So this is Christmas, and what have we done?

A week into my holiday and I thought I could take a break from thinking like a designer. Even on Christmas morning, the kids were opening their presents and I found myself looking at the packaging, seeing how the kids reacted to the colours on the box, was it easy to read? did the picture on the box reflect accurately what was inside?

I suppose if you are thinking about your future all the time and how you are going to pay the mortgage, this is how you think. I know this from my singing job. If I hear a song on the radio I write it down with a view to performing it myself. Is it good? Would it keep the audience interested for 3 minutes? Would we use microphone stands or hold the mics? Should we move around? Which set would it go in to be most effective?

I have been like this for as long as I can remember, low latent inhibition (look it up) is about the closest I can describe these feelings. I see objects and people and rather than see a whole I tend to strip them down into separate elements and emotions that helps gain a better understanding. I do have a knack of judging people from first impressions and can usually tell a lot about them by just talking to them and watching their body language for a short time.

I am going to use this free time from college to catch up on some work that I had neglected just before assignment deadline when I couldn't concentrate. I have one website to do and I showed them my page designs for the assignment and they liked the idea for their own so I am going to try and create something along this theme.

I'm also trying to concentrate on my singing career to try and learn some new songs as this has also taken a back seat since I started college. It's all about keeping things fresh, not just for the audience but for ourselves so that we don't get bored.

How many times do you hear people say "I will do it tomorrow", "I will do that one day", "I've always fancied having a go at that" but never actually get round to it.

My New Years Resolution is to say more frequently: "TODAY I'm going to do this...

...Hold my clothes"

Happy New Year and have a downright prosperous New Year.

PS. 12 years on and I still don't think it's worth learning the entire lyrics to 'Auld Lang Syne' to sing for just 2 minutes per year, it's just not cost effective.

Please Put A Penny in the Old Mans Hat

A few last minute adjustments were called for before handing in the assignment on the deadline. A friend of mine read through it and found a few grammatical errors that I had been oblivious to after reading through it so many times. Even pulling up in the car park I proceeded to give it one final check only to find out that things were just slightly out of order to brief. Phew, all done.It's now a time to relax after what has been a hectic few weeks, work related, personally and academically.

You could sense the sigh of relief among my peers on Thursday. Personalities seemed to change and there was an air of freedom about them which made for a good afternoon of Christmas celebration and personal achievement.

I have met a new circle of friends that I get on well with and feel I can ask them for advice and feel they trust me enough to ask for mine.

What started out a rushed enrolment, it seemed I didn't have time to catch my breath at first and thought a few times that I had made a mistake. I can say that now as I am now 100% sure that I have not made a mistake and still thoroughly enjoy it enough to make it through future semesters.

I have aimed for a merit at least on this assignment as my referral from last time gave me a kick up the backside, I have put in extra effort and managed my time more efficiently, this alone won't warrant a merit or a distinction but can say I did the best that I could with the allocated time and the word count, along with my limited knowledge at this stage, I can only hope I achieve this. Word count was again higher than I needed but I find it's better to take more notes and edit rather than not enough and have to do more research.

I was disturbed to find that when filling out my merit and distinction criteria sheet and asking others for advice that there were some that said they were not bothering and seem to have given up trying to get a better grade. It is so frustrating to see this so early on in the course when there is so much time to improve.

Imagine if Captain Cooke had given up after his first voyage, we wouldn't have Kylie, Neighbours or Dame Edna Everage. Now I know that may be a good thing but what I'm trying to say, (and you know who you are) 'never give up', 'never submit, 'don't just muddle by', 'no retreat, no surrender' etc, etc. I have seen elements of your assignments and you have fulfilled at least 2 of the criteria for merits. I could understand if you were not up to the job, but it is evidently clear that you certainly are, you just need the confidence to know that you are.

Now I have got that off my chest I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.
Goodwill to all men and not forgetting Gemma.

Heres my way of saving a tree.

The Geese are Getting Fat

Due to a few people requesting I post my screen design, here it is.

