J Milsom's Blog

First Year Summary

2007-05-15T21:08:00.000+01:00

Back in September I was approaching the start of this course with real excitement but the scariness of it really started increasing as the start got closer and closer.

Previous to this after I had just left another ICT course I didn’t know which direction to go, I had seen this Interactive Media course and it appealed to me, but I thought maybe a job was the best option or possibly university. I felt like this for quite a while and then I had my interview with Steve. This made my mind up, he spoke about previous students, their work, and what the course is all about and I went home sat down and thought...I want to do this, it appealed to me with what I could learn. But as I didn’t know anything really about website or print design I felt scared that other people starting the course would be whiz kids, and to add further fright to that, that I wouldn’t know anybody but I was confident that I had the ability to make friends. I remember walking down the corridor and my heart was beating at what may be through that door, then I walked in and saw all these new faces, it was some experience.

The Ice breaking tasks helped us all no doubt, it helped us learn names and just spend a little time together and create some kind of understanding of each other. I remember all the Hopes and Fears for the next 2 years work, working in groups and coming up with all these ideas and then stepping up and typing them out. Looking back at those hopes and fears now it makes me think about how far we have all come, if we were to do that task again now, it would be so much different. Also the preparation work that Steve put in really helped me, he got me well prepared for what was to come, by explaining to us how hard it will be, how professional we have to be and all the little details like time keeping, and arriving early rather than on time got me into a routine that helped me kick of the first year of the course.

But also along with this was Time Planning. Something that I had never used before and I don’t think many of us had, it was a difficult to start the time planning, I wasn’t used to looking to the end of an assignment and planning all that time I had right to the end, tasks by tasks. It was really difficult to grasp and I don’t still believe that I haven’t grasped it as good as I could have still. Also we were told that each assignment would require 16hours self study each week. This was a massive amount of time to me, previously if I did 5 hours or less self study this would have been too much, so realising that 16hours was required was difficult to hear. I found it hard to accomplish due to work but more importantly due to me and myself motivation. I then began to get routines of two free days for self study, and planning this time so that I would need to do it, and couldn’t just lie in my time plans. But I must admit that as soon as the self study improved it soon decreased. And this is something that I am considerably unhappy with and defiantly want to, and need to improve next year.

The first assignment A2 – That’s the Plan, I found really good, it showed me the work that goes into creating a website, and that you don’t just design off the cuff on screen, it takes time to develop designs, and also before developing designs you have to think about the client and the target audience. Target audience I came to realise is a huge topic in website building. In order to build a good website you must appeal to the target audience, and the detail that you can go into is unreal it was a real eye opener and successfully set us up for what was to come in following assignments.

A3 – Back to Basic, this assignment took a lot of research into webhosting and domain name purchasing, as the following assignment to this we had to create the website we had planned in this assignment. A website pre-production had to again be completed before this website build, but as opposed to the A2 plan, this was different. I had to be careful and not set my goals to high as if I couldn’t reach these goals it would have resulted in a fail. I really enjoyed this assignment and it will defiantly help in the future when I need to create websites and plans as now I can actually do it. We also had to research into copyright with a lot of detail this assignment and gain various images for the website build, being careful not to breach any copyright regulations.

A4 – Picture this, this was my favourite assignment of the year. I loved using Photoshop and gaining a few skills in the program, and I got real satisfaction out of the work that I completed. Most of all the image restoration, it may have been simple to some people but personally I thought that such a task would be extremely difficult and I couldn’t do it, but I did and it was surprisingly simple to a certain extent. This was a really enjoyable assignment and is by far my favourite of the year; I liked the freedom of the creative side of the assignment and producing work to be proud of.

A5 – Builder, my first ever website! I had already created the pre-plans for this website build in A3 – Back to Basic. But although the ground work had already been done, this wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination easy. I had to learn basic skills with the software in order to build the website, and I found difficulties in the sizes. The sizes I had planned were all out when I created them in the software, which was down to a lack in experience but these errors were soon fixed. I was lucky enough not to encounter any problems when viewing my website in different browsers like a few people which was a great relief to me, as it saved a lot of time for altering odd parts of the website due to the User Testing. The user testing was really interesting and surprising at the cost that can be charged for website user testing and how thorough they can actually be. But they are an integral part of a website I can now see.

A6 – Revert to Type, task bombing...as it was nicknamed happened during this assignment which I found brilliant. It gave us a pressure circumstance of a work environment and showed us how fast we could work. They gave the assignment a really edge and will be what I remember most from this assignment. This assignment was also an eye opener to the world of type. I used to think a font was simply a font that was something you used on your machine. I never realised the history, controversy and the scale of the typeface world. This eye opening realisation is something I have come to enjoy that happens on this course, I am always learning something along the line which keeps me entertained and interested. We also completed presentation in this assignment, which was a scary thought to me as a previous test run I did terribly and it really shuck me up, but as soon as I got started with the presentation I felt quite comfortable which will hopefully give me a certain air of confidence when it comes to more presentations.

A7 – Fax of life, the last assignment of the year and to say not the least. When receiving this assignment I wasn’t looking forwards to the mass of work they had to be created. It incorporated all of the previous assignments into one, and the work load showed. But it was a really good assignment. It took a fair bit of research to complete as the corporate identity was new to me and I had no idea what went into such a task. And also the process of preparing for print was interesting. I was really hoping to build my website Style Guide for this assignment using CSS but unfortunately I didn’t think I had the time to experiment this assignment so this is defiantly something I want to learn in the future. This was one of my favourite assignments as the CD Artwork allowed us to be creative, which was brilliant. Until it came to it and all I got was a creative block. I found it difficult to find ideas and designs and wasted.

Looking back at all the assignments I feel that it shows the level being raised a notch each time and in some cases a few notches each time, which is something to think about next year when we have already been warned that the bar will be substantially raised. But it’s something that I am looking forwards to but not just yet, the break is something I also look forwards too.

Goals for next year:
- Achieve two Merit’s
- Increase Self Study time
- Build a website using CSS

Power Lines Stand Tall

2007-05-03T16:26:00.000+01:00

Another week over so fast, but although it has gone so fast I am pleased yet a little disappointed at the progress I have made.

As usual I stuck with CD art work on the Wednesday which is where the disappointment comes into play. I struggled again all afternoon trying to get started and have something click in my head for a design I was happy with, a little after dinner it hit me, I came up with a design and I liked it, I was very happy but unfortunately a little detail caught me out, I initially thought the image was at 300dpi but after showing Steve it turned out it was actually 300dpi at a certain size, a certain size which was unusable to me as it was too small for the way I wanted to use the image, so I was back on the hunt again for an idea, well I actually stuck with the idea I found but I was hunting for an image to replace the one I had lost. Luckily I did manage to find one and alter it until I was happy with it 2 minutes before home time…phew! Disappointing however I do wish I had created a design much sooner, and the Wednesday was spent creating a booklet but I failed to reach that stage, and in doing so delivered disappointment, but I am hoping now I have a design, the booklet will smoothly follow.

On the other side of the assignment, the Corporate Identity is coming along very nicely, I have finished all of the designs (I believe) and managed to make quite a lot of progress on the website today. I have created all but one of my pages, they are not the finished product but it is progress, with tweaking required. However this progress sent me home happy, and with the opinion that the assignment is coming together now, I can see the finish line but a sprint finish is needed, time passes really quickly and before I know it will be time to hand in. so as I mentioned last week a final push is needed.

While writing this I over heard talk of what the “admin week” that is approaching hold for us, personally I have no idea what so ever what this may be, I had previously thought it would be something not too difficult to finish the year off but apparently this isn’t the case, so its time to play the waiting game/guessing game is it not!?

One last thing before I leave. Below is my CD Design and also my Style Guide website can be found at: www.jlmilsom.co.uk/style_guide click the Style Guide in directory as I havent managed to sort it out yet

Complicated Discs

2007-04-26T16:37:00.000+01:00

During the last week of our holidays I was full off nerves, nerves because I felt that I was way behind the rest of you all. All week I was pushing myself to work as fast as I could and get as much done, which isn’t the best way to work if you are trying to design something with quality. Reading people’s blogs and seeing that people had business cards finished websites up and almost running letter heads complete, I was petrified!

