Evaluation of Semester One

The first semester has been a sort of insight to what this course, and also the industry is all about. At the beginning of the course I was feeling very confident.

I wasn’t too worried about the first assignment to begin with, the 1k – 2k word essays did bother me at first but I began to understand that it would be difficult to keep under the set word count.

Using the desktop publishing software was difficult, I started by using Adobe PageMaker, it was a lot different to the other software I had used, i.e. Publisher, but one of the main reasons I joined this course was to developed new skills in different software applications.

I also had trouble using Photoshop for developing the first prototype design for the “Chaplin” Site. Before the assignment was sent off I felt that I had done well at the beginning of it and I aimed for a merit, but I knew that the best I could do really was a pass.

Unfortunately I passed only one unit which was the Interactive Media Technologies unit and had failed the Historical Context unit because my references were not set out right. I felt ashamed of myself, but I was later told that I could make up for it in A3 and A4 which made me feel a lot better.

A3 was in my opinion the most difficult assignment of this semester. This was mainly because of the content that I had to find and also because the pictures and the rights to use them. This was basically the same as A2 and consisted of making a web plan, but the twist was that I had to write the content myself. Overall it was a very lengthy process.

In this unit I was also able to develop my site template skills. But instead of using PageMaker, I changed to InDesign which I found a lot easier to use. I feel very happy about screen designs that I have created and I am looking forward to creating the actual website next year.

A4 was totally different to both A3 and A2, it consisted of mainly using Photoshop to restore photos and create web banners, and this unit was my most enjoyable unit because it let me be more creative in my work.

The most difficult part of this particular assignment was the photo restoration task. I was extremely time consuming and fiddly, colouring was the worst part; especially find the right skin tones for each of the men in the photo. It took me 2 attempts to complete this task.

Overall I finding this course enjoyable and challenging, but then again I’ve always loved challenges, I can still say that I am sticking well to my formal statement, I am going to stay on this course and give it my all, the first assignment was helping me settle in it the course, I put a lot of effort into A3 and A4 and will continue to do this throughout the rest of my time here.

Main Goals

Short term – For semester two I am going to aim my work mainly at a merit grade, this is because I have a good feeling about how I have for semester one. I also intend to “Play-About” with the software more. Coming to terms with how everything works in every application that I will no doubt use I the future.

Mid-term – At the end of the course I want to at the very least obtain a pass, I doubt I will get higher than a merit. But will push myself to the limit. I will also want to go and do the top up year to get the full degree for this course. By doing this I will hopefully gain more knowlege about design and have a degree of show for my hard work.

Long-term – After completing the third year and getting my Degree in Interactive Media I am hoping to get employment in the design industry. Whether this be web design, or print design is at this time uncertain to me.

Screen Designs

Comments again Please

Web Banners (Almost Final)

Comments Please

Final Adjustments

This week had a very productive start, to begin with Steve went over the A3 and again explained what was needed to complete and pass the assignment.

After the first break we were able to get straight on with A3 and continue on till lunch, I used this time to redo my screen designs because I felt that I wasn’t happy with what I did last week.

During the afternoon I continued to remake my screen designs, originally I made just 2 designs, one for the content and one for the feedback form, but I have also realise that I have to create a home page template as well.

Later in the afternoon we had a seminar meeting with john Monday and went over A3; just double checking that we understood what had to be done and that I know what to do with my referencing.

Today we began by going over A4 which I presumed we were going to do. After break I altered the web banners, and implemented feedback for those people who sent me it. I will be posting the new web banners on my journal later on and would yet again appreciate feedback.

Anyway, during the afternoon I basically altered everything, including A3 and A4 work. I managed to complete my assets list but still need to obtain some images, mostly for the hardware.

Our seminar group meeting consisted going over what we had for A3 and A4 at the moment. I need to implement couple of things into both units but I am on track and am feeling very confident about finishing the assignments this week.

Objectives for the rest of the week:

• Implement references into A3 and A4
• Obtain feedback for Web banners and implement feedback into them
• Comment Journals
• Evaluate A3
• Evaluate A4
• Get Hardware Photos

P.S. I will also be putting one of my screens designs here during the week, and would appreciate feedback for this also.

