been edited to suit the style of the flyer by using the same colour of blue as with the text.

This design is a dvd cover of the greatest preformances from the Glastonbury festival over the years. One of the main stages at Glastonbury is the Pyramid stage in which all the big artsits play and when you look at this design you just know what the dvd is about and the way the designer has made the stage gold makes it look important. The way the crowd is split by 4 different colours and those colours are used well at the top of the stage with the effect of a rainbow. The way the text has been used makes it easily readable even with the white shadow drop on it.

This 3rd design is a wallpaper that I use, it is designed around the theme of Pink Floyd band and has many of the bands albums and art in the background and the whole design is phased around the most popular album "Dark Side Of The Moon". With the dark backgrounds and with the triangle in the centre your eyes immediantly turn to the ray of colours that hit the dark triangle. The wallpaper all looks dark and mysterious and it makes out that the ray of colours is the only light in the dark.

Kind of a strange design, its from the artist John Squire. His work has always been impulsive painting and never been planned or designed before which makes it so unique. This was one of about 4 designs each done in different colours but I found this one the most effective, it gives the impression of a steamed window and someone has wrote on the window with their finger. This design could be made more into an advertising logo if the doodles was created more into a company name and perhaps the company name in more sensible and clear writing so that it is readable. The other colourful designs looked more like graffiti and this was the more sensible one in which I see future potential.

CD Designs

2007-06-06T18:24:00.000+01:00

The 3 cd designs I found have always been big favourites of mine,

The guitarist of this band had a lot to do with the design, and in his spare time outside music he puts on a lot of art shows to display his own work and one of his main styles is just splashing paint on a canvas and making unique design in which you notice in the background, just a green background with splashes of white and blue paint which make the design more unique. I'm not too sure what the lemons are about as they are also used a lot in the whole advertising of the band as in posters, T-shirts and their singles but now when I see half cut lemons around it always reminds me of this album. The red, white and blue at the side just respresents the colours of the united kingdom flag and makes it look a bit like war stripes that are used in indian tribes. The orange in the letters make it stand out but not too bright and is clear to read.

The third is Paul Weller's "Stanley Road" he has tried to include all his favouite things in the cover and with the mod badge on the right you realise that it is from an artist who has been around since the 70's. The colours have been used just right, again not too bright but they make the album stand out. I like how the actual sign of Stanley Road has been used in the middle instead of just adding text over an image. Some of the images that have been used tells you about some of the songs after you have listened to the album it all becomes clear.

This has to be my favourite design of them all, and considering that the album has been out for over 40 years this has set the style for many artists and many more to come. Your eyes are striaght away focused on the artist Beatles lettering in flowers at the bottom which is both clear and loud. The album's name is straight above the name so you don't have to go looking all over to find the album name. The 4 band members have also been designed wearing colourful clothing to make them stand out from the rest and with charactors from everywhere all around including earlier models of themselves, this album makes it one of the brightest and talked about music album designs of all time.

End Of Year Formative Statement

2007-05-10T14:25:00.000+01:00

Well, what a year it has been. It dosen't seem 2 minutes since we was throwing balls at each other trying to remember each others names. I looked back at my formative statement I made during the first few weeks at college and i've really got to admit i've come a long way. I was somewhat of an expert with Frontpage and one of my main reasons for coming on this course was to learn the more advanced programs of web design. I did try learning some of the programs I had heard about like Photoshop and Dreamweaver but didn't really know where to start so I just stuck to what I knew.

Time planning was a big issue throughout the year and after countless lectures on just how important it is for our buisness it was something I had struggled with. I'm more the kind to just get on with things and not plan things out, but this course has taught me that this is the wrong approach on dealing with things. A good time plan is essential, not just for college work but with all your life. The more the year went on the more I got used to using a time plan and is something I will bring into the course next year so I can build on grades and not just hope for passes all year round.

The sketchbook assignment was also something I wasn't expecting to be as important. Sketchbooks previously have just been a pad for ideas and wasn't something I expected on getting marked at the end of the year. I don't think i've done as well as I could have done with this assignment and if i'd have known at the start of the year what I know now I would have put a lot more effort into this.

I had expected the course to be a more hands on course with not much written work but within the first few weeks we got given a big reasearch assignment with a lot of essay writing to be done. It wasn't what I was hoping for. After me going to and from college various college courses through the years this was something I hated and part of the reason I never completed some of the courses and felt this course was going the same way. It was more enjoyable then other essay written work I have been given through the years but still wasn't happy.

I knew I wasn't going to find this easy and had a hard time settling into this, with at the time I thought I could handle a full time job as well as attending college I was working myself to death. Also with all the college work expected of me outside of college my college work was suffering at first. I couldn't carry on this way and knew something had to change but it never crossed my mind to finish college, I knew I had to cut my hours down at work but could I afford it? After getting a referal for my first assignment I thought it was just a case of me adjusting to full time education again. And for the second assignment I knew I had to do something about my work so that I could give my best at college.

When the second assignment came I was still working full time but when I realised the amount I had to do I found myself a part time job on evenings so that the day time could be spent with college work. This gave me a big boost in what I could do at college now and was ready to getting started on a new assignment. A lot of written work again had to be done, mainly with reasearch about why I was designing the site and the audience it was being aimed at. Something I would have never thought about before enrolling on this course. With us doing the written essay in the first assignment this was to be very much the same again. So with me getting a referal I was told what I did wrong, so all I had to do was make sure I didn't do it again.

A lot more research had to be put into this assignment as it was designing a website for beginners with computers. I made every effort in researching this as the first assignment I had to admit that I didn't realise just how much research I had to do. I felt confident that I could at least pass this assignment this time and took a lot from what I did last time in. After putting a lot of hard work into this I recieved a pass, I don't know what I would have done if I didn't at least get a pass as I put a lot into it. This again gave me an extra boost and made me realise that this is the course for me.

The next assigment I was prepared for more essay work but now was the bit I was looking forward to, learning Dreamweaver. I loved every minute of Dreamweaver and found it so much easier to use then Frontpage. I did a lot of work in my spare time learning more and more about Dreamweaver and now I don't know how I coped without it. This assignment was actually designing a website that we did in our last assignment about the basics of computing. This didn't actually take me that long to create but it was the fact that I had all my images basically double the size I had wanted them due to me not knowing how to resize images in Photoshop (which now seems the easiest thing in the book).

Half way through this assignment I decided to switch to the HNC part time course which I found much easier and felt I could really achieve what I wanted and also give my full commitment to out of hours study too. A choice I still think is the best I could have made. I handed this assignment in a bit of a rush and thought I had everything finished, but the large image files wasn't the only problem so I again got a referal. I had to redesign the website again and with us getting set a new assignment this was something I didn't need.

The new assignment I was really looking forward to, it was to design a cd cover to suit the style of music we was going to be given. This really sounded great to me until we heard the actual music! It was electrical music and with me choosing proberly the worst out of the lot I wasn't the happiest in the class. After a few listens the only thought that came into my mind was water sounds and the relaxation of being by the beach so I sketched various beach designs and thought the worst bit was going to be putting my ideas into digital designs.

However this wasn't to be, my final designs in my opinion look a lot better and even better then I had expected them to be. This was the image I had chosen from www.dreamstime.com

And after a bit of editing in Photoshop I came up with these designs,

CD Cover
Inside Inlay

I have learnt such a lot this term, not only new software and the way I look at websites now, but things about myself I never thought I could achieve. I have met a good bunch of friends on the course with whom I can rely on if I need help and advice. I am really looking forward to the second year now and hope to learn lots more.

