It's All About Accuracy!

Enjoyed the session today, I found out a bit more on which direction the assignment needs to go.

The main task today was design and redesign. We were given a pre-made template of a layout and had to come up with a different design using the same 4 elements. The header, the title, the text and the picture.

The morning had been mainly a brief tutorial on using Adobe Pagemaker which I have never used before but it had the distinct smell and flavour of an old favourite of mine QuarkXpress which helped me immensely.

I found that it is very difficult to specify a layout on paper using very accurate measurements like millimetres but after a little playing around found a way to represent it more accurately from paper to screen.

I didn't have my work commented on, maybe it was a subconcious thing on my part but feel I did a good job on one of the designs and knew what I had done wrong on the second design (text too big).

I Will put my designs on my blog as soon as Ive figured out how to do this.
Another task to add to my never ending task list.

On a separate subject I have made the decision to move from pencil to pen in my sketchblog, I look like the only one using pencil. I can see the reason why as our mistakes are there to be seen so I will adhere.

First Real Day at College

Today was the first real day after a few induction days involving more writing than I am used to.
We were given an assignment last week to design a website about a 'Great Briton' meaning one of 100 British people chosen in a BBC poll a few years ago.

I chose Eric Morecambe. After reviewing some of the others on the list he seemed to be the logical choice as I am in the same business that he was.

I spent most of my home studying this week researching about Morecambe & Wise and surprisingly, found a distinct lack of webspace devoted to this great comedy entertainer.

My next job is to plan how I will go about designing this site by splitting all the tasks into sections. I have formated a basic plan of how things will proceed and already started the first section of my assignment which is reviewing the competition or 'Competitive Analysis' as it's known.

Looking at the progress of others in my class, I have either gathered too much information in the early stages OR they are very fast workers as most are well ahead of me in terms of progress.

I will stick with what I think is right.

With deadline date in October I feel I have plenty of time to catch up and get designing a feel and look to the website in the forthcoming weeks.

Formative Statement

“Where have you come from?” is a question I rarely get asked. To start at the beginning would be long and laborious so the best place to start is when I left school.Like most students when leaving school and venturing into big wide world I had no clue what that one, enjoyable, mind stimulating thing that I would like to do for the rest of my life. I had lots of ideas mainly involving music, but nothing concrete.

I started in the photography trade by accident as a last minute mix up as to where I was being sent on work experience, I enjoyed it immensely and when the owners offered me a training scheme for two years, I jumped at the chance. This was THE trade to be part of, as everyone would always need photographs. That was until the digital age reared its head, everyone panicked (including myself) and thought the time for cameras, film & processing was at an end. The correct decision was made where I worked at the time that this was the way forward and after travelling to London to see Photoshop in action I was astounded by this ‘modern magic’ that was digital imaging.
Finally I had found the fundamental thing I wanted to do. A medium so versatile that it can take the shape and form of anything that can be created by a person’s imagination and most of it without getting up from the comfort of your seat. Over the years I have explored many programmes, mostly in design, others in music and video but there are so many that it was difficult to keep track of them all as each one was forever changing and improving with each new version.

At the moment I have arrived at a stage in my life where I need to concentrate on the one thing that I enjoy and at the same time keep me in employment until I reach retirement age. The way forward is design, to be more precise, web design. I feel now is the time to change my standing as a ‘Jack of all trades’ and become a master of one. With help and focus from an accredited course such as the HNC interactive media course, I can achieve this in my life’s final trimester. Again, this was something that was happened upon by accident, however, I am a big believer in fate and so far it has worked to my advantage throughout the years.

In two years time I hope to be proficient in web design and all the elements that help bring a website together. I then hope to gain employment from this experience or alternatively, work for myself.At this stage in my life, it is too late for me to take the learning further after the initial two years, so I am confident that in the timescale, I can make the most of the input that I am given and use it more wisely than if I was twenty years younger.I am looking forward to creating and designing products that I am proud of and at the same time, a product that the clients will be pleased with. I hope to gradually gain more experience as time progresses and achieve the potential to complete the course. I think everybody has a talent, if they recognise that talent, and it is nurtured well, then anything can be achieved.
Dean Hubert

Back to School - Literally

So this is it, back to college (which incedentally is in the same building as my old high school). I have decided to gain another skill in media and web design, some of which I have a bit of experience in anyway.

This is something that is very new to me and after an intense first couple of days attending an induction to the course can see that it is not going to be plain sailing. On the upside, I am enjoying my sessions so far and find them really interesting and have already learned some new things that I didn't know about which is the main reason for me being on the course.

The main thing I have had to alter is my lifestyle and particularly the time management aspect of it. Wednesday at college is fine but the home study day is something I need to work on. So far I have managed to get all the hours in that I need and more, however, the begginning is the hardest part as there are books to read and things to sort on top of the note taking and assignments.

The first assignment is to design a website for a 'Great Briton'. A list of famous British people that I can design a website for. The planning aspect is the most important, along with the design rather than the content. The structure has to be detailed and all the information you need from lots of different sources has to be meticulously listed and referenced.

Today is my home study day and after this entry into my blog I intend to start planning from scratch and hopefully work out a timescale for the project and cost using the notes I have.
After years of designing 'on the fly' this is a whole new concept to me.

Wish me luck!