CV Redesign x 2

After Emma's talk I decided to redesign my CV (once again!) using her advice. My initial redesign featured a border running round two edges of the page (a big no no according to the expert) so I've super-simplified my design, but still kept my bulb identity & colour pallete. I do think it looks a hell of a lot better now.

Linked In

I've now joined the Linked In site after Emma from Aquent recommended it in her talk. Have to say, not quite got to grips with it yet, and have a grand total of two connections in my email contact list. I guess it will get more useful as time goes on.

Sacker Gooding

Amazing website I found while researching for my professional project. Sacker Gooding is a headhunting company, & they have disguised their website  behind several pseudonyms such as Sacker Gooding donuts, ornothologist society & butchers in order for people to view it whilst at work without anybody knowing what they're up to.

http://www.sackergooding.com/

Learning Agreement

As part of our professional project we have to write our own brief, or learning agreement. This is what I've come up with so far:

Through my professional project I intend to create a concept for an iPhone application & supporting website. The idea is to create a vehicle which enables people to raise money for a charity of their choice. It’s essentially a tool which brings the “sponsored run” method of raising money into the present day. The iPhone application is a pedometer which the user downloads to their mobile phone & activates when they go running, then uploads the distance from their phone on to the website where their sponsors can track their progress & make donations. In my opinion, there is a potentially huge audience for this application as iPhone owners are currently the biggest growing market in the mobile phone industry, & the iPhone application business is also phenomenally successful (93% of iPhone users have downloaded an application according to a compete.com survey). Contributing to charity is currently at the forefront of people’s minds following the huge media coverage of the Haiti earthquake. Also, Spring / Summer is the time of year when individuals feel the need to shake off the effects of winter, become more active & get into shape. All of these things will contribute towards my design being commercially viable.

As I am not technically able enough to code an iPhone application I will develop it as a concept, designing the appearance of it but not actually developing it. I will then design & build the website using fake data from “users” to create the pages where sponsors can track their progress. These pages will comprise of beautifully designed infographics displaying information such as distance run, money raised, amount donated so far, for each individual “user” & then as a whole for all “users”. I will present this website for assessment, alongside an image / set of images illustrating the appearance of the iPhone application & a short description of how it would function.

The reason I am developing something in this area is the Screen Based Communication unit, which I felt was my most successful & satisfying unit to date. This has led me to consider web design as a specialist area for my career & given me a desire to gain as much experience & knowledge in this area as possible. I have become aware of the importance of keeping up to date with trends & technologies as a designer in order to have a sustainable career, & I realize that mobile technology is becoming bigger & more advanced every day. Therefore it is important to have understanding & experience of this area, leading me to wish to develop a concept for an iPhone app. Although the website could work on its own with users entering data manually instead of uploading it, the iPhone provides much more accurate data which in turn encourages the user to run further, as anybody can log on to the site & see their progress. This provides benefits to the charity as they receive increased donations & publicity, & the individual user benefits twofold, improving their physical health due to the increased activity & their mental health by feeling good about making a positive contribution to the world through the simple action of going for an occasional run. I feel that my project will consolidate all of these things, & hope that this will make me appealing to potential employers at the end of year show.

Lecture from Emma, Aquent Recruitment Agency.

This afternoon we had a talk from Emma, who works for Aquent, the biggest creative recruitment agency in the UK. These are the notes I took:

