Greg Carrick – HND Interactive Media

The first semester of this course has been really enjoyable. I have made many new friends and feel like I have settled in very well. Before I started this course I didn’t think I would make friends with everyone in the class and feel so much as part of the group. This is probably from the previous course I was on, were even nearing the end of the year there were still barriers between people and the class seemed to be made up of a few different groups of friends, that didn’t socialise between others. It’s so much better that there’s nothing like this on this course and everyone interacts with each other.

I think we have all settled in so well because of the activities from the first week and the encouragement we get from Steve to become friends and get to know each other. This defiantly helped me settle into the course and I’m sure it did for others as well. Since everyone gets on so well it makes the atmosphere in the class really enjoyable and I feel able to ask any one for help or advice.

I feel I have come a long way since the start of the course, I know it’s only been three months, but the journey I’ve been on in that time has been really enjoyable and I have learnt a lot more in that time than I ever could have expected. I’ve also learnt a lot about the industry, how it works and the skills required to achieve a place in the industry.

I now feel this course is for me and even though I have to say the work can get quite hard at times, I am going to pursue this course and try my hardest to complete it and take with me as much knowledge about the industry and what is required to work in it, as I can.

The first semester has shown me a lot about myself and I now feel more confident in my abilities and that this is the course for me. I have used three new software programs that I had never used before and I am surprised at how quickly I have picked them up and I’m looking forward to extending my knowledge about them and ability to use them.

Before this course I did not have to plan my time or set out when tasks needed to be done for. This made the time planning quite a hard routine to get into and I have to admit, my time planning for the first assignment was not really up to scratch. But I now feel I have vastly improved on my time planning and it really helped me to get through doing two assignments at once. It now feels like a natural thing to plan out my week and I can really see the advantages of thinking what needs to be done during the rest of the week.

I am still not sure if I would go straight into employment after this course, as I am considering a top-up-year. This would only be if there was a top-up-year from Steve, because I know that I would not get this level of education or learn as much, on at university course.

The standard of work on this course is a lot higher than on any I have done previously. When I first started the course I felt that the standard of work was too high for me to achieve and I was unsure if I would be able to cope with it. But now I feel that I can work to the course standard and I am pleased with the quality of the work I have produced.

Short Term Goals
In the short term I would like to improve on my knowledge in using programs and feel confident using them. I would also like to improve on my designing skills and idea generations, because I feel I can design better then I’m currently doing.

Mid-term Goals
I would like to complete the course and gain enough knowledge in the industry to enable me to become employable in it. I would also like to find out my preferred area in the industry and get some experience in it.

Long Term Goals
In the long term I would like to be employable and able to get a job that I really enjoy and also get plenty of experience in the industry.

This week has been a real “get on with it week” as Steve puts it. I feel that my work is coming along quite well but I keep finding things that I’ve missed and I hope I don’t forget to do everything needed for the hand in.

Even though I’m under pressure, I’m quite enjoying the work and hope I’m still enjoying it when it gets within a few days of the deadline. The banners are doing well, I’ve had to change them quite a lot from the original designs after feedback from Steve, but I can now see the improvement in them. I’ve posted the most recent designs up and I would appreciate some further feedback if you don’t mind.

I think the image restoration is finally complete, but I’m going to have another look at it in a few days to make sure there’s nothing else to do on it. I’ve posted that up and I also like a bit of feedback on the choice of colours if you don’t mind.

I still have quite a lot of work to do for the hand in so it looks like a lot of self study this week and if I every thing goes well I should have it done for Monday, so I have a full day to check it.

I am quite pleased with the amount of work I got done in self study last week. As I made a real progression on the work needed for seminar groups and feel if this week’s self study is as productive as last weeks, I should be well on the way to having the work completed for fake submission next week.

Monday morning, there was a real unhappy atmosphere in the room and I don’t think it’s been so quite in that room since we started. After lunch the atmosphere was much more lively and peoples spirits had been lifted again, after there feedback on the A2 referral.

I spent all day Monday finishing off writing the web content and for some reason I feel that I should have and could have done much more work. Even after a full day on the content I still need to recheck all the terms and there are some that need expanding.

Tuesday was another surreal experience, even though it was basically the same method as with the business cards, I feel as though it is a new experience to me. This is probably because of the changing pace in which we had to work. When we first started I couldn’t get into the swing of thing and felt rushed, but after the first banner design I got into it. It made it more interesting when Steve kept lowering the time limit and before this experience, if someone had asked me to create four designs in a minute I would have thought it was impossible. I really enjoyed the activity and think I will try it in the future, even though it wouldn’t work if I did it by myself.