Change of Plan

Instead of showing some scanned designs, i have uploaded one of my banners, made in Photoshop.
comments are appreciated.

Referal Feedback

On Monday, the people who had referred (Including Me) were asked go in as usual, but the rest were not to come in till 10.30.


It started off really tense, everyone was dreading the result, and by the look on Steve's face we all knew it was bad. To begin with he asked us a simple question, "if we were given a list of basic instructions, how many could we memorise?” most of use said 4, but there was a small variation.


At first I was a bit confused to why he said this, he went on to talk about referencing and asked us to reference 10 books, in the way we did it in the assignment. So we all did, and low and behold we were all wrong, I then realized why he had asked the question.


Throughout that part of the morning we were being reminded how to set out a reference properly, which was embarrassing, because I should have known this, and memorised it.


At the beginning of the afternoon I was give my personal feedback, I had being dreading this for the past week, and from this morning’s session, that feeling of dread had quadrupled.


As soon as I walked in, Steve asked me a question, “do you want the good news or the bad news?” for obvious reasons I wanted the bad news first, what was that I failed a unit. The good news on the other hand was that I had passed one.


This really confused me, but as he explained I realise that the assignment was split into 2 units. I was overwhelmed, I had expected to total fail but I didn’t, and what the best part is, I can redo it in A3. So in actual fact this is a second chance.


Today we started the new section of A4, which was the creation of 2 static Web Banners; to begin with Steve decided to put a little tension in the room and timed us to do some designs for some “Jazz” artists.


We first started off by doing 4 designs in 6 minutes, which was ok, but the time began to steadily go down, it was 4 designs in 1 minute. This was very intense but also good practice. It was a bit like Marmite, some people liked it, some hated it.


I will be uploading one of my sketches on a new post later this week and would appreciate feedback.


During the afternoon we had our weekly seminar groups with Steve, we were all around the same stage as each other which was good.


And throughout the rest of the afternoon I was developing some prototype banners; I have made a couple of attempts so far and will continue to make more.


Things to do this week:


* Referencing!
* Complete Assets list
* Comment on Journals
* Email Steve
* Complete at least one final banner (both if possible)
* Amend Structure Diagram
* Complete Screen Designs

Down With The Sickness

Although the title sounds a bit obscure; it has a meaning behind it. It is also the name of a song by The Disturbed.

Last week was an extremely hectic week, every night I was up till at least 2 o’clock, doing as much referral work as possible. Every time I thought I had finished, I found something else I had to change. The one thing that took me ages to do was changing the page numbers and trying to order them, it was very messy.

Due to illness on Sunday night, I was off all day on Monday, which I was disappointed about because I had purposely spent all day Sunday writing out notes andproof reading A2

I rested for most of the day and in the afternoon; I decided to print off my Referral Work ready for Tuesday.

During the rest of the afternoon I attempted to finish the Image Restoration task but only got as far as colouring in the middle man. I found it particularly difficult to find a colour for the men’s ties; every colour I tried seemed too outrageous and bright.

Today I managed to get myself out of bed and come into college. The first thing I did was hand in my Referral Work, I felt relived that I now only had 2 assignments to do instead of 3.

Today’s lecture was….well…. not really a lecture it was supposed to be a recap of yesterday work, but unfortunately I wasn’t here yesterday.

We had to design a business card but had to include typographic solutions, which I didn’t have a clue about and struggled with.

The entire classes work was judged by everyone, and mine was the worst and got such a roasting, mostly from Gary, but he was just trying to be awkward.

Throughout the afternoon I continued the Photo Restoration task and managed to find some reasonable colours, which I was pleased with. Later on we had our weekly seminar with Steve, this included looking over the image compression essay and the image restoration task. Unfortunately I have to start the image restoration again I actually admitted that I needed to do it.

These are the tasks I must do this week:

• Complete new Image restoration
• Do Time sheets
• Complete most of A3
• Comment blogs

Restoration Proclamation

Monday morning was rather similar to last Monday, I had just put my foot in the door when I was asked If I had wrote up the notes that I had missed last week, unfortunately I had been busy all week doing my referral work, A2 and A3. So I was sent to the library to write them up. I was followed by the same group of people that were with me last week.

