Busy Busy Bee...

Monday

With a little bit of work, Monday saw the completion of the 'A5 Builder' project. The amendments made were nothing too drastic but has made a world of difference; it just goes to show the value of listening to experienced industry professionals.

As with assignments of past, we have generated a very useful checklist for A7. The checklist comprises of everything from fundamental errors such as checking spellings to hierarchy of submitted CD for print. Checklists like this can prove invaluable during the often busy days before submission.

In addition to the checklist, we revisited our last formal lecture of the first year regarding print and pre-print processes. Reiteration of the lecture in this manor proved to be successful as I personally felt that my understanding of the process was only strengthened.

Monday evening saw many hours of what I can only call fussing over the details; to the point in which my amendments were actually detrimental to my work.

Tuesday

The open discussion about the second year proved to be a great insight into what we can expect (if only a taster). It is quite apparent that the second year is going to be much more intensive than the first; my only apprehensions about the workload is that I will be unable to work the amount of hours that I have been and successfully complete the units.

Following the open group discussion, some of us were invited to a one on one discussion regarding the second year. This was an opportunity to speak openly and honestly about our progression so far and where I feel I want to be; I was pleased with the overall outcome of the talk.

Following a brief fight with the college colour printer and the scurried collation for my 'completed' work so far I was then ready for the seminar class.

Seminar Class

Although not the first time that we had reviewed our work in a critique, on the wall manor I felt a sense of pride of the work that I had done; knowing the work that has gone into it so far to get it to that level. However, and perhaps more importantly, at the same time it gave me a deep insight into how much work I have to catch up on.

From very early on in the class we were told, by several people, not to get too caught up in comparing our work to other peoples in the class. Not as easy as it sounds! Looking around my seminar class in particular there has been some fantastic work produced; Michelle's and Tom's in particular. A Big well done to all of you.

Summary

There is still a lot of work to be done; however it is important to realize how far we have all come as it is all too easy to get bogged down with what is still left to do.

Weeks Tasks

• Finishing touches for CO-ID work following seminar feedback.
  
• CD artwork completed.
• Preflight checklist.
• Weekly commitments; journal reading / commenting etc.

--
Thanks for reading

Shaun Bellis


Quote of the week...

“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be” - George Sheehan

Amended Business Card Designs

First of all, thank you everyone who commented on my previous design; it helped me a lot. If you could please do the same for this one I would be really appreciative.

Emit | Business Card Feedback Please

Hey Everyone,

Its feedback time again please, the letterhead follows a very similar feel as the business card so please think about both when giving your thoughts.

Thank you!

Confusions Galore... or are they?

Monday morning was not off to a good start. Minutes after walking in the door I had found out that I had referred yet another unit; A5. It would appear that I am not very good at taking bad news; something that was apparent after receiving our very first grades way back when. Inevitably, the poor result had a negative baring on my motivation and certainly my concentration from that point in. This combined with the already anxious and frustrated feeling bubbling deep within originating days before did not make the best tasting cocktail.

Needless to say, the presentation was appalling! I forgot the majority of what I wanted to say, my stutter came back in force and the more these problems happened, the worse they got; I was drastically under my time limit and seriously disappointed. I was embarrassed and extremely annoyed at myself; after all, I spend the majority of the week teaching small classes (typically 5 - 8 people) at work - the nerves certainly should not have had the affect that they did.

Fortunately, the 'question and answer' session immediately after the presentation, in my opinion, went well. Getting the majority of the questions right give me the boost of moral that I so desperately needed.

The rest of the day was to be utilized developing the A7 project; however, following the less than fantastic start to the day I do not feel as though I was even nearly as productive as I could / should have been. All that was going through my mind was "What am I doing wrong!".

Tuesday morning arrived and with a good nights sleep(ish) under my belt and I was in a much better mindset and felt ready to tackle the day. Shortly after the morning pleasantries we were called in one by one next door for what turned out to be the re-re-submission of our presentations which, although not fantastic, went much better. The presentation was pretty much on target time wise and a few of the questions later and it was all over and I was once again feeling a little bit more like myself.

With regards the seminar group, I think that because were are all focused with the task in hand (and perhaps a little afraid of opening our own sketchbooks) the seminar class today, although directed at A1, wasn't as strong as previous

Overall, I do not feel that I have had the most productive week and that my performance(s) have given me much opportunity to improve and push myself further. A stronger focus on my time planning this week will bring this opportunity to life.

Thanks for reading.

--
Quote of the week

"To be able to look back upon ones life in satisfaction, is to live twice” - Kahlil Gibran

Amended Design

Thank you all for the great creative feedback! I have made the amendments and I think that it looks much better; what do you all think?

Feedback Please!

Hi everyone,

I know its a little bit late on in the week but I would still be really greatful if I could get some feedback regarding the development of my logo. Please look at the previous logo to get a feel for where the idea has come from.


