Evaluation of PPD

I am really pleased PPD work. I believe I have achieved a lot over this module. I am going to continue to learn new skills over the summer as I found it a really rewarding experience teaching myself.

I am happy with the time scales I set for my completion dates of tasks. Although, I found it hard to juggle this project with my freelance project, I managed to achieve the majority of my aims on time. I achieved several a couple days late but I completed them non the less. I am really disapointed I didn’t get my C.V done but I am going to do this after hand in. I will have more time to search for placements then and alter my C.V to suit individual agencies. I want to do this properly as it is a very important aspect. When I have completed my C.V I will send it to Laura at Sharpe recruitment to give me feedback. I think I could have pushed myself to achieve this timescale however, I was worried about my re-design and build of my website. I didn’t want this to be comprimised as this is a very important part of this module.

This project has massively built my confidence. I never thought I could achieve what I have myself. I am now taken on a professional freelance project as a result of this module. My freelance project also had a boost on my confidence.

This is the homepage of my site. I am really happy with the outcome I have achieved although, it took me several attempts to get to this I believe it has created a stronger designer.

I have found it really challenging working on my freelance project as well as PPD and also juggling this with my job in a nightclub. At times I have felt I have neglected learning new skills as the work load has been huge! Over the summer I am going to have a lot more time on my hands to develop myself further. I am looking forward to having this opportunity as I have enjoyed learning the new skills I have throughout this module. I have found it really rewarding accomplishing aims I never thought I could achieve alone.

This is my header design. I have used a bold colour subtly to highlight the keywords within this text and altered the opactity on the ‘&’ to create a faded appearance to ensure it doesn’t over-power the main content however, still serves the purpose it was intended for.

I am going to keep my website consistent throughout by using the bright pink subtly for aspects such as: borders, headers and also navigation hover overs.

It was an interesting talk as it was straight to the point and didn’t drag on. I seemed to take more in because of this. Gavin has been a designer for about 6 years as well as a writer and communicator (as he likes to call himself). He expressed his thoughts on creativity and made it clear everyone has the ability to be creative at any age however, creativity can be stunted whilst in education. I kind of agree with this as project briefs at college determine the route I go down to complete it. He confirmed my beliefs that creativity is a case of “‘trial and error”, creating a design you like one day and hate the next is very common in the creative industry. I am more than aware of this having completely changed my personal website design today!

He also said “Learn from others but don’t copy”. This is a very good statement as I do look at existing websites on CSS mania for inspiration and ensure I create a different design whilst taking into consideration what I have found.

Gavin suggested to look at gregorywood.co.uk and also jasonsantamaria.com. I found Gregory Woods site was quite hard to use, it wasn’t very clear however, I really liked the style he used on his post ‘ellis on the beep’.

I have always been thankful for feedback as it has enabled me to achieve better designs in the past and will improve my practice as a web designer in the future. Gavin suggested sending snippets of work such as the banner of a site to friends or family for feedback, if the feedback provided is good, work with it! I am going to do this for all of my future projects.

I am really excited to get my site online now, I just need to finish it! I am happy with my progress with my site,  i’m confident I will have it completed by the course deadline, May 14th.

The atmosphere seemed very friendly and relaxed and overall a good environment to work, I think this is mainly due to the size of the company and the closeness in which they work together.

I spend a lot of time talking to Mark Forster (co-founder of Hedgehog). I really enjoyed finding out about what he does within the company, the software the company has been producing over the last few years and looking at a project they recently completed.

Hedgehog have developed software such as Fixx and Soloman. Mark showed me Soloman and explained how they originally made for their company  however, they have made it available for other small companies and freelancers. Soloman is a CRM and contact management system that enables professionals to organise their contacts, appointments, notes etc. easily.

Mark showed me the project they recently completed for Rockliffe Hall. They created the booking system on this website. I asked how long this project took them and if it all went to plan, originally it was a 4 month project however, the project didn’t go to plan and the project took about 9 month and cost more than originally expected. This made me feel more comfortable with my organisational skills knowing that even companies have problems with timescales.

I am now following Mark, Sarat, Jonny and Craig on Twitter. I will be able to keep track of Hedgehog labs work and find out more about the company now.

I found Lightbox on the internet and downloaded all the files provided.  I followed the online instructions however, it didn’t work! I tried for ages to get it up and running but failed. I asked Libby for help but there was still issues that couldn’t be resolved with Lightbox.

I am going to try this again or find an alternative. I don’t think I will achieve this before the hand in but I will work on this aspect over the summer holidays.

I have found this site : http://opiefoto.com/articles/photoslider which looks really interesting. It provides a tutorial of how to create a java script image slider.  I am hoping to try this out soon.

I have been asked by a friend to design and build a website for his company. He has several auto companies in the area that he needs to promote as well as advertise stock. He has an existing website he created himself however, it isn’t great. I am really pleased I have got this opportunity to put my skills into practice in a real professional project at the same time as building up my portfolio. Oh i’m also getting paid (big thumbs up!)

I will use my new website to display the completed site and also display blog posts on the project.