But as soon as Wednesday kicked off and I started doing a little work, from speaking to people and hearing the stages they were at I realised that I wasn’t so far behind after all, giving me renewed confidence. I got cracking with work and the day really did fly past, I concentrated on getting started with my CD designs, which I previously had thought to be a tough task to come up with an idea suitable, but I was surprised at how hard it was for me, I gained numerous inspiration from images and actual CD covers. But putting this onto paper or on screen and creating something of my own was a struggle. I got caught up in the idea of having CD artwork relating to the music, or the album name. Or even the track names, which resulted into creating music for none of these! And before I knew it the day was over, so unfortunately there are still initial ideas to be created. But I possibly aim to have ideas for when we return, and it would even be good to have a shortlist of neats, and be one or two steps away from completion, of a front cover.

As far as the Corporate Identities go I have made progress, I have digitalised some ideas and created a template in which to display these as a Style Guide, and I predict that it shouldn’t be too long till I have finished that task, but as I we all know, you can never judge what will happen next so we shall see how long it actually takes.

Overall I am pleased with the progress I have made this week, and it’s also good to be back, and hitting the ground running for the final push of the year. The finish line is close and there is certainly no time for slacking now, so its time to get my head down and make sure that I reach the finish. Jamie

Business Cards, and an Image I was playing with:

All Talk..No Trousers. Is that what they say?

2007-04-17T12:13:00.000+01:00

Well it's the last week of our holidays now and unfortunately I regret to say that this is the first chance I have had to work. I started the holidays with a mind set off working through them. Rather than having a heavy week of work, I wanted to spread the work load through out the three weeks. But unfortunately I have had to work the majority of the holidays so far, day and night. And the little time I had between I felt obliged to spend a little time with my girlfriend as she was on her holidays too, and hadn't seen a snip of me.

Luckily however apart from the odd time this week where I have a shift, I have requested a week off, to study, and my girlfriends holidays are over and she has now gone back to University which leaves me with a week free to get some work done. By any means it's not what I wanted to happen, having to cram work into one week, but it's how it has to be, so all I can do is get on with it and do my best. I feel terrible now this week is here however as it's a pressure week as a result of not having completed any work.

My main concern is going back to college, and everyone has completed a shed load of work, with not much else to complete for the assignment, and I'm left with a mass of work. Looking through blogs it looks like this is a reality, as many people have worked successfully through the holidays, which ad's a little more pressure onto me. But I'm determined to help my self and use this time, so I shall see how I do, and hopefully I wont be too far behind people when I return to college next week. Jamie

The Time Plan Massacre

2007-03-29T16:10:00.000+01:00

Time plans done…time plans immediately changed, Wednesday morning and the request of a complete digital screen design, for our Style Guides completely knocked my time planning out of the water, I wasn’t planning for a finish design plan until today, in my feedback session I was planning on showing rough/neat ideas but after an all mighty push I completed it a day earlier and met the deadline set for it. When this request was first given I instantly knew that I would have a lot of work to do for the day/night to have it complete, and I wasn’t looking forwards to it, but in actual fact it helped me so much. As it rocketed me forward into the first steps of creating the style guide, and also left me with a free day, to complete what I needed to catch up on, or what I wanted to get ahead of plans on. Although it did take a lot of effort to get it finished for 9 this morning I was fine in accepting a little pressure, to give me a boost and get stuck into something and get it done.

Because of this it left me with today to finalise, or so I though…to almost finalise my logo, as I up until today hadn’t created and digital versions of logos due to work problems halting my college work, but today I caught up and created some ideas, and after time spent playing around with ideas I feel I am now on the step to finalising an idea. I maybe need a little more thought to colour however, but I can tie this in with my website build as I feel I need to play with colour a little more with that, so plenty to get crack on with over the holidays.

Speaking of the work for the holidays, I have a fair bit to get complete, such as A5 – Builder amendments, possibly A6 – Revert to Type? And also work for this assignment and my Sketch books wouldn’t be damaged by a little time spent with it. All in all there’s plenty to do, but I am determined to work, I haven’t quite decided on a work timetable yet, but I do plan to work, not just in the last week of the holidays but to spend time working through out the whole three weeks. The more work I can get done, then the easier finish to the assignment I could have, and this is something I would enjoy.

Finally I hope you all have a great holiday, and I’m sure ill speak to some of you during it, don’t forget to work! Jamie

The Marker has been set

2007-03-23T14:07:00.000Z

After a long discussion about time planning, and time planning methods and such as a group we then set our first “Group Goal” by the next lesson on Wednesday we have to have completed a shortlist of logos, to be exact four ideas. So this week I have been running towards this goal.

I would like to apologise to my Feedback group for being AWOL on Thursday and missing our meeting, but I hope it went well, unfortunately it couldn’t be helped.

After not managing turning in on Thursday I set in my mind that I at least had to get some work done at home, but it took me quite a while to feel up to it, but that evening I did grab my sketch book and begin to start my design process, of illuminating designs to reach the goal set. I have also to make up for my absence on Thursday, spent today doing work. Which I wouldn’t normally do on a Friday but I have had the day off work, and use it as a college gain.

I now believe I have some kind of shortlist that hopefully four of the logo designs within there will be what I will be showing on Wednesday. But it’s one step at a time and there is much more work today before I decide on what to pick. I plan that after this it will be a little researching, at various fonts and colours I could possibly use, so I will get on with that as soon as I can.

I also plan to have a little time using Freehand, to possibly have my designs DTPED but if not just to get a feel for the software as I have not used it before, whether it be at college one day or if I manage to get my hands on a copy, but it will surly benefit me if I can do this. I’m finding this logo creating business quite difficult at times, there is so much to think about; I’m starting to see my thumbnail sketches, as more towards the useless pile than the possible pile. But I guess I can’t dwell on what i have done, and I guess this is where the designing for commercial use comes in, rather than designing for personal pride at the moment.

Anyway I must crack on I have loads of work to do. Jamie

Logos...Simple and Distinctive

2007-03-15T16:43:00.000Z

Again another assignment started with my eyes shut. Logos are everywhere we all know this, whether there on TV, Signs, Internet, Shirts, Clothes, every company has a logo. And we could all if asked, list numerous logos that we see everyday, and logos that we know, I am like this. But after our lecture Wednesday morning do we actually look at logos? I know that all of the logo’s that were in the presentation, but I’ve never noticed little details about them, little hints as to why they are created in that way and the meaning of them. How many times do we look at a logo and get them?

Now my eyes have been opened to companies and logos, and how much thought process and effort goes into them, I appreciate them so much. I never thought there would be certain criteria that you would have to meet, well could meet in order to create a “good” logo. Such as contrast, presence, shape and weight. I honestly thought a logo was created by attaining some kind of image/shape and combining that with the company name or initials, and making it look good, but now I can see that colours are used to broadcast certain attributes, sizes are used to give the impression on presence and impact, shapes are used so that you can instantly recognise a logo from its outline/silhouette. It’s not a coincidence that the large companies and businesses names and image stick with you, its there intention to make you sub consciously think of them, by creating these “good” logos.

This struck me on Thursday when we actually started our designs, and during research I found myself looking at logos I’ve seen many times before much closely. I don’t think that I can look at a logo loosely again, it wouldn’t pass me by, I can imagine I would get stuck with it for the rest of the day wondering how they came up with the idea, and why did they do it.

But all that aside, logos are extremely difficult to create as I found. I spent ages looking into my sketch book, pen in hand…but after a few doodles and sketches I was fresh out of ideas, I found myself thinking about the similar ideas, I needed to broaden my mind and try different things, which to begin with I thought this would be an easy task, come on…all it is, is doodling in your sketch book, using a name and a few shapes. How wrong could I have been! and as for CO-ID (Corporate Identification) well that's just mind boggling, I'll get to that next post

Also we had another visit this week from an Ex-student, which as always is a great pleasure and a good experiance to hear from these people, who have been and done what we are currently doing, and they are now firmly in a job. And the contrast between each of the visitors jobs, is so differant, it shows us how wide the market is, and although in the same industry, how many differant types of areas, and jobs you could end up doing. Anyway thank;s to Marc for his visit, and I personally have heard his storys before, and his experiances so it wasnt such a suprise to me, but I hope you all enjoyed his visit and enjoyed hearing from him.