I really enjoyed creating the banners in Photoshop and even though they are not finished yet I feel that I got quite a lot of work done on them.

Below are my two banners and even though they are not finished yet, I would appreciate it, if you could give me some feedback on them and let me know what I can do to improve them. The main part I’m not sure of, is the word ‘Jazz’ been on the hat of Don Weller. Thanks in advance.

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.

This week has been very interesting so far; I think we were all expecting Steve to get us to make a presentation for reading week, which is why it didn’t come as much of a surprise to us all. After these two days working from home I have realised how hard it is to concentrate when there’s so many distractions, and I also didn’t realise how easily I could get distracted even by the smallest things.

I suppose I’m not as bad as I’m making out, since it was only really Mondays when I kept getting distracted. That was because the computer kept playing up and I was having trouble connecting to the internet on it, so I went on my dad’s laptop. The only real mistake about that was that I ended up sitting down stairs and that was the big distraction as my dad was watching TV, so every few minutes I ended up finding myself glued to the TV.

Tuesday went a lot better as I reinstalled some software on the computer and could connect to the internet again. This limited most of the distractions, as I was upstairs isolated in my room (well I wasn’t exactly isolated but it felt like it!). So this meant on Tuesday I got a lot of work done and proved to myself that I can work from home and get work done.

I am not looking forwards to doing the presentation, like I guess most of the class aren’t. But it’s something that I am going to have to do sooner or later and when I think about it every one else has to do it, so why should I be the one who tries to avoid doing it.

At the moment the presentation thing is not bothering me too much, I actually want to do it and get it over and done with because avoiding it will only make it harder to do in the future. It looks like we’ve got plenty of them to do on this course anyway. But saying that I know that on presentation day my feelings will change, and I’ll just let you know now, if I come in on Monday looking very ill and shaking, I’m scared to death about doing it! Let’s just hope I don’t get that nervous.

For the rest of the week I’m going to practice this presentation over and over and it will probably be the only thing I’ll think about till Monday. I’m also going to try and not worry myself about it, because that will make it a lot worse on the day.

This week I am going to relax and take it easy. I have already read through the A3 Back to basics assignment and will read it through a few more time to get familiar with it. I will then start to write down some questions I have about it. I’m looking forwards to going back to college to find out my results, which hopefully I won’t regret getting. But at the same time I’m nervous as I know we are going to have to do a presentation, which I am really not looking forwards to. Suppose we have to do them sooner or later though.

I have also been looking into buying a domain name and web host, I know which web host I am going to use, but when I tried to buy a domain name I was not allowed. This happened on a number of websites and they all said I had to ring customer services to proceed with my request. Does any one know if that is a normal procedure? I have tried phoning 123-reg.co.uk, but could not get through, so I’m going to try again tomorrow.

For the rest of the week I am going to try and forget about the presentation thing and start messing about with some programs to get used to them.

There is also another thing that I’m nervous about and that is what Steve has in store for us in reading week.

Today we handed in our first ever assignment. I’m sure I can say that everyone in the class is relieved to get it over with, I know I am. Now we have a week off and it will give us time to get the first assignment out of our head, as when we come back, there will be twice as much work to do, and less time to do it in.

The deadline morning was an easy day for me, I did not have to rush and try and get any work done, all I did was arrived at 9 and hand my work in. I am really pleased that I had all my work done for the night before and I know that this took most of the stress out of me. I am definitely going to try get all the work done early for the future assignments.

Saying that, the night before the deadline I was working until about 1 in the morning to get all the work done and was surprised how fast the time went by, I didn’t even realise it was so late. I didn’t really do that much work that night, it was more just touching up the work with what John told me to do, then spellchecking and proof reading it.

I’m not sure how well my work will do, I really don’t want to refer, but if it comes to it, I’m just going to have to get on with it and do my best to get it up to a pass.

The hardest part of the assignment for me was doing the technologies required to view the website. This is because I was unsure what to write about and had to do a lot of research to find out about them.

The lecture on presentations was very interesting but at the same time made me very nervous, as I realised that we would soon have to start doing presentations and I’m really not looking forward to that. I have never been very confident and get really nervous when told I have to do a presentation. All I can hope for, is that after I have done a few presentations, my nerves start to drop and I feel more confident about doing them.

The best way to finish this post is to say good luck to everyone on your results.