Junior web designer job

When searching for jobs I looked for jobs close to were I live, this includes Leeds and Wakefield. The Job vaccines that I found and thought would be best for when I have completed course, I read though then I chose the one most suitable for me. The job advert I have chosen is based in Leeds and is for a junior web designer. The salary is £15,000 a year which is about average for a junior designer.

Skills the company is looking for is someone who knows about the print process, able to work with both web and print work, excellent layout designing, artwork skills and have a good knowledge of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, In design and HTML.

The advert also asks for someone with a degree in graphic design/ multimedia design or a related design subject, even thought when I have finished the course I won’t have a degree, but that shouldn’t stop me applying for the job. If two people applied for a job and one had the qualification that the company was looking and the other didn’t but had a better portfolio that the company really like, they probably hire the person with the better portfolio.

I would prefer to do both web and print work and that was one reason I choose this advert but I haven’t been though the print process before, but from previous assignment we have discussed the print process, so I have a bit of knowledge of it .

The skill I would have to work on would be HTML mainly but also the knowledge of the software’s, you can never know too much about how to use software’s and techniques when using them, so the more practice I have using them the more convenient I will be, allowing me to create better work.

Second year, Loves and Hates

The last year as been a total change for me, I seem not to have as much spare time and time flies. The course as been really enjoyable and I have learnt a lot so far and I have much more to learn which I am looking forward to.

At the moment I am really enjoying the team project assignment, it’s something different and it’s good to have a chance to work as a team, because there isn’t many opportunities I could do this before employment.

To be honest I don’t really have an interest for coding, so when I found out I would be doing a CSS assignment I wasn’t looking forward to it. The start of the assignment I couldn’t really get my head around CSS but now I have had a go myself I understand it a lot better. I am always open to learning new things so I am giving it a go and trying my best with the assignment.

Before I started the course I hated presentations, now I am still nervous about doing presentations but not as bad. Now I just get nervous the day of the presentation unlike before when I was nervous at least a week before. I still think there are a lot of improvements I could do on presenting, but with the practice I have done so far, it as helped my confidence presenting and I am not too worried about doing the final presentation.

When I have finished the course I have two options either to carry on with education or find employment, and I haven’t yet decided 100% which I want to do. Although I think I’m more for carrying on with education. Its 6 months away so I still have a bit more time to think about it.

Year 1, Final evaluation

When I first started the course I had no expectation of what it was going to be like. One thing I did expect was to do as much planning as we have done, but I think planning it's a very important part of creating some thing.

In September I didn’t know much about how to create a web site and how to use professional software. In the first assignment I learnt about CSS and XHTML which I had never heard of before. Now I know what they both are and have created a bit of the code, to make parts of a web site.

From the first blog entry I did, I said that at the end of the course I would either do a third year or get a job at the end of the course. I am still undecided about what I want to do at the end I suppose that decision will be easier to make when the times closer.

Also in the first blog entry I wrote about my lack of confidence, I feel like my confidence has improved over the year and I hope it keeps improving, till I get to the point were I am happy about my self and the work I produce. I still have a part time job and I feel that, my job has also help make me more confident. At work I really enjoy working as a team and getting to meet different people everyday, I think since I have been working there my team skills have improved. I Like how you can do your own thing but still bounce ideas off each other.

Assignment 1
A1 the sketch book assignment, hasn’t felt like an assignment because it has been on going for months. I have kept my sketchbooks neat and tidy and I collected some inspiration when I found some good pieces. Having a sketchbook has made me more organised with my work, helping me keep all my work together. The sketchbook has been good to see the development work that I have done, it’s helpful to go back and look over the work I have done before and read the notes I have. The most important thing I think I use it for is to take lecture notes. One of the things I think I could improve on is to research more about the topics that we have had lectures about, this could help me understand the topics better if I ever misunderstood them.

Assignment 2
The second assignment was a web plan. Web plans aren’t my favourite assignments to do but I don’t dislike doing them. While doing this assignment it was the first time I had, had a seminar meeting. I think they are a really good idea to use on this course, I smaller groups are better to ask questions but larger groups are better for getting feedback. Even thought A2 was a lot of written work, we still had to present it neatly and consistently. This is what we used PageMaker to do, we have been given a template so that all the assignments are laid out in the same way. PageMaker was quiet easy to lean how to use so that when I had got use to the program more I had a go at using Indesign. I find In design easier to use and plus it can create tables, which is good because for A2 I spent ages makeing tables in PageMaker using lines and boxes.

Assignment 3
Assignment 3 was another web plan, from doing the first web plan I had a good idea of what we would need to do for this assignment. We all also got given extra work as well, which was to create the content of the web site. The web site was to contain basic computer terms, because of the course before I had done some work on computer terms so I knew about most of the terms I had to write about. The web plan had to be in a good as amount of detail has we built the web site for assignment 5.

This was the first time we had to do two assignments at the same time, I felt worried at first thinking that I might struggle to balance the work out. After the first couple of weeks of the assignment my worries stopped and I found my own way to balance my work out. This consists of time tables and checklists.