Anyway I must crack on; I have ideas to sketch and my mind to fill with inspiration. Jamie

A6 - Revert to Type

2007-03-11T23:56:00.000Z

Typography…simple…at least that’s what I thought before starting this Unit. I was surprised at the depth that you can go into typography. When we first had our lecture on this topic, I can honestly say that I was so naive about what it entailed. I seriously thought that it was, as simple as putting your uppercase here and your full stops there. And learning what fonts are appropriate for certain tasks. But during the first lecture I realised how much I had to learn. You could go on learning typography everyday, it’s such a deep topic. And with many areas also, for example font and letter name typography, Newspaper typography, design typography and I’m sure there is many more to add.

During the A6 assignment I learnt so much about the design world, that is considered to be standard practise concerning such skills as type, and also I believe that I have gained the experience short it may be, but the experience of work that you could receive at a work place the Pressure work. This coming with the timed, surprise assignments. It was certainly a different way for us to work, walking into a room not knowing whether you would be given a task to complete and how long you would be allocated to do the task, it gave me a feeling of anticipation and excitement. And I believe that in each of the tasks I performed as well as I could have done, in respect to the pressure, and the skills I had then. I feel I would possibly complete the same tasks again in much quicker time, and to a possibly higher standard, but none the less I am extremely happy with the work that I have produced.

Running along side these surprise tasks the preparation for the presentations had to be completed, including research slide shows, hand outs and on top of this learning the presentation, but although my first reaction was a little fear at doing another presentation, when I fought it through I realised that because of the time allocated to do this task, there was more than enough time to learn the presentation and there couldn’t be bad nerves on the day if I knew the slide show well enough, and I found that the more I worked on creating the slides and hand outs, I was inadvertently learning the presentation without actually trying, which was a major plus come the deadline day, and the days before, as I didn’t have to knuckle down so much and try to cram it all in.

Overall this assignment has been impressive, it kept me interested with the surprise assignments, and I enjoyed completing them. I believe it was a healthy mix between the two (presentation and Timed assignments) and it didn’t call for drastic time planning amendments as there was plenty of time to complete both. But I will say that although I enjoyed the whole journey to the deadline, come deadline day it gave a shock ending to a smooth ride. By this however I do not mean that the presentation went bad, because I felt it was pretty good, I was happy with my performance however I believe I should have done better with a few questions and again surprise element added, but I believe I should have answered more questions correctly than I did, but I feel I answered enough to show that I do have an understanding of typography.

I thought that the final act of the deadline day was the shock ending, I knew we would have a tough task given to us, but I really did find it tough. Not just in the topic, but the time that the tasks had to be completed in, to finish in that space of time you must really be organised and very well prepared, I unfortunately did not finish this task, so I’m not optimistic about how my grade will fair. As obviously a failed task is a failed assignment. But all I can do is wait and see how i did, and look forwards to starting the new assignment.

Draw the Curtains

2007-03-01T15:51:00.000Z

Presentation time, from an expected visitor and myself, plus a trip to the Underground and the Times

Deadline day is drawing ever closer in fact it’s one week away, and it’s time to finalise, hopefully! Personally it’s been a great week; I was present at a very interesting presentation from a fellow pupil, and now working in the industry. I think that I speak for us all that it was a worthwhile experience? A great contrast from the Design Mechanics trip report. It was good to say that he had the time to come and speak to us and share his experiences in and out of college, and I enjoyed it. It was a real eye opener as to what people well companies will pay for a website, and how designers can capitalise on this and charge high rates, and actually giving them what they pay for.

I liked the impression he gave as to the laid back and friendly approach they took with each other, with being able to work from home possible, take breaks, lunch breaks, and the atmosphere of relaxation even when there actually under the “cosh”.

Unfortunately although I asked questions, today in our feedback meeting, it ought to up questions that I wish I had of asked him, which I didn’t pick up on quick enough to ask yesterday. But I was fairly happy with my contribution, I do feel that there should have been allot more questions thrown at him form us all though, it was a good chance to get into the head of someone who we possibly want to emulate. And it could be considered as a wasted opportunity. He again proved the point that is always stressed to us also, about design for the user, you may have to and will have to design something you really dislike but you’ve got to stick it out because it pays the bills, and he made it clear, and demonstrated it with various examples. So it begs the question who is actually in charge and who actually designs these websites, if clients can be so picky. Could in some instances you only be the Greece monkey and their, the brains?

Important and constructive criticism/feedback was gained on my presentation which I am grateful for also, and I feel more confident that I now have a practise run under my belt and useful it was. Plenty of imperfections that need correcting but time is on my side, and hopefully it’s a clear flat run to deadline day, no “off roding” welcome. Jamie

Don Don, Donn..

2007-02-15T16:36:00.000Z

User Testing, Started and Finished but it’s not over by any means! Leading up to the User Testing day, I wanted an almost finished website, so I could get all possibly niggles out of the way and concentrate on making it better rather than still building it. And fortunately I did this, which enabled me to get feedback, and act on it…soon, that is.

Moving round the room however I was surprised at the amount of websites still not completed, for me personally I saw user testing day as a mini deadline to get my website up and running before that date, so that the feedback I would receive was actually going to help me improve my website before the hand-in date. But it was pretty obvious that every one in the room didn’t see it as that, or if they did it didn’t show, but by saying that I’m not in any means trying to offend or criticise the websites, as in my opinion there are some great websites around the room, I was impressed with the different ideas that people had imagined and put into practise.

It was a long morning however and I hope everyone had the desired results they were hoping form but I know that it gave me bits and bobs to work on, and I gained the feedback I wished for in certain areas, such as my images. I now have many opinions pointing me in the direction I need to follow to improve my website, and I aim to get these improvements made, and get further feedback on those. But that’s enough of that, let’s get into some bombing. The infamous task bombing.

Two tasks to be exact on Thursday morning, there was a part one, and a part two, which when completing task one, task two was not mentioned, to keep the “Surprise” aspect. The order of the day was to create a layout for a newsletter “All That Jazz”. In this hour the main goal was to chose a suitable column layout to stick with, that would be suitable to use for many issues, and to create the page header. It seemed a fairly straight forward task but when time is ticking down, and your sketching roughs, you just cant wait to get an idea to click, and then to produce this on the computer, with this being sort of a newspaper style, white space had to be filled, and this proved difficult for my initial design, when being told this I had about ten minutes to correct, and in fact change my design, which put the pressure on me but I worked it out and got the work in on time!

The second task was then to fill the page space that was surrounded by our previous design. We were given the content, and an image in which we could crop and resize to how we liked, but as is the case with the newspaper designs, getting all the text to fall in line, leaving no Widows, Orphans unnecessary gaps is a real pain at times, and you end up changing font sizes and leadings over and over, it really puts the pressure on you when you’re having to do this minutes before the deadline. But I must say I enjoy it, it surprises me how many different designs people come up with in such a short space of time, when you think that the designs you have down on paper is pretty much the be all and end all, is fantastic. There are some really talented people in the group and that shows when they produce something different than the simple kinds of stuff that I do. It also surprises me at how quickly you can actually produce something, its all definitely good practise for us. Jamie

Team Time...Time Team...

2007-02-10T15:16:00.000Z

During feedback sessions we were given the information that in the second year there would be a team task. The subject unknown but we had to give our thoughts on the idea, and our possible roles. Who would want to be the big time boss!? And who wants to let the credibility fly by and just be the ground hog worker!? Though in actual fact there is more to the idea of just putting your hand up, and volunteering or bossing your way into the Leaders position. As this role would take part in less practical work and designing and if the volunteer was the strongest designer or somebody with the most skills, then would you not want these kinds of people more hands on!? And so you’re with the idea of the weakest person in charge? Well would these "Stronger" people listen to a weaker link? I guess this then comes down to your team’s strength in depth and the respect you would and should show each other. Mixed roles would have to be taken on surely!?

After leaving the feedback room, we were told to visit http://www.belbin.com/downloads/Belbin_Team_Role_Summary_Descriptions.pdf, this is a table of Team Roles, showing the team role members strengths and of course weaknesses. If you check the table out you can see that there are nine roles, or brackets that you could be placed in. Reading through the list and the strengths and weaknesses I would probably regard myself to be in the "Team worker" role, contributing skills such as co-operative, mild, perceptive and diplomatic. With general downsides being indecisive in a crunch situation, although I don't feel I’m actually that bad. I would say that the weakness I have would be under another category. This being "Specialist" (contributes on only narrow front, dwells on technicalities).