We in the library for the remainder of the morning, this is because we only had one sketchbook to copy from, and there were 6 of us. So one half took the book and copied the notes while the other half of us write out time sheets, I also began to write my delivery requirements in my sketchbook. Half got it done for just after break, the rest of us were stuck there doing it till lunchtime.

In the afternoon I continued my A3 assignment and managed to get most of the deliver requirements out of the way. And as usual our group had a seminar session with John Munday; we talked about problems and such.

Today was a completely different day, this morning Steve gave a seminar on Image restoration; he explained how to use certain tools in Photoshop that could help us do this easily. I'm glad he did this because this is really the first time I have used Photoshop for something like this.

After the seminar, the group were given the image that we had to restore and add colour to, from what I understand it’s the same photo from last year, I’m guessing the year before that as well.

For the duration of the morning I practiced using the tools in Photoshop, it seemed easy enough and I enjoyed it.

In the afternoon it was time to knuckle down, but before that we had a seminar group with Steve, for this seminar we all needed Projects goals, Target Audience, Delivery requirements and Competitive analysis for A3. Steve went over with us what he expected, I had most of it, I just need to add some technologies to the Delivery Requirements.

After seminar I got on with the image restoration task, I found it is quite frustrating when something goes wrong, because you can only go back so far, I had to scrap it and restart several times through out the afternoon but I eventually managed to get the hang off it.

These are the tasks I must complete thought the rest of the week:

• Email Steve when applicable
• Complete A2 referral Work
• Comment blogs
• Write on DAS Forum
• Get first version of image done.
• Continue web plan

Also I urge people to add to the “Send Gary on a Plane to London” Fund. Because were all common according to him.

To PNG or not to PNG that is the Question

This week is going to be so hectic for me, I received my feed back from Steve for my a2 referral yesterday, it seems I have quite a lot of tweaking to do with that, some are minor things that I have missed out, like half of one of my project goals, which I still can’t get my head round.

Yesterday morning, I and a few of the other students were sent to work in the library, this we because we had forgotten to fill out a production schedule. So we all spent the first part of the morning writing it, and figuring out how to use the printer and copier in the library.

The system its self is so confusing it’s unbelievable, you would have thought it would have been simpler.

Throughout the rest of the morning we were all given a brief of how to layout the new web plan, it was basically the same apart from the entire class had the same target audience. The rest of the day consisted of tutorial with John Munday, receiving feedback from Steve and doing the first few tasks for A3.

I managed to complete the Project goals and the target audience and have got half way through the delivery requirements. The only thing I'm worried about is the competitive analysis, I know its going to be difficult trying to find similar websites to the brief we have.

Today we began with 2 presentations from Steve, the first of which was colour space, which spoke of different types of colour libraries, what I can’t understand is why don’t they just have one universal library? It would make it a lot easier in my opinion.

The second presentation was about image compression which I found quite interesting, it described the different formats in which you can compress a bitmap and showed examples on how it’s done.

Throughout the rest of the afternoon I have began the second task on A4 which is about image compression, hence the presentation this morning, so far Ive managed to do some comparing of compression types and formatted them into tables, I have also began to write the essay.

Things to do this week:

Complete A4 essay
Begin Referral work
Continue web plan – get delivery requirements and competitive analysis done
Email Steve
Comment on blogs
Post on DAS forum

Its not all bad news

This Monday was probably the worst day on the course, I had just come back from half term and we were told that we were showing our presentations today.

I was extremely nervous and just genuinely didn’t want to do it. I was called up and presented it in front of Steve. I overshot my 5 minute limit by about 2 minutes; I don’t think that this will be a bad thing at this point.

I felt nervous throughout the whole experience but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Afterward I felt quite please with myself, but I had rehearsed it before and it was under 5 minutes and I was shocked about the change in time, maybe it was just the way I read it.

That afternoon we were put into our new seminar groups and I feel that we will get along really well; they are a good bunch of people. We were given a task to do asking us to produce a list of what we felt the first part of the term was like and I think we did rather well with that.

Then the dreaded news came of our grades, Ive been having doubts about it for the past week so it wasn’t as much as a shock that I got referred, besides, I can make it a pass when I get my feedback from Steve.

