Evaluation of the year. How has Uni life been?

How has Uni life been?

Well overall I have enjoyed uni life a lot. I have accomplished lots of work, to a good standard. I feel like i have learnt a lot, which will help me in the future and the main thing is, i have had lots of fun which helps when trying to achieve things.

The projects i think they were all pretty good. There was only the one which didn't impress me much, this was the Text and Image project. This is because it wasn't that professional like the others, it was a bit all over the place. Instead of having the final outcome, we had lots of little designs to complete, which was good individually but not as one whole project.
Also i wasn't to amazed with my grade i got for this project, but since then i have got better grades.

The one thing i liked most about this course was all the group activities that we have done, even if the ideas didn't come out as well as planned, we had a good time, got on well and came up with a lot of ideas.

What i want to remind myself to do in the next year of the course is:-

• Keep a dairy - of what i have done each day and what i need to get done
  
• Start work as soon as i get it
• Keep an eye on the dates
  
• Try even harder to get better grades

As a final word i like to say I am proud of have this course was set out.

Group activity - creating type-radio poster

This was a productive day of problem solving and ideas generation. Today we were asked to get into groups of 4, decided by the lectures and then create a poster in design to advertise type-radio aimed at other designers.

This was not as simple as a normal advertisement because the viewers weren't just everyday people, they were designers. So we had to make the poster appeal to them. How to get a designer to notice are design?

We decided first to get a large piece of paper and just start drawing them down and discussing them and developing them futher, after getting and initial idea we wen to the computer and started to develop the design.

We came to a problem near to the end of the day after creating part of are poster, i accidently deleted it, and no one had saved it. So we were then in a rush to try do this again and finish the design. In the end the design wasn't as good as we hoped because we had to rush it at the end, but we will always remember to save are work all the time now.

We enjoyed the day and it showed the we could come up with ideas in the short space of time that we had.

Transcription of Interview

Finally got the transcription done, only problem is that, it is all hand written on a couple bits of paper, so i will need to copy it all onto the computer, so that it is easier to read and so that i have it to mess around with, cut out sections and move things round.

I think that the interview by Ellen Lupton is ok but I wish that i could of had a better interview from a different typorapher, but in a perfessional business you dont get to choose, so I will do my best to create the best design I can for this interview.

Hamish Muir

Hamish Muir aka James Moore

This morning we where kindly talked to by a typographer called Hamish Muir, i thought it was really interesting when he was talking about how he became a designer/typographer and what stages he went through.

I really liked some of his work, it was inspiring, especially all the work that he had created by hand because they had no computer equipment to use. There was also some of his work which I didn't like, but you are bound to find things you dont like about everyones work.

Introduction to new project

Interesting new project. Found out today about are new project, i am looking foward to doing this project but i not sure whether doing it on type-radio is a good thing or not. I think there is more interesting things which i could do a double page spread for a magazine on. But cant wait to make these magazine pages.

Also found out that we are to do this piece using the In-Design program, which i have used before but ill need to look over again just to remind myself.

Hand in for Screen Based Communication

The hand in for this project went quite well, there was no rushing around to get things done, just went at my own pace just finishing off some final things. Main objective before hand in, was to get all the project onto a disc, to then be handed in.

I dont know how this project will turn out, but i think that even though I a proud of my animation because I have never used the software before, i think that the sketchbook is the best part of the project.

Final critique for SBC

We had are final critique for the flash project earlier today, this was useful because i got some good feedback from it, some finals hints on making my animation better. We also got to see work from the other members in are group aswell.

When i showed my design to the other members in the group, they said that they liked the animation and only had a few hints to make it better, the main one being changing some of the background colours.

Working on Screen Based Media project

Most of the way through this project now, still a little bit left to do including:-

• Finishing off my sketchbook
• putting the final bits together for my animation
• writing an evaluation and rational

I think that i have created a good amount of work so far, and i think that i will accomplish a good grade at the end of it, lets hope so.

Flash workshops

Just finishing my last Flash lesson, i am glad that we have had the chance to have lesson to learn the program, i just wish that we had these lessons before we started the Flash project because then i could of spent more time on my design and make it look better.