I feel this because I don't feel I have the skills to be a lead designer somebody in charge of the designing and the technical part of a project, but the basics I can do. I would accept responsibility and do what I was asked to do, nothing special, just acceptable. I wouldn't either class myself as being a great leader in a task, as the organising of time wouldn't be of a great and accurate standard.
I take on a leader’s role at work and football, but these are my strengths. I'm good at what I do in both of these so I have the respect factor from my workers, and players and I take the leaders role and make it myself. I enjoy the power of telling people what to do, and in that case I guess that because of this I show the weaknesses of a co-ordinator. At work I tell people to do things that I myself could do, and in many cases when they do these wrong I have to make up there mistakes and fix wrongs. This also applies to football, I like nothing better than to shout my mouth of all game long telling people what to do and what they should of done, I like motivating my players and making them feel the fire in there bellies to give that extra mile that is needed, I like it when it all comes together and I see what the team has achieved at the end of the game and how well we did, leaving me never without a loss of words when something goes wrong and I feel they need to know about it. But doing this in something I’m not established in is a different game all together, would somebody who is and they know are considerably more talented and skilled than me in this business listen to what I had to say and tell them? And would I have suitable and appropriate things to say? I don’t think that I would.

All of this is definitely worth thinking about in deeper depth, and its something I should definitely do, as I have only cracked the surface and it would be an advantage to know a bit of background knowledge in different roles that you would need to be taken on within a group. And what roles would gel and stick together to create a smooth running operation. Jamie

"Going Underground" Mr Weller!?

2007-02-01T16:26:00.000Z

After a long spell away from college, an early finish Thursday and then Wednesday off for...a trip to our very own capital...London! Since the finish on Thursday I had been looking forwards to the away day "down south" but unfortunately it was full off "shoulda woulda coulda". A real disappointment that the Tate was actually shut when we arrived after trailing across London on trains, and tubes. Well I say shut, it was open but the visual fancies were hidden away, behind doors, guards and big white sheets. As I have never seen that side of London before I was really looking forwards into getting an "Artie, or in fact a Designie" head on, so it was a real let down when the truth hit. Not that I didn't enjoy what was to follow but it was a real waste of a journey in that sense, although Level 3 and 5 slides were concurred, I left my mark on the Tate..a fearless child's slide rider!

After the disappointment we then had the day to explore, and explore, walk and very tempting with all the apparent "Joggers" jogging around was jogging. But walking sounded the best to me. I'm sure you all know its an absolutely huge place and you never really well I never really knew what was round the corner...Trafalgar Square, Soho, and Oxford Street in fact. Overall I really enjoyed myself and it was a change of scenarie, and a great experiance. I enjoyed the company all the way there and back and throughout the day which made the day just flow and flow, it was suprising how fast it all actually went.

Thursday and the much argued title of "Task Bombing" take cover for "Jonathan Gee" and the "Hokai Oriental Gouache" I actually enjoyed this, I did initially fear this, but when it came I found them interesting, and brought out a productive side of me and no doubt us all. Definaly an experiance and a taste of what we would have to face in the workplace, havnig to Stop, Drop and Roll. Check out my Designs and let me know what you think.

See you all Next Week. Jamie

Well That's Enough of That...FIGHT!

2007-01-25T15:44:00.000Z

Well this week the new Assignments are well underway, and the progress I have made is a real confidence boost to me. Starting the week I was lets say, "Bricking it" what the hell is "Dreamweaver" and what do I do !? but after a couple hours of playing around, I figured out a few "Basic" techniques that would help me in doing what I wanted to do! (Create some kind of web page) After all of the playing around it gave me some kind of confidence booster that I needed to get kicked off with the creation of my web page, and that I did. From Monday onwards I have without knowing it been tinkering and tinkering with Grids, Guides, Cell's, Tables all kinds of foreign tools.

So here I am, Thursday...and I thought that I have been a "Weaver of Dreams" - Hubert 2007 (Thanks Dean) for long enough. After I left college this afternoon, and by the way I hope the Huddersfield Outing went well too all who went, I came home and sat down to some researching. I found myself in a battle between Helvetica and Arial, something I thought I'd never say but an actually battle between Helvetica and Arial, feel free to play...http://www.engagestudio.com/helvetica/. Also for those of you who are in search of Helvetica games try this test out http://www.iliveonyourvisits.com/helvetica/.

I never thought before that Fonts and Typography went so deep, to me before a font was something I used to write. If i liked it I used it, if I didn't well then..I didn't. But there so much behind them, which amazes me. So much history and feeling behind letters and numbers! Just like colour, my eyes have been opened to the world of Design, Designers and of course the tools these workmen/women use. Jamie

A5 - Builder. Design #3

2007-01-22T18:18:00.000Z

The feedback I recieved for my previous Designs brought to my attension that I had too much "White Space". I have countered this as you can see by using a light shade of grey. I like the effect it has had on my design, It certainly draws your attension much more effectively to the important information. Where as the pevious design allowed your eyes to wonder around the page.

Design #3

A5 - Builder

2007-01-22T14:49:00.000Z

Heres what I did this Self Study, Just a quick go at using Dreamweaver. This is something like what my website will look like, so please leave feedback...

Design #1

Design #2

Welcome Back..

2007-01-18T17:42:00.000Z

Welcome back everyone, I hope you all had a great Christmas and New year, but unfortunately play time is now over!

The start of Interactive Media in the new year is now under way, and the introduction of two new Assignments supports the case, A5 and A6. Having looked at these assignments they do look fairly interesting, and it's no secret that there is less writing involved than the previous assignments. Although i didn't mind the amount of writing previous as my experience is that the writing comes compulsory with an assignment, but I would say that its a relief to see that there is less emphasis on this now.

I am really looking forwards to getting underway in the creation of the website, I am practically a complete novice to website creation, so I am eager to see how I do, and also how quickly I have to again learn new software. I am sure that during this creation period many errors will occur so I aren't looking for an easy ride what so ever.

As for the second assignment which we no very little about, I cant really comment on but what I will say is its quite exciting at the prospect of not knowing what you are doing until the day, hour or minute. But of course this comes with a slight feeling of unease as I don't know how i will cope with possibly a timed task or the difficulty of it.

Overall it feels as good as it could be to be back, but its time to get on with it so here we go! Jamie

Learn You're Lesson

2007-01-14T13:44:00.000Z

My last week of the holidays are now coming to an end, with only two days left of my own, it's time to gain a work mind set, ready to start and complete the remainder of the course, and the remaining assignments that are left.

Looking back at the first half year, I would be in denial if I was to say that I was completely happy with my performance, and that there wasn't much that I could improve on. I have mentioned many times before that I desperately need to improve my attitude to self study, I simply didn't do enough, and I was extreamly lucky and it took a lot of effort to get my last two assignments in on time. But in the same manor not trying to make excuses as to why this happened, I experienced computer troubles for a while, and it was this that set me quite a fair bit back, but I Know that it was up to me to make that time back up, and I simply didn't.

I desperately want to improve on this in the near future, as I believe it would make the second half of the year run much much smoother, as the work will get harder. At the moment I am in the process of attaining something that will help me in achieving more self study time, as I have finally come to my senses and gotten rid of my dodgy machine, and instead of relying on my sisters machine I am going to purchase a new one for my self to replace the infamous one in which I blame my downfall. This should be happening in the coming week, and I am hoping that this will free up self study time and allow me an opportunity to do self study in short bursts whenever they are possible, rather than waiting for a full day to open up, to beg and borrow my sisters PC.

Before I began to write this blog entry, I had a little scan of my Formative Statement that I completed in September. I have no doubt that I chose the right option in joining this course, as it's been a great experience, and I believe that a University or a full time job, would not of been a much greater choice. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in studying on the HND Interactive Media course, and long may it continue. I have come a long way from the time that I wrote that statement, I wrote that I was eager to start the course properly and start my first assignment and now three assignments on I still have that eagerness to receive new assignments, as I no that I gain so much, new skills and tricks and also knowledge of new and exciting software, that I have previously never even heard of.

