My Reflection- something I never get tired of.

First of all it is quite fair to say that I can’t believe how fast this year has flown by. It doesn’t seem like long ago at all that I was sat writing my statement explaining what I wanted to achieve on the course.

When I first started the course this year I wasn’t sure what to expect, previously my experience of education has been from a very artistic point of view and so this was completely new territory for me.

What I soon discovered was that I was required to be much stricter with my learning and evidence of learning; this has been one of the most difficult habits to break. I can see looking back that I have been allowed to get into some lazy habits on the courses that I have completed in the past.

I feel now I have broken the habit and in this past project I’ve really seen the benefit.

When I chose to study on this course my intention was to learn some graphic design skills for print also improve my typographic skills and most importantly, for me, become proficient with web design.

Going right back to the beginning our first project was to produce a web plan and come up with our first idea for a website. The idea was to pick a famous person from a list of ‘Great Britons’ and then come up with a design for a site based on them.

My decision came down to Picking Guy Fawkes or Queen Victoria, my decision was based on these two people as I felt that I could come up with the most creative response for their personas.

In the end my decision was to go with Queen Victoria, I feel this was a good decision as I was very pleased with the end result.

What I felt I learnt on this project was mostly about the course and how we were expected to produce and present our work. In addition we also did research into existing websites and so this gave us an idea of what we should design.

A lot of theory on web design and graphic design was given to us also at the beginning of the course and so it was good to put this into practice in producing these design layouts. I learnt about using Photoshop in a new way as a tool for producing measurement correct images and resizing images.

This was new to me as I have only used it before for illustration, looking back I can see that my file sizes were really quite large.

The following project was one in which we would again produce a wed plan and web design, but in this instance we would be designing with the intention to actually build the site.

This was a very exciting prospect for me as this was what I had signed up for. I really couldn’t wait to get my first website under my belt.

I suppose a lot of the excitement had a lot to do with an underlying worry that I wouldn’t be capable of actually doing web design and so it was important to me that I got this out of the way.

Whilst completing this second project we had more theory given to us about colour and other design principles. I always appreciated learning these subjects as I feel they contribute a lot to successful design.

Once this project had come to and end we submitted a web plan and our screen designs as we had in the first project, which had been almost like a dry run, we now were going to produce the finished product.




This was the screen design I submitted and I was very pleased with it. The way in which I approached the design was to come up with them. The project had been to produce a web site that was to teach a computer novice the basics of computers and what all the jargon meant.

I felt that if I didn’t come up with an artistic response to the brief then I would end up with a rather dull page. I came up with the idea of grass roots and the idea just flowed on from there.

The response I came up with gave me a boost as I felt that it showed my potential as a graphic designer to create something quite attractive when presented with, what would seem, an uninteresting subject matter.

It was after the Christmas/ New Year break that we returned to college to start production of our websites. I think everyone was itching to get on with this, even the people who had previous experience of making websites.

We were given a lecture on how to use Dreamweaver, as we have been with all the programmes we have been required to use, and this was really useful to learn some of the basic layout and the commands.

We were then set free and asked to produce the site, some people tackled the site head on, I myself wanted to learn a bit more and so completed the tutorial that was built into Dreamweaver.

I felt now I had enough knowledge to crack on and I think the best way to learn is by doing. Often the best way to learn is just to get stuck in, its like when you get lost in the car and then find your way again, you never forget the route afterwards.

Progress was quite slow at first as I made a few attempt to make my basic page layout, all of them failed, about five of them. When I finally built a perfect version of my page and realised how I had done it, it all seemed pretty easy. The way in which I built the site was to think of it in terms of building blocks, to piece it together like a big jigsaw, this realisation I think will help me with design in the future.

One consideration of this though is that this is a principle of building in tables and cells. I know next year we will be learning CSS which may be completely different.

The website all went well and the design I came up with was this http://www.drewellis.co.uk/

I got some really good feedback about my completed design and this has really restored confidence in me and my abilities in design.

During this term I had the opportunity with some of my peers to visit ‘The Design Mechanics’ which was a great experience, I enjoyed going into a design studio and seeing how it functioned. I think this is such a benefit to have seen as it removes the mystery element, it gives you an idea of where your path is leading.

This experience was backed up by visits from past students of the course who have come in to talk about their places of work.

This brings me up to date and to talk about the final project which we are just about to submit.

On receiving the brief I have to say that I was a bit disappointed that we weren’t going to be immediately building another website, for the HNC. I had been looking forward to using Flash as I know a little of this program and that it is used to make animations which I think I would be quite good at.

However I then realised that this would give me opportunity to improve my Graphic design skills, the brief asked us to produce a CD album cover and logo for a record company.

Right at the very beginning of the course I said I wanted more experience of design work for print, its also something I had reiterated to Dean recently too.

So I was happy to forgo the web designing, although at one stage I was about to accept the challenge of doing the full HND brief and produce a website too, I am extremely happy that I didn’t.

I think it took a while but I finally started to use my sketchbook more extensively to do more development work, the benefit of this is clear in my design work.

(Disclaimer- Not all the fonts are the finished versions)

I feel I have definitely learnt a lot this year and can’t wait to get more information and develop further in the second year. I think for the first time that I have found my calling, even though it took me while to stumble and fall on top of it whilst I was doing something completely different.

Now that I have met some of the goals I had laid out for myself at the beginning of the year I can look forward to achieving the rest of them and furthering the skills I have now developed.

In the second year of the course I hope to achieve the following:

1. To make a website constructed using CSS.
2. To not get any referrals.
3. I want to make a portfolio site with all my work on it.
4. To make a website that makes use of Macromedia Flash.
5. To gain Merit and Distinction grades.

If I can achieve these four goals then I would would be very happy with myself and feel that I had made progress on the where I stand now.

Almost Done

This week at college we were having a get on with it week, I always appreciate these when it is getting close to deadlines.

I was pleased with the progress that I had made in my personal study and had a design that I thought was almost finished when I turned up for class. I showed it to a few of my peers who were sat near by and they all said they liked the design.

As always my development came in when I needed to chose an appropriate font to use. I think this is usually the area of my design that I find most difficult to get right.

the design I have now developed and finished for pages 1 and 4 of the CD booklet is shown below.

Personally I am quite pleased with the design, my natural response to the brief would have been to produce a design that was a vector illustration. having been given a brief that required me to work in photoshop I have been forced to tackle it from a different angle and although I feel like I could continue making improvements I like the design I have come up with and feel I have made some progress with techniques used in Photoshop.

The design itself I feel also speaks volumes for my progress as a designer as the design itself is not something that is to my personal taste, the design I posted on my earlier blog which looks a bit more 'trendy' was a design I felt more comfortable with.

Whilst completing my final CD cover I realised, with the help of my peers, that I needed a more sophisticated star shape for my 'black dust'. Obviously I searched google for some free brushes and I found some good ones at the following link- http://graphicssoft.about.com/, which has further links to more free Photoshop goodies, check it out.

In addition to finishing my CD cover I have now also managed to finish my logo design which can be seen below.

After being asked to work with this design out of the four I had developed was also taking me out of my comfort area as again I was asked to produce something that wasn't to my personal taste.

I think the final result shows what some good development work can do for an idea. I feel like I have really accomplished something with this logo.

please let me know what you think of it.