More than half of the class got referred, some took it harder than others which are understandable and we are all a team and will support each other through this dark time.

Today I feel a lot more refreshed am confident that I can move my grade up. This morning were put into our seminar groups again and were give a task to answer the question, “Are we Designers? Are we Artists? Or are we both?” we all came to a conclusion that we were in fact designers, after an excruciating Discussion.

We also enjoyed a talk about a cow cut in half that’s at Tate modern in London; I personally really want to go see this.

This afternoon we were asked to investigate into A4 which is Image rights, ironically the first task that I have to do was the question that the class did this morning, hmm…

At about 4 o’clock our seminar group were called in for a session with Steve, we had all created a list of questions that we wanted to ask Steve about the new assignments. All my questions were answered and I'm now on track.

I also have my new domain - Here

Here is a list of the tasks that I must complete for next week:

• Essay on Design and art
• Begin A3
• Produce Production Schedule

Reading Week

Yesterday at 9.00am I Received my Reading week assignment, as we all predicted that it would be a presentation, since the last thing Steve talked about was how to do a presentation.

Low and behold it was, before we left for half term he mentioned that everybody’s task will be different, were all given colours, mine was orange so I have being researching into all things orange.

These are the main areas I have being researching into:

• Culture
• Symbolism
• Fruit
• Retail

Throughout yesterday I was researching into all these areas and saving what information I found. I also incorporated some of the key points into a PowerPoint Presentation and I also made a list of notes that I will have to memorize before Monday.

Yesterday I also did a practice presentation to a friend, and to my surprise it wasn’t as bad as I though it would be. And throughout the rest of the day I studied how to use my body language to my advantage, I have compiled another list of notes of have to have the right stance and also how to keep an audiences attention.

Today I have being elaborating more on my presentation and nearly completed it, although it is only 8 or 9 pages, I will elaborate on them in more depth by ether using my notes or making it up as I go along, not suggesting that I wont learn most of it, but to try to be spontaneous so that it doesn’t seem robotic.

In yesterdays email we were told that we could ask Steve one question, I though about what to ask him throughout the day, and my question I finally asked was if we had to wear formal clothing i.e. a suit.
He responded to this by saying not this time, but now I realise that there were better questions
that I could have asked.

Tonight I will be sure to total finish the PowerPoint presentation and throughout the week I will compile the notes I have into smaller, more meaningful chunks and do further practice into
speaking to an audience.

I know that I will be nervous about giving this presentation this Monday but as Steve said it is natural and I should be worried if I wasn’t.

Task to do throughout the rest of the week

• Finish PowerPoint
• Compile Research
• Practice speaking to an audience

P

Half Term

This Journal entry is to basically keep up with what I have done over the past week and what I intend to do over the half term week. I have downloaded the A3 – Back to BASICS document, read through it and have began to compile a list of questions that I can ask Steve about. One thing I will have to read up on is Coding language, e.g. CSS because I have no I idea how to use it.

I was relived about the assignment being handed in, and I know that everyone is nervous about getting the results, ill admit I am, there were some things that I could have made better if I had the time, and in future I will be sure to save some time if I ever need it.

Throughout last week I played about with Photoshop, because in the last assignment I could have made a better template and I was disappointed with myself about not doing so.

Another thing I must research is Dreamweaver, Ive gotten the basic things figured out but there are still some things I am puzzled about, but I'm sure ill get my head round them, Eventually.

I am also preparing myself for the reading week next week, I am anxious to find out what kind of task Steve will be giving us.

Celebrate good times, Come on !!

Its over, the first assignment is done and has being handed in to Steve, I can honestly say I’m relived its like a big weight has been taken off my shoulders.

I feel pleased with the work I have done, I’m not nervous about what grade I get, if I have got the mark I waned, ill simply ask what needs doing and get on with it and work on it to get the grade that I seek.
Unfortunately, Steve is changing the seminar groups, I was getting used to the people in mine but C’est La Vie.

Last night, I realised that I had to print off a CD label for my work, I know that I should have done this weeks ago, but I went to PC World and got a manual labeler, which cost £9.99, which was lucky to say I only had a £10 note on me.