In my statement I wrote that for the future I wanted to successfully complete the Interactive Media course, to the best or to exceed my best ability, unfortunately so far I am not exceeding my ability and in my opinion I'm not even reaching the level of work that I could, which is really disappointing to me. But I feel that an advantage of knowing this is that I have alot of time to change it, and I hope that I will keep my place and have the chance to do this. I already believe that so far I have changed alot from when I first walked through the door of the classroom. I believe that I have gained a level of professionalism in my works appearance, which I was never taught to have as a skill before and a skill which I am glad to have, as the assignments that I have handed in, I look at and can't believe how different they are to my previous college assignments from years before. But the most important to me are the skills I have picked up in the software we use, when I first used the likes of "Adobe Pagemaker and Photoshop" I didn't have the slightest clue what to do, I would go as far as saying I didn't even know how to open up a new page, and know I can create pieces of work in both of them, all be it, to a novice standard and I do realise that the skills I know are nothing to what is still to learn, but this only makes me more eager.

Overall the past months I have completed on the HND Interactive Media course are a mixture of many emotions, and I've had many ups but many downs, all of which I believe have added to me as a person, I have made mistakes and I hope that these mistakes will be me a stronger pupil for the remainder of the course, as I firmly believe there is much more to come from me, and I have much more to learn. Jamie

Christmas Break, Christmas Cheer

2007-01-03T14:18:00.000Z

First off all I would like to apologise for the late entry, my PC did indeed break again, and I've also been away at a family members up until the start of this week.

Looking back to the Deadline day, all I remember is the moment a huge, and I do mean huge relief was lifted up off my shoulders. The day before this date I was in total panic, I started the day with quite a large amount of work needed to be completed, and I truly believed that I wouldn't of met the deadline. As you would expect this is not the greatest feeling in the world and not the best start to a holiday, knowing that you have failed the assignment and in conjunction the course, only making it half way. This was the biggest wake up call of the year, a real slap in the face if you will. I was so proud at the end of the day at what I had achieved, and I realised that I could achieve quite a substantial amount of work when I actually got my head down and worked.

The day of the hand-in I felt quite ashamed at the amount of work I left myself to do on the last week, but I forced myself to praise my self for actually meeting the 12pm goal. I'm in such anticipation at how the assignment will fair, I so hope that it achieves a pass, and I get the thumbs up to carry on with the course, which is so important to me. Failure would be unacceptable and the shame I would face, and the disappointment and should I say the "Grief" I would give my self is something I do not want to experience. So my fingers are firmly crossed.

On a more positive note, It has been such a great experience completing the first half of the first semester, and It is truly a great course, I wouldn't think twice at recommending it to anyone who was interested in joining. I have met alot of great people and already learnt alot from the three assignments I have completed, and I am so eager to learn even more new skills and gain more knowledge. For the second half of the year, I desperately need to get my head down, and give the course much more attention, because big problems would occur if I don't, and I believe the first step at doing this was realising that it does actually need the time, and that I have done.

I hope you've all had a great Christmas and New Year, looking forwards to starting the course again (well as much as you would expect) and hearing all of the story's that people may have, enjoy the rest of your holidays. Jamie

Christmas Joy and Cheer, Full of Smiles and Happiness!?

2006-12-14T16:23:00.001Z

Here we go! This week has been for me a tough and tiring week, the last week before the now dreaded Deadline Day! Wednesday morning I attended fully knowing that I had a lot of work to do to be able to reach the submission standard assignments for the following day, ready for the following Thursday D - Day.

This pressure almost boosted my enthusiasm to work however; I feel that this week has been my most productive week of the course so far. I have accomplished and gotten on top of so much work this week which has enabled me to relax slightly but still knowing I can’t put my feet up for the holidays yet! I have to give it one last push to reach next Thursday’s deadline, so it will take the dedication over the weekend from self study to enable me to relax and polish my work off for the day before the deadline, which is something I aim to do so hopefully I can produce the work in self study time to enable this.

The one thing that I have found this week is that no matter how much you think you are nearing an end to your assignments the more work you actually find that needs doing, it’s an endless process. Each time I collected all of my work together I realised id missed something out, or needed to complete something to hand in, it gets really tireless and I especially had a torrid time with PageMaker! Because of me finding pieces of information which needed adding, or taking out and then on top of the feedback meeting discussions I had amendments to make, and every time I made them I had to shift images about to the following pages, move references up and down, or to different pages. Add pages delete pages cut and paste here and there, it’s been an absolute nightmare that still isn’t over after a day of tinkering well two days of tinkering! It’s getting to be such a bore but I know that I have to stick with it or else I’m going to hit big problems next week so not to self – Keep it up and crack on!

I am aiming to pretty much get A3 out of the way this weekend with only minor adjustments to make so that next week I can fully concentrate on the A4 assignment which I need to do, as I can truthfully say and admit that it hasn’t been getting the attention that it needs from me, as for weeks I have been working on the A2 work. This is something that in future I really need to work on as if I had two running assignments both as hard and as large as each other I wouldn’t have a chance of getting both completed, I have been really lucky that the A4 assignment is fairly short and helpfully broke down into 4 tasks.

Overall a dull and boring week but at the same time so relieving, but I have to say I cant wait to walk out of the door and get my self home for a long sit down in front of the T.V or the X-box and relax, a well deserved break form work! Ready to crack on with even more work! Could it get any better!? One week till a big Christmas break better I believe...see you all next week. Jamie

Now that's Nice..

2006-12-07T16:30:00.000Z

Great week this week, both days consisted of designing for me, which made both days fly by with ease. Wednesday, the Back to Basic assignment day, I was designing templates for the final look of my website. Although I didn’t finish these, I now have a greater idea of what I want my final website appearance to look like. A must find this week for self study is content images! Internal, software and external are all needed, so feel free to drop me links to help me out!

Unfortunately Thursday had a down side; my image restoration project has to be started again, due to feedback received in the meeting. Being told to start from scratch again after I know how long it took me to get to that stage, wasn’t such a good thing to hear but what one must do he must do, so I best get cracking on with that to once again reach the stage that I had previously reached.

But of course it’s not that simple, having to get A3 ready to submission standard and complete the image restoration again is a tough feat, but on top of that I now have to create 2 Jazz banners. One has to be a tall skyscraper banner and the other a rectangular shaped banner (I have created some ideas for these and uploaded them so please leave feedback and let me know what you think). But know the pressures of deadline day are upon us yet again, twice over or you could see it as 3 times over including A1 SketchBlog, Ohhh my! And the banners aren’t as easy as you would think either, they do take quite a lot of time, and a fair bit of tweaking to please myself and more importantly the Assessor!

I really need to knuckle down this self study week and get my work to that submission standard week; it would really help me out if I achieved this as I could gain as much feedback as possible, this in turn easing the pressures of deadline week when fears and nerves set in, no slacking!

Website Design Idea

2006-12-07T16:27:00.000Z

Let me know what you think..

The Three old Champions...

2006-11-30T17:11:00.000Z

The Three Old Champions

2006-11-30T17:03:00.000Z

A complete contrast! This week has been made up of two completely different days; Wednesday was a complete bore personally, consisting of Researching, Writing, Researching and again writing. We were doing our A3 Back to Basic website content and god how the day dragged from start to finish, but it had to be done. But although it was dull and boring it was quite relieving. Knowing that, the dull side of the assignment was pretty much out of the way and it only lasted a day! Also it was a good feeling to see that I’d completed a lot of work in that day but I think that in future it would be better to get this kind of work done, the boring, but important work out of the way earlier or possibly do it in sections i.e. Not a full day of it, as it really makes an already long day and even longer day.

Comparing that to Thursday, Whoa what a contrast, my first experience of Photoshop (one plus), new skills learnt in Photoshop (two pluses) and a sense of great achievement as what I created to me personally in my baby designer eyes is non short or brilliant. What we did was, we were given an Image of three old men, a Battered old image, and our task was to turn this, "Crispy" old image into a nice new "Shiny", "Glossy" photograph. I thought when the task was to me, it would completely and utterly lose me, and my lack off skills and knowledge would show through but I believe I’ve done really well and I’m really proud. At the moment it’s still lacking the colour that a few people were adding but I can only take it one step at a time so that’s still to come. (Feel free to leave feedback on the image when it's up on here, it's much appreciated)

After my day with Photoshop I think that I ought to purchase my own copy as it would be really handy, and also I would not mind having my own copy to play around on, it’s really grabbed my attention with what you are capable of doing when using it, and as they say “Practise makes Perfect”. Jamie

Note to self: Self study (note it down) as proof how much self study I have undertaken and what I have achieved in that space of time. Also complete A2 Referrals!

