I'm Bad, I'm Bad, Sh'mone

I am relieved to say the least that another assignment has been handed in. It has been the biggest learning curve so far and has given me a taste of what I want for the future. Being at college has been a real eye opener, it hasn't just been a case a doing the job that is presented to you, it makes you look at things in a whole new light. Opportunities are everywhere and new things that you didn't know about are just 'happened' upon.

It is getting to the stage now where I am looking at work I have done in the past and seeing that it does not meet certain criteria or it is incomplete. I have taken it upon myself to contact a lot of my previous clients and tell them just what a bad job I did and I am sure with what I know now I can do them a much better job. With websites, it has come to fruition that the design and look of a website is only half the job. The functionality, accessibility and usability is the other half and think that both things should be looked at as a separate entity and charged accordingly. Whether these people are willing to pay for this extra input is up to them but my job now is to let them know how important this is.

I did quite a bit of research into search engines, keywords and ranking (see previous blogs) and I have managed to get my assignment website in the top 5 of a Google search when looking for 'your pc explained' & 'pc explained'. This was just an experiment to see if it could be done by using googles' addurl and verification service. I now know that when I do my portfolio I can play up there with the big boys by using the correct keywords and phrases carefully.

I designed a flyer from an old template I made a while ago and have just had 5000 A5's printed. I gave the client a final proof and purposely put an error in it to make sure he had read it correctly. I knew he was not scrutinising it like he should and he didn't pick up on it. However when I sent the design to the printers, they said they had looked at the website that was printed on the flyer and it wasn't there. I quickly realised that I had used .co.uk instead of .com on the flyer without realising. Neither the client, nor I, had seen this error that could have been costly. The cost would have been to the client though and not to me as I had given him a final proof to check thoroughly. Next time I am going to use a similar system that the printers gave to me where you sign a form saying that all has been checked and you are happy with the design.

Incidentally, I shopped around quite a bit for the cheapest and best quality litho prints I could find on the internet and managed to get them for £96 delivered. For 5000 full colour A5’s that’s not bad at all. If you need any they are Fairprint, be warned though, they are the same price for 1000 as they are for 5000 so it is worth getting 5000 and using them as toilet paper for a while.

Looking forward to next Wednesday when we get the next assignment and open up a Pandora’s Box of design wonderments.