It took me a while to get it printed, because I had to open up a template in Photoshop, edit it, convert it to a PNG, and then print it off on the family computer, because my Printer is on the fritz.

I printed my work out last night, but this morning realize that I had missed a few things, so I managed to get one thing printed off and would you know it, I run out of paper, I was running up and down the house trying to find some, one hour later I found some under a pile of newspapers, I still don’t have a clue how they got there.

After the hand in this morning, we were given a lecture about Presentations, and how to do one effectively, ill admit, I’m abit nervous, because I’ve always hated doing them, but I think if I follow what Steve has told us, I know I will be able to do this.

We were given a couple of tasks to do over the Half Term, one is basically to do another Blog enter about the half term week, but I will probably end up trying to use Dreamweaver, because I think were going to be using it in the next assignment.

I now know that it won’t be long before the next assignment, so over the next two weeks:

• Week 1: Relax, recollect myself.
• Week 2: Prepare for second assignment, complete the reading week work.

For the rest of the week I’m going to re collect myself and prepare for what is next, I know it’s going to be a lot harder than this assignment, but now I think I’m getting used to it, and if, so bring it on.

And so i face, the final curtain

The end of the assignment is drawing near, this time next week it will all be over, I’m relived I must say but the week I’m going to push my self to the limits.

Over the past couple of weeks I feel I’ve been stressed a lot more than I usually am, I’m getting the work done but I keep finding mistakes.

For example, I received feedback of Steve earlier and I found that I have various things missing and that the format for my work is completely wrong. I have a lot to this week, and I know that I’m going to be up all hours doing it.

One of my main problems for this week is my tables I have created, I’ve done them completely wrong, I've drawn them using a box and lines but in InDesign there is a table tool which I have only just today discovered. I should really learn to read things more.

Yesterday we had our weekly seminar group with John, our task for last week was to do a checklist of the tasks that we were doing last week, but we had to break it down, I did this, but didn’t word process it, so that is one of my tasks to do for this week, I must also make an index for my sketchbook, which will be easier for Steve to find my work for the assignment.

I’ve had to go into the library and get another book and use it to reference a couple of the things I’ve missed. I wish I had gotten this book earlier, it has the entire web plan mapped out at the beginning of the book, I think if I had gotten it earlier I would have has this assignment done by now.

Although I have found I still have quite a bit to do, I see no reason what I should not have the full assignment finished by Tuesday, if not Monday.

Here is a list of the Task I need to do this week:

• Create Tables properly
• Reference FTP
• Find more Paper-based references
• Format the assignment in accordance with the handbook
• Recreate Budget Statement
• Reference the Sketchbook
• Buy tabs for binder
• Find the HEX Information for the colours used in the screen designs
• Hand in the completed assignment on Tuesday morning

And now, the end is near.....

Well nearly the end of my first assignment anyway, I’ve got a lot of work to do this week, I’m not behind, I just need to do a little tweaking here and there. What I need to do this week is complete the last three tasks of the assignment, I'm sure that the only one I’m going to struggle with is the screen design.

Yesterday Steve went over the template we will be using to import the written work into, and also how the entire assignment should be laid out, which in my opinion helped a lot because for the competitive analysis I made a table for the SWOT analysis.

It seems that the text I wrote in that doesn’t count really so I’ve had to write a few paragraphs to summarize both sites and to explain what good parts of the sites I will use in my own.

I’ve began to create the design template for my site in Photoshop but I’m not sure how to go about it, I’m trying to create a retro design since I’m doing it about Charlie Chaplin I’ve not really use it before and I do feel that I need help.

I managed to get permission to use an image on the template, I found it on a fan site and asked her permission to use it, she replied saying that I have to email www.charliechaplin.com. I did this and told them why I needed it and to my shock they said yes. I’ve taken screen shots of both emails and put them in my sketchbook.

For John Mundays Seminar, we were split into groups of for and were given tasks to do for the week ahead, we were also given feedback for last weeks Seminar and were given some tips on how to check for grammar errors properly, in-case spell checker doesn’t get them all.

All day today I have being doing as much on page maker as I can, I downloaded PageMaker 7 Trial for at home, so I could complete the rest of my work, but its not opening the .T65 or the .P65 files, and I’m unsure why.