A bunch of Neurons running in parallel

2006-11-23T18:11:00.000Z

Nerves, Colours and Presentations…
On came the projector
...
...
Presentations
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...
I’ve done them before…I’ve done them in different languages and I’ve done them in different subject areas…no problem! During the lecture I especially took note to the bad mannerisms and posture stances wanting to make a really good go of it, I really thought I would have no trouble at all.

Mellow Yellow well…turns out Yellow bellied, I under took research with my partner, searching for various physiological and cultural differences and meanings to do with yellow, how wrong could I have been in thinking yellow was just a colour, there’s so much information from search results, so many different meanings and cultural importance’s I was shocked! A slide and a fact sheet were created as visual aids to my presentation, with various facts and meanings of yellow and yellow images…right I’m ready to practise!

Vacating the room not quite knowing where I was going and what for I wondered off down to the drama rehearsal room, down there I read through my script altering here there and everywhere hoping to get it making as much sense as possible so I could go and give a worthy presentation, getting it over and done with. I thought I had rehearsed enough and the clock struck 2 so off I went to meet with the rest of the group to the christened “Green Room” awaiting the call for the long long mile walk. “Dead Man Walking” walking the green mile and all!

Calmly sat in the “Green Room” I was second up. Whoa quick call, lets get it over with. I began the walk up to the operating room and the closer and closer I got the more the nerves built up, the longer the walk felt and the further away the room door got! Knocking on the door everything quickly shot back into place…Bang! The door was right in front of me with my task waiting. As I stood at the front of the room, looking out on the whole of the audience, two to be exact…but with double vision at dizzy heights it seemed like a lot more. I don’t know why I suddenly got a serge of nerves, I’m normally a cool person under pressure, tests have always been nothing to me, confrontation and all sorts of things were people might experience nerves I don’t, but this time…this time I got all the nerves I should have gotten from anything else all thrown into one!

I began the presentation and I believe the only part that was easy was saying my name. I knew that fairly well…first hurdle over but I clipped the hurdle and I was slowly, embarrassingly, gradually, staggering to the floor. All I wanted was a bucket of water for my head, a pint of water (or some other kind of liquid) for my mouth and a bucket of sand to swallow me up. It was terrible and worst off all not only did I know it but the audience did too. Not impressed, I was asked to do a retake which in my opinion went a lot better than the first attempt I knew more than my name, I flicked slides, and half of the audience did agree but unfortunately not the target audience which we’ve all being learning about. I looked like a Duracell longer lasting dancing, moving, jigging all over the place rabbit. My breathing wasn’t correct, I needed deeper breaths, but in my opinion I just needed to breathe!

Joining back up with the other victims down in the Green Room was to be fair a fairly relaxed atmosphere, but minutes felt like hours, oh how it did drag…to great relief we were all called back up to the operating room and sent home.

As much as I am disappointed with how I did, I am however glad it’s over with. I don’t know why my reaction was how it was but I don’t want to relive that situation for a while longer.

Next time I defiantly need to practise and rehearse a lot more and a lot more efficiently than I did this time, maybe practise more methods and work a lot more closely with my visual aids in order to complete the presentation smoothly, I believe the more I know about the subject and what I am doing the easier it will be to me. Jamie

2006-11-16T18:48:00.000Z

Still Growling and Still Sore...Get the Laptops away from Me!!
I can truthfully say that it’s a great relief that this week is finally over. It’s been a horrible week full of stress, torment and all sorts of unnecessary problems. It all started so well what with looking forwards to working all week long with Friday and Monday mornings my only days off and I just knew how busy work was going to be great! I thought to my self with all this work I really need to fit self study in somewhere...anywhere! So I sat down at my pc Friday morning ready to do some A3 “Back to Basic” work…simple…
…
…
What is with this wait…why isn’t my pc powering up!?
…
…
Still Nothing, (you can imagine the words coming out of my mouth) turns out my pc has decided to pack up and leave, Great! So I dashed off to work in the end, worked all weekend long, days and nights. Monday arrives and my pc is still AWOL and no work can be completed on a machine so in a huff I crack on with some sketch book work knowing full well that I would slide behind.

Wednesday and Thursdays actions in detail are in the post below as you can see, but it didn’t get any better having to miss Wednesday morning and subsequently Thursday, reading blogs I’ve missed out on the first PhotoShop outing, it just got better and better!

I managed to get hold of a laptop today and hate them as much as I do I was glad to be able to do some constructive assignment work, not wanting to speak about this week no more I am completely looking to next week and hopefully with a new or just fixed pc and the opportunity to do some work…The Bear Still with a Sore Head. Jamie

2006-11-16T09:54:00.000Z

The Bear with a Sore Head - Apologies
I would like to apologise to all my fellow peers for my late arrival Wednesday and for no attendance on the Thursday. I would like to say that my late arrival on the Wednesday was planned as I had to make a trip to Leeds for a Medical and Health Examination, the guy I saw is hard to get an appointment with so I couldn’t change this for another day and had to stick to what he gave me and failure to attend would of cost me 100pounds and upwards so I had to take the time off, but I did give notice and it wasn’t just a lateness out of laziness im glad to say.

Thursday however was unexpected, and as of yet I wont be attending. I woke up about 8:45 and I seriously couldn’t move. The reason for the medicals in the first place is because I was involved in a car accident and the result is I suffer from back and shoulder problems. These had more or less gone away until yesterday, when the doctor poked and prodded away at all the areas. He also made me do all sorts of strange exercises to judge how much pain and discomfort I was still in. Yesterday I didn’t feel any recurrence from any of that though so I attended college as quick as I could of, but this morning I got hit with the stiffness and pain, also the painkillers he gave me seem to be making me groggy but that could just be the late morning im not sure! As well as the free drugs he gave me, he also has given well the insurance company has given me free physiotherapy, I have absolutely no idea what this entails but it’s free so how could I complain!

Anyway I do apologise, and just so that you all know I am going to be doing work and not skiving away, although im off to lay in bed for a little longer first…The Bear with a Sore Head! Jamie

2006-11-14T10:32:00.000Z

Time Planning - Note to Self
Friday! A bad day for my two assignments and my health, my PC has died! friday afternoon i sat down in the hope of bieng able to do a few hours of work before i had to leave the house, and i hit the huge snag of a broken pc, that is still not fixed. This is something i didnt plan for in my time planning and do not have time for! ive tryed and tryed to fix it but to no avail, so i have been unable to do any self study on a machine. ive tryed to keep my self on track by doing a bit of sketch book work but theres no doubting howuch of a blow it is. i desperatly need to find out whats rong with it and fix it before i get into some deep deep trouble and fall behind with my work...i am currently fighting with my girlfriends lap top so i do apologise for the bad grammer and spelling, because i am absolutly useless with these things, i will edit the post and make sense of evrything when i get my own computer up and running, so for now turn a blind eye if you will. Jamie

2006-11-09T16:22:00.000Z

#FFCC33 - 255 204 51 - %%% - !??

Another week over and a few assignment tasks down! This week I have been doing my goals, target audience and as for the A4 assignment…yet again…even more writing. A week full of writing and lectures, but I must say its not all doom and gloom, I learnt a fair bit from this week in particular “Colour Spacing” and all kinds of jumble to do with colour. To be fair to myself I did have a reasonable understanding with some types of colour systems, RGB and Hex the familiar two, but all these numbers, and letters and percentages oh dear. I realise that in learning this language will help me when it comes to designing and using PhotoShop to a certain extent, which I’ve said before is something I really want to learn how to use as the basics of the program is a complete mystery to me at the moment.

I’ve felt comfortable over this week, in the sense of not feeling any pressure with the work at the moment, and the days aren’t too drab either, Thursdays especially with a lot of my time being spent searching and researching on the internet, how can you complain about cutting and pasting!?