My main goals that I have set for myself next year

To acheive higher grades in my assignments.

I have basically just relied on getting through this course on just passes, but now I know what is expected of the course I am hoping I can achieve more higher grades. I am looking at at least 2 Merits and 3 passes just so that I can achieve this goal.

To design a webpage using just CSS.

I've never used CSS before, and is something I have heard lots about. One of our assignments is to create a webpage using CSS so I am confident in achieving this goal.

To plan my self study more.

At the start of the year this is something that took me a while to get into, as the year got on this drastically improved, something I hope to continue into next year. At the moment my time planning has been fairly sketchy, but I feel I can go more into detail and break assignments down into smaller sections.

Lifes A Beach

2007-05-03T22:38:00.000+01:00

I've started getting into a nice little routine with regards to my college work, I usually give myself Monday morning to prepare for things I can do at college on Tuesdays as I don't really work well from home so i've started coming in on Tuesdays. This gives me big help in planning what I need to do and has helped me not get behind in this assignment.

With only under 2 weeks to go until the deadline day this week i've had to make a decision about what my cd cover will look like. On Tuesday I decided upon a design but its when i'm creating it digitally that seems to be the problem, I didn't know whether to design something from scratch or to use an image. I chose to go with the image one as i'm not yet a pro with design software it was just an idea I was thinking and found it hard to do digitally. If I had of chosen my design earlier then I would have proberly created from scratch.

I have decided to design my cd with a beach/sea theme. It is kind of relaxing and just reminds you of lying on the beach listening to the waves crash against the rocks. However if you read someone's comments on my cd choice it is completely different and mentions a lot of dark music. It must be one of us who hasn't got a musical ear.

I have managed to book some time off work near deadline day just so that I have 100% focus on the assignment. And there isn't just this assignment, there is the sketchbook assignment also in which I have a good bit of work to do on before I hand this in. But all in all I am pleased with my progress and don't see a problem coming up in the weeks building upto deadline day.

Good To Be Back!

2007-04-29T11:01:00.000+01:00

This week has been quite a shock in all, the final weeks of college are quickly approaching and whlist I feel I am on course to complete the course it just makes you realise that it didn't seem like 2 mins ago we was throwing eggs out of a window.

After sketching some ideas for my cd artwork I have finally come up with a good choice, which I will post when I come around to designing it in Freehand, which is a big task in itself. Its been good to get back into college this week and with me coming in on Tuesday it gives me a chance to prepare for Wednesday's class.

I'm wanting to keep coming into college on Tuesday's as it just me that extra help to prepare for the next day.

Final Logo Design

2007-04-24T09:13:00.000+01:00

After playing around with these logos in my sketchbook for a while i've decided on my final design, but first i'll go through the designs which didn't quite make it,

Design 1

This was one of my original ideas and one I showed the whole class when we had to show our logos, then one certain classmate mentioned that it looked like the Batman logo which put me off a bit, so I decided to ditch this one.

Design 2When we did the task to design buisiness cards for Widget World, Steve mentioned that one of the most effective logos was half black and half white with the text vice versa, thought it looked quite neat at first kind of simple but effective and I suppose this would have been my next choice in my final design.

Design 3Sticking with the same idea as Design 2 I just decided to play around with mixing black on white, and white on black. Sketched a few designs like this in my sketchbook but found I could design this one easily enough in Freehand.

Final design

I sketched a design basically identical to this in one of my sketchbooks, and I had thought that I had sketched something that I couldn't create on screen, luckily after going through a few fonts in Freehand I found a perfect text. After a bit of altering I managed to create this design, you also know what it is when you zoom out also, which after presenting our logos to the class I didn't really think about this.

Although I do have a couple of ideas for the design of my cd, i'm still not fully decided on how I want it to look. After listening to the cd 3-4 times all I can really think of is sounds similar to splashing water and ocean waves. Part of my self study for this week is to listen again but with a pencil and sketchbook in my hand and just try for ideas and see how I get on. I know I should have these ideas by now and be ready to start designing my cd package but I really want to make the effort so that the packaging on the cd does give the effect of what the music sounds like.

As always, comments are welcome on the logo designs, even the ones that didn't make it.

Back to work

2007-04-23T09:16:00.000+01:00

The easter holidays has no way felt like a holiday, I had expected to do a lot more work over the holidays then I have done but with one thing and another things haven't quite gone that way. My main goal for the holidays was to try and get the amendents done for the A5 builder assignment, I have done quite a bit on it but not as much as I would have liked to. I have gone back to part time hours due to problems at work and also had the issue fixed with switching over internet providers, having been without internet access from home for a while.

I've made sure i've got a lot of time this week to catch up with some of the work this week and hopefully won't be that behind from others. I have finally chosen my logo for Ambient World as soon as I get into college and can access Freehand 11 i'll post it on my blog, as the version I have is 10 and can't open it.

I have also thought about cd designs for the album and found 2 designs around the internet that kind of remind me of the album,

If you ever get chance to listen to the album "A day in the park" the 3 songs that are on it have what sounds like splashes of water in the background and is one of the only thing I could really think of designing for the cd that looking at the cd design could give you an insight of what the album sounds like.

I also realise that my sketchbook needs work on and fully intend of making the best of the few weeks left of college to improve on this. Overall i'm looking forward to getting back into college and it'll be intresting to see how far others have got on with the assignment and just hope that I ain't too behind.

Logo's R Us

2007-04-02T19:38:00.000+01:00

My time planning has started to get a bit more organised now since the talk last week, I was trying to get a set day to do my college work and as I never work during the day on Mondays I thought this was a good choice. I managed to choose 4 designs which I was fairly happy with when I sketched it in my sketch book but when using Freehand to design the images I wasn't really happy. They had to do anyhow until I get chance to be more confident in Freehand.

When others was showing their logos on Wednesday I was pretty impressed with all designs that others had showed and didn't feel mine was of good standard when the first few logos was shown. I am still a bit unsure of my final design as when i'm at work during the day and the shop is quiet I take a note book and sketch ideas and working in retail you get a lot of ideas from looking at labels and packaging of products, and whlist doing this I designed some good logos but just have to see how they look in Freehand, during the holidays I hope to have some up on my blogger.

I also got my result for the "Builder" assignment, I stated before I knew I was going to get a referal and I did. Some things I could tell Steve what I knew I had failed on but he did point out some other things. This is the first thing I am going to do over the holidays I fell I need to create the whole site again basically but looking on it as a postive way as it will give me more experience in creating websites.

On a lighter note, I have been asked by the company I used to work for to help teach a class on website creation. They teach members of community groups the basics of each of the Microsoft Office package to help their community groups like using Publisher to design flyers and posters, or Word to type up their minutes and agendas. But now they are wanting to set up websites for the groups and I got asked to help. I've to get a presentation ready on the basics of Frontpage (not the ideal program but its all i've got to work with) which I ain't really looking forward to after using Dreamweaver. But the classes will happen every week until they need me for a few hours a week.

Hope you all have a happy easter and enjoy the break.

Music Is Power

2007-03-22T19:45:00.000Z

The words from the great man himself could not be meant more this week.

