Tuesday 21 October 2008

First brief done..

After submitting my first brief today, I do feel a little more at ease. Last week we had our we first taste of pressure on the course. A few of us have experienced pressure and working to tight deadlines before, however, after finding out how many students passed last year with the same brief, some of us are dreading the referral. Fortunately for us though, we were given more time than last years students.

I feel handing in the first draft a week before the deadline helped, in terms of time management. This gave me more time (“tinker time”) to go over my work and amend things such as hyperlinks, SPG, and referencing, also it gave me time to become more familiar with Adobe Indesign, which is new to me.

The referencing took longer than I expected, but the most challenging aspect of the brief was putting some of the languages and protocol definitions in to “layman's” terms, however, I do feel this assignment has benefited my knowledge of computer terms considerably and will compliment future studies.
I am quite satisfied on how I tackled the brief, however, some parts I could have been a bit more methodical in my approach. I think this is because I have been out of education for a while, but already I can see myself progressing. Now its just a case of waiting to find out the results.

I was kind of expecting our first brief to be a design brief, but now I realise, and appreciate that these briefs are there for a reason. It is part of the learning process, and you don't get any where by jumping the gun.

Wednesday 8 October 2008

Apprehension...

When starting any new course, I have always experienced some form of apprehension. My first hurdle, like many others, was settling in and becoming familiar with other group members. We had a number of ice breaking exercises which helped a great deal, also some members have made the effort to organise team bonding activities such as go-karting, unfortunately I was unable to attend, hopefully I will be there for the next activity.

So far people seem to be mingling well, the atmosphere is pleasant and everyone seems to be happy. There seems to be a good balance in the group, in terms of age, background, knowledge and software skill. I feel this will make us a stronger team in due course.


Another concern was balancing my college work with my full time job, and in the first few weeks, this proved to be harder than I anticipated, so I have had to reduce my work hours considerably. My situation is a bit of a catch 22, I need the money, however I can not work forty-two hours a week and perform well on the course. Instead, I will adapt by working more shifts during the summer break.

Everything else seems to be going fine. We have two briefs on at the moment, one is a glossery, to compliment our future studies, and the other is a visual diary which will continue throughout the course. I am aware the work load will increase, but having now settled I feel more ready for what is to come.

Wednesday 1 October 2008

Where I’ve come from; where I am now; where I’m going

My creative path started ten years ago, when I enrolled on an Art and Design Course at Bradford College. We were encouraged specialise in two areas, I chose Illustration and Graphic design. It all looked promising until the second year when three design lecturers left and were replaced by fine artists. Because of this, when I graduated my folio consisted mainly of fine art, and not enough design. After, I made the decision to go back in to catering again, which still is my trade, in my spare time I worked freelance as a designer, building a stronger folio.

Eventually I landed a job as an Artworker for Shawk, a company based in Leeds. The work was mainly prepping packaging for print, and after a year it became quite monotonous. A friend set up a design company called Surface, based in Ilkley and offered me a position, which I took. However, several months later Surface folded.

Since then I have done the odd bit of freelance, but still working as a chef. So nine months ago, I decided I wanted to go back into education and better myself.

As I have some design background, and I find the web very interesting, I decided the logical thing to do was look for a Multimedia Course, also that's where the work seems to be these days. Earlier this year, when browsing the web, I came across the Multimedia Course at Wakefield College, the HNC seemed to offer what I wanted, with tutors having commercial experience, contacts with local agencies, and most importantly students finding work in the industry after graduating.

I'm confident this course will provide me with the skills and knowledge I need to know, hopefully, the end result being a job in the industry I want to work in.