• Aquent has offices in 18 countries & their clients include: Apple, BBC, Honda, Orange etc.
• RESEARCH:
• When looking for a job do LOTS of research; look in Design Week Top 100 Agencies etc.
• You need to find a specialism, where your strengths lie.
• Only 5% of graduates last year got a job in industry, so need to have work of an excellent standard.
• Find out which agency did the work you admire & target them, e.g. who did the branding for Orange.
• The top ten design agencies receive around 200 CV's a week around graduation time, so yours needs to stand out.
• Look for: good use of type, strong layout, relevant work, but the key is HOW it is presented.
• INITIATIVE:
• All successful designers continue to challenge themselves by self initiating projects. e.g. see a crap logo, go away & design it how you would have done it.
• Enter competitions. Major agencies advertise competitions on their website, prize = placement.
• Look on The Arts Council Website - they set live briefs.
• Tell everyone you know what it is you do, find commissions.
• Get down to a printers to find out process.
• Join Linked In - commercial networking site.
• CV PREP:
• Take your time.
• CV layout says a lot about your ability to handle type, space, copy etc.
• Attention to detail, spelling etc.
• Make it concise, two page limit, one page is ideal for a graduate.
• Make it professional, do not mistake quirky with creative.
• Leave out uneccessary details.
• Do keep it simple.
• Don't use funny backgrounds, samples of work etc.
• PDF PORTFOLIO:
• Keep simple.
• Choose key pieces.
• Tailor to your audience.
• The work should be the star - no flashy borders, backgrounds etc.
• Show your thinking - short description.
• PORTFOLIO PREP:
• Get rid of ringbound portfolio - always fall out in interview.
• Go the extra mile - bind it, emboss it, engrave it etc.
• Presentation is key.
• Research the company beforehand, you may have something in common with the person who's interviewing you.
• Think about what key skills you want to get across & how you can demonstrate them.
• What kind of commentary do you have? Every piece should have a story. What client wanted, what you persuaded them to have instead, how you implemented it etc.
• The flow of your portfolio is important. Open with your strongest piece, close with something memorable.
• Practice - present to friends, family, peers, people with experience in recruiting for design. Get them to report back to you on which pieces you sound less confident about etc.
• Take criticism, ask for advice, make changes.
• Take anything you don't love out - they'll pick up on it.
• Should be a flexible portfolio - take work that's relevant to the job you're applying for.
• Take out any work you're unsure about.
• Keep it up to date. No work over 5 years old, unless it won you a D&AD award.
• Take work samples, especially with interesting finishes e.g. foil embossing etc.
• Keep photography / illustration to a maximum of 3 pieces.
• Be clear & concise - it's a representation of how you can present ideas to a client.
• Don't flick through without giving an explanation.
• Logo - show variations of logo, how you got there. Put variations of your thinking in.
• Show scale - photograph it, show how it works.
• Logo - implement it, show how it could be used.
• GET AS MUCH WORK EXPERIENCE AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE.

Although the talk was very useful I found it a bit overwhelming, as the quality of work in the portfolio examples she showed us was unbelievable. After my surge of confidence yesterday after Anna's talk, I felt myself plunging back down in to a black pit of self doubt. At least I now have the tools to make my portfolio amazing, at least in itself if not the quality of work in it :S

I was keen for Emma to have a look at my work so I could gain as much as possible from the day, but so was everybody else. I waited until 5 o clock but I live pretty far out of the way, the last unilinx bus left at 5.10 and I had no money for a yellow bus, so had to leave. Before I left Emma said that I could email her my work so she could give me some feedback & that she's trying to get as many placements as possible for our class, which sounded pretty hopeful. One positive thing I did overhear whilst waiting around was Emma discussing web design with someone after they said that they'd enjoyed doing the design & coding in the SBC2 unit. Emma then said that there is a real lack of / niche for web designers & coders with a good grounding in design, & that they've been desperate to take more of them on at Aquent over the past two years. This filled me with real hope, & made me feel that I've chosen a route for my Professional Project that holds a lot of potential. I suppose only time will tell....

Lecture from freelance illustrator Anna Steinberg

This afternoon we had a compulsory lecture with Anna Steinberg. I have to say, I'm glad it was compulsory as I may not have attended otherwise, being a graphic designer & not an illustrator. I did find it really interesting though. Anna basically talked us through the process of working on a freelance project, relevant to me as a designer as well as the illustrators of the class.