When I chose my selection for which cd I wanted to design for I had a good look through the list and found a lot of wierd and wonderfull names in which I thought the more wierder the title the more wierder the music, how wrong I was! First thing Steve said to me when I walked in on Wednesday was that I have proberly chose one of the worst cds of the lot and then kept bringing it up all day to make me think more about how awful it could possibly be. I thought a simple title like "A Day In The Park" couldn't possibly be that bad, one of the first things I did when I got in on Wednesday evening was play it and was pretty shocked, although I haven't heard it all way through yet I feel I should get a disctintion just for hearing it all through! Mindst you it could be worse it could be a Madonna album!

I was looking forward to Wednesday as I've always had a keen taste in doing logo designs I can even remember at primary school when I had a load of my work up in the main hall about logo designs and through to secondary school when I had to design a logo for a theme park which all merchandise material too in which I recieved an A in my final year exams. This I know will be a lot different as we didn't do as much rough sketching as we are doing now and the final design was done in pencil, so it'll be a great way for me to transfer my sketch ideas into digital designs. I didn't want to look at other peoples ideas until I did a good few on my designs as I didn't want anybodys work to influence mine, but after doing a few sketches I think most the group will have the same kind of ideas but just depends on how they present them. I have 2 designs that I am happy with at the moment in which I feel I can play around more with just need to find another 2.

Having looked at a lot of logos in my studytime last week I tried using some of them ideas to include in my own and hopefully I might be able to publish some of my work in freehand over the weekend on my blog.

Time planning was also on the agenda this week, which is something I have struggled with over the start of the year. Some methods in which Steve said really did make sense and one especially in which I think might help my time planning is set times to study. Due to my job I don't know what hours I am doing from one week to the next so I can't really have a set time each week to study but for next year when I find out what day we will be attending college each week I'll make sure I always book 2 days off work a week and use one of them days for most of my study work and juggle the rest around work. My time planning has been poor of lately, or evidence of proving has been poor but I do realise how important it is and will just have to make it one of my top priorites in future.

CD Design

2007-03-16T09:36:00.000Z

Firstly i would to apologise to all my peers, Marc Bowers and to Steve for my lateness in this weeks lesson, very unlike me to be late. I was very disapointed to miss the talk given by a Marc even more as I missed the talk the other week by a former student due to illness.

I was looking forward to the next assignment, the last assignment set for this year when things start coming to a close and you start rounding up what you have learnt in the year. We found out that the assignemt was to design a cd packaging, including inlay, cover and cd. But we had to chose from a list of strange music titles and without hearing the tracks we had to chose. I've designed cds before in the past but i've always known what the music is like and what the band looks like. I'm looking forward to hearing the music and see what images I can think of to suit the music for my design.

Builder? More Like Collapse

2007-03-11T17:25:00.000Z

Over the weekend I was still suffering a bit from the sickness I had for the past week or so, and college wasn't really top of my list, this really couldn't have happened at a worse time. And having problems with my email account I didn't recieve emails as quickly as I should have done, in which reading them could have gave me a better chance of passing the A5 assignment. One of my goals was to allow validation of XML 1.0 documents according to W3C specifications in which I thought I had done. But in where it said "url source" on http://www.validome.org/ I inserted just www.choward.co.uk/index2 in which it passed and it gave me a little icon saying my site had passed, but over this weekend I decided to click the icon and it said the site hadn't passed and had automatically put in the "url source" www.choward.co.uk/index2.html this is a silly and simple mistake and in future i'll spend more time on this.

When looking over my assignment I realised I haven't even mentioned my college site url, again a silly mistake. I spent 2 full days on my evaluation and making sure I had everything I should have for deadline day but looking back I was just unorganised which is very unlike me, i'm definatly expecting a referal now but at least I know where I have gone wrong and will make sure that I spot these things long before I hand assignments in.

On deadline day I did feel like I had everything done its just like after every deadline day some things cross your mind about the assignment and I decided to check everything over and over again.

Other then that, this has been my most enjoyable and constructive time at college so far. I feel that now I am getting stuck into what made the course sound attractive to me in the first place, less writing and more design work. I am looking forward to the next assignment but am also prepared that I will more then likely have a referal hanging over me too.

Sickness Strikes

2007-03-02T12:00:00.000Z

A quite disapoinnting week to say the least in relation to college, It was planned that I would be having another session with John on Tuesday but due to me not really being at my pc that much lately I didn't check my emails and missed the seesion, although I wasn't well enough to attend but I still should check emails on a daily basis and keep a check on important dates.

Still feeling unwell on Tuesday evening I was going to leave it until the morning to see if I was ok to attend college but after another bad night there was no chance I could make college, flu and cold bugs don't bother me a bit as you feel better out in the fresh air but when a sickness bug hits you its not a nice thing to have when out in public, it did the rounds at my work and now it looks like i'm the last to get it. I feel heaps better now and can concentrate on my college work now.

Whlist I was off, I checked over the feedback my fellow peers had given me about my website. On first impressions I thought a lot didn't like my buttons but when putting it into some kind of table just under a third of the group didn't like them in which I decided against changing them, if a few more would have disliked them then I proberly would have changed them. The thing to learn about feedback from a group is that not everyone is right and just because a few people don't like something about your site it dosn't mean you have to change it, you just have to go with what you think is right.

I first designed the site without buttons and wasn't that impressed by it, so if i'd have left it like that people wouldn't have liked that. One thing I did change and got to admit it made an improvement to my site was the text as previously mentioned in a past blog I had the text as comic sens, its a text i've used to make personal websites in the past on which I thought looked good but just never changed the text around, I found a text I liked and stuck to it. On this site I changed the font to arial and straight away it made it look more professional and I think its a text i'll stick with in the future.

More Feedback

2007-02-20T22:43:00.000Z

Firstly I would like to apologise for the lateness in posting my blog for last week, I usually always make sure I have my blog entry online by each weekend but I have hardly been at my computer since college last wednesday. Anyhow, last week was about collecting feedback from our peers on our websites so when we came into college on Wednesday we had to have a questionaire on what feedback we wanted on our sites and also we had to have some pages up on our sites. I had all my pages online apart from the feedback form in which earlier in the week I was due to meet up with Dean and he was going to try and give me some help and advice on how to create an active feedback form but due to illness it never happened.

I was really looking forward to Wednesday, getting to look at other peers websites and also to see what people thought of mine. I was very impressed going around the class and seeing peoples websites, only just picking out little errors in peoples work. Overall it was a nice mix of peoples abilities from what they have learnt in other courses and no ones site looked nothing like each others.

The one thing I realised when I tried my site on other computers is the buttons took a long time to load, and it was never in my plan to design buttons it was just something I learnt to do and felt I needed to include them. A lot of people picked up on the buttons and how they felt they was confusing in which now I have to agree with them but was just a bit reluctent to change them, but the peoples vote count and I will be changing them. Something else people noted on was my text, I used comic sans as I just wanted a different text then most people would use but have since changed it all to arial as it does look better. Just shows how much the feedback from others does help.

When I was reading other peoples questionaires I found that a few of them hadn't really been given much thought and some questions just kept repeating themselves, and I also found the ones where people just expect you to tick a box, I prefer more comments on my questionaire but I suppose with the ticking boxes method you could gather an evaluation of the whole feedback questionaire results more easier. As when I was putting all my feedback together it was taking me longer to put it all together into some kind of results. But each to their own way.

Feedback Forms!!!!!!

2007-02-09T12:27:00.000Z

I found myself working on my website over the weekend a lot, I was just playing around with things and although I designed my site to be fairly simple and quickly loading pages there was just some odd things that made it look really unprofessional and a bit too simple. When I had got into college I realised I hadn't saved the work to my memory stick but saved it to my harddrive at home! DOH!