Its clear that my only option at the moment is to attempt Adobe InDesign, I’ve heard that’s its more complex to use that PageMaker, but in the end the work has to be done, by any means necessary.

I have set myself some goals for the week ahead, they are as follows:

· Complete competitive analysis

· Complete Screen Designs

· Create and complete assets List

· Create and complete Budget Statement

· Ensure all written work is spell checked and completed

· Attempt to use Adobe InDesign to compile work

· Sort out and arrange References

· Begin Evaluation

…..So Basically Complete the Assignment

Those Links I Promised

Here are a couple links to the sites i have being useing for the Sketchbook

DeviantART

Worth 1000

Written Work / Pagemaker

This week has being challenging, I had to get most of the written work out of the way yesterday, this includes all of the first 4 tasks of the assignment, ill admit, I haven’t completely done them all yet but I have got most of it done. I have also started to put my references into a separate document; I will be putting these into the final version of my work.

I also had my first tutorial with John Munday, we went over my personal statement and it seems that I need to elaborate on a few things, I don’t disagree with him, reading through it again shows that some of it doesn’t make sense so I will be doing the redraft for personal study. We also went over the email Steve sent out, john asked my how may times have I checked my mail this week, truth is, if I'm online I will check my email every 30 minutes, I got told not to do that, so I’ve been told to check them regularly, not as regularly as that, confused?... I know I am.

Today Steve taught us how to use Adobe PageMaker; this is the application I will be using to make my site template. It will also be used to create the remaining 4 tasks of the assignment. This is also the same software we will be using to print out the entire assignment once it is written up.

At first Steve gave a lecture on it and naturally I took notes, then he asked the class to follow the instructions and create a newspaper article. I was rather simple to use, and even though he told us how to resize boxes, which we all knew before, I still wrote it in my Sketchbook, just for future reference.

Ill admit though, this afternoon the entire class including myself were unprepared for our seminar groups, and Steve didn’t take to it well, we all ended up finding out about the web accessibility points. We didn’t task about them much In the seminar but I have been told that I am not leaving any comment to all of you, so you may be receiving a comment form me very soon.

My scrapbook is coming along rather well; I’ve found some great inspiration and also some humor which is always good, ill post a few links up that I have used later on this week.

Overall it’s been a good week, I’ve learned a how to use Page maker, which is the most important thing for this assignment.

This is what I will be doing throughout the rest of the week:

• *Complete all written work in word
• *Rewrite Personal Statement
• *Play With PageMaker
• *Develop Scrapbook
• *Create Draft templates for site
• *Research Jakob Nielson
• *Take notes on Web accessibility

Time sheet troubles

I’m in a spot of bother with Steve at the moment, I was in my first tutorial with him today and he noticed I haven’t being filling in my time sheets properly, I was supposed to fill in the “Production Schedule” at the beginning of last week, and I had only filled in the first box.

Steve said I was cheating and told me to write about it in my “Online Learning Journal” and from now on to write it in at the beginning of the Assignment. He also sent out an email last week and we agreed to reply to it with 48 hours, I checked my emails everyday except Friday night and Saturday. And guess what, he sent it Friday night. Typical....

Anyway, we were given a library tour on Monday, well when I say a tour I mean sitting at computers and briefly viewing the policies and being told how the printer works, this is all good information, but we were told it would last for an hour. In fact it lasted exactly 14 minutes, so I was rather confused about that, as was everyone else.

Someone from the financial department came in today, I explained to her that I had sent off my letter to them and had not yet received my grant. I'm now starting to get worried about this, so I have being told to phone up and ask them when I will get it, kind of push them along, so that is in my to-do list.

Throughout the week I have being rather busy, I had to go back and edit my “Project Goals” because I didn’t feel that some of them were relevant. I also have to edit the “Target audience”, and it is still ongoing.

Although fortunately, I have completed most of the “Delivery Requirements” task, I still need to find statistics to backup my assumption of what percentage of people aged 45 – 60 use the internet and I also have to research scripting languages like XHTML and CSS.

At the moment I have wrote approximately 1000 words in the assignment, and I’m not even half way through it yet so I’m rather pleased about that.