Even though we have finished the Flash lesson, we still have two tasks to complete, to be able to finish the unit. A banner which i've nearly finished and a website which i need to start, but i have a really good idea, which will hopefully come through.

Draft critique for present project

A lot going on today, to go along with presenting the MAA brief we also had a critique on are initial designs in are flash project. Even though i am a bit behind on this project because of MAA, i have still managed to produce a initial idea for a animation. After showing my initial design in the critique, i got some good feedback on how to improve the design, but they liked the initial idea.

Presenting MAA

We presented the MAA live brief today, we got really nervous just before going in, being are first presentation of are design in the professional manner, but we still had faith in are designs. We did think that are presentation could of been a bit better but we were still proud of what we had done.
Lets hope we win, its also a challenge because we are up against the seconds years, and it would be even better to beat them.

Finishing off MAA for tomorrow's presentation

Today me, Steve and Oli had another productive day finishing off the MAA project, we are really confident that we are going to do well in the presentation tomorrow, are designs look really professional and we think that it mirrors the brief. So lets hope we are right.

Good luck to us.

whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy - bit behind

Oh no, because i have concentrating more on the live brief then i have on my project, i have fallen a bit behind, and in a couple of days I have a critique for are initial ideas. The only problem is that i have the MAA presentation in a couple of days as well, so i will need to plan my time well.

Productive day on MAA project

Today Me, Steve and Oli (MAA team) had a productive day working on the MAA live brief. At the start of the day we managed to pull out a lot of good ideas but as the day went on i think that we got a bit to into to it because are designs went a bit off from the brief. I think as a team we are working well and we are bouncing a lot of ideas off each other.

We have produced an initial idea for a logo, and in time to come we are going to develop on this, also we have to design a website, letter header, kite mark, business card and a few other things.

3 Live briefs

This morning Neil got the whole group together to talk about three live projects which have come along. There is two which i am interested in doing - a live brief with MAA (Multi Area Agreement) and Tasty Marketing.

Its Snowing + results from Anna

Yea its snowing, whats with that at the start of Feb. Got our results from Anna today on the essay. I don't know whether my grade is good or not, I'm glad that i have passed because essays aren't my speciality, but i thought my grade would be better.

Hand in for Visual thinking

Well i have handed in my Visual thinking project (Amnesty), i think i have done well, better than my last project so hopefully i will get a better grade. I enjoyed this project better than text and image, i think this is because it was more professional.

First type workshop with Sally Castle

I have decided to attend type workshops with a perfessional typeface designer Sally Castle, and today i have my first workshop all day. We went through some history of type, then we worked on a few exercises.

These excercises consisted of merging one letter into another in 5 steps, then we had to take are two initials and merge one into the other and the final exrcise was to pick a random word and change it from a san serif to a serif.

These excerises were good, and was an eye opener, and helped us experiement more with type.
Sally also showed us some of her work which i thought was really good. She also told use what we are going to be doing in time to come, and i am really excited about making my own typeface.

Final critique for VT - 2 Options

I have managed to come up with another idea and today i shown them both in the crit with the whole group and then it happened........ they choose the 2nd idea. I now have a lot of work to do, i won't to cry. But this will be good for my sketchbook, managing to develop two ideas.

The day it changed

I dont know whether im happy about this or not, earlier i had a crit with Sally and thought that my design leads off from the subject abit, so she thought that i should go off and develop a few different ideas come up with one different design and in the next crit which is soon, pin up both designs and see what all the other students say. Even though i knew that i didn't have to listen to Sally and i dont have much time left till the end of the project, i thought it would be a good idea to do anyway.

Crit with Pal leaders

In our Pal groups today we had a little crit to show the pal leaders what we have done and for them to give us some feedback, this was really handy because they have done the same sort of thing before because they are past first year students. So they were able to give us some good feedback.

Pin up of initial ideas

Pin up of initial ideas went well, got some good feedback from the rest of the group, and i have a few ideas of how to develop my design.

Back to Uni tomorrow

I am really proud of myself, I have managed to finish my essay for Anna and i believe that i have done quite well, because writing essays, is not one of my specialities, but i think i've done well.
Also i have come upo with a initial idea for my Amnesty project, ready to show on Tuesday at the crit.