Assignment 4
Assignment 4 was the hardest assignment for me, because it meant using Photoshop. I had not used Photoshop before, so I struggled to know which tools to use, for which area of the image. After referring the assignment first time I redid it and pass the second time. Second time round I felt the image looked a lot better and I felt I had learnt how to use the tools better. I think even though this was the hardest assignment I have done so far I think it has been the assignment I have most improved at, including my skills using Photoshop.

Assignment 5
Assignment 5 was building A3’s web plan, I felt that the plan was in as much detail that it made it easy enough to create the web site. This was the first web site I had built, but I had used Dreamweaver before so I had a slight advantage knowing the basic of how to use Dreamweaver. The lecture we got on, how to use Dreamweaver was still very useful as I learnt about a lot of short cuts and easier ways to do things.

Assignment 6
When I was told that I had to do a presentation for assignment 6, I was a bit nervous but then I thought what the point I have to do so what the point in getting nervous and plus there isn’t much to be nervous about. I didn’t mind doing the presentation, I was a bit nervous while presenting and I could not say some of the French words but apart from that I felt it went ok. I liked researching about the typographer but I think I could have improved my assignment by including some more about the typefaces.

Assignment 7
The assignment I have just completed is A7, I have enjoyed this assignment the most. I liked it because it has been the must creative and there has been less written work. My spelling and grammar isn’t the best so I prefer to do less written work because it takes me ages to check thought my work when its complete and I can still miss errors. The thing that took me a while to do for this assignment was the measurements for the CD cover.

I feel like have learnt a lot over the first year, I can now see an improvement in the work I produce. There are still things I need to work on like, my concentration and confidence in my work. Hopefully I should work on them more in the second year and in the summer, so that also the quality of my work can improve.

My aims for the course next year are …
*Is improve my skills that I already know
*Get to know software better (Photoshop, Dream weaver and etc)
*To improve my self motivation to complete work sooner
*Not to refer my work
*To get merits

CD cover 2

This is my CD cover with the text, logo and bar code added. Please leave a comment with any feedback. Thanks.

CD cover background

This is my background for the CD cover, if you could give any feedback that would be good. Thanks.

CD cover and final finishes

The hand in date for assignment 7 is next Tuesday and I am abit stressed about it. I have a complete logo that I am happy with, the pre flight document is ready to be filled in and I am looking forward to writing the evaluation for the assignment. I enjoy writing evaluations as they are a good way to finish an assignment, as it makes me look over what I have done and how I have felt though out the assignment.

The only thing that I am worrying about is my CD cover, I still have to finish it. Tomorrow I am getting it complete so I can have the pre flight and evaluation done on Thursday and check though my work Friday. So Saturday can be used to do final checks and changes. I am going to have all my work complete and ready to hand in on Monday, so I can show my work in the seminar meeting so if any improves need to be done I can get them done Monday.

The checklists I did last week, will come in useful this week as they will help me remember what needs to go were and check I don’t forget to do something. Well doing assignments I like to set aims, like if I have a task I need to completing I’ll set a certain amount of time and make sure I finish the task in that amount of time. This helps me concentrate better, as I have something to aim for.

So the main thing I need to do this week is finish my CD cover then I should be calmer about next Tuesday. I will need to do some more Photoshop tutorials, so that I can make more changes to the image on the CD cover, so I am showing a range of Photoshop skills.

CD cover ideas

On Monday the lecture on printing artwork was redo, it was good to go over the lecture again as it is better to understand some thing new when it as been repeated and you have had time to take it in.

Last week my seminar group started researching pre flight documents. I couldn’t find many examples last week but this week I search something different in Google and I got a whole range of pre flight documents. We put the example together and showed each other what we had collected.

Monday I didn’t feel well so I went home at dinner, but the group carried on with the pre-flight document work. They e-mailed me thought out the afternoon to keep me up to dates on the progress of the document and so I could add any input. The version that was completed Monday was a good first copy, it just needs a few details added. This includes a sentence about checking the images used are 300dpi and to add contact details to the document. After those few details are added the pre flight document should be completed.

For the seminar meetings this week two groups were mixed together. I wasn’t sure about this idea, as I didn’t real want to say my ideas in front of a larger group, in case people thought my ideas were rubbish. When we got in the seminar meeting we were asked to put our work on the wall. I put my logos up and my CD cover images. I would have liked to had more work to put up, but I have been finding it hard to settle on an idea for the CD cover design. Now I have come up with the idea using dancers on the front and back cover, I thought of this idea because with the music been described as the next generation of dance music, the dance theme seem to fit. Showing my work to larger group wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be and I got some good feedback from the meeting.

My logo is now complete, I printed out my logo with the different typefaces and colours so that in the seminar meeting this week I could get feedback on the logos. The feedback I got was that, the logo should be kept in black and white as a colour didn’t seem to suit the logo. Also I was told that on the CD cover if I use a black background I could make the logo white so the logos doesn’t mix in with the background. This is a good idea, as I am planning to use a night/space background, which is mainly black.

Today we had a discussion about the second year. The talk was about what kind of assignments we would be doing in the second year. After the talk some people went out of the class room to talk to Steve about going on to the second year. This is a good chance for Steve to tell us what he thinks to how we are doing and tell us what he thinks about us progressing on to the second year.