It was actually quite a good thing as when I came into college to have an extra lesson with John a couple of the other students was in and showed me their websites and was very impressed by them and gave me new ideas for my site but still not changing it that much from my original plans. The lesson with John was quite constructive too and he asked me an intresting question about the London trip which got me thinking a bit, he asked if the group could have made more of the London trip (maybe not in them words but thats what he meant), in which I replied I felt the day could have been planned more.

I was under the impression that we would be visiting 2 or 3 museums and only thought Steve would give us an hour or two to ourselves. And then John replied with "Your one of the oldest in the group, couldn't you have taken control and found other places of interest to visit" which was a fair point but I just didn't have a clue in where we was going. But if anything like this gets organised again I think it is in the interest of all too look what is going on around the area and to check out places that they would like to visit.

In class on Wednesday we got a little presentation from the students who went to visit the designers mechanics in Huddersfield, Drew, the 2 Craig's and Ben ended up going. I was pretty curious myself and if Steve had of asked me I would have gone but I didn't feel like I have enough work to show people at this stage and hopefully when I begin to build my portfolio the chance might come up again.

From reading the blogs of the students who went I didn't feel I missed much, but when they did the presentation more things got explained. One thing that surprised me is that the web designers use Frontpage to design sites in which I thought was very strange, and with 2 of the workers there had learnt to use Dreamweaver for 2 years at college it seems a bit of a step back learning Frontpage. Having used both programs i've found Dreamweaver a lot easier to pick up and am just baffled to why Frontpage would be used in such a professional buisness.

The talk the lads gave was very well presented and felt everything was answered that I wanted to know. I don't think thats the direction I would like to take when going into employment in design but thats just with hearing about it, I guess when you see it working for yourself you can fully understand it.

Feedback forms was also an issue for the week, I've tried making these before in Frontpage and just gave it up as a bad joke but in Dreamweaver and a quick talk by Steve I reckoned I should crack it easy enough. Although the form was easy enough to design linking it up to my email address was the problem. I managed to make the feedback form work but it opened up Microsoft Outlook everytime I clicked submit and didn't want that to happen. So already in my self study I seem to have spent what seems like ages trying to correct it with no luck. But hopefully after a lesson from Dean next week i'll be able to see a feedback form in action and be able to show me the in's and out's of how it works.

To top things off this week, all the work I did at college I ended up saving on my college network and not my memory stick so i'll have to nip in to college next week to save everything on my stick so that I can work on my site more and get it ready for the test on Wednesday.

"Down In Dat Dare London" - Harry Enfield

2007-02-02T09:24:00.000Z

I was never really looking forward to the London trip and with James comments on the train down "Its bound to happen that at least one of us will get mugged in London today" I wondered what the day would bring. Even I wouldn't have expected us all to travel all the way down south to visit the Tate museum just to see some slides! Yes, slides like at a childrens park! Which some of the group seemed fascinated in having a go on them. To which I asked Steve "What on earth has slides got to do with art and design?" I could have guessed his response, is it art or design?

After looking in a Tate book at some of the exhibitions that they have done in the past it would have been intresting to see, but due to a civil servants strike we was unable to see anything apart from the slides and the book store. I wouldn't mind going again just to see the exhibitions. A lot has changed since the last time I went to London mind you we wasn't really on a sight seeing tour then. It was a nice walk and few tube rides to actually get to the Tate museum and you notice just how different the place is from up north, everything is going at 100mph, its all rush rush rush everywhere and the tube system it just seems such a foriegn country and a place I still don't like.

Most of the afternoon we got to ourselves in which we stayed in quite a big group as everyone wanted to stay with Drew because he knew his way round, or which we thought. After walking what seemed for miles we split into smaller groups and agreed to meet up at a later time. After getting a bit lost we was given directions from of all people a bloke walking around with a can of Stella in his hand, full credit to him tho he pointed us in the right way!

Overall an intresting day, and my opinion of London hasn't changed and I doubt if ever will but thanks to Steve and all involved for setting it up.

Living The Dream (Weaver)

2007-01-25T22:19:00.000Z

From not knowing much about Dreamweaver last week I think I have learned a lot in my self study about learning more and more about it. The things that I found I couldn't do in Frontpage or found it very difficult to do, Dreamweaver has picked up on all the faults and made it a hell of a lot easier to use. There is so much more that could be learned from Dreamweaver but I find from sitting next to Dean in class and me using it in my spare time I am really gaining more from it.

This is where I can show what I can do in design, never been good with essay work. My self study time and the time in college i've been enjoying loads more of late because Dreamweaver was something I wanted to learn about and so far I've been really enjoying working with it.

Our feedback group seems to be working really well, although we haven't had a feedback meeting with Steve yet due to a bit of confusion. But when planning what we have to do until the deadline day week by week in which we all put a lot of input into I feel very confident that the group can do very well from this. After we planned what to do each week we could organise our feedback sessions week by week now and having done more then I had planned to do at college on Wednesday I can see this schedule working great for us.

Next Wednesday we have got the london trip, I can't really say i'm looking forward to this, I just don't like London as a place! I've been 4 times before each time to the old Wembley stadium, I haven't been since 2000 so I can just imagine it has got worse if anything! But at least the trip is free and its a change so I can't complain that much, guess i'm just too used to yorkshire life!

Its Good To Be Back!

2007-01-19T15:00:00.000Z

I suppose over christmas I got settled back into a routine of working and enjoying myself and got to admit I didn't give college much thought. But at the end of last week when Steve started sending the emails around of things we needed to do I started looking forward to going back. Then when I started thinking about college I started thinking about what grade I might have got in the Back To Basics assignment and was hoping not to recieve an email from Steve telling me to clear off the course.

I was quite glad when I got into college on Wednesday that no one had left the course and all seemed just as keen as me to get stuck back into college life. When we came back from break our results was up on the wall, luckily this time I passed. I really felt like I had deserved this as I did a hell of a lot of work on the assignment and changed my working and social hours a lot to help my college work, so I was very happy that my hard work paid off and I can just go from strength to strength now. If I had got a referal this time I don't know what I would have done as I did put a lot of effort in.

Steve told us he would be giving us a little talk about Dreamweaver after dinner which I was really looking forward to. I have tried Dreamweaver before but having used the F word (Frontpage) to design websites in the past it always seemed difficult to pick up. After a quick call from Dean telling me how to set up an FTP on Dreamweaver (Thanks for that Dean) I got my index page on my space the Tuesday night and was looking forward to learning more on Dreamweaver from Steve.

Steve gave a great talk on Dreamweaver the things I found difficult before was quickly explained and the Wednesday night I was using it to design a new personal site in which I found it so much easier and more proffesional then Frontpage just by using it for a couple of hours. I know have a favourite toy.

I'm looking forward to working in my new feedback group also, I have got along with Dean since the first day and has already helped me out a lot on this course and his feedback is very useful as he has designed plenty of websites and knows what clients want. Never really had chance to chat with Drew but the signs look promising when setting up some tasks for our self study this week. I feel like I have already done more then 8 hours of self study this week just by learning Dreamweaver from home and long may it continue.

Formative Statement Part 2

2007-01-14T16:59:00.000Z

Since creating my first formative statement 4 months ago I didn't realise things would have changed as much as they have. I always had a feeling I would enjoy the course but not as much as I have done so far and I never expected the course to be as hard as it as been. I knew presentation would be a big factor but again not as much attention to detail as expected. Which is exactly the same as the amount of planning for a website we have had to do, it just wasn't expected but I now can understand why it has to be done.

