Today I visited the library and looked through several books to find graphic design work that inspires me and could possibly have an effect on my practice as a web designer. I found a book called ‘Graphic Designer’s Digital Printing & Prepress Handbook’ Rockport publishers that contained work I found really interesting.
I found a piece on page 95 was about colour images and how replacing CMYK process inks with fluorescent substitutes. There was before and after images of the difference made by making this change. I believe colour is a really important aspect within web design, when looking at the difference between the images I can see how using better choice of colour improves the quality of the image itself and is viewed more positively.
I wanted to look at type and logos to give me inspiration as I believe I struggle with choosing appropriate fonts in my work to reflect the site purpose and style. From the research I have carried out I have found a style of logo I prefer; small icon/image followed by text. I prefer this as it is striking but clearly states the brand name as well as logo.
I have taken on the role of designing a homepage concept for the group website. I have started my design today. I wanted to create a quirky design with a fresh appearance. I have learnt new skills in Illustrator when creating my tree image using the pen tool.
This is the tree image I have created using Illustrator. I then decided to add fruit to it to make it more interesting and colourful. On each piece of fruit I want to add a label with students names on. These will link to that persons portfolio page.
Today I have entered the Northern Design Competition. I entered a piece the work I did on TATTI with two other students, Jen and Nat as I felt this was the best design work I had. I asked their permission before I did so and we have entered as a group. Ideally I would have entered my own work and worked on something to submit however, today is the last chance to enter this competition and I have been too busy working in Tiger as well as on my freelance module l and other aspects of PPD. This is a screen shot I took to verify I entered the competition.
I am hoping to enter the College Blackboard competition, re-designing the logo and re-naming it.
AD110 – TATTI (Group feedback)
Libby said overall our reflections were good but she is worried that development work is suffering due to the vast amount some people write.
Feedback from Orange Bus – Libby said they were impressed by the amount of work achieved in the short timescale set as well as the quality of the designs.
Personal feedback
My reflection for this module was good as I discussed both the good and bad aspects throughout the project however, I need to try avoid using issues I have throughout projects as excuses and find ways to work around them.
I am really happy with the mark I got for my portfolio, it is the highest mark I have got for this section of the module. I have clearly shown my role in this module within this. From this feedback I have learnt not to include mock-up pages as examples of how a page could look as it looks unfinished to clients. One of the prints was blurred which looked unprofessional too. I will avoid these issues in the future.
AD108 – Flash (group feedback)
The feedback for reflection for this module was basically the same as her comments on AD110.
Portfolio – Overall good portfolios however, some people forgot to include the storyboards we did at the beginning of this module with the animation teacher. Having group feedback on our movies before the deadline would have been better as some people wanted to make changes after feedback received after the deadline.
Personal feedback
My reflection was also good in this module. My extensive research was good as I covered both software and styles which covered the learning outcome set. The research I did into styles made my project much stronger as my development clearly relates to this research however, I could have experimented more. My completed animation looked good and flowed well, peer feedback confirms this. In the future I would include more sound within the movie as I think this would have pulled it altogether.
Today Laura and Julie Sharpe visited and gave a talk on applying for jobs/placements and how to create a professional C.V to sell myself to employers. I found this talk very informative as I learnt all the aspects required to apply with agencies in the future that I didn’t know before.
Laura told me how to structure my C.V. I need to have my name, contact details and profile link at the very top of my document to ensure these are clear to the viewer as soon as they access my C.V. By including my portfolio link I will enable them to find out more about me in their own time. I will also include a personal profile section below. This will give me the opportunity to tell the employer a bit about myself. By doing this they will be able to understand the type of person I am and allow me to sell myself to them. Below this section I will have my educational information. Laura advised me not to list all of my grades but to cover them in a simple sentence e.g. I have 9 GCSE’s including Maths and English grades A-C. I will include my work experience and job history as well as a section on my interests and Achievements. At the bottom of my C.V I will include 2 references. This will enable the employer to contact them if they want to find out about me.
Tips on writing my C.V.
Font- keep the font basic to ensure it is easy to read whether scan reading or reading in full.
Keywords- include the keywords used in the job description within my C.V so employers can relate to this.
Don’t list- try to avoid listing grades etc.
Proof read- ensure there are no spelling/grammar mistakes.
I am going to write my own C.V following these instructions. I have Julie and Laura’s email addresses and I am also going to follow them on Twitter. When I complete my C.V I will send it to them to check through and give me feedback. This will enable me to apply for placements and jobs in the future.
Today I took part in a global online event with Adobe. This event was to launch CS5. I registered with Adobe to take part in this event several days ago. I signed in today at 4pm to watch the launch online. The event lasted about 40 minutes, I was amazed at the improvements to software I use such as Dreamweaver and Photoshop. The launch also covered software such as Flash, Illustrator, InDesign etc. however I was mainly interested in the software I require.
The event consisted of several members of Adobe discussing the software they specialised in. Each member shared a couple of their favourite improvements to the software and provided a demo of the new/improved tools.
Photoshop
I was really intrigued at what Photoshop had to offer and really didn’t know what to expect. I was impressed if the new natural and realistic brush tool which enabled you to create paintings from scratch or paint over an existing image with the ability to alter aspects such as: how much paint is applied to the brush, the type of material of the brush tip and other factors such as the shading and tone of colours you are able to create. The example shown was really effective and created a digital image that had a very personal feel due to the hand-painted style it exerted. Within this demo it also showed a new tool which enables you to add pins into an object to distort the image with accuracy and add definition to the object.
Another thing I was really impressed with was the way in which Photoshop now judges what the background looks like behind an object and fills in the background (how it should look) when the object is removed from the image!!! Removing the object has been made much easier as accuracy has been improved massively with the selection tool.
Dreamweaver
Dreamweaver has a new live view option, this enables you to view how the product would look online within dreamweaver itself. There is also a browser testing facility within Dreamweaver that enables you to test how your product looks in a range of browsers making it easy to view problems. As if this wasn’t good enough there is an option to compare the views side by side or use the onion skin tool to layer different views to compare differences.
I am really pleased I joined in with this event and feel I have learnt a lot in the space of 40 minutes that will revolutionise the way I work in the future.
Today I found a CSS trick tutorial on http://css-tricks.com. The CSS trick I found was called ‘image switcher’. This tutorial was very interesting, I did have some small issues at times where my work didn’t look the same as shown in the tutorial but I overcame this with some little alterations. I will definately use this trick in my work as I beleive it is very effective in creating an interesting appearance for users. I am very pleased with the outcome of this tutorial.
Above is my final outcome of the tutorial. When a user hovers over the text below the image, the image switches to the image assigned to that specific text.
I have worked on my freelance project all day and have almost completed the design for the homepage, about me, portfolio and contact page. I am happy with my progress however, I feel as if i’m falling behind on my PPD. Tomorrow I am going to do several tasks for my personal development.
Today I have registered with Adobe for the CS5 launch event on April 12th. I’m not to sure what this involves but really interested to find out. I received an email about this event from Adobe as I signed up with them to trial their software.
Since researching several web designers work and existing websites I haven’t been able to put my inspiration into action. I am working a lot at Tiger Tiger over easter which is getting in the way of my progress on my personal development. I am going to catch up on work this week. I want to look into javascript this for both my personal website as well as my freelance project.
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April 27, 2010 4:03 pm | 
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