Conclusion

Overall I believe I have done well this week and think that the punishment I received off Steve was uncalled for… Only kidding.

My main targets for the rest of the week are as follows:

• Complete the first three tasks of the assignment
• Develop Scrapbook
• Complete weekly time sheet
• Complete SWOT Analysis
• Develop skills in Photoshop and Dreamweaver
• Phone Student Finance

Big thanks to Craig Burgess

I recently visited Craig Burgess’s site and found this link, I think it will come in hand for all of us.

Thanks Craig

A new course, a new assignment, or two....

This week we received our first assignments (which are combined into one). I didn’t know what to expect for it but I feel that as a first assignment, it seems fairly straight forward, although I was surprised to how much time we were given to complete it, and found it was very generous. I was worried at first about the amount of writing we had to do, the assignment has to be between 1.5k to 2.5k words. I am still worried, but now im worried that I will go over the given amount.

The assignment itself is to create a website plan of a famous Britton, we were given a list of around 200 people, but I immediately found who I wanted to the assignment about.

I chose the most famous Slapstick artist ever; Charlie Chaplin, I chose him because he is one of the funniest people of all time and his shenanigans have always made me laugh.

I also had my first seminar today, id never been to one before, so I dint know what to expect. We were split into groups of 4, and were given last years sketchbooks to look through, I was looking at the sketches that they had done for the site template.

Im so relived that the sketches aren’t as artistic as I though because, well, I am terrible at drawing. We also went over the first part of our assignment which was the goals, it was good to see what goals other people had done, but it made me feel small, knowing the fact that it took me ages think of a goal of my own.

There is a lot of research involved in this task, and this morning I was struggling to find some of my own website goals, and it took me longer than I thought, which is never good and I'm still not happy with the list I have, so I will have to do more research into this when I get home.

The best part of this week for me is probably receiving the first assignment, because I enjoy challenges, and over the summer it has being very boring, I feel it’s good to be “back in the saddle” so to speak.

My targets for the rest of the week are:

1. Think of more “Goals” for the first part of the assignment
2. Complete the “Target Audience” section of the Assignment
3. Continue “Scrapbook” Work
4. Start “Delivery Requirements”

Personal Statement

Where I’ve come from

My interest in computer media first started in high school, in year 10 I chose to do a course called GNVQ ICT. This course gave me a tasted of how to use the internet efficiently; this course also allowed me to develop my creativity skill, not in website design but in the form of leaflets and posters.

After high school I went to Wakefield College and join the GCE in Applied ICT course, this was situated on Margaret Street. At first, I tried to apply for the higher course which was a BTEC National Diploma, but I was unable to get into the course because I didn’t obtain a grade C in my maths and English at high school, fortunately I managed to pass both subjects at grade C this year.

During my course I learned many things, how to set up a network, how to take apart and build a PC, but I feel the most important topic we covered was how to create a website. Unfortunately the software that the college used was Microsoft FrontPage, so I felt i couldn’t make a website to my full potential. Our work had to be submitted in eBook form so we learned how to make the links work on every page, it took some people alot longer to figure this out that others.

Where I’m going

In 10 years time, I see myself doing website design as a profession, I would also like to own my own business, go freelance and develop websites for a variety of companies.
I would also like to repair computers and do this as well as web development; I feel it’s good to do a variety of things rather than doing one constant job.
One of my other interests has being building computers; it’s something I really enjoy, so I hope to maybe go into business on my own or perhaps with a friend.


How I’m going to get there

I’m going to use the course to get me where I want to go, and I will also develop my skills at home in my spare time, learning new things with all different pieces of software.
I have never used most of the software that is used in this course so I feel it will be a good challenge to get to grips with them.

I will also search for artistic inspiration everywhere I go, perhaps even buy a camera, because inspiration can be found everywhere and I need to find it to develop different styles, so every piece of work I do doesn’t look the same.

I also think that learning code will be an advantage, the only programming codes I know at the moment are VB and HTML. I would like to learn more code languages because as well as the designing part of the course.
I feel knowing the code behind it is just as important, I will also learn how to manage my time properly; this course is going to test my time keeping, I intent to work to the best of my ability throughout the course.