Over the christmas period someone who I work with wants me to design them a simple 2 page website and it ended up being me who was asking him the questions like who do you want the site to be aimed at? What age group? questions I wouldn't even have thought of before this course. It gave the guy a lot to think about too as hes a learner in the internet as well. When I get around to doing the site i'll post the URL here so I get some creative feedback.

The main thing that I have struggled with in college is money (I guess like most students these days) I have worked full time hours off and on since I was 16 and with me thinking I am only doing 2 days at college I could carry on with almost full time hours of work, how wrong I was! With the age I am and with all my mates having full time jobs and managing active social lives out of work was one thing I really didn't want to give up easy. I carried on working long hours and doing my college work and also having an active social life in which I thought I could handle again, how wrong I was.

I had to give one of them up but not without a fight and I felt my college work suffering I found myself in Steve's office on quite a regular basis with him telling me what I already knew but it was only upto me to actually do something about it. So I found myself a little part time job on nights in which I soon settled in and am able to fit my college work in just right. I miss the money and going out as much but it won't be forever.

I also made the decision to drop down to the HNC part time course as the extra hours I had to commit to outside of college I was finding a problem and I feel I can understand and take things in easier with it being just one day a week with one subject rather then double that.

I also didn't expect to meet as many new friends on this course either, in which I have fallen into a nice little group but feel I get along with all the group as well with not person I can see myself having a problem with and I just hope we get the full group back when we return and that no one has dropped out.

Now that I feel i've settled down in the course and know what is expected of me I can show people what I can do and why I chose to be on the course. I hope that a lot more design work is expected this year as I have never been a fan of essays and writing.

Ho Ho Ho

2006-12-23T10:25:00.000Z

Well thats it, the 2nd semester finished and a lot has happened! From starting this course on HND thinking I could handle the workload to changing to HNC and halfing the workload. The course hasn't really been what I thought it would be, I didn't expect there to be as much written work as there has been and i'm hoping this will all change in the new year. I just hate written work but I can see its use to the course now.

I came away from last weeks lessons feeling like I had done a lot of work and knew what I had to do in my self study and also the following week at college to get all my assignment handed in. I did some work over the weekend and also a bit on Monday, I came in to see John on Tuesday but could only manage a short time with John due to times which got confused. I had planned to stop in and do a bit more work but due to a little bit of a family crisis I couldn't and I felt a full day at it on Wednesday I could get it cracked.

John had a quick look through my work and seemed quite pleased with it, and gave me a bit of advice which I took on board. When I came in on Wednesday I wasn't one bit in a state of panic I just kept my head down and got on with it. Steve also had a quick look through my work in the afternoon and just spotted out a few mistakes in which I changed in a couple of minutes. Then he spotted that I had gone well over my word count in which I thought how???? I got back to check it all again and found out that Pagemaker was playing games with me and I had but a text box somewhere in which I couldn't see where I had placed it so Pagemaker was counting that in the word count. Panic soon over.

All I had to do on Wednesday evening was to put everything together then I could relax. Don't think I could have managed the A4 assignment as well in which a lot of others seemed to be still completing a lot of this on the Wednesday where I just had one assignment to do.

When Thursday came I just went straight to reception handed it in then headed off to the pub for a much needed drink or 20! A lot of pressure has been took off me over christmas with no assignments hanging over me I can just enjoy the break and just worry about the hangovers for 3 weeks!

HNC The Way Forward

2006-12-14T16:05:00.000Z

After making a big decision about my future on this course this week has really been of mixed feelings. I made a big effort over the weekend to concentrate on my work but I only really managed a couple of hour on the Saturday, which is an improvment but something I thought I could have done more. Sunday I didn't even think about college but I did plan to have a good crack at college on Monday, but when Monday arrived I thought I could have a good crack at home on my assignment but again I did about 3 hours work on and off but still felt I could have done more. I think i've come to the decision that I cannot work from home, far too many distractions!

So on Monday I emailed Steve to say I was coming into college, and I was planning on making a solid effort! For Tuesday I managed to just get my head down with no distractions and just go for it. With me thinking I was so far behind after doing the work on Saturday/Monday and Tuesday I really felt I had got far and came away from college thinking I could do this with time to spare.

I still was pushing the A4 assignment to one side as I was concentrating more on the A3 task, and the A4 assignment was one I was really looking forward to but I took the decision to move to the part time course which is something i've been thinking for a while now. After I made this decision a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders and although there is a bit of disapointment that I couldn't do the full time course I feel i've made the best choice and more mature choice! If I would have carried on with the full time course and carried on working the way I have been I would have been letting a good few people down, and most importantly letting myself down as I would have let things just pile up on me and would have just thought "Sod This" with it.

This gives me something to really look forward to now in the new year, its like a new start. For the time I do get spare I am going to study more and try and learn as much as possible so I can always be one step forward on the HNC course.

Back to the work,

Wednesday was just a crack on with it day in which I got a hell of a lot of work done. I had somethings I wanted to add later at night but was just too worn out from going to work straight from college so I just sketched them down and over the weekend i'll add them ideas in my sketchbook.

For Thursday, with me dropping the other assignment I could just get on with the A3 project, in which I thought I had it all sorted, Until the feedback meeting! I struggled with my goals the last project, concentrating on what I could achieve instead of the assignment goals in which this is my main study this week. The rest I just had little bits of text I had to rearrange and add little bits to and of course the dreaded referencing in which i'm saving till the last minute after the last assignment!

I have a lesson with John on Tuesday so i'll ask John to go over my work and will take his feedback then my work will be all ready for handing in on Thursday in which i'm just going for a pass. I'll try and come in to college on Monday just to get myself more motivated to get my work handed in up to pass standard.

HNC or HND?

2006-12-07T16:04:00.000Z

Most of this week has been spent either in Steves office or thinking over where I would like to go from here. I seriously thought I could crack this course and also put the hours in my spare time to study more but that just hasn't been the case. I have found it difficult coming back into full time education, always having something on the back of your mind and always looking into books to learn new things as well as go over things learnt. Where as from a work point of view you do your shift then thats it! I'm not thinking one bit about quiting the course but more on changing to the part time course, all I would be missing is 6 units then the rest which isn't that much on paper but the amount of work sounds something which could hassle me if I keep going the way I am.

I've just got settled into a new job where the hours are on evenings so i'm looking at seeing if my college work improves with me doing work during the day then when coming back from work nackered on a night. I'm hoping it should work out fine and with me coming in for 2 extra days next week to catch up even more I should be fine.

Only bad side of the new job is that its in a beer shop! Just when i'm trying to cut down too! I just can't win lately!

Anyhow, to the work side.

I knew I had a lot of work to do and with me still not fully completed my contents for the back to basics assignment I have been working on getting that finished during my spare time. I have been finding it hard as i'm learning words for the first time and rather then just type various things from websites I am trying to understand them so I can put them in my own words. I did a lot of work on various computing languages at a college course I studied a few year ago (and wished I haven't had chucked the work away now) but my memory isn't the sharpest and can't think at all what I put for any of them.

Over the weekend I am just planning to work entirely on back to basics, NO drinking, NO outside distractions. I am just turning my phone off and just concentrating fully on what needs to be done.

I missed John's extra lesson on Tuesday due to work, I just took too much things on and I ended up forgetting important things like this. John helped me a lot last time and some of the things he had said for me to do has happended. I will definatly not miss the next one.