I would however like to stretch my legs with the Back to Basic assignment and get my self ahead before I hit a dead end and work stops, this is something I will try and do in my self study, but I feel that a little more time needs to be spent doing sketch book work first, as it tends to get left behind and after all it is an assignment it’s self, so it warrants the work effort, and its actually a fun assignment as apart from the organizing and annotating there’s a lot of Cutting and Pasting! It’s something easy and relaxing to do in-between assignment work I’ve found also, it’s almost like a break just no pressure to search for images online, books wherever you may find them and get sticking!

Things to do this week: ~~Purchase: Sketchbook, Photoshop Book, Arch Lever File~~

2006-11-02T17:35:00.000Z

Workload..What Workload..!?
Were back! This week was the start of college again after a long half term break, and start we did! We have been given 2 brand new assignments “A3 Back to Basic” and “A4 Picture This”.

My initial reaction…Uhh Ohhh! The thought of working on two assignments every week was quite a scary thought at first, but when we had discussions and got the chance to read through the assignments, the initial shock eased and eased. I do believe that I will cope pretty well, as long as I manage my time a lot more efficiently than the last assignment, as this time I have to account for two assignments and not the one, and I want too evenly work them as well. With this in mind I have already spent possibly double the amount of time on my time planning than I did the first round, and it’s not even finished yet. I’m extremely pleased with how thorough I am creating this time plan so far and I hope to plan both assignments all the way to the end deadline date, well in fact with a day to spare.

Out of both of the assignments I’m most looking forwards to starting the A4 assignment, as this will require us to use “Adobe Photoshop” which is completely new to me and I have absolutely no idea how to use this software, so I’m eager to first of all learn the basics, and hopefully eventually be able to use the software better than a complete novice. I do believe that my lack of experience with the software may put me behind when attempting the tasks set that require the use of this, but its not something that is putting me off and making me weary of the tasks when they do come around, instead I’m defiantly looking forwards to the challenge and hoping that it is indeed one that I can complete.

In conjunction to the A4 assignments I have been introduced to some very interesting websites, which I spent a serious amount of time browsing, these being the “Designers Republic” websites www.thepeoplesbureau.com and www.thedesignersrepublic.com. I was introduced to these as part of the assignment is to compare a Bitmap Graphic image to a Vector Graphic image, created by the Designers Republic. I really admire their work and their style, I was also quite surprised at the amount of well known companies to me that they have worked for so in actual fact I have seen their work before just never knowingly so. I would like to possibly purchase a few pieces from them for my room their fantastic!

New skills gained from this week has to be finding out the difference between a Bitmap and a Vector, at the start of the day everyone may as well of been talking in a foreign language, I did know what they were but I never knew the difference. I didn’t struggle to learn this however, I picked up it fairly quickly which was a relief to me but its new knowledge gained with plenty more to learn.

Also I received feedback from my first assignment this week, unfortunately I received both as a referral but I was pleased to find out that I didn’t have a great deal of work to change, it will possibly take me an hour maybe a little more to complete which I am going to complete as quick as possible to hand straight back in so I can completely concentrate on these two new assignments. A very interesting week! Jamie

2006-10-25T12:14:00.000+01:00

Looking back to Deadline day...
Deadline day is well behind me now and it seems like it is a very long way too, looking back, the experience was not as hectic as I thought it would be. I thought that all I could have completed I did the day before apart from burning a CD-R, I then went home that night and burnt the work to disc and put my work to rest, confident that I had done everything possible. It was a great feeling been able to wake up when I wanted with self confidence of not having too rush about that morning getting work together, it was such a relaxed day for me and the other students I bumped into, which was also quite surprising.

We had arranged to go to the pub and that we did, I thought this was a really good idea as it gave us the chance to get to know each other outside of college and work restraints. I enjoyed myself and I'm sure every one else did too, and we all found out that there isn't really any pool sharks in the group although the point to pool sharking is keeping quiet until there’s something worth playing for so my guess would be watch this space.

In the pub that day I also found a few people with the same TV addiction as me “Lost” it was great finding this out as I now know there’s plenty of discussions to be had when it all kicks off again and I cannot wait until it does.

My first half term on the Interactive Media Course has been great, already I feel like I have learnt so much, and gained allsorts of new skills and experiances. I am really glad that I chose this course and I have no doubt that it's only going to get better, with alot more skills to learn and experiances to gain. I know that I havent even scratched the surface of web and graphic design yet, and i'm extreamly eager to scratch away!

So far I have enjoyed my break even though this is practically my first day off, as where not in at the start of the week, but its still good to have a break away from work to calm down, relax and prepare for what’s to come on Wednesday. And the final unveiling of my teams new manager which I know isn’t work related but it’s very good to finally see things patching together.

I'm going too leave it there and go and enjoy the rest of my holidays. Jamie

2006-10-18T14:23:00.000+01:00

Here comes half term!
Today is the last day of work before the assignment hand in date, and so far it’s going really well. I started the day confident that I didn’t have too much work to do and that I would easily complete the work I had to do and have the rest of the day to polish of the assignment and make sure I have everything pieced together. I would have thought that at the start of this day I would be in panic, stress and rushing around to get this assignment completed to submission standard. But in fact I wasn’t in any stress or panic and I certainly wasn’t rushing around, I was almost relaxed as I was satisfied that the majority of work that had to be completed wasn’t major, and was just little picky points. This was a great relief to me and helped me get through the day with out any worry or major problems.

The day consists of basically checking for spelling and grammar errors, and general checks that all of the work expected has been completed and gathered together ready for submission, I did expect these jobs to be basic and quick tasks but I soon found out that this wasn’t the case, I under estimated the amount of time that is needed to do tasks such as these but this is what we were told to plan for and to complete the assignment to a certain extent before the last day so that you did in fact leave your self a spare extra day to complete these checks.

When I printed my final documents out and gave them a read through, I instantly started to pile up the errors and little problems that can easily be left that way if you don’t thoroughly check through the work. When I notice all of these errors though I didn’t feel pressured as I had plenty of time to correct the mistakes so my overall mood was still relaxed.

As the end of the day nears, my mood is getting brighter and brighter and great amounts of weight feels like they are being lifted form my shoulders as I put my work together ready for hand in, its such a great relief experiencing this knowing that your confident in the work created and confident that all you have to do on hand in date is walk into college and hand your work over.

I left college that day believing that I had completed all of the work I had set my self for the day and left extremely proud of the work I assignment I had achieved, me and the college peers had also organised a trip to the pub after the hand in time which I was looking forwards too, you could call it team bonding but what ever you may call it I found it interesting as I hadn’t spent time with my college peers outside of college before and not having work being on the agenda .

Overall a productive day and a satisfying experience and I leave today just having to burn a disc containing my work and tying all of my folders together ready for hand in. Jamie

2006-10-12T16:41:00.000+01:00

2006-10-12T16:38:00.001+01:00

Deadline Day...Here it comes!
Another week comes to an end and for me an extremely productive week, and strangely enough a week that I have enjoyed. Even with the pressure of the Deadline Day looming. I walk away from this week knowing that I have learnt a fair bit and again gained further experience with “Adobe PageMaker”. I have almost brought my assignment to an end, I have been inserting all of my written assignment work into a page maker template we were given. Upon starting this I thought that I had a tough task ahead of me, but as I got on with it I found that my worries had no meaning as it was fairly easy with minimal problems. The problems that I did encounter were setting my tab marks, for bullet points. I was having trouble aligning all of my tabs and after a few attempts I was still stuck in a rut, but this was sorted by downloading a new template and for reasons I don’t know this worked.

This week I also had a one on one meeting with a member of staff which I found extremely useful, this because of what was mentioned, planning out my week and realising my available self study times and social times, and also speaking to someone in confidence who has the experience to help me, very helpful. Thanks

Good points about this week are undoubtedly organising my assignment in my folder and seeing it all finally coming together, I got great satisfaction out of this even though when doing this, I found errors and mistakes but this is why I planned to arrive at this stage a week before they actually hand in date, so that these problems could be found and amended.

