James Bell | HND Interactive Media | Online Learning Journal Year 2

A visit from The Design Mechanics

| Thursday 27 September 2007

A big eye opener for me this week was the presentation from Dave, Jemma and Oliver from The Design Mechanics and also the work that was presented by the second years.

After a little bit of a late start Dave Pannell soon got into his stride and started talking to us about the work that is done at The Design Mechanics and how they are completely unique from any other design agency in the UK.

The information that was given in the presentation I found very useful especially about the time scale of projects. When Dave said that they would usually only spend between about an hour creating a logo for a company I was really shocked and I think that it is information like this that is difficult to absorb when Steve or John is telling me.

I also found it very useful to see the link between studying on the course and working for a professional design agency through Jemma and Oliver. It was good to hear them talking about there experiences and they have adapted to going from the course to working professionally.

PageMaker and Accessibility

| Tuesday 25 September 2007

A large part of the focus of this week was looking at accessibility and the accessibility standards. After researching the guidelines I found them very interesting but sometimes a little bit difficult to understand or interpret.

After reading the guidelines and receiving an e-lecture from Steve I applied guidelines 1.1, 2.2, 4.2, 12.3 and 14.1 to my online learning journal. I also made other changes such as the template, the header and the title of my blog to make it professional and assessable.

The next major focus on the course this week was learning to use Adobe® PageMaker® and I felt that was very useful. We preformed a small exercise to create an article style piece based on Nikki Iles.

During this exercise I felt that I learnt a lot about how to construct designs and how professional pieces of work are created. I also feel that it will be useful to learn Adobe® PageMaker® first and then move on to learn Adobe® InDesgin® as I will enable me to already have a good knowledge of DTP (Desktop Publishing) software and this should make the transition smoother.

Work rest and play but don't lose away

| Tuesday 18 September 2007

First thing Monday morning Steve gave us a lecture on all the information we would need to complete the delivery requirements and he especially focused on web hosting. This helped me gain a better understanding of what all the technological terminology and what it means. It also helped me to understand what I to look for when picking a web host based on the individual needs of the website.

The lecture in the morning really helped me as I went over some of the stuff we had last week and it helped to refresh my memory. After the lecture I decided to crack on with the work and try and get a large portion of the delivery requirements done especially researching web hosts so that I could spend most of my time on Tuesday completing the rest of the delivery requirements.

Nice idea in principal but due to the restrictions placed on the college internet I was unable to do most of the research on web hosts. This turned out to be good news as I now had an extra day to research for my delivery requirements.

Tuesday morning came even quicker after the defeat of Newcastle United to Derby. As a Newcastle fan I should be used to disappointment but this was on a scale I wasn't prepared for. This gave Steve a golden opportunity for a Sunderland fan and the friendly banter gave him much delight. I will have my revenge eventually!!!

After completing the majority of the delivery requirements it was time for seminar groups which enabled me to ask plenty of questions about the assignment and discuss the assignment but it was mainly my objective to deflect Steve away from his sly comments about Newcastle's failing.

Improvements I would make this week are that I need to try and gather more inspirational work for my sketchbook as I know this will help me be more creative in the future.

My targets for next week are that I want to have completed the delivery requirements and to complete the competitive analysis part of the assignment. This will allow me to focus on my screen designs next week.

Wake Up Call !!!

| Tuesday 11 September 2007

Just two days of college a week sounds great, it is great but the early mornings aren't!!!

This week I received the first assignment for the course and was finally able to see the level of work that would be required for each assignment. Having seen the assignment some of my fears have been eased after a week of wondering and waiting. After going through the assignment with Steve in the lecture on Monday and taking part in the seminar groups today I now have a clearer view of how things work and what is expected.

At the start of the week I was a little bit shocked with the amount of notation that was required to be taken and how quickly my sketchbook was filling up, will it last the year???? or the even the first assignment ????

Research was another area of the week that took me by surprise as previous research I have done had only taken me half and hour to an hour, depending on how interesting the lesson was. This isn't the case on this course as research is an essential aspect of the course and I now realize the importance of research and once again take notes.

Self study has also been highlighted as a major area of the course and the use of my sketchbook as a scrapbook so that I can collect and analysis design work that inspire. I believe that this is a great idea and it will help me to improve my design and also see what i may be able to achieve in the future.

The main area I would improve on is my time management as after filling out my weekly time sheet I feel that I underestimated the amount of time many of the tasks would take me to complete. By next I hope to have completed my target audience profile so that I move on the the next area of the assignment in keeping with my production schedule.

Formative Statement

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During my third year at high school I achieved a grade C in GSCE IT and this was the first time I had regular access to a PC. During my GSCE I spend most of my time using Microsoft Office and Microsoft Excel and this helped me gain a good knowledge of these applications which has helped me during my further studies.

As I had achieved my GSCE, in IT, during year 9 I decided that I should study Media Studies instead of ICT during years 10 and 11 as this would help discover more about design. I also felt that it would allow me develop skills that would help me in the future such as; how to annotate and analyse media on a basic level.

After leaving high school I attended Leeds College of Technology and there I enrolled on the BTEC National Diploma in IT Practitioner: Software Development course as I felt this would give me a good overview of software development and improve my general computing skills.

On this course I completed a variety of different modules from computer systems to website management and these gave me a good overall basis of the IT sector. During the course I discovered that I enjoyed planning, designing and creating website and I was very interested in taking this passion further when I finished the course. To help do this I applied for the HND Interactive Media at Wakefield College.

During my time on the HND Interactive Media course at Wakefield College I hope to be able to greatly develop my skills in all aspects of my designs. I also hope gain a better understanding and gain more experience using various pieces of software such as; Photoshop, Dreamweaver etc… I also hope to gain more work related experience so that I can gain a wider understanding of the industry and how to work with clients. During my time on the course I hope to build up a portfolio of work so that I can show prospective employers the quality and variety of my work.

Whilst on the course I will be aiming to meet a number of targets to ensure that I get the most out of the course and help me develop my skills. The main target that I will set myself is to at least pass all the assignments first time. Another target I will set myself is that I would like to improve my skills with the software that I will be using inside and outside of college hours as I feel the more comfortable I get with software the better my overall design process will be and the more confident I will be when creating my design.

After finishing the course I hope to do some freelance to help bolster my portfolio and this will also help display the variety of my work. After building up my portfolio I hope that in the future I hope to work as a designer for a design studio producing a high standard of work. I would primarily want to be a website designer but I would also like to be involved graphic design.