--
Thanks

Shaun Bellis

Design Design Desgin !

Monday

The early parts of this week has seen many fine alterations to the design of my logo; and its still not quite there. However, I believe that it is very easy to fuss over things too much and perhaps compromise the integrity of the design and undo all the hard work.

Quite uncharacteristically I found myself deflated and with my mind on other things; knowing this to be the case I decided it best that I left the creative and developmental work (knowing that I would only have to do it again anyway). As a result, I concentrated my efforts on creating the page structure of the CO-ID and the basic structure of the CD (front, back, inside, etc) so that my efforts were not wasted.

The ramifications of my overly long presentation for A6 has now become apparent; the presentation has to be redone in front of the whole class. This was a concept that originally I wasn't too phased by but now that we have a date for them, the pre-presentation anxieties are creeping in.

Tuesday

Further development of the Corporate Identity was the focal point of today for me. I was surprised how much of the information in there regarding the logo use was (in my opinion) common sense but yet I just couldn't help taking pleasure in knowing that I had written it! Whilst perhaps not totally independent just yet, the self directed seminar classes (go team Alpha!) are working really well. I do feel as though we are all growing and developing not only as designers but as people as well; the seminar classes only emphasis the fact.

Since the beginning of this semester there has been a significant improvement in time planning and evaluation of performance; still room to improve but that can only be a good thing.

Targets

- Finalise final stages of the logo.
- Finalise corporate Identity work.
- Develop ideas for the CD artwork.

--

Thanks for reading

Shaun Bellis

Quote of the week

“Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal.” - E. Joseph Cossman

Tip of the iceburg!

This week has proven to be very productive. Monday saw the introduction to Adobe Freehand and although Adobe have chosen not to support it any further does not diminish its value in the industry as I dare say that many companies are reluctant to come up with the cash to upgrade; this means that it is a real possibility that we may end up using Freehand for some time to come.

I was surprised to see many of the same tools and facilities in Freehand as I was used to seeing in AutoCAD. Frustratingly however, they are not in the same place, nor are they as powerful as the CAD package.

We have been once again fortunate enough to have had a visitor this week. This time the appearance was from Mark Feather, an ex-student from the HND in Web Design at Wakefield College (Steve, is that what you were after? Alpha seminar class will get that one).

The work that Mark undertakes at Empire Direct is very much different from Jonny's from Technophobia. Marks work concentrated almost entirely upon the company site and one site alone. The print work was very limited if at all and the opportunity to do a diverse range of designs / builds is restricted at best.

I think that of the two visits, I would prefer to take the position of Jonny's; however neither roll is specifically what I am looking for but beggars cannot be choosers particularly in the early stages of the career.

The A7 project is proving to be the most involved and enjoyable yet! Following semi-self directed seminar class today we have found that our logo's still have a long way to go. It is understandable that we are to be making errors / less than perfect designs as this is for a lot of us the first time that we have undertaken work like this. Even though the work that I have done so far is less than fantastic, I feel confident that it will all come together as I learn more of what is expected and to what level each day.

This time around I feel that I am much more organised and prepared. My time planning has shown much signs of improvement and it shows in the work that I have produced so far. This is a skill that certainly is transferable into the 'real world' and will continue to develop.

Useful links

FireBug - This is another great Firefox plugin for developers!
Logo Pond - Great source of inspiration!

Feedback

Please be as honest as possible; excuse the quality of the image and my less than perfect illustrations.


--
Thanks for reading / feedback.

Shaun Bellis

Quote of the week

"Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn." - C.S. Lewis

Welcome Back!

Good Points

The introduction to this terms assignment I felt went very smoothly. Visit by Jonny Haynes from the Sheffield based company Technophobia was fantastic. Although I enjoyed Jonny's presentation, I feel that being the inquisitive individual that I am (understatement I hear you cry) I personally got more from the seemingly informal question and answer session. It was great to see yet another success story originating from the course.

The new assignments are now well underway and the sketchbook evidence is mounting up nicley. Whilst this period, including over the holidays, has seen a significant improvement in the amount of sketchbook work, I am under no doubt that there will have to be much more to come before A1 will be satisfied; its going to have to be a busy few weeks.

The new seminar groups have been selected in accordance with which assignment we opted for during the holidays. We are as yet to receive our grades for the previous assignment; however I wouldn't necessarily say that this is a bad thing as it has kept moral high and allowing all of us to concentrate on the new assignments.

Things that could have been better.

I can honestly say that I am satisfied with how thing have gone and wouldn't have changed a thing.

Targets

• Carry on the progression of my logo.
• Hit the time sheets hard.
• Ensure that the 'big picture' is in the forefront of my mind as well as working on the details.

I have also found some information regarding Royal Mail's envelope branding guidelines which may be of use for this and future assignments.

Thanks for reading.

Shaun Bellis

--
Quote of the week

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams