Thursday, 12 May 2011
Thursday, 5 May 2011
Tutor Time May 5th
Today we had a group discussion, where we first wrote down answers to three questions,
'Positive experience of self directed research/ engagement with creative outlets / reading around subject'
I said that I had looked quite deeply into research and when we had the task of coming up with a business plan I began to find it interesting and research led me from place to place and I began to imagine the possibilities of creating something similar to use as a real plan. I also became much more aware of what is involved with setting up a business and how much has to be planned and taken into consideration before you can even start and the costs involved.
'Evaluation of managing own time and project work'
The management of my time seems to be working well and has probably improved from last term, I have been setting myself goals for when I want a piece of work finished and the majority of the time I have stuck to them and when I haven't it's usually because I've prioritized other work over it.
'Aspirations for future. How might they have changed? what prompted the change?'
My plans have changed as when I started I thought that I wanted to do graphics design but I found that I missed doing art the only time I was really getting to do it was in my free time and as I got further in to the course I lost the time to be able to do it.
I think my plans have changed as I try to picture myself doing graphics in the future and I can't really see it, I've lost some of the enjoyment of the work, although I really like the current project I still can't see myself doing it as a job yet. Art is something I really enjoy doing but it won't be sustainable so it will always be something I do in my free time. I also enjoy photography so I think this course is still very relevant as it gives me access to a little of all of these practices.
While having the discussion I took some notes that I thought were good or helpful such as to remain open to other influences, not to cut out everything else because you are studying one subject. When finding exhibitions not to say that you'll only go to ones that you think are in relation to graphics in my case but to go to different exhibitions as they might offer a different approach to thinking.
Talk to other students, that are higher level or have moved on, get advice as they have been through it and will probably have good tips of what to do or not to do. Also talking to people who are already in the jobs that you are looking into, get to know what it's like.
Some methods that other people were using to manage time were to use a white board in their room, notes can easily be added and changed, and it's a quick way of getting ideas down, I really liked this idea and think that this will be something that I will try, another suggestion was to write down things that you have completed as well as a list to do this way you get to see what you have achieved so far and this might give you an extra boost to go further.
'Positive experience of self directed research/ engagement with creative outlets / reading around subject'
I said that I had looked quite deeply into research and when we had the task of coming up with a business plan I began to find it interesting and research led me from place to place and I began to imagine the possibilities of creating something similar to use as a real plan. I also became much more aware of what is involved with setting up a business and how much has to be planned and taken into consideration before you can even start and the costs involved.
'Evaluation of managing own time and project work'
The management of my time seems to be working well and has probably improved from last term, I have been setting myself goals for when I want a piece of work finished and the majority of the time I have stuck to them and when I haven't it's usually because I've prioritized other work over it.
'Aspirations for future. How might they have changed? what prompted the change?'
My plans have changed as when I started I thought that I wanted to do graphics design but I found that I missed doing art the only time I was really getting to do it was in my free time and as I got further in to the course I lost the time to be able to do it.
I think my plans have changed as I try to picture myself doing graphics in the future and I can't really see it, I've lost some of the enjoyment of the work, although I really like the current project I still can't see myself doing it as a job yet. Art is something I really enjoy doing but it won't be sustainable so it will always be something I do in my free time. I also enjoy photography so I think this course is still very relevant as it gives me access to a little of all of these practices.
While having the discussion I took some notes that I thought were good or helpful such as to remain open to other influences, not to cut out everything else because you are studying one subject. When finding exhibitions not to say that you'll only go to ones that you think are in relation to graphics in my case but to go to different exhibitions as they might offer a different approach to thinking.
Talk to other students, that are higher level or have moved on, get advice as they have been through it and will probably have good tips of what to do or not to do. Also talking to people who are already in the jobs that you are looking into, get to know what it's like.
Some methods that other people were using to manage time were to use a white board in their room, notes can easily be added and changed, and it's a quick way of getting ideas down, I really liked this idea and think that this will be something that I will try, another suggestion was to write down things that you have completed as well as a list to do this way you get to see what you have achieved so far and this might give you an extra boost to go further.
Tutor Time April 28th
Today we did our portfolio website presentations I got a good response to mine and it was good to be able to see the work of some of the other people in my group, about half of them came in to do the presentation so it will be great when I get to see the rest of them.