And yes I had already put the binary code in the title before I saw Scott's, mature minds think alike methinks.

Christmas is Coming

Time is drawing near now to the end of my second assignment. I thought I was really behind until I looked around and found that some of my peers were in the same boat.

Wednesday was very welcome as it allowed me time to finally complete the tedious task of editing my content as my word count was above 5000. I should have realised this sooner after multiplying 75 by the number of sub categories we have and found that it came to nearly 3000, which left less than 1500 words to complete the rest.

After mentioning this to some of the others at lunchtime, it seemed to register with them also and no doubt a few went back in the afternoon and quickly checked their content. I managed to edit it quite well and put all my references in and finished with about an hour to spare.

I had a few questions for Steve which all seem to be answered quite quickly. By this time next week it will be too late to rectify it. I do know that I have learnt from my mistakes from the last assignment and altered the way I work dramatically and Im sure I have included only the required/relevant material. Only the word count limit has held me back but I understand it's there for a reason.

I feel my design is just the way I had planned and I'm more than pleased with the colour scheme for this particular project as I did a bit of research into colour, got ideas from other sources and used my competetive analysis to bring me to my chosen colours for my design. The talk we had about colour the other week seems to have scared people into using only one or two colours with variations in tint seperating them.

Thats now my next job, to make my design in pagemaker which is proving very frustrating with it's lack of features and abilities. It does seem a waste of time making it in this programme as font point size and the fact that high resolution images have to be used with no way of automatic resizing. However, this is what is required to use and this is how I will do it.

I can only look forward to creating this website in the new year as like my Eric Morecambe Website Plan seems a shame not to put it on the web for all to see.

What? No Humour in Dean's Blog?

Not that much to report this week.

Wednesday was a 'crack on with assignment' day which came as quite a blessing as I really needed to start typing all the things I had written in my sketch-book. This assignment seems to have crept up on us quite quickly and I feel that I will struggle to get everything to submission standard by next Wednesday, even though I have done more than my quota of home study (my time sheets will prove that) and this time round I have only done what is required and done nothing that is not relevant. It is a bigger assignment this time as the content proved to be quite extensive, however I have made a conscious decision to try and use a separate resource for each subcategory and I haven’t used wikipedia at all. I read an article about it the other week and found it has massive flaws that are too vast for the owners to sort out. They only tend to concentrate on the important stuff like George W Bush, Tony Blair and other influential subjects.

So I will take this opportunity to say how privileged I am to be on this course. I found out that there were quite a few people who didn’t make the grade to even start the course, never mind complete it. I am enjoying it immensely and look forward to Wednesdays every week, I wish I could have done the full HND course but my time would not allow an extra 16 hours per week.

I can also say that ALL of my peers are a very supportive and easily approachable, a great bunch of people from all walks of life. I try to talk to everyone at some point and always get good feedback. Each has their own little groups at break and lunchtime but that is nature’s way of colonising personality traits.

I am looking forward to getting this A3 assignment out of the way with at least a pass but I am now conscious of the extra work that is needed for merits and distinctions and hope to show that in my sketchbook.

I have always lived my life with a very positive attitude and will only attempt to do things that I think I am good at and know I will enjoy. (one of the reasons I didn’t go Go Karting)

The past few weeks have taught me lots of things that I thought I already knew but didn’t. Not just academically but personally. I have always known I have a flair for design but it’s akin to singing. Anybody can sing in the bath, it’s easy, however to sing on stage with a show that is planned, coordinated, keeps people entertained and give a large amount of self satisfaction all comes with knowledge of your trade, your environment and your target audiences.

This course is now starting to teach me this, which goes to prove you CAN teach an old dog new tricks (although Wikipedia might tell you otherwise) and the master plan is now being realised. If we can achieve this kind of knowledge in a few weeks, imagine what we will be like in 2 years time. I thought the course was expensive when I paid for it out of my own pocket but it looks like you get what you pay for.

I thank you!

Enough evaluation for you Craig?