Wednesday 26 September 2007

A Much Valued Experiance

The Design Mechanics (such as great name)

Big thanks to all who attended today's presentation, this includes the students as well as the three representatives from The Design Mechanics and of course Steve and John.

The Design Mechanics
were very informative and I found the experience to be invaluable. The presentation consisted of very good questions leading to equally good responses.

It was a reassuring to see both the company owner (Dave) and the former student (Oliver and Gemma). This ensured that the presentation had a good balance.

The question and answer section, I feel was the most revealing. During this Dave gave an insight into the qualities that he, as an employer, would look for in perspective new employees; the frustrations of working with real clients and some of the common pit falls.

Gemma and Oliver appeared very happy and confident in what they do, and that is reassuring.

As I expected, once the presentation was over and I was driving home, a whole multitude of additional questions were running through my mind; such is my personality.

In conclusion, The Design Mechanics seam very good at what they do, however, I am not sure that the 'stack em high, sell em cheap' approach is the right career path for me - but you have to go where the work is at the end of the day.

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I’m not sure if its me. I’m not sure if it’s the environment. I’m not really sure what it is but with each week… no with each day that passes I am feeling more and more like a designer. My attitudes and whole method of thinking has been turned on its head.

I am now looking at advertising / promotional material and thinking… “…well that’s good… but it’s not how I would have done it”.

With the introduction this week of ‘Page Maker’ it reiterates the fact that I do not know everything. Far from it in fact.

Inspirational Quote of the week...
Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.” - Mark Victor Hansen

7 comments:

Tom Smith said...

I agree with what you say about feeling more like a designer as the days pass... I'm feeling the same, even though we're not really doing much design at the moment. I guess it's all the research and reading I've been doing. My knowledge has increased massively over the past few weeks, and it's been great!

Suzanne Hullah said...

I've got to agree with you and tom on the statement about feeling more like a designer. just thinking about accessibility and screen designs maakes me feel more 'designy'. can't wait until we can actually build a site.

Craig Burgess said...

It's not unusual to find that as each day goes by you feel more like a designer. That's a good thing.

It's really strange seeing the first years saying all the exact same things that I said last year.

DREW said...

Thanks for the comments. I am glad that you liked all of our work. It gives me a real boost to hear praise from other designers.

Hopefully we will get an oppertunity to some of the firsts years work soon, if we don't see it on your blogs first.

Gary Benn said...

I like the quote by Mark Victor Hansen. I find it best to do something and then wait a few days, sometimes a week and then go back to it when I have less motivation - or more, which ever way you take that, both fit.

The DMs were good. It is good to know how these companies work as this is the sort of line I want to eventually go in - Self Employed.

Its a shame I couldnt stop for the second year presentation, I think that it would have been really usefull, especialy getting feedback from the industry. I think it really motivates people when they see other people's work and I think we should show some of ours more often in our seminar groups. The only thing I don't like and never have is talking about my own work.

Thanks for the comment.

Andrew said...

Gutted that I couldn't make it to 'The Design Mechanics' presentation, seems like all that went got alot of out of it.
Yeah I can see what you mean about feeling more like a designer with everyweek, I think it happens because your forced to look so much more indepth at the whole building of a website than you'd ever thought of before.
Great post as usual, Shaun.

Gary Benn said...

How is it going with your assignment shaun? Noticed you were off last week. Bet your gunna be stressed this week. 2 days till deadline!!