On Wednesday I was just hoping we crack on with our assignment in which we did. I had a few sketches of how I wanted my website designing but the colours was all wrong. After reading the colour index book I found a lot of good colour schemes, I was only wanting to use 2 colours and found them quite easy from the book. After a bit of feedback from James in the afternoon just really about how I was going to put my text (I was going to use darkish red background with black text) in which James suggested I should just use a white background with the red around the edges and his feedback was very helpfull.

I got a lot of work done on Wednesday both screen designs are nearly finished now and with a couple more hours work I feel I can finish them.

Thursday we came in to a rather intresting task, we had to draw 3 "Skyscraper Banners" and 3 "Square Banners" freehand and Steve gave us a picture on the board and a bit of text and in 2 1/2 minutes we had to design banners with the information given. Then we got another picture and had to do the same again but this time in 2 minutes, then it went down to 1 1/2 mins, then 1 min then down to 30 seconds.

In 3 minutes I felt I had more time to think and plan what I was going to design which can be a bad thing at times as you get to be neater with the work. Then at 1 1/2 mins I thought this was just right and the ideas came to really fast and I just noted them down as quick as possible. In 30 seconds I couldn't hardly tell what I had put down! And struggled when we had to design neat versions of them later. When we got around to the neat versions I knew which ones to chose straight away and thought they looked good sketched out and am looking forward to designing them in Photoshop.

Just before dinner Steve gave me the image restoration assignment which I missed last week and got straight to work on it in the afternoon. I have done a lot of work already on this and you can see the difference so after a good few more hours on it I should have this sorted too. Really enjoyed Thursday as I am really keen on learning Photshop.

Hopefully by the next time I publish my blog a lot of work will have completed all ready for hand in to Steve on our next feedback meeting.

Catch Up

2006-12-02T13:00:00.000Z

This week has really been a kick up the arse for me, I started on my contents a few week ago and after Steve saying we shouldn't be doing it this early I kind of put it back a bit. I have nearly finished my contents but I am finding it hard as i'm learning some of these terms for the first time.

Steve gave me a quick guide on how to use Photoshop on Wednesday in which I was very excited about as this was one of the programs I wanted to learn about. I had been playing about with Photoshop now and again and wondered what each tool did and after the quick lesson by Steve I soon learned and was really looking forward to Thursday as we was set a task using Photoshop.

I was totally gutted missing Thursday's lesson, but these things happen. After reading people's blogs I feel i've missed a very important task and I feel I am now behind in my work which in the past has let me down as when I get behind in things I usually just think to hell with it.

Due to me working long hours and having an active social life my college work has suffered, having just been offered a new job with more suitable hours I can plan my college work a lot easier instead of just being rang up in the morning and being asked to work which messed up my self study. So this will improve a lot more.

Presentation

2006-11-23T16:00:00.000Z

The main topic for this week was to prepare a presentation, we didn't know up until we came in that we had to do this though! When I walked through the door and saw on the whiteboard it said presentation I just knew what was going to happen. But just what about?

When I was at school this was something I totally dreaded basically because we used to all laugh at each other and pull faces when somebody else was doing their presentation. But since I left I have done plenty and got a lot more confident in doing these. From me being a supervisor in a supermarket and giving talks to staff in big groups that the managment had given me to a course I studied in english last year in which we had to write 2000 words about a subject then to read it out in front of a class of about 30 people. And there has also been some other little things I have done along the way that could have been tied up with this like job interviews with 4/5 people doing the interview.

So I wasn't nervous at all about speaking in front of anybody or how many people! I was more bothered about what the subject was about. Since we have been doing lectures on colour I might have known what it would be! Yes, we got given a colour and had to note as much information about it and do a 2/3 minute presentation. In our groups of 2 me and Jamie was given the colour brown, of all colours! It was quite difficult finding the most important things to include in such a short presentation so we ended up just doing bullet points on powerpoint and then go more in depth on the actual presentation.

The presentations started at 2'clock but we had to have all notes and guides as Steve kicked us out of the room at 1 o'clock to rehearse. We found a quiet place near the reception and started rehearshing, I couldn't really do the presentation correctly then as I was just learning on what to say and I kept looking down at my notes to try and memorise things and as Jamie pointed out I wasn't making eye contact with him which I knew I wasn't doing but I usually make good eye contact in actual presentations.

We all gathered in the refectory and waited for Steve to call us up one by one, still not knowing who we would be doing the presentation in front of. Was really wanting to go in one of the first just because I didn't want to be sat around all afternoon trying to remember what to say and after half the afternoon went by I was skecthing in my skecthbook after a few sketches I had forgot most of what I was going to say, so back again to my notes! After hearing others in the class talking about their ideas about their exciting colours I thought that mine was going to pretty boring.

There was a good few nervous faces around me wondering what would happen? Would they have to go back in? Who are they doing the presentation in front of? So after the first few went in I found it that it was just Dianne and Steve who was the Judges (only missing Louie). I would have prefered to have done it in front of the whole class to be honest then ask the class to give feedback before Steve did the damage because Steve knows what to look for and hopefully other people who are not as experienced as Steve could point out other things I could be doing wrong.

After being sat in the canteen for what seemed a lifetime it was my turn, LAST! Wasn't best pleased about being last because I just wanted to get it over with and plus I left my bag in the room and my sandwhiches was in and I was starving! Walking up and into the room I just wasn't bothered about it one bit, I took a few tips from Steve's lecture and added them to what I had already learned before about presentations. I made the effort to speak more loudly and clearly then I usually do and Steve seemed quite impressed with it, actually said it seemed natural. But one of my bad habits is I can't keep still, I have to fidget! Not because i'm nervous or anything like that, its just a bad habit, hands in back pocket, moving my legs about, spreading my legs wide, just a terrible habit!

I still forgot my sandwhiches after the presentation ended too!

Guess after coming out of the presentation I felt relieved more then anything, just so that I didn't have anything hanging over me for today! Looking forward to other presentations now especially presenting my course work to people.

Wouldn't really change anything about the way I did the presentation, suppose if anything I was looking at my notes more then actually looking at Steve and Diane, but if I would have had more time I could have studied my notes more. But I would have proberly forgot after doing that too. The next time we do this I would prefer a more exciting colour then brown!

Colour wheel

2006-11-18T08:41:00.000Z

This week was all about colour, I can slightly remember from school about the colour wheel but didn't really go into much detail about it. After the lecture about it I tried remembering all the patterns of colour (as I know Steve will quiz us about it next week) but I know i'll get them mixed up!

I was searching around the net for some infomation on colour wheels and just found this link http://www.colormatters.com/colortheory.html its nothing we haven't already been told about but could be helpful to some people. I also found this site http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-theory-basics.html it just goes more into detail about the different colour patterns. If you get a spare 5 minutes just have a quick glance over your notes with the 2 sites, it refreshed my memory anyhow!

Apologies about the delay in my blog being posted, its usually up without fail on Thursday but due to other circumstances I have had to use a different PC from home to access the internet.

Art Vs Graphic Design

2006-11-09T16:28:00.000Z

I had planned to do a lot more studying out of college this week but due to work commitments I just wasn't able to, so i'm making double the effort to make sure I spend more time on studying and researching my sketchbook more. There is a lot of computing words I need to research as other members of the class seem to be already aware of them due to work they have done in the past so it is upto me to try and get to the same level.

