Like extracting blood from a stone:

Blog:

Hi again I’m back, it seems like it has been ages, anyway here we go. I’ve come to the point that this is getting difficult to do week in week out, with the amount of other work in which I have to get done.

This week’s task list:

• To comment on one assignment at a time
• A7_IME six monthly Plan

Six Month Plan:

I have drawn up a list of task that needs doing for this week, I need to consider all options that are available to me and to research software skills in which I need to look at:

Skills: Web Designer

• Dreamweaver - http://www.adobe.com/
• Photoshop CS2 – http://www.adobe.com/
• Quark Xpress – http://www.quark.com/
• InDesign – http://www.adobe.com/
• Flash – http://www.adobe.com/
• Freehand – http://www.adobe.com/

Skills: Web Developer

• ASP.NET – http://www.asp.net/
• ASP - http://www.microsoft.com/
• SQL - www.w3schools.com/sql/default.asp
• Visual Basic - www.visualbasic.about.com
• XML - www.xml.com
• XLST - www.w3.org/TR/xslt
• VB.Net vbnet.mvps.org
• JavaScript - www.javascript.com

Job for this week is to look at the technologies the different web professional’s use; this could become useful to have skills from both areas of expertise, as the industry is changing all the time.

The different software’s are also changing all the time and new standards coming into place. http://www.w3.org/.

I will be commenting on a different assignment every week as this may help me get into a routine.

Thanks for Reading, comments greatly received….. Adam

Blog's r US

This week so far as it stands current work out standing: Get this bit out of the way and then we can get on with the best stuff:

• IME - Webplan - To finialise the competitive analysis on a few of the sites chosen.
• Cissy - Webplan - To finialise with competitive analysis.
• Cissy - Webplan - Site Structure

Also new this week is a new assignment in the form of a team brief, this will show the management of a team and its team members.

We have been given a task to decide who will be project manager, we will be deciding in our teams who it will be.

We will be identifying the skills in which we have and then putting them into practice, strengths and weaknesses will be noted down. Taking a look at the belbin roles and team management, to decide which role will be best suited to each person.

Comments welcome

Bye Adam

All bloged out

For this week’s Blog, first of all a list of outstanding work to get done:

• IME Web Plan – Competitive analysis
• CISSY Web Plan – Competitive analysis and Site structure

Handed my work in for this assignment I think I have done ok, well lets hope so. Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to be trying a different way of working to add a variety to study, as at this moment in time I’m in a little bit of a rut.

However I’m going to do things differently, you never know I might surprise myself. For example the day before deadline, I wouldn’t have thought that I could write a full evaluation for the Culture Vulture assignment. I’m well surprised, just shows you what listening to people can do, if you really put your mind to it and get the job done in no time and have free time for other things.

Countdown to group work:

Won’t be long before its Monday again, the start of a new assignment “On the Job”. Let’s have the time planning sheets ready and waiting for this week, they made a hell of a lot of difference last week and no I'm not being sarcastic, I was impressed at how much work could get down in so little time.

I wonder what this On the Job assignment will involve our team to do, anyway we will undoubtedly find out on Monday morning.

Also a quick mention take a look on Luke’s Blog, using the RSS feed is brilliant; however you’ve got to have Firefox to use it. It’s a great little feature, it lists Blogs across the toolbar, just under where you enter a web address, you can view a list of each person’s Blog’s

Can’t wait until Monday, should be fun something new to do.

Thanking for reading this weeks instalment, hope you come back soon. Feel free to leave any feedback or comments.

Bye….. Adam

The Shoe challenge

Day 1: It's a shoe

After creating surface patterns for Task 2 of the Culture vulture assignment I wonder what would be in store for Task 3. The assignment is done in reverse so that you do the creative thinking first and design, then you find out what the product is.

Once you know what the product is you need to fit your design to it, in this case Task 3 was to put our surface designs on to a pair of trainers, fitting the design to the trainer in different ways. I didn't pick up on what we might be designing for, I thought possibly it could have been a coca cola bottle like the previous year had done.

Day2: CSS heaven:

Having fun trying to get my surface patterns to become a design on the trainer, I thought this would have been the easiest part but no, it was the hardest bit.

At the minute I'm still not happy with the result of the design so far, it just shows you how you can design creatively with knowing what it is going to be placed on.

This afternoon we learnt some more CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), in which I found very interesting; even though I might not show it I enjoyed it.

After seeing how simple it can be , I think I will do some more tutorials from Alistapart and maybe max design, lets see if we can get a 3 column page layout done by myself, then I will be happy.

Thanks for reading, until next time.....

Six Month Plan

As part of our coursework we need to create a six month learning plan, this will show the things that we would like to learn and also include items on the progression onto further education or employment.

At this moment in time I have just started to look at the different jobs available to me when I have completed my HND in Interactive Media.

Here is a list of job positions available in the Design industry, worth doing a little more research into:

• Artworker
• Designer
• Flash Designer
• 3D modeller
• Information Architect
• Art Director
• Creative Director
• Project Manager

All jobs that can be achieved with the effort put in. I found these job titles in the latest issue of (Web Designer) Creative Careers, a definitive guide to becoming a web professional.

Creating the six month plan has made me think a little harder about what I want to achieve, be it to get a job with a web design company, to study a further 3rd year at a university or to go freelance. Much more thought in the following weeks will be needed to come up with a good learning plan.