These are the notes I took:

• Send out promotional stuff to people who might employ you (e.g. art director of mags) Build up a record of potential employers to send stuff out to. Find out their name first, makes it more personal.
• When a client calls: Take contact details, deadline, what job is, what it's for (magazine, book etc), what work of yours they've seen (so you know what kind of thing they're expecting, & which of your promotions has worked). ***Be prepared for a call at any time - carry pen/paper, think of what you need to say beforehand. If unsure, e.g. about fee, say "can I get back to you later this afternoon" to give you space to think.
• Decide on a fee based on how much the image will be used, e.g. print run of 500 leaflets, or magazine with a hundred thousand copies.
• Keep financial records: Date of Commission | Details | Invoice Ref. | Total Received | Date received.
• Keep record of expenses: Date | Details | Ref. | Total.
• Once you've accepted a job the client will send you job details, you accept & send back an Acceptance of Commission form & terms & details.
• You complete rough / roughs, send to client & wait for a response. 
• Make any alterations & send rough back for more feedback, or complete artwork.
• Send off for approval.
• Send invoice.
• ALWAYS be: organised, efficient. Keep a good filing system. Reliable, so clients want to work with you again. Self motivated.
• Good book for freelancers: Rights: A Guide to Business Law, by Simon Stern.
• Q: Do you get paid if a client backs out? A: she outlines fees in contract, alongside copyright, ownership, payment etc. She charges 25% if ended before roughs, 33% if ended at rough stage, 100% if cancelled on the delivery of artwork.
• Q: How do you work out fee? A: Don't calculate it from hours worked, do it from how much the image will be used (print run etc.)
• Q:What do you do if a client doesn't pay you? A: Be polite initially, but get firmer & always be persistent. State a date for payment then chase up. Don't give up, keep calling, emailing, turning up in office etc.

All in all I think Anna gave us a good idea of what the freelance working process is like, & I'd definitely feel more confident in a freelance situation now. The talk has increased my confidence as a designer, as I feel I am definitely capable of producing work as good as Anna's, & as she makes a living from freelancing I feel that I've got it within me to forge a career out of design. This is something I struggle with, as I often lack confidence in my own abilities. I left the talk feeling positive & motivated.

Contemporary Visual Contexts

In the essay tutorial on monday I presented the two topics I felt were most relevant:

• Interpretations of signs / colours / symbols / gestures etc in different cultures. How this impacts on design for an international market.
• The impact of new technology on design, namely the Apple Mac. Has it improved design by expanding the realms of what we can create as designers, or has it made for lazy designing?

After explaining my first topic, Dr Anna said that it was too broad a subject, could possibly choose one colour & look at what it signifies e.g. pink used to be a colour associated with boys, now associated with females.

After explaining my second topic Dr Anna said we didn't have time to discuss it in depth (we had already over run by half an hour) so I had to pick one subject over the following week & come back with a working essay title & some relevant texts. She did say that I could compare pre-digital design with current design, & also to look at magazines such as iD & Face.

In hindsight, a lot of people were linking the subject of their essay with their Professional Project, so I think topic number two is the most relevant for me. I have to say, I'm not looking forward to this unit as I found it a bit dry & tedious last year, but I suppose it's up to me to make it as interesting (& therefore painless) as possible.

Oops.

Sooo.... I got it wrong again. I thought that PPRD was due in today, but found out the deadline has been moved back a week. Although it's a positive in that I've managed to get a lot of work done over the weekend working under deadline pressure, I probably could have distributed my time over more pressing matters such as the learning agreement due on Friday, screen based portfolio due on wednesday & subject for my essay, due this afternoon. I'm also a very tired bean after a late night last night followed by getting up at 7 to come to uni & not having my session with Anna until half 3.

These are the possible topics/areas of interest I've come up with so far for my essay:

• What impact has new technology had on design (has it degraded or improved it?)
• The use & effects of colour in design
• Issues involved in designing for an international market e.g. cultural issues, different meanings of colours/symbols etc.
• How can graphic designers respond to the need for an environmentally sustainable future?

Not sure what to go with so I'm going to keep thinking, however I've only got one hour left before the seminar with Anna so need to decide pretty sharpish.

CV Redesign

My CV redesign, not the best quality, but click to enlarge.

It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be

With the PPRD hand in coming up I've been looking over my skills map from the beginning of the year to see which goals I have accomplished & which still need some work.

My Personal Goals were:

• Self confidence (especially public speaking)
• Organisation
• Time management
• Communication
• Concentration
• Leadership

I feel that I have definitely improved in a big way with several of these goals, especially organisation, time management & concentration. I feel that I've finally mastered the art of juggling several projects at once, & allocating them all time & attention. This came from the multiple projects within the VCC2 project, which I found a massive struggle at the time but taught me a lot about spreading my time over several different things simultaneously. Since then I've had to juggle live briefs, competitions, SBC2 & the course fundraiser, as well as beginning the Professional Project. I feel that I've handled the stress of this very well, much better than in VCC2. This in turn has increased my confidence, which also improved positively at the end of the SBC2 project as I gained an immense amount of satisfaction from seeing my website running smoothly up on the web. This also increased my confidence as I felt that I'd found an area of design to concentrate on & increase my expertise, something I hadn't had before. 

Despite this, I feel I still have a long way to go in terms of increasing my confidence. I have a bad habit of not believing in myself enough, lacking confidence & not valuing my own opinions as strongly as other peoples (I automatically expect them to know more about something than I do). This mindset is something I need to snap out of once & for all, as I feel it has held me back throughout the duration of this course. I recently read a book titled "It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be" an inspirational book by Paul Arden, who works in the advertising industry. This book is full of inspirational & motivational nuggets, & has really inspired me to take control of my own destiny.

Technical Goals:

• Dreamweaver
• Illustrator
• Flash

When I filled out the Skills Map I had never experienced Dreamweaver & it was something I was really looking forward to learning. I was well aware by this point that the majority of graphic design jobs advertised in the North West seem to be looking for web designers, so if I wanted to live somewhere closer to my family than the South of England then it was definitely a good direction for me to head in. Fortunately I really enjoyed this unit, although frustrating at times I have never experienced as much satisfaction upon the completion of a project as I did when I finally got my website fully functioning & online. This has prompted me to focus my Professional Project on web based design (a web site & concept for an iPhone app). As for Illustrator, this was a program which for some reason I had struggled with last year, but I bought an Adobe Illustrator classroom in a book & concentrated on getting to grips with it. I am now fully competent using Illustrator, & used it for the majority of the design of my Communicating Ideas brief. I still feel that there's room for improvement, & I think it would be a good idea to buy the Photoshop Classroom in a Book to refine my skills in that program as well.

As for Adobe Flash, although I made a simple animation for the front page of my website which refreshed my memory of the program, I haven't gained any extra skills. This is something I should probably work on at some point (possibly over summer), & I also think it would be a good idea to learn how to build websites in Flash if I want to focus on web design in my future career.

Interview at Carlisle :)

I've just received a letter saying I've got an interview for 3rd year Graphic Design at the University of Cumbria, only problem is it's on Tuesday so I've had to ask them if I can reschedule. The letter says that I need to:

• Show evidence of my creativity, design & technical ability
• Include: drawings, idea sheets & design development sheets / roughs.
• Finished work, typography & photography.
• Examples of original written work that I have completed.
• Be prepared to explain: my work, influences & interests.
• Why I have applied to this course & what I hope to achieve.
• What I understand graphic design to be & why it interests me.
• Show some basic knowledge of the course, & the opportunity to ask questions of my own.

I'd forgotten just how exciting, but also nerve wracking the application process for university was. The standard of work on the website for this course is of an extremely high level, so fingers crossed they think my work is good enough to gain me a place.

I now need to put some extreme care & attention into crafting my portfolio to show my abilities off to the best standard I possibly can, & think about what questions I'll be asked & how best to answer them. This is the best & most important opportunity to put in to practice all the presentational / self reflection skills we seem to have been using a lot this year. I guess this is where it all pays off, if I'm successful. 

Time For Heroes Post-Meeting Update.

Today I had my long awaited meeting with the 3rd year Arts & Events students. These are the notes I took:

• Although colour choice was left up to me when they approached me with the project (I chose red, white and blue patriotic colours, to correspond to the war heroes) They weren't happy with the colour choice, & want me to mock up a few different layouts in various colours so they can pick their favourite. Possibly royal blue or deep purple.
• The logo looks fairly similar to the Help for Heroes with the medal strap. They suggested using a chain instead of the medal strap, although this isn't a change they necessarily want making, just something to consider.
• They want a form for people to submit poetry, which then goes straight to their email inbox.
• They want to know if it's possible to have a flash animation where the illustration appears then is replaced by text, rather than using it as a background image.
• In the poetry section, they want a link to each poem on a seperate page, rather than all on one page.
• They want to know if it's possible to have a newsfeed on the homepage updatable by them, rather than having to go through me every time.

So the project seems to be getting bigger & bigger. Although I wish they could have decided on a colour scheme before hand, or at least ruled out colour schemes they wanted to avoid, I suppose dealing with issues like this is a day to day problem in the working world, so I'll have to get used to it. I'm quite worried that with the hand in for PPRD on monday & no actual content to put on the site that my marks will be affected, as the project won't be anywhere near complete, but I suppose there's no way around it & I can only do the best I can with what I've been given.

D&AD.

After flicking through my blog I just realised that I haven't posted anything about my design for the D&AD awards yet.

The category I decided to enter is the graphic design: book design category. The brief is to redesign a set of five book covers by H.G. Wells in a timeless way.

Professional Project

Yesterday we had to present our ideas for the professional project. After several brainstorming sessions & bouncing ideas off my poor, long suffering boyfriend I had quite a medley of different ideas:

• AUCB Student Shop. An online shop for students to sell their crafts. I thought this would be a nice little project which also benefits other students & gains them exposure. Scrapped this idea as I didn't know how many students would be interested in putting work up, & was more taken with my other ideas.
• Skill Swapping. A website for residents of Bournemouth to swap skills / services / equipment in return for something they need ( a favour for a favour ). I thought this could be a good way of strengthening community spirit, & useful for people in the current economic climate. Eventually decided against it as I was unsure how successful it would be, & thought it also held a risk of people abusing the service (borrowing equipment & not returning etc.)
• Clough Smith Rail. A mini site for the company my dad works for, detailing the construction of a £15 million rail depot in Glasgow which my dad was the construction manager for, including; timeline, photos, construction info & facts, infographics etc. and an accompanying booklet. In the end I decided that although this is a nice project, I want something that will really stand out at the end of year show, & I could probably complete this as a summer project instead.
• Beginner Chef. A website for newby cooks & people cooking on a budget. The user selects ingredients they have in the cupboard, & the site comes up with a list of recipes they could make using those ingredients. Scrapped this idea as the cookery website market is already over saturated, & the possibilities for ingredient combinations & recipes is endless, so gathering them all in 12 weeks is unrealistic. Also considered doing it for cocktails which would be more achievable, but didn't think the subject matter was meaty enough for me to get stuck in to for the duration of the project.
• Bin Ads. A bit of a random one, & the only print based idea. This is something I thought about a while ago, shortly after moving into my current student house which backs on to a main road. On the day the bin men are due our whole street is lined with dull grey wheelie bins. The concept of my idea was for the council to sell advertising rights on the bins to various companies, for example red bull might line a main road with bins made to look like red bull cans. I decided against this idea as it was based in advertising & the area I wanted to focus on was web design.
• And finally the idea I chose to present: Help for Haiti iPhone App & Website. Create an iPhone pedometer app which people download from my website & go running / walking with. They then recruit friends & family to sponsor them e.g. 20 pence per mile they run. After each run they upload their distances from their iPhone to my website, where friends & family can track their progress & make their donations.

As always I was apprehensive about speaking in front of the class, but my idea gained a positive response. I was advised not to attempt to develop a functioning iPhone app as 12 weeks is too short a time to learn how to code an app, something which is a challenge for professional developers. Instead I should focus on designing it to look like a functioning app & website, so basically design the concept.

I was also warned about my subject matter seeming outdated by the time it came to the London show, as most natural disasters have a "shelf life" of only three weeks in the media. This has made me decide to let each individual user choose which charity they would like to raise money for.


My presentation PDF:

Blogger Nightmare.

With our PPRD deadline looming I have been updating my blog recently. Unfortunately, a lot of posts are now in the wrong order, as this year I have created a lot of posts made up of brief bullet points and then saved them for a later date, when I had time to craft them into proper posts. I thought that as they were all saved in order, once published they would appear in the order they were first written.


