Starting Again...
The previous assignment is in and the new one has begun.
This is the last and final project of year one so it has to be a good one. I am quite pleased with the assignment as it mixes elements of print and web design. When looking through the 7 paged assignment, it didn't seem that bad to be honest and I thought it would give me plenty of time to play around with the design.
Once I had created my 'master plan' for the next 10 weeks, it dawned that this task to me is huge. Very big indeed, a logo needs to be produced, once that's done it has to be put on letter heads, business cards, press release forms and email signatures. After that I need to design a front cover for a CD, a four page book and a back cover. A pre flight document then has to be created to hand in to a printer. This then needs to be followed up with a style guide, done as a website.
From what some people have said, they think there isn't much to do but I can see the monumental amount of work that will go into this one. I can say that I am looking forward to the whole creative side of things and simply can't wait to start knocking out some logos and letter heads.
The style guide is going to be quite a meaty part of the project. I had a quick Google and found Apple Computer's writing style guide which is a shocking 200 page long document explaining how to not use the word 'abort' for some reason. This is obviously a different style guide from what we will be producing but it still shares elements.
The CD cover should also be a challenge, it's something I've never really done before so this is something that will be quite an eye opener.
Overall, I'm looking forward to it all, it's a chance to really prove myself.
Marc Bowers also came in this week and gave an insight into his role at Real Radio. It was good to hear how Real Radio also use the internet as a marketing medium even though they are a radio station. It was very interesting. Thanks for coming in Marc.
Maybe more and more companies are going to start hiring web designers to boost business online instead of just out sourcing things. I know Auto Trader do something similar with used car dealers, they pay so much each month and Auto Trader will set the dealer a website up and charge maintenance. Looking at the Auto Trader designed dealer websites you can see that not a lot of money or time went into them and some simply look terrible.
It sometimes does my head in how people can churn out rubbish websites and get paid quite handsomely for it. It makes me wonder if I just try too hard sometimes to get things right when I could just use a Dreamweaver template. But I think that's what separates designers from these other so called designers.
I am also quite eager to find out what grades I've got for the last assignments. This is the first time we've started an assignment without a convenient break for Steve to mark them in. Hopefully I won't refer.
6 comments:
There's no point in designing something if you use a template. Well, you're not designing it then are you? "Proper" designers actually care what they churn out, and like you said, that seperates the market.
The talented always get the good jobs in the end.
Yeah I agree that the creme always rises to the top eventually.
It's still a bit annoying how a lot of people still get 'milk' though.
I was very surprised to hear people thinking that there was not much to do for this assignment, if you break down everything we have to do you realise just how much there actually is. I think that it is definately the biggest assignment we have done so far but then again if we are going to be focusing solely on it over the next few months there should be no real problems.
I agree. Although having all the practice is better for us. This is definitely the biggest assignment. It basically contains everything that we have learned so far. Passing this one will be hard I feel, although passing it would be a great achevement. It proves that you have learned everything properly and understood it.
If you break the assignment down, it's not only big but a lot of research has to be documented too. If you were to just design a CD cover off the top of your head and a logo it would be easy.
It's all the proving original ideas that will determine the grades on this one, not the quality of the design.
I think that making the research experimental is a good way of getting through it. Just buy some cheap paints from The Works and mess about with them on paper. Even if no good ideas have come from it, at least you have evidenced that you explored that idea.
Also taking pictures of stuff and messing around with them in Photoshop could provide some interesting ideas. The research and experimentation is only as boring as you make it.
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