Really intresting morning on Wednesday, instead of getting a lecture and taking notes we was asked to design a buisness card by using only black and white colours, with no logos! Steve gave us the information that needed to go on the buisiness card and first we had to sketch 12 designs in our sketchbook within half an hour. Really enjoyed this and even though I made a stupid mistake in adding to what Steve had asked us to put in I put in Tel: in front of the telephone number which I shouldn't have done.

Then we had to get into our feedback groups and we had to pick a favourite design from each person. When Mirhad and Craig chose mine we had to get on with designing them by using pagemaker again with a time-limit of 20 minutes. Again I enjoyed this and was pleased with my final design. Just before we went for break we had to print each card out and stick it on the wall and give feedback about each card. When we came back from break I expected Steve to have just ripped up all the ones that had mistakes on them.

I made the effort to check everything I put on the card but after some feedback I realised I had wrote the postcode down wrong! Again a simple mistake! When we get to do the task again, i'll be ready!

Thursday I was determained to hand in my first project and after spending some time on it this week I was ready to hand in. I made notes from the feedback that Steve gave me about it and went through everything 3 or 4 times to make sure I had passed it. I even learned about CGI after trying to understand it for a few weeks I still didn't quite understand it but today it just clicked.

We had a little quiz in the morning about the lecture we had the week before which put what I should have studied last week into perspective! I didn't really know all the answers that Steve had asked us. So I definatly need to study more in my spare time.

I stuck with the 2 images I had chosen last week, after not really liking them and not really think I could comment on them too much, like just in a shot ideas just came to me. So I stuck with them! Also the continuing debate about Art vs Graphic Deisgn again I couldn't come to direct answer. And after reading a blogger which a fellow student found I am known more the wiser just have more questions if anything!

Back From Holiday and Grades In!

2006-11-02T16:24:00.000Z

Well after a week off from the workload of college I was looking forward to coming into college and seeing what grade I had got from my first assignment. I knew I had gone too far by going for a merit and distinction whlist I should have spent that time focusing more on just achieving a pass.

Wednesday morning was spent with Steve going over how we felt about the next assignment now that we got our first out of the way. Then we got told that after break we would be getting our results and then you could feel the tension in the room! Breaktime was spent pondering what grade I had got and I could tell it was on most peoples mind too. And when we got back up from break the grades was on the wall. Overall I was kind of disapointted with a referal as I put a lot of effort into the assignment but after some feedback from Steve I found out it was nothing major just little mistakes and not going into detail as much on certain things which can be easily corrected. So despite me getting handed another assignment on Thursday this is the top of list to get finished and out of the way in which I am going to focus on lots next week and hopefully hand in next week, but I know this time I hand in I ain't getting it back, either pass or fail. So even more effort has to go into it.

Thursday started with a lecture on bitmap and vector images, I had heard of both before but I learnt a lot more into it because of the lecture. I knew the assignment was going to be using Photoshop which I keep hearing about and am keen to learn it, obviously we are not going to be teached everything about Photoshop but if I get to know the basics i'll be keen to play around with it more in my own time. We have to chose a vector and a bitmap image from the site www.thedesignersrepublic.com and compare each image. There is some really great artwork on the site but too much of the japanese style art for me, not really a fan of artwork like that but each to their own.

I found 2 artworks, got to admit I wasn't 100% happy and might even spend some more time in my self study looking into more artworks and thinking how I can compare them with each other.

Overall a mixed week, but theres no chance I am not letting a referal get me down or prepared to throw in the towel, this will make me stronger for the next assignment and now I know what Steve expects from us I should be able to keep this standard up and just focus on getting a pass in future instead of going over my head and going for higher grades.

Holiday Time

2006-10-27T14:38:00.000+01:00

Been a nice break not having any college work to worry about for a while, having this been my first assignment in about 6 year. The difference between then and now is that now I can look forward to getting the result having known I have put a lot of effort into my work unlike 6 year ago when I didn't realise how important these assignments was.

This week I have been thinking about college a bit and my assignment, mainly thinking I could have done this and I could have done that. But overall I am quite pleased with how it went. But after seeing some other students designs of their folder and cd label I think I could have put more effort into that.

Was nice to get to know more of the people better going for a few drinks with them after handing the assignment in. Like to think i've made the effort with everyone now, just a shame the whole class didn't turn up even just for one drink.

Looking forward to getting back to college next week, as one of the assignments focuses on Photoshop and with most of the class they seem to be pretty confident with it, but I on the other hand have never used it before. I have heard that this is proberly the best picture editing tool that there is and am very keen to use it.

Hope everyone else is enjoying their holidays

1 Day To Deadline Day And All Is Well

2006-10-18T14:53:00.000+01:00

Never really been worried about not getting things done with this course because I have felt that I have planned it really well. I have an hour to go before the class finishes today and I have completed all the work and even tried for a merit or a distinction.

Wasn't worried at the least about anything coming into college today, just needed to go over the spelling and the grammer and just had to print things out. I got Dean to have a read through mine after I thought I had it all completed and Dean pulled off a few spelling mistakes and just minor errors. With Dean finding them I felt it time for payback so I went through his work with a fine toothed comb!!!! It was a good thing getting feedback from other students all through this assignment as little errors I can miss others can easily pick up on it.

Just looking forward till the deadline day now so I can hand this work in and get off to the pub!

Cracked Blogger (At Last)

2006-10-12T16:15:00.000+01:00

The end of last week I had some spare time and just had some ideas in my head, so I went to the Curve at Wakefield College. I wish I didn't! I couldn't get any work done at all because of all the noise and found myself just sketching out my ideas and doing them when I got home. Learnt a lesson from not to work at the curve at Wakefield College anyhow.

I spent another few hours just adding things to my Blogger and trying to get to grips with it, found it quite annoying I just couldn't get my head round it. Luckily when i got into college on Wednesday, John was giving us a talk on Blogger. I felt this should have been done sooner as I really was having problems with it. After listening to John I learned on how i should set up a Blogger, the afternoon then was spent with Blogger. Scott showed me how to upgrade to Beta Blogger which was a hell of a lot easier and I really got a feel for Blogger and knew how to add links, pictures and more things with it, hopefully I shall get to learn a lot more about Blogger now. Which I think i can learn myself now.

I decided to get a bit more done on my assignment in the afternoon, I knew I had one of the worst jobs to come. Putting my word document into a Pagemaker template. I saw a lot of other students having a lot of problems with this so was dreading it, but i heard Steve was giving a lecture on the template in the morning so I thought i'd wait a while. After the day of college it was time to watch England lose.

Thursday morning and I was looking forward to getting started in transferring my Word document into a Pagemaker template. So after Steve's lecture I was ready to give it a crack. It must have took me all of 20 minutes to do it all and I found it relatively easy and was glad I waited for the lecture. I feel I am quite confident in Pagemeaker now but like most things, there's always more to learn.

The afternoon was pretty relaxing going into our feedback sessions, mainly because of the feedback groups and the chats with Steve I feel like I am going through the assignment easier instead of just letting us get on with it then letting us hand it all in. The slightest detail could get us a fail so I went through my work on screen and printed out. I noticed there was a few mistakes when I printed out that I didn't notice on screen, cost me a few pence but worth it.

When we came out of the feedback session with Steve, again I found more work to do. Not much but attention to detail is crucial. Fingers crossed on this assignment and hopefully I feel confident I can achieve a Merit for it.

Run For Your Life....