They don't.

Time For Heroes Website (so far)

I now have a meeting scheduled with Naz & her team for friday, so hopefully I'll get plenty of feedback for me to continue designing with, & fingers crossed for some site content to add ready for my PPRD hand in on Monday.

Time For Heroes

Here's what I've come up with so far in terms of logo designs for the Time For Heroes project (excuse the poor quality):

Now all I need is some feedback from the client. Personally, I think the logo idea at the top is probably my strongest, although I took inspiration from the Help For Heroes campaign (in terms of typefaces anyway) & I'm now slightly worried it looks too similar. This is something I need to discuss with Naz & the rest of her team when we have our meeting, which I requested a week or so ago but they have been too busy to arrange. In the meantime I have put together all the basic pages of their website, & now need content to put in to it, & feedback on the design.

New From Old

^^ So this is my final outcome for the fondue packaging. Although I was annoyed after my first idea was trashed (a fondue board game), upon reflection I realise this was for the best. It was a pretty ridiculous idea really, brought about by me wanting to do something that had never been done before rather than  creating a good quality design, which I feel I eventually came up with.

Business Identity

When I first began researching author John Fowles I struggled to find anything of interest about him, as aside from his writing and other peoples accounts of how nasty a person he was, I couldn't find much information on him. This didn't put me off though as chances are most jobs I will be given during my career as a designer won't be things that I am personally interested in, but I will still have to be enthusiastic about them.

I didn't want to be too obvious with my design & simply relate it to Fowles career as an author, as I feel it should be more personal to him. Upon reflection I feel this was a good way to go with it, as simply designing it for a writer would have meant any old author could have used it. The defining characteristics I eventually represented in my design where his vanity (the peacock quill, which also represented his writing & his ornithology hobby, & the use of a photograph of himself). His feelings of superiority to other men (his famous quote "the ordinary man is the curse of civilisation" and use of the colour orange). And a straw hat he wore almost constantly during his later years (I used a small weave pattern next to his photo).

Although initially using script typefaces in the design such as Edwardian Script, Zapfino & Bickham Script Pro to relate to the grandiose perception he had of himself, I eventually went with Bookman Old Style in bold for much of the text as aside from being aesthetically pleasing, it is definitely a strong, bold, self-important typeface, like Fowles himself.

Although I believe Fowles would have approved of my designs as they encapsulated his personality, main interests & also pandered to his vain & egotistical streak, I think that I may have done it slightly differently if we hadn't been under so much pressure in terms of time. I drew a couple of rough illustrations of a peacock in different styles which I would have liked to develop further, but didn't get chance. (I also had flu on the week of the crits for this part of the brief, so may have changed it on the basis of input from the rest of the class). I think that one of my jobs for the summer will be to go back to my work from this unit and spend more time updating them.

Evaluation

http://kayleighthompson.com

I've now completely finished my website :) and have to say, this has been by far the least stressful run up to deadline day i've ever had. All that's left now is for me to write an evaluation (it doesn't say anything about an evaluation in the brief, but I still like to write one to get down on paper exactly why I went about things in the way I did, in a concise way).

Here's my evaluation so far:

I got off to a good start on this unit and quickly came to a decision about the way I wanted my website to look. After the sessions with Lee I decided to download Flash Catalyst and attempt to use this, as I had found the Dreamweaver sessions complicated and I was apprehensive about using the program to make my site.

I found Flash Catalyst extremely easy to get to grips with, and it didn’t take me long to have a functioning website with all the main pages linking together. Unfortunately, I was unaware that Flash Catalyst had a limit on the number of pages per document, being a trial version. After presenting my site in the final crit and explaining my problem I was advised to start my website again in Dreamweaver. At the time this felt like a massive blow as it meant starting again one week before the hand in, but looking back on it now it was definitely a good decision, as aside from the fact that my site ran more smoothly & looked better in HTML, I also got to grips with Dreamweaver & really enjoyed using the program. It made for a more rewarding & satisfactory experience with this brief.