Things that I learnt from doing these presentations and creating the website are that it is good to have a clear introduction and clear sections that lead into each area of the site. I categorized mine so that I has a section for art, graphics and development work. It was hard to tell if other peoples were easy to follow as they presented theres as a PowerPoint.
It was also suggested that we showcase our best work and not to dilute it with work that isn't as good.
Another key thing is to make sure you are prepared before showing the work, in my case I knew what computer I had to show my work on and from doing a previous presentation I knew that my external hard drive wouldn't work on it so I put my website on a small usb stick and tried it on other computers, but when it came to presenting the computer couldn't find all the webpages and the screen seemed to be zoomed in so looked horrible. I eventually used a laptop to show my website but one thing that I've learnt is to always be prepared even if it means having to bring in your own laptop as a backup way of showing the presentation, and to test it on both mac and PC.
Lastly to reduce image size, preferably to have them as jpegs but some of my images required a certain appearance that I got from using png which wouldn't be ideal for online as the files are much larger and could slow down the loading of the page, this isn't good for showcasing your work as people don't like to wait and if your work isn't loading there will be someone else's online that is so you could ,miss opportunities.
Things that I learnt from doing these presentations and creating the website are that it is good to have a clear introduction and clear sections that lead into each area of the site. I categorized mine so that I has a section for art, graphics and development work. It was hard to tell if other peoples were easy to follow as they presented theres as a PowerPoint.
It was also suggested that we showcase our best work and not to dilute it with work that isn't as good.
Another key thing is to make sure you are prepared before showing the work, in my case I knew what computer I had to show my work on and from doing a previous presentation I knew that my external hard drive wouldn't work on it so I put my website on a small usb stick and tried it on other computers, but when it came to presenting the computer couldn't find all the webpages and the screen seemed to be zoomed in so looked horrible. I eventually used a laptop to show my website but one thing that I've learnt is to always be prepared even if it means having to bring in your own laptop as a backup way of showing the presentation, and to test it on both mac and PC.
Lastly to reduce image size, preferably to have them as jpegs but some of my images required a certain appearance that I got from using png which wouldn't be ideal for online as the files are much larger and could slow down the loading of the page, this isn't good for showcasing your work as people don't like to wait and if your work isn't loading there will be someone else's online that is so you could ,miss opportunities.
Thursday, 24 March 2011
Potential employers
Today we discussed possible questions we could ask about an industry in general and directly to a company theses are some of the question we came up with.
General:
-How do you find clients?
-How does marketing work? how do you market yourself?
-What kind of equipment is used?
-How are contacts found?
-Whats happening in the industry at the moment?
-Who's at the top of the market? who do you look up to?
-Where are the jobs?
-Who gets the jobs? / kind of people
-How many employers are there?
-What kind of size are the companies?
Company:
-What qualifications do you require?
-Is working with other practitioners important? partnerships?
-What do you specialize in?
-Is there training for employees?
-What benefits / bonus's / support do you get? staff discount / commissions
-What work do you have / up and coming?
-How do you allocate work?
-How do you present to potential clients?
-How do you market yourself?
-Size of company?
-Structure of company? how it is organised / hierarchy
-Staff and roles
-Regularity of work?
-Income / salaries
-Skills / experience?
-What type of people are employed?
-Where do you advertise jobs?
-How long do people stay in their jobs?
-How many sites do they work on?
Ethics - influence on work?
-Health and safety requirements
-How are employees paid? hour / job / work
All these questions can help me with ideas when I contact an employer or company to try and get an idea of who is out there who could possible be a potential employer in the future.
General:
-How do you find clients?
-How does marketing work? how do you market yourself?
-What kind of equipment is used?
-How are contacts found?
-Whats happening in the industry at the moment?
-Who's at the top of the market? who do you look up to?
-Where are the jobs?
-Who gets the jobs? / kind of people
-How many employers are there?
-What kind of size are the companies?
Company:
-What qualifications do you require?
-Is working with other practitioners important? partnerships?
-What do you specialize in?
-Is there training for employees?
-What benefits / bonus's / support do you get? staff discount / commissions
-What work do you have / up and coming?