2006-10-12T14:40:00.000+01:00

....Pagemaker is here

The week started yet again from me working home and sketching more designs about my John Peel website. The week before I created some thumbnails of them but didn’t really go into much detail. I knew that this week at college we was having to do 2 digital designs our work and only ever using PageMaker once I thought I’d have no chance. Over the weekend I found myself flicking through various magazines and cutting out bits I liked the colour of (I just need some glue to stick them in my notebook now!!!)

Hardly settled in on Wednesday morning and just got told to crack on with our projects, which just suited me as I felt I needed to do a good bit of work on it. Just after finishing some designs at sketching and finishing the colour schemes off I thought I was lagging behind some of the other students a bit so I decided to try the dreaded PageMaker. I have never used a design program like this before, most of the class was complaining too as they seemed more used to Photoshop but I haven’t even used that before so I just got on with testing some of the features that Steve showed us last week.

After a few minutes testing things out I decided to just crack on with it and get my sketches actually on screen. This didn’t really take me as long as I’d expected and after doing more in PageMaker I was finding it more and easier to use and after making guidelines I was off and running.

I finished the main screen quite fast but I still wasn’t really happy so I went back and re did my guidelines so the site could be more accurate. After completing that and thinking I had done a good job of it I started on the feedback form, this was even easier because I had the main page template already and just edited a bit and cracked it quite fast.

This is an example of my attempt in Pagemaker

Thursday was just the same, just cracked on with our work. We got into our feedback groups in the library and gave each other comments on our work just before we was going into see Steve. I did actually notice when they pointed out that a lot my work was actually out of line. So it was good to get some feedback (and some of it was good).

Was looking forward to going to see Steve in our groups, I look forward to these most because I always come away from it setting myself more tasks after seeing what other people have done and also the feedback of Steve. If I didn’t have these feedback groups I’d just get all confused and proberly lose my way in the course like I have done in the past at other college courses.
I feel much more confident in PageMaker now and I’m looking forward to getting to grips with the other programs we will be going to use over the year.

With A Little Help From My Friends

2006-10-11T15:52:00.000+01:00

I started the week again by working from home, I didn’t really set myself much to do so I only spent a couple of hours going through my notes and looking into web hosts accounts, unfortunately my printer isn’t working from home so I’ll have to work out a way to get screen shots printed to give evidence.

Wednesday started with yet another early lecture on a program called “Pagemaker”, I had already heard about this program and was looking forward to getting into some practical work. Really enjoyed the session, was part of the reason the course appealed to me by learning new programs apart from Microsoft products. Hopefully I’ll get to learn a lot more programs as the term progresses. We also got informed that we would have to have some sketches for our websites to be shown in Thursday’s feedback session, I was saving these for the last, so I had to crack on with them that evening. Having done about 3 or 4 sketches I felt I had done enough, so went to college looking forward to the day.

Another lecture from an English lecturer Helen about referencing in the morning. Found it rather boring partly because of the reason Steve went over basically the same just the day before. And found her way of teaching rather boring too.

The afternoon was spent in our feedback groups, trying to get more work done on the design for the website we are designing. I didn’t really realise just how much detail we would be going into, but after a while I found myself going further and further into detail about the font size, colour, and style. And the whole layout of the site had to taken into consideration like colour schemes, pictures etc… so the feedback group really helped me get on with my work

We Can Work It Out

2006-10-11T15:51:00.000+01:00

Start of the week was spent checking my planner and seeing what work I had set for myself from last week. The first 2 days of the week was spent working from home which I didn’t think I would be able to do any work because of other distractions but I found myself doing a lot more work then I’d expected and by doing work a day before college the work I learnt from the week before was still freshly in my head.

Another early morning lecture at college thought I would be dreading these but after taking notes and putting them in my own words I am finding I can understand things much more clearly, and looking back through my notes from last week I can still clearly remember things. Second day we got in our review groups and I found out I had been setting my aims of the project out wrong. It wasn’t a big problem as I had it all typed up so was just a matter of moving text around which actually opened the assignment up more and can see how in depth I can go with the project.

This being my first college project in a few year it will just take a bit of understanding and getting my head around things still feeling confident I can do well on this assignment.

Revolution

2006-10-11T15:50:00.001+01:00

First Assignment Set

During the induction week we was told we was going to be set our first 2 assignments, i had an idea about one of them as we was set a little task at the end of last week to look into blogger accounts and we was told we was going to create one and add new entries into it on a weekly basis, but wasn't too sure what to expect from the second assignment.

So for our first assignment which was going to last all year we had to create and keep adding our thoughts on how we was finding the course and the kind of tasks we was doing into a blooger account, which i thought was an interesting task as during the second year of the course it will be nice to look back at some of the things i have done and what i have found difficult and see how far i have moved on from there.

The second task was a bit more difficult, we had to pick a "Great Briton" from a list of about 30 people, and had to imagine we was going to create a website about this person to make it different and better from other sites about the person. We have to research this person, research other sites and comment on them, sketch a design of a website you might use etc. I chose John Peel due to the fact i have a big interest in music and didn't know much about this person, so i felt it could be a good way of learning about John Peel.

I started on using a blogger account and first found it fairly simple to just write a post, but i was having problems actaully publishing my post in which i spent plenty of time reading through the help guides and just couldn't find out what i was doing wrong in which i later found out there was a problem with the blogger website, after i knew it wasn't a problem on my part it was easy to get used to blogger.

All Together Now

2006-10-11T15:49:00.001+01:00

My first week at college was spent just getting to know the course and getting to know the other students on the course. We started off by sitting in circles of small groups of 4 and just doing small activities to get to know each others names then we sat in a big circle with all the class taking part and had to remember each others names (i'm still not sure of a few peoples names, but sure i will do soon)

The second day we had to get into different groups of 4 then got set a task, the task involved having 120 points a group then we had to bid on various items which included plastic bands, paper, paper clips, straws etc. We got given an egg each group then had to use items to successfully throw the egg out of a window and make sure it didn't smash, all over groups used a parachute method but our group just padded the egg in as much wrapping and hoped for the best.

In all honesty i thought we had no chance! But all groups completed the task well with just one group getting a minor crack. At first i thought the task was childish and immature but i did actually enjoy it when we got stuck in, and i really enjoyed the induction week which made it much easier to get to know some of my fellow students quicker.

Formative Statment

2006-10-11T15:46:00.000+01:00

Where have you come from? Where are you now? Where are you going?

Since leaving school I enrolled at Wakefield College to study Information Technology Foundation whilst working part time at a local supermarket. After a year I passed the course then got offered to go onto the next year (Intermediate in Information Technology) in which I took and enrolled whilst being kept employed in my job doing part time hours. I also passed the 2nd year of College and got the opportunity to study at the advanced level which I did think about but I also got offered full time work at the supermarket where I worked part time. I took the job opportunity, I worked my way up to become a fresh food supervisor and after 4 years working full time I decided I needed a fresh challenge, so I decided to try and get into Admin work. I found it quite difficult to first get started in admin but after a couple of months I got given a chance at a furniture store. I enjoyed my time there but found it not the kind of work I was looking for.

After the company became bankrupt I found myself out of work, in which I started working for various agencies and after nearly 2 months I became employed full time again in admin, and I also enrolled onto a basic web design course in which I really enjoyed as I always had a keen interest in art and design. So I starting looking into college courses to get more educated in web design, after finding the course that I am studying of now (Interactive Media) I gave my notice into work and enrolled on the course.

As of now I am enrolled onto the interactive media course, and would like to see myself in 2 years time passing the course well and gaining employment in becoming a web designer but I haven’t ruled out going to university at the end of the course, I’ll just see how the course goes.