Not many bad points this week, but I am sure more problems will arise and become visible to me when looking over my assignment once again

Overall I am very happy with my progress and the work achieved its great seeing your assignment in an organised and well presented manor almost ready for hand in. Jamie

2006-10-06T13:33:00.000+01:00

Nearing Crunch Time...2 Weeks to Go!
This was the week I had been looking forwards to most, hands on designing of my designs and creating these on the computers. Although many people have been criticising the use of "Adobe PageMaker" I have actually found it quite good, I am defiantly walking away from this week with confidence in my ability to use and create a piece of work in "Adobe PageMaker". I feel that I have a greater understanding and greater experience from practically using this program 2 days straight.

I feel that I could have defiantly achieved more this week though, and aren’t too happy with the amount of work that I have produced, although it's not that I
haven’t been working to the best of my ability or working in all of the time given, its just I don’t have much to show for it in my opinion. But this has made me
more determined to go away and get stuck into some Self Study and produce more work, in my sketch book initially as I don’t have any of the software on my home machine, but at the start of next week to crack on and get my assignment to the stage I want it to be and the stage it should technically be.

Highs of this week would be the design, I feel I have created a professional looking design, although it’s not the best in the class room and certainly not something spectacular in designer’s eyes, but in my eyes I am proud of what I have created. I am especially proud of my logo, it did take quite sometime in
the end, as I only started out to do something quick and simple, but once the ideas started generating I couldn’t stop until I was finally happy with what I
had got. I feel I effectively showed my progress during this in my sketch book as numerous print outs, drawings and annotations are included.

Lows of this week would be the daunting fact that deadline day is fast approaching, and worrying about what I had to complete and what I could do to improve the work I have already completed. I’m not extremely worried though this is just a slight concern but I can imagine that this time next week I may or may not be even more nervous and worried.

I also was introduced to a very useful website today, www.lipsum.com, this is a website that generates text and as much text as you like, so that when designing a websites layout you can fill the appropriate spaces with actually text in order to see the full potential and effectiveness of your websites layout.

An interesting point about starting next week for me is also if Steve would move us around, and if so where!? But I personally aren’t too concerned about who I sit next too along as there a smiley face. Jamie

2006-09-29T20:36:00.000+01:00

Week Beginning 27th September - Designs
This week’s work has definatly been a lot more fun with a lot less Writing, as this week has been mainly a designing week for me. I have learnt how to create layout thumbnails, and scaled designs of my chosen layout formats. I am very proud of what I have achieved in the amount of space that I have had, as I feel I have completed a considerable amount of work.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this week and I feel that I have got on top of my assignment and ready to further produce my designs and plan my website's measurements, in pixel form, that being page sizes, margins, text areas, image areas and logo sizes. I would also like for the start of next week, to have my designs scanned on to the pc, and uploaded onto my blog so that feedback could possibly be left on them by fellow members of the course.

A really helpful task was also completed this week, this helped me gain an understanding and a little experience in using "Adobe PageMaker 6.5" as I had never used this program before and had absolutely no idea what to do, to begin with. But now I can successfully create a page of work without encountering too many problems.

Looking towards self study, I would like to not only complete many more designs and tidy up the designs I already have, but to take sometime working in my sketchbook, tidying it up, adding things maybe collecting some ideas that I stumble across that I consider helpful and to also incorporate some kind of order, so I can easily find notes, assignment work and any other information that I have in there which at the moment is quite hard to track. Jamie

2006-09-22T17:48:00.000+01:00

Evaluation of Week Beginning 20th September
Having now come to the end of another week of Assignment A2, I can leave the studio this week Very happy in knowing I have achieved a lot from this week, and also learnt a lot. I feel like I have completed a lot of work, and work I am happy in moving on from. I am defiantly more settled with this assignment now, and I feel like I am really progressing well, I am fast approaching my designing which is where I want to be, but I did not want my written work, and research to be of a low standard because I wanted to reach that stage, and I feel I have avoided this.

Lectures have been very useful and I have taken a lot of notes from these lectures regarding our Assignments, most important to me was the budget presentation, as it helped clear up a lot of Shaded areas that I wasn’t looking forwards to tackling. As well as the lectures, what also was extremely helpful was the Feedback group meeting with Steve, this also helped clear up a lot of questions about the assignment I had, regarding Delivery Requirements and the software specification.
I was also introduced to a new phrase in the Web designing industry, "Sticky Website", I researched this for a short while just to see exactly what a Sticky Website was, and how you would go about creating one. To find this information I searched into www.ask.com with the search Criteria "What is a Sticky Website" and a result that I used was http://tools.devshed.com/c/a/Website-Marketing/A-Sticky-Website/.

I am now going to yet again get stuck into Self Study over the weekend and my free time, to read through my assignment so far, see what I can improve on, if there are any mistakes I have made and to produce more work to progress through the assignment further. Also I would like to further plan my time using the Weekly Planner. Jamie

2006-09-20T08:24:00.000+01:00

Formative Statement
I first started an ICT course at High School (Horbury, High School); this was a basic and compulsory lesson up until Year 10, my second to last year. At GCSE I took up a 2 year double award course called GNVQ at intermediate level. I thoroughly enjoyed this course and it was from this course that I opted to take ICT a step further and to improve my knowledge and understanding on ICT. When those 2 years were up I did pass this course and to a satisfactory grade to me and my tutors, I passed with a Merit, which in High School was the equivalent to 4 GSCE passes.
The next step for me and ICT was College, and another 2 year course. I studied AVCE in ICT at Wakefield College and this was an A level course. During those 2 years numerous assignments had to be and were completed and numerous skills were developed. These were such subjects as Hardware and Software, Spreadsheets, Database, Website Design, Multimedia and Presentation skills.

While studying on this course we were encouraged to decide on what future we wanted after the 2 years were up, whether that be going into a job or taking ICT studies a step further to a University or another College, and in some cases was a subject changed if we weren’t happy and felt ICT wasn’t for us. I took serious consideration into this decision as it was a very important decision. I looked at various options like Universities and Colleges and also Full Time work. In the end I picked out my favourite subject that I studied on the AVCE course which was Website Design, I wanted to take my knowledge and understanding of design further so I decided that a place which I could do this, was the correct option for me.

I am now on the HND Interactive Media course and so far it has been a good experience. At this point in time we are on our induction week; this week is all about getting to know the course, the tutors, each other and the College Campus and also the rules and regulations that come with these. So far there has been a lot of writing involved and note taking, but I understand that all of this is too better me for when the course starts and assignments are handed out. We have also had talks on the financial side of College life, as this can be a scary prospect. We have learnt that there are various loans, grants and support to help with these issues, which was really impressive to me. Having looked at what we have to come during the next 2 years of this course I am eager to get started on my first assignment and really get the course kicked off.

As for the future, I hope to successfully complete the 2 years of Interactive Media, to the best and possibly to exceed the best of my ability, and achieve the grades and personal satisfaction. I am at the moment still undecided on what to do when the next 2 years are up. I haven’t yet decided whether University is for me, or if I would be better suited to moving into Full Time work. This is a really important decision and I intend to take my time and think all my options through in order to make the right decision, this can only be made when I have experienced the Interactive Media Course further. As for looking even further ahead, I would like to see my self comfortable in a well payed full time job, with financial security and comfort and owning my own house, my future is all down to me, and putting the hard work in to take the opportunity I have of doing this.

2006-09-18T14:55:00.000+01:00

Self Study
Today i started my second day of self study on my recent Assignment, A2. so far i am on track and sticking to the weekly planning that i planned. all the tasks i planned to do by now have been completed, and hopefully today i will complete the tasks that i have set out to be finished today. I feel that this is easily possible. I also have made extra time that i did not plan on, as i now have tomorow morning off work, so i also plan to work and hopefully get my self ahead of my plans...Jamie

2006-09-14T18:20:00.000+01:00

Second Week Of Interactive Media
The first day of the assignment day a lot of notes had to be taken, to help us get our heads around the assignment. We had to brake down the assignment into sections and bite size pieces to make it easier when starting the assignment. The second day, Thursday we got down to work, this involved researching into more detail on our chosen Great Britton, planning the weeks ahead on a weekly time sheet, and starting putting work down on the computers. I felt I got a lot of work done Thursday and I was very happy when I walked away at the end of the day knowing id got the ball rolling with my assignment. i am now looking forwards to getting more work done in self-study time so i can reach the designing and sketching parts. Jamie