-How do you allocate work?
-How do you present to potential clients?
-How do you market yourself?
-Size of company?
-Structure of company? how it is organised / hierarchy
-Staff and roles
-Regularity of work?
-Income / salaries
-Skills / experience?
-What type of people are employed?
-Where do you advertise jobs?
-How long do people stay in their jobs?
-How many sites do they work on?
Ethics - influence on work?
-Health and safety requirements
-How are employees paid? hour / job / work
All these questions can help me with ideas when I contact an employer or company to try and get an idea of who is out there who could possible be a potential employer in the future.
Thursday, 17 March 2011
Graphic Designer
Today we had a graphic designer from Brond come in to talk to us about his work and a bit about the industry. His company is made up of two main designers including himself and they bring other people in for specific jobs if needed.
Most of their work comes from referrals or by approaching a brand, suggesting improvements to start a conversation going which may lead to development and to a pitch.
He used to do product design at 14 and some graphic design work in his free time, then did A levels and foundation Art, he decided to go onto graphics as he thought it was more free than product design. Using interests that he had, he began finding himself jobs by asking companies that he was interested in such as O'Neil if he could show them some ideas, he did say that often first ideas were rejected but it opened the door for conversation and often lead on to him being able to do some design work for them.
Some advice that he gave us was that you need to develop skills quickly and always try to keep learning, be yourself, be original and be interesting. Working through holidays is a good idea as it is making you continue to learn and the more experience you have the better you can become and feel more confident about what you are doing.
What to consider when looking for a job.
prepare /presentation skills / keep active
really try to involve yourself in creating networks and contacts, meet people.
when you are producing your work know why you are making small decisions such as changing a font or color.
note down when you have sent your CV's and follow them up, employers might be looking for someone who is showing a real interest in wanting to work for them and might be more likely to consider you over others. Show energy and be a good communicator.
Ask open questions
Do you take people on? rather than have you got any jobs
Be flexible, if they invite you somewhere such as to a design show etc make sure you are able to go to make a good impression.
Interviews
show energy and enthusiasm be open and understood, show skills and ability, have the right attitude and make an effort.
When asked questions such as why have you done this say the obvious then expand on it.
If you have older work in your portfolio which you look at and think I could have done that better, then do it if you are thinking this then what is the person who you are showing it to going to think?
The interviewer might not be creative so explain to them why you have done something and why it works, why it is good.
Go to interviews with a question to ask even if it is simple as it will make them more relaxed and be better interaction.
If you are considering a brand update...
Look at the current design, make notes on it what is it telling you, colour, text, illustrations
consider how it could be changed, pick out the words that you don't want the brand to be saying and change them from the way they are currently linked to the design.
Unique
Everyone has a different life experience and outlook, make good use of this people will probably want to hear your opinion be engaging with a group discussion.
One way in which he designed a logo on request from a company was to first make the designs in black and white and create separate colour pallets and also to have the designs with different font changes such as upper and lower case bold and medium weight, under each design he wrote a few notes on why he had made the choice of colour, type etc so he could explain this easier to the company.
He said that it is important to have loads of interests, and not to guess but to use market research if you are unsure of something as knowledge leads to good design.
If you have an idea for a design write it down and if it doesn't sound good then it probably won't be
Most of their work comes from referrals or by approaching a brand, suggesting improvements to start a conversation going which may lead to development and to a pitch.
He used to do product design at 14 and some graphic design work in his free time, then did A levels and foundation Art, he decided to go onto graphics as he thought it was more free than product design. Using interests that he had, he began finding himself jobs by asking companies that he was interested in such as O'Neil if he could show them some ideas, he did say that often first ideas were rejected but it opened the door for conversation and often lead on to him being able to do some design work for them.
Some advice that he gave us was that you need to develop skills quickly and always try to keep learning, be yourself, be original and be interesting. Working through holidays is a good idea as it is making you continue to learn and the more experience you have the better you can become and feel more confident about what you are doing.
What to consider when looking for a job.
prepare /presentation skills / keep active
really try to involve yourself in creating networks and contacts, meet people.
when you are producing your work know why you are making small decisions such as changing a font or color.
note down when you have sent your CV's and follow them up, employers might be looking for someone who is showing a real interest in wanting to work for them and might be more likely to consider you over others. Show energy and be a good communicator.
