Friday 29th January

Room Six Brief

Also I cant believe i forgot to tell you this but a friend of mine came into see me while I was at work the other day and has offered me a brief to do. Alex (my friend) is the manager of a club called Room 6 in Bournemouth and they have lost there promoter so has asked me to advertise a couple of events for him, but has also said that if it goes well then we will have a lot more work coming our way and payed. Which is brilliant I think, it will add work to my portfolio and show that I can work as a professional designer. I have asked Steve to also do this with me because I don't think im going to have the time to do it by myself in the middle of work and uni.
Since then I have emailed him to get some more info off him and we have decided to meet up with him at the club on Sunday so we can get a feel for the place and find out exactly what he wants.


PPRD Critique

This morning we had to present our PPRD work to the rest of the class and lectures, which I didn't really want to do because some of the briefs are still in progression, but it didn't go to bad. After this session me and Steve worked on the MADD brief till like 7.

MADD Meeting

While I was at work on Tuesday Steve had a meeting with MADD clients, and after talking to Steve I found out that we have though competition with other people in our group. Also They weren't to keen on our designs for the MADD logo so since then we have changed and developed the designs, but they did like the Spectacle in the Square logo I did which was a bit unexpected so we have also develop that design. Here are the recent designs which we have sent by email.

Monday 25th January

Me and Steve started work on the MADD brief today. It is quite good because the brief is really open, so we have had a chance to play around with the designs which will is always good. Here is a few designs we have come up with so far, which Steve is going to show to them in the meeting tomorrow. I would like to be there but I have work.

Friday 22nd January

Everything went pretty smoothly which was nice. All I had to do was upload my site onto the web, save everything onto disc and jot a few things down in my sketchbook.

Before I write my Evaluation i will tell you about the live brief me and Steve are planning on doing. after handing everything in we got told that there is two live briefs that we can read if we wanted to do one. Seeing as I haven't done a live brief yet I thought it would be best to. The one we choose to do is Music Arts Drama Dance Events (MADD Events), this is a group from the Bournemouth Uni on the Arts and Events course. For this brief we are to brand and advertise an event, they want us to come up with a logo for the company and the event first. Then after they want us to advertise the event in several different ways.

Also by this time next week we need to have a PDF presentation of our PPRD work, to show everyone else what we have been doing and to get some feedback. So for the next week I will be getting on with the competition brief and the live briefs.

Evaluation of Screen based communication 2

I think that this project was a complete such success, I learned a new program plus I created a fully functional and live online portfolio. Dreamweaver was a bit confusing at first but as you use it more and more, you start to get the hang of it. I am mostly really happy with my website seeing as its the first time doing something like this. The one thing I wasn't to pleased with, but this is mostly to do with not having the time to learn how to do anything better, is the Gallery. By the gallery I mean the pop up of the large image as you click on the thumbnail, because I like the way the gallery scrolls through the images but the pop up of the large image ruins it. So if I was to have some more time i would change this part. Other than that the website is how I wanted it, simple and clear and easy to navigate. Sketchbook wise, its the best yet, since i been at uni. This is because i spent more time on it and gave it more thought.

http://www.visualcommunication.org/leigh_spackman/

Wednesday 20th January

Ok, It was just me being really stupid. The reason the gallery wasn't working is because I am working in actionscript 3.0 and the script I was copying from the tutorial was actionscript 2.0. So I changed the code round and had to make the design of the gallery a little different so the it worked and because i don't have the time to learn the code to make the gallery as i wanted it to look. But it still looks really good, so im pleased.

All that is left to do is export the Flash file as a SWF file and import into Dreamweaver and make the SWF file and Dw page fit together and look as one. Also create meta tags for the site and making sure all the names of folders and pages are correct.
I will finish the website in Dw tomorrow and afterwards finish off my sketch book and then I have Friday to finalize everything and hand in.

Tuesday 19th January

Well it only took me 10mins in Flash to get to where I was in Dreamweaver, plus I have also done the gallery. The only problem is it doesn't work. I have checked the all the code to the tutorial and everything is fine. Ill go home tonight and have a play with the code and also ask my house mate, as he is really good at code in Flash. Probably just something little.

Monday 18th January

Been at uni all day trying to work out how to get the gallery working in my website. Didn't go to well, I have decided that I need to change programs or start again in Dreamweaver. The reason for this being, where I sliced the pages up in Photoshop so that it would make it quicker and easier to build the website, but has made it difficult to add my gallery. So in the end it wasn't quicker, its just made me fall behind.

I have decided to do the whole thing in flash instead of using Dreamweaver and adding the flash gallery afterwards, as intended. I already have the tutorial ready to build the gallery and will only take me a couple of minutes to build the rest of the design in Flash as i have all the images ready in Photoshop and having experience in using the program.

Not happy with work

Last week I asked to have this week off because of it being the week of the hand in and i feel like im letting everyone down. I work twice as hard as everyone else and do lots of hours and as soon as I take some time off everyone gets p***ed off. Its like I have to be constantly be working so everyone else can do half there job. No one ever thinks about me having a holiday, me taking time off to breathe. I don't want to sound selfish though. I think the problem is I feel like im letting myself down, by letting the team down.

Friday 15th January

Just had the critique on my final designs, I have everything done apart from the gallery. Nothing really to say because not much said in the crit, apart from they like it and that I need to get the gallery in. So im guessing there silence is a good thing.

Thursday 14th January

Day before final critique, nearly there just polishing a few things off. Haven't done the gallery yet. It actually became much easier to make the website in Dreamweaver because someone shown me how to slice images in Photoshop so that you can transfer the images to Dw but still play around with the links, this was a quick and easy way to make my website. I Do feel like im cheating though, even though its not cheating.

Monday 11th January

Ok im going to tell you the truth, over the Christmas holiday I have done no work. I know its bad but i didn't really have the time to. Firstly i went home for a week and all I wanted to do while I was there was relax, seeing as i don't get to normally do it. Secondly and finally I worked full time, and being a manager, there was not much time to think about anything else.

Anyway now I have defended my self back to what needs to be done. This Friday coming we have a a critique on our final designs for our websites. So the plan for the week is to forget about everything else and get the designs complete and into Dreamweaver with the links working.

Also have been researching ways of building the gallery, the one I like best so far is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TrIQqu2MkU but its a design in the program 'Flash', should be fine though because I have experience in Flash and all I will need to do is import it into Dw.