After a couple of days of getting to grips with the software & initial setbacks I managed to put the rest of my site together fairly glitch-free, using a combination of web tutorials, blackboard handouts and a trial and error method. By the Monday I had completed the design and linked all my pages together, just leaving the gallery to sort out.

I downloaded a lightbox javascript file from the internet and put that together with minimal hassle. My only problem at this stage was that although my site was working perfectly when tested in Firefox, none of my links worked in Safari. After seeking help from Neil I was told that the links in the code view were trying to link to the file on my memory stick, which obviously didn’t work once it was launched in the browser. After removing the excess information my site was running smoothly. This has demonstrated to me the amount of time I can save if I seek advice earlier rather than trying to figure things out on my own.

I then decided that the homepage needed something extra, like a slideshow of my work or a single image. Being unable to choose one image that I felt represented my work satisfactorily I decided to add a slideshow. After watching an online tutorial I put one together using insert image viewer in Dreamweaver. Unfortunately this didn’t work, so I had to put together a simple animation in Flash and insert it to my homepage. My site was then complete, and I was extremely pleased with the results.

From a design point of view, I hit on a design that represented my style of work fairly rapidly, and the only change I was advised to make in the initial crit was to change the sky blue colour of the header as it appeared too clinical. I had chosen the blue as it is my favourite colour and I wanted the site to represent my personality as well as my style of working, but could see the negative connotations the colour brought, so changed it to a deep turquoise. I also replaced the gradient with a flat colour as I felt this was true to my usual working style. The other piece of advice was to add something of interest to the header such as an illustration. This led me to coming up with the glow worm, as I wanted to include the positive associations of a lightbulb, such as ideas driven design.

In the final crit I was advised to not use the glow worm character as that could turn some people off my site, so decided to run with the light bulb alone. I feel this was a definite good decision, as the lightbulb is far more effective as an identity.

All in all I have enjoyed this unit the most out of every unit on the course so far, once I began using Dreamweaver. I definitely want to continue making websites, and feel this is possibly the direction I want my career to head in, although I still have a lot to learn. I am now going to attempt to secure live briefs involving web design to increase my skills and my web design portfolio.

Live Brief... muchos excitement

With the PPRD deadline coming ever closer and my distinct lack of live briefs apparent, I had decided that I urgently needed some live brief action. My success with Dreamweaver in the SBC unit meant I was especially on the lookout for website design briefs to expand my portfolio & experience with Dreamweaver. Fortunately for me, an email landed in my inbox last week from a 3rd year Arts and Events Management student looking for a website designer. I immediately got in touch saying I'd be willing to do the site for her, and we arranged to meet in town and discuss the project.

The meeting went really well & I left feeling enthusiastic & eager to get stuck in. These are the notes I took during the meeting:

• The project aims to bring old & young together - intergenerational
• It involves war veterans - one on one conversations between war veterans (of all ages) & disadvantaged young people.
• The project is called 'Time for Heroes'
• They have enlisted the help of former Poet laureate Andrew Motion (already funded & contract signed) he is going to run workshops / do poetry readings
• They have also got a couple of organisations involved: BCHA - help unemployed/homeless.   BTCV - help youth who have been expelled gain qualifications.
• There is a library currently being built in Kinson, the library has agreed to donate any funds left over after the library is finished to the project, & to display poetry created as a result, as a permanent legacy of the project.
• They already enlisted the help of an illustrator to create images for them (I have been given a copy, people image for background of website but lose the red circle, possibly royal blue or purple instead) but need a logo for "Time for Heroes", possibly including image of a pocketwatch or a war medallion)
• The website is basically for people to go to & see whats been happening. It will include the following 6 pages: About us, Contact, Links (Andrew Motion, Kayleigh Thompson), Submit Your Own Poetry (need a form to submit, or a link to email address), Media (photo's, aiming to create dvd, if so then movie clips), Poems.

I have agreed to start putting together designs for the website and logo, and email Naz for feedback. We will also arrange to meet in a weeks or so to discuss what i've been doing and gain some feedback. So far so good, and i'm really looking forward to getting stuck in.