Ask open questions
Do you take people on? rather than have you got any jobs
Be flexible, if they invite you somewhere such as to a design show etc make sure you are able to go to make a good impression.
Interviews
show energy and enthusiasm be open and understood, show skills and ability, have the right attitude and make an effort.
When asked questions such as why have you done this say the obvious then expand on it.
If you have older work in your portfolio which you look at and think I could have done that better, then do it if you are thinking this then what is the person who you are showing it to going to think?
The interviewer might not be creative so explain to them why you have done something and why it works, why it is good.
Go to interviews with a question to ask even if it is simple as it will make them more relaxed and be better interaction.
If you are considering a brand update...
Look at the current design, make notes on it what is it telling you, colour, text, illustrations
consider how it could be changed, pick out the words that you don't want the brand to be saying and change them from the way they are currently linked to the design.
Unique
Everyone has a different life experience and outlook, make good use of this people will probably want to hear your opinion be engaging with a group discussion.
One way in which he designed a logo on request from a company was to first make the designs in black and white and create separate colour pallets and also to have the designs with different font changes such as upper and lower case bold and medium weight, under each design he wrote a few notes on why he had made the choice of colour, type etc so he could explain this easier to the company.
He said that it is important to have loads of interests, and not to guess but to use market research if you are unsure of something as knowledge leads to good design.
If you have an idea for a design write it down and if it doesn't sound good then it probably won't be
Sunday, 13 March 2011
Spike Island Visit Write-up 3.2.11
On the visit to Spike Island there were two main exhibitions on show, the first was by Sean Edwards which included photography, film sculpture and drawings was a representation of time spent in a shopping center that was due for demolition, he made studies of his time there which is shown in his work on display.
Another section of his work 'Tea at my father's House' included a set of 13 photo studies which I found a little more interesting than the other work although neither really impresses me.
There was also another exhibition on show called 'Invocations of Blank Paper' by Martin Creed, Ryan Gander, Vlatka Horat, Gareth Long, Anna Molska and Ignacio Uriarte. The idea of the exhibition was that it "uses the blank page as a metaphor for the processes of creative expression" Again I didn't find this exhibition very good, if anything I was more distracted by the video clip of daffy duck placing in the corner, although the piece of crunched up paper in the stand did make me think a lot it was more of thinking how can you have this as an exhibition piece.
Spike Island itself has some good space for exhibitions, including large rooms for constructing any large pieces, and also has a lot of studio space that people rent out, although we didn't get to see them exactly I can see that there is some good opportunity for working space in the future if I ever needed it.
Another section of his work 'Tea at my father's House' included a set of 13 photo studies which I found a little more interesting than the other work although neither really impresses me.
There was also another exhibition on show called 'Invocations of Blank Paper' by Martin Creed, Ryan Gander, Vlatka Horat, Gareth Long, Anna Molska and Ignacio Uriarte. The idea of the exhibition was that it "uses the blank page as a metaphor for the processes of creative expression" Again I didn't find this exhibition very good, if anything I was more distracted by the video clip of daffy duck placing in the corner, although the piece of crunched up paper in the stand did make me think a lot it was more of thinking how can you have this as an exhibition piece.
Spike Island itself has some good space for exhibitions, including large rooms for constructing any large pieces, and also has a lot of studio space that people rent out, although we didn't get to see them exactly I can see that there is some good opportunity for working space in the future if I ever needed it.
Saturday, 12 March 2011
Script
I wanted to add a little more interactivity to some areas of the site and decided to look into effects for the images, enlargements and slideshows. The first think I did was to look on Dynamic Drive as I had used it before and it has clear instructions to help edit the html.
I found this code which allows you to magnify sections of the images on mouseover
This is what it looks like on my page it also has an effect where you can choose the amount of zoom, and if you scroll while you have the box over the image you can zoom in more.
I also added this code for a fade-in slideshow on the main navigation page to fill the large gap but still have some good space.
When I saved the files to use on the website I made sure they all had names that were easy to locate and similar images I just changed the number to make it easy when editing to swap images in the html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)