Running on a Low Tank!!!!

Monday morning a rather different start then our usual morning lecture. Steve approached us with an on the spot task to create approximately 15 business card sketch ideas in our personal designers tool. He then gave us a 15 minute period in which we were to create a chosen business card idea in either PageMaker or InDesign. With a 15 minute time limit I set of to create a fairly simple design out of the ones created. At the end and after gaining feedback I realised that I wasn’t in the right lines of the task as I added extra information such as name tag before the actual representative’s name. For example: Name: Walter M. Wainwright.

After the sudden realisation of the sort of work needed in the design industry (I think, or is the design industry a lot more productive and demanding?) we began with a lecture about 4 principle of design. In this we covered:
- Proximity, which is using related elements in the same location.
- Alignment, which is basically the placement of an element.
- Repetition, which is a strong form of consistency.
- And Contrast, which is what, attracts the eyes of the viewer.

After the lecture we moved on to our current assignment work for a Monday which is A3. During the time in college I began researching the information in which to use in the script of the website build. Although it’s not yet complete, I gained a very good start in which to inform a target audience of 50+ (Silver Surfers).

During the long extended work criteria on Monday night I gained a very valuable lesson. This lesson is to work on feedback as soon as you receive it and get it out of the way as soon as possible. Failure to do so will result in the lack of sleep.

Tuesday and a very tired ‘JB’. We began the day with the same task as Monday morning but instead of 15 designs we had to create number of 5 complete with annotations. Knowing the results of Monday and from the feedback gained, I set out to create a suitable business card complete with proximity, Alignment, Repetition and Contrast. As a result of this task I received pretty bad feedback just the same as before. Apparently the text regarding the information about the location of the business and the representative, proposing the card, was too small. Perhaps something I need to work on in the near future.

After the Sudden repeat of a design industry on the spot task we began to work on our image restoration which I think is going rather well if I do say so my self (an image of my progress is located below).

In our seminar groups we had a discussion about our progress in the assignment so far and the tasks needed to be completed for this particular weekly event. For this we needed to have a major amount of our image restoration complete in order for checking and the image compression discussion. So far as I know the image restoration needs to be altered slightly in order for the really small detail to be visible to the human eye. A note from Steve, says that if I can’t gain the right tone for the restored image I will need to start it again and place the restoration elements in a separate layer in Photoshop rather then restoring the actual image. From working on the image after seminar I believe it is completed to a satisfactory level of appreciation (in my view).

Also today (Tuesday) we gained our presentation feedback which we produced on the 1st day back from reading week. As it turns out I am a nervous motor mouth with an obsession for comfort. Due to a sudden print of the hand out after entering the room it appears I was also disorganised.

Task to complete over the week:

- 15 web plan thumbnails and a chosen design in full size (in Sketchbook).
- A digital version of the web plan.
- A completed script.
- 8 comment (something Steve says I need to do for missing out on last week’s deadline).
- And any restoration feedback gained from you guys (If people comment and be truthful).