Greg Carrick – HND Interactive Media

Monday morning was a rather surreal experience, with an activity thrown on the group by surprise, which I think no one experienced. It was strange in the way that I felt nervous and under presser about having a 15 minute time limit to draw 15 designs for the business card. Then there was another time limit to create and print out the business card, which made it feel a really rushed creation. To think about it, the experience was quite good and a real eye opener to what the life can be like in this industry. I don’t know how well I would cope with doing that every day, day in day out.

When we had feed back for the business cards from Steve, it was a accurate realisation on how important it is to check the information carefully on the product. And that you should only include the information provided by the client and can’t add anything to it.

Once again the lecture was very interesting and useful, it was a real eye opener on what to do and what not to do on graphic design products. The real task will be to apply the PARC principles to designs. So I suppose I’m going to have to read through the notes a few more times to try and remember them a bit better.

The same scenario as Monday morning happened on Tuesday morning as well, but this time there was more pressure as there was now a higher expectation of us. This being the fact we had to use the PARC principle (or the other name which I won’t mention) and get the supplied content perfect.

The image restoration task, that last week I thought was progressing really well, now seems to be behind and needs a lot of work doing to it. This is after seeing the stage the rest of the class is at and having Steve point out some of the things I need to touch up. I now need to spend a lot of time on touch up some parts and find the appropriate colour for the suits and skin tones.

I also need to find time to complete A3 and there is a lot of work to do on it for next week. So it’s going to be a busy week, but I should hopefully see some progression!

Good luck to those who handed in their referral work.

This has been another interesting week and I am really enjoying these lectures, keep them coming Steve! The digital imaging lecture was really helpful and gave me a better understanding of the types of computer graphics.

I have now come to realise how much work I need to do and how I need to keep up with the work. I have also realised how important it is to fully plan out the week and take time thinking about what needs to be done. I now feel that I have a lot of work to do and really need to stick to my time plan to get it done and I might end up putting a bit more self study in.

I have really been looking forwards to the image restoration task and now I have started it my anticipation has been rewarded. I have not had much experience in Photoshop and on Tuesday morning we were given a brief tutorial on the needed tools. This did help a lot and I would have been stuck with out it.

I am really enjoying the image restoration and hope that I don’t spend too much time on it, because there’s still the other assignment to do. I really hope that Steve doesn’t make me start the image restoration again as I will end up spending a lot of time on it the second time round, just to make sure it is suitable.

I am enjoying using Photoshop and am getting used to it already. I just need to practice and get used to the tools before I feel confident using it, as there are still some tools I am unsure what do. So now I am defiantly looking forwards to using the program in the future, as I am amazed at what can be achieved in the program and the vast selection of tools available.

I finally started my second sketch book on Tuesday and because of that I feel behind, since I know most people were on their second sketch book quite awhile ago. It feels good to have started a new sketch book, but there’s one thing annoying me about it and that is it has a great big sticker stuck on the front. Even more annoying is the fact it won’t come off easily and I have spent half the day picking at parts of it to try and get it off. Now there’s a sticky residue that I know will really bug me every time I pick it up.

The atmosphere in the class during the morning lecture on Monday was very strange, but not in a bad way. This is because there was only half the class in the room and this made it feel very empty. The lecture was really informative and before the lecture I didn’t really know how to use a colour wheel or never thought about using one, but now I’ll definitely use one on future designs.

Been told about the ‘new’ web plan really helped give me a starting point for A3. Even though I knew how to do the web plan I still had some unanswered questions about it. But after the mini-lecture on it I felt okay about it.

Filling the weekly time sheets in properly caused a real problem, as I have been used to filling the time sheet in on the morning and planning out only that day. I found it really hard to plan the week out and I only hope it will be easier next week.

I feel I got quite a lot of work done on the web plan in the after noon and I am finding it a lot easier as I have a better understanding of it, since we have done one before.

The colour space lecture on Tuesday was very interesting and I learnt a lot about the different types of colours and I never knew there were so many different types. I’m glad we had that lecture as I now have an understanding of what the numbers and letters of colours mean and know how big the choice of colours are that we are able to use.

I was unsure about the second essay and how much I would be able to write about, but after the lecture on image compression I realised that there is plenty to talk about. I am really enjoying this task so far and hope the enthusiasm will stay with me after I start to write it up.

When Steve said today was going to be a long day with two long lectures in’ I was expecting to be drained and have the day go slowly. But the two lectures went remarkably fast and I really enjoyed both of them.

I’ve found it really hard to write this week’s journal entry and I don’t know why because there has been so much to write about. I just couldn’t think of what to put and this is exactly how I thought I’d be when I started the course. But it has been surprising how easy I have found it to write my previous posts. I hope I’m not like this when I start to write my image compression essay.

On Monday after returning from the week’s holiday and reading week, I was very surprised with my feelings towards doing the presentation. Throughout the reading week, every time I thought about doing a presentation I went weak at the knees and got butterflies. But, Monday morning, on the way to college, I kept my nerves under control and even sitting in class waiting for Steve to start the presentations off, I impressed myself and didn’t feel as nervous as I’d thought.

When Steve started to talk about how the presentations were going to work, I started to get nervous, until he mentioned about only doing them in front of him. Suddenly my nerves went and I felt okay again.

When we all got to the canteen I was surprised at how the group came together and how we were all interacting with each other. This was a good experience and showed me that the group is there for each other and we were having similar feeling towards the situation.

On the way up to Steve’s room to do my presentation I started to worry and became nervous again. I was unsure why I was feeling like this as it’s a lot better than doing it in front of the whole class. I was nervous when I was setting up my presentation, but when I stood up and started, I felt fine, even after the false start, were my presentation would not change slides on the smart board.

I was more nervous when Steve read out the grades than doing the presentation and I never knew my name was so far down the register! It seemed like it took ages for Steve to read out my grades and this only made me worry more. When he read my grade out, it took a long time for it to sink in, as I was expecting to hear “Referral” and was very surprised to hear that I had passed.

Tuesday morning the atmosphere in the class was great and a lot better than the, what can only be described as depressing Monday afternoon/evening. The discussion about whether it is possible to distinguish between a ‘Designer’ and an ‘Artist’, left a real unanswered question on the class. But I can’t help think it would have been a much more interesting and informative discussion, if we had the presence of Gray.

The first seminar meeting with the new group went well and I already feel really comfortable working with Shaun and Andrew. Just as I thought before the half term I am going to enjoy working in this group with them.

I’m not feeling too confident about getting the first task for A4 in next week, as I’m not sure if I will be able to write down my thoughts and opinions on the work by The Designers Republic.