Evaluation (end of year one)...

End of year evaluation.

Introduction
The end of year is in clear sight, all the assignments have been handed in and there is a great sense of achievement flowing through the air. I can’t help but feel disappointed that the end of the year has come so quickly and the fun will soon be over till the next college year. I must say that I have really enjoyed everything in the first year, from building a rocket to presenting typography.

A1 - Sketchblog
This assignment to me has been both good and bad. Bad things first, it occasionally felt like a chore, especially if I fell behind at all during an assignment. An example was that I forgot to collect inspirational art work for a number of weeks, and catching up seemed like a job that was going to take forever. All was done though and quite surprisingly the feel of achievement was and is still their along side it.

The thing I like most about this assignment was when it came down to planning during assignments. The whole sketchbook drawing tasks were at a point where it did not matter what your designs appeared like (with in reason). But the idea’s behind, is where it all counted. A task that was really liked in this form was the static banners task for Assignment 6 – Revert to Type. During the creation of the banners, Steve incorporated a timed atmosphere, getting shorter after every design. Such fun was found in doing that, and if I could find my self in such a career that incorporates this type of design technique, then I must say I have found heaven.

Another aspect of this assignment was to create a weekly journal entry showing weekly progression and to gain feedback on designs. I must say that this fulfilled its expectations and provided me with mountains of design feedback, which was all greatly appreciated and taken in to consideration. Some of the suggestions hold the reasons for me passing each assignment, especially in the designed tasks.

A2 – That’s the Plan
This assignment was most probably the hardest for me. Been the first ever assignment at a HND level I found it pretty difficult to adjust to that methods of submission and appearance. Firstly I cannot say that I have ever needed to reference work before, and the amount of research needed as evidence seemed almost impossible to complete. Speaking of difficult, this was the only assignment that I failed on the second hand in. Not good I must add but I believe I made up for this in the second web plan assignment Back to Basics. Other then that I believe that choosing Charles Dickens may not have been the best choice of character, as looking back I do not like the design I created in that web plan. Besides that I remember there not been much to make the web template on, with only a small number of images to work with as inspiration.

A3 – Back to Basics
After failing A2 I knew there was no option but to pass this and my aim was to do it in the first hand in. Unfortunately, I referred the first time but brought it back with taking on the valuable feedback and amending where it was necessary. During this assignment I had mixed feelings on equal measure. There was the frustration that it was a similar task that I had recently failed, the sense of enjoyment working on more technical goals, and annoyance to how the amount of information there was to research. Having a total of 40 computer components made it very time consuming when trying to obtain the right image and find the correct information.

A4 – Image Restoration
This is where the real fun began for me. Not only did we have a black and white image to restore and two static banners to create. But it also allowed me to become more fluent in Photoshop. When entering the course my skills in Photoshop were almost un-existent and this been the first real opportunity to really get my hands dirty was a god send. This has to be the second best assignment during the first year and I feel it to be stupid if no one else feel a similar sense of joy towards it.

A5 - Builder
Building the website from the plan created in A3 could only be known as one hell of a rollercoaster ride. Just as you feel you’re at an all time high, there is a shear drop just around the corner. Inserting all the information and imaging in to Dreamweaver was as easy as riding a bike. But when it reached the validation stages I hit a huge snag. With coding been one of my major weaknesses in this roll of the assignment I found it really difficult to get through it. Also another aspect that was difficult was the form JavaScript. At first I validated the form using Dreamweaver applications only later on I was notified that JavaScript was supposed to be used in this case. Great, more coding and one hell of a task to work around with my in-experience. All was completed though even though I hit the referral mark. Luckily it wasn’t too much to amend.

A6 – Revert to Type
This was quite possibly one of the assignments that came like marmite. Unfortunately there wasn’t as much love as there could have been. The whole building process of the presentation was a huge struggle and the hand out wasn’t any better. Having been given Stanley Morison and the limitations of his work, proved to quite a task. For starters the design of the presentation and handout lacked in inspiration and images able to implement. I did in fact get to really love the presenting part. It was just the building part that was disliked.

The other part of the assignment included timed tasks. These were set up similarly to the banner creations in A4, which really struck my liking. Most of all I really like creating the Vodafone and the Snake Bites advert as I feel the sense of creative typography was at an all time high and the opportunities were almost limitless.

A7 – Wailing Whales
This has by far got to have been the most enjoyable assignment up to date. It really gave me and I believe the class to really dig in to their creativity barrels. First of all there logo design included rough drawings in our sketchbooks and adjustments drawn in from feedback. The logo did take a number of weeks to complete with its ever going colour tryouts but it was all fun.

The CD artwork was by far the best task of the entire year. The creativity was overflowing with the mood boards and mind maps created over the reading week before the assignment start. Gaining a good feel towards the music was also a newly formed skill and something that will be looked at in the very near future.

Class atmosphere
Looking back at past memories and the tasks performed in the first week, it has come clear that everyone is now more then ever part of this group. From lift of with thunderbird one, the height of friendship among fellow students has soared in to high orbit. The trust is getting greater every day and there is nothing I would change among anyone to improve the atmosphere. It really is that perfect in my eyes.

Tutors
Where would we be with out Steve and John? Admittedly John hasn’t had the biggest role out of the two this year, but sources say that will change at the beginning of next as John joins our group more often and even takes us through an assignment on CSS. That will be something to look forward to. Seminars and lectures have been a vital role through out the course to date. There have been things disliked but its all in the part of learning. I will be looking forward to September when we come back to college to carry on with the remainder of the course, and yet another step in education.

My aim

A short list of thing I will do in time for next year:
- Get a head start on CSS, ready for the upcoming assignment sometime after the summer holiday.
- Keep my creative skills on an all time high by setting my self random design task over the summer.
- Complete the summer assignment as soon as possible, giving me more time and a complete frame of mind to work on my own set random tasks.

A short list of aims for the second year:
- Complete the year with up to 3 merits.
- Complete the year with as little referrals as possible.
- Continue to be optimistic towards the course.

Conclusion
This year has come and gone at light speed. It is almost unbelievable that it is almost nine months since the majority of the HND Interactive Media students of 2007/2008 first met. It has been a real blast working along side everyone and I look forward to doing so very soon. Over all I feel as though I could have done better if a few certain weaknesses of mine were at rest, but as things are what they are. I’m pretty easily distracted, and something will need to be resolved in the very near future. This has really been a great year and something I will not want to forget. So, the end is here, Progress, support, and I have a feeling next year will be even better then this.

Short and Sweet!

Today is quite possibly the shortest journal entry I have ever posted. This is merely because it is reading week, and through out the week so far I have been working on my CD artwork. Through out the week I have hit certain complications in software which has held me back a little. This is to do with installation. I have tried to re-install relevant software but Windows been the pain that it is, is disallowing my attempts saying I don’t have the relevant privileges. The funny thing is, I own the hardware and I am the administrator. But I intend to get back on track over the week and hand in the assignment completed and on time. So to all of you that are going through the same as I, I wish you good luck in this final assignment of the college year. And I will see you in college on Monday.

It would be a great help if I could gain some feedback for my current CD artwork. My apologies for the CD outer not containing the emit logo. I will sort this in the week when I have resolved the software implication. My artwork can be found in the directory of http://www.j-browne.co.uk/a7

Things to do for this week:

- The usual weekly comments.
- Problem solving with software application issues.
- The amendments of my CD artwork (if any)
- The addition of the emit logo to the CD artwork outer.
- The input of the assignment in to InDesign.
- And finally the evaluation.

Show Time!!!

The time is drawing near. Next week is the final week before the hand in date of the current assignment, Wailing Whales. Only next week we will be working from home. By this I feel both anxious and a little scared. The anxious feeling comes from the urge to crack on with my design work and having the freedoms to work from home. The scared feeling comes from the fear of distraction, the un-office like atmosphere I will be working in, and whether the work produced over the week will be enough to gain me a pass first time.

Through out this week I have been continuing work on the CD designs, and the pre-flight document. But before all this we had a re-cap of a past lecture on print work. Don’t get me wrong, but I feel both glad, and disappointed at the same time with this. The glad feeling draws its way up from having a second chance to look over this lecture and pick out any valuable points I may have missed the first time round. While the disappointment came from wanting to crack on with my designs and pre-flight material with no hold back.

After lunch on Monday I took the time to research in to the pre-flight task. By doing so I found out quite a lot about what it is, what it does, and the type of questions and checks it contains. Pre-flight comes from a pilot term for checks that occur before a plane is ready to take flight, clever huh?

The pre-flight document I have been creating contains mostly checks for my self and information boxes that will contain data on where to find each file, colour codes etc. I believe I will have this at a completed state further on in the week.

Through out today (Tuesday) I have been working on my CD artwork. The position of the information I need to put is pretty obvious with its location. But finding the correct place to fit in the emit logo is proving to be a tricky task. I so want to add the gradient used in the CD artwork using Photoshop but I believe that would go against me in this particular assignment. Talk of rasterizing the logo in Photoshop were advised to me by Steve, but for some reason Photoshop will not allow me to select the option to rasterize on the EPS file.

I will have to add my CD art work on to the forum for feedback ASAP to gain full advantage of the sources available to us. I feel as though I want my days of referring assignments to be over. So its show time!

Over the following week I plan to:
- Carry on with my CD artwork.
- Complete my pre-flight document.
- Stand by the weekly addition of journal comments.
- Keep in touch with my seminar groups as the pre-flight document is planned as a group activity.
- And start planning towards the evaluation of the assignment.

Presenting with Satisfaction!!!

During the course of the week I have been developing an idea for the CD artwork. Although not yet completed, I’m feeling very confident in the design. I must not try to get to attached though as the next intention is to produce a few more ideas bringing it down to a majority decision for the ‘Undark’ CD label.

On Monday a selected few were require to re-do the typography presentation, due to not meeting specific standards the first time round. I was among that selected few as I presented it in a mere 3 minutes and 30 seconds. This time was slightly better then before but still not good enough. The result of this was another go at it on Tuesday morning, one on one with Steve rather then in front of the whole class, like on Monday. This time I managed to present the information bang on 5 minutes and 30 seconds which I believe is the border line for error. Another thing needed to do after the presentation was to answer 10 random generated questions about typography. Not been able to answer ten out of ten, during the course of presenting on Monday, meant on Tuesday I was asked the questions I got wrong. Gladly I answered them right away, which is an achievement considering we were none the wiser about what was in store for us on Tuesday morning. This brings me to think that been on the spot make me more likely to feel a sense of nervousness causing intelligence to wither away.

The next part of Tuesday required me to re-create the CD artwork I had previously created as I made what some call a simply, common mistake. What I had done was create the artwork at 300dpcm (dots per centimetre) when I should have actually created it at 300dpi (dots per inch). So the remainder of the day was to completely recreate the work from the previous day. Not some thing I was best pleased with but I suppose its all in the process of learning.

Finally, in our seminar groups this week we talked about unfinished logo designs (if there we’re any), current CD artwork, the upcoming of the pre-flight document and the understanding of A1.

It appears that the design of my CD artwork shows creativity that is required for the learning out comes. But it’s quite possible that I may run in to a few problems when trying to change it to 4 colours for printing. For this I have been advised to do a ‘Gamut Warning’ test in Photoshop.

It is an understanding that the pre-flight document in merely a check list for both designer and printer to abide by while printing out the requested work. It has been decided that team beta will take this on as a group activity to be completed by the next seminar discussion.

To summarise, I feel that I have overcome an obstacle this week, with the mistake made at the beginning of the CD design. By making the mistake in the first place I feel that I need to be more wary towards instructions and make sure I fully understand what I am required to do before starting a task.

Having the chance to redo the presentation has made me realise that they are fairly simple and that I kind of like to present. Having this 2nd chance to perform an already performed task made me feel right at home with my nervous suddenly disappearing as soon as I stood attention at the front of the class.

To complete this entry, below are a few tasks I’m going to carry on with through out the course of the week.

- Produce more on screen CD artwork.
- Complete referral work on the web building assignment.
- Produce the standard weekly journal comments.
- And research in to the pre-flight document to gain a better understanding for the group activity on Monday.

Final Emit Logo Designs!!!

Here are the final designs for the emit logo. Feel free to comment.

The Sweet Smell of Progression!!

This week was completely a crack on with it week. No lectures, no tutorials, just a week to work on the remainder elements of the logo design task and the beginning stages of the CD case design. For the logo in terms of progression this week I am very near the end stages in its existence. The only thing needed to do now is to reverse the colour fades from been light inwards and working to a bold appearance, to been bold in the centre and fading on the way out.

During Monday I received feedback from the Assignment 6 Revert to Type. As it turns out I need to re-present my presentation, change the over all design of my hand out, and revise the terminologies of type. Not a great deal to do in terms of designing, but the revision may take some time as it will need to be completely understood round for the concluding part of the presentation. As mentioned in an earlier entry it appears I yet again revved up my engines and did a flat out performance with my over rated motor mouth. The result of this meant a supposed five minute presentation was presented in only three and a half minutes. Nerves are some times a factor so all I can do is go out there and try to stay calm as the situation must appear like a regular thing.

Back on to the designs of the current assignment. In our seminar groups we were asked to rethink our production schedule as our previous tumbled attempt haunted us this week with the logo design not been fully completed by the group. When this was complete, the discussion on our current progress commenced. The work I took in to show was the very nearly completed logo designs I have completed and three on screen ideas for the CD case design. Through feedback, a chosen logo was selected with a few minor alterations suggested. Also a bright spark idea from Steve arose, which insisted that I try and implement all three designs in to one as all show a certain part of the creativeness needed for the marking criteria. This will take a lot of thought and some hard timed graft to get perfect, but I intend to complete it for next week so I can gain feedback before moving on to the insides of the design.

Self study this week will consist of:

- The revision of typographic terminologies.
- A redesign of the Stanley Morison hand out.
- A redesign of the Hokai paint tube (by choice).
- The implementation of three CD designs brought in to one.
- The finishing touch to the Emit logo.
- And the general weekly commenting.

For those of you that want to see the final design to the Emit logo I have created. I will post in a following entry a visual.

Colour Testing...

Here is the chosen logo in a variety of different colours. Any suggestions of colour, or slight alterations in the appearence of the logo, will be greatly appreciated.