Time Management

Week One

Activities

In the PPD session we noted down activities how we think we spend our time, then put these into categories which we gave an estimated percentage for, based on how much time we think we spend on these activities.

College Activities

Travel, tutorials, library, mac suites, workshops, visual language, cts, crits, studio time, blogging, lunch, breaks, procrastination, ppd, lectures, research, planning, library shop

Domestic Activities

Washing up, tidying kitchen/bathroom, preparing food, cooking, eating, putting stuff away, tidying bedroom, washing clothes, sleeping, showering, getting dressed, weekly shop, hoovering

Social Activities 

Facebook, nights out, phone calls, shopping, days out, texting, conversation

Other

Part time work, watching TV, reading, travel, going home, going on computer, drawing, general wasting time

General Activities

1. College work 25%

2. Travel 5%

3. Tidying/cleaning 5%

4. Shopping 5%

5. Eating 5%

6. Speaking to friends 15%

7. Going out 5%

8. Relaxing 5%

9. Sleeping 30%

College Activities

1. Blogging 20%

2. Visual language 10%

3. CTS 10%

4. Travel 5%

5. Breaks/lunch 10%

6. Mac suites/library 10%

7. Studio time 15%

8. Tutorials/workshops 10%

9. Briefs/lectures 10%

This week we all have recorded what we have been doing and how long we have spent on each activity to help us to see how we really manage our time.

Week Two

Ways of time wasting

- Oversleeping - Naps - Staying up late - Lack of motivation - TV/Games - Facebook/Socialising - Sitting around - Not getting work done on a Wednesday as not in college - Procrastination

How to stop wasting time...

- Combine tasks together e.g. cook with friends - Write what you need to do in a list, either colour code, order or give a letter to determine which task needs to be done first - Set watch faster than the actual time - Do a little bit everyday rather than leaving everything until the last minute - Plan ahead for the week - Leave time to plan every day - Try to stop doing things that make you feel guilty for wasting time

Why manage your time?

- Sense of accomplishment - Professional - Prepares you for a working environment - Makes you more employable - Time is money - Feel less stressed - No guilt - Be on top of your jobs 

Long term goals

What do you want to achieve by the end of the course? I would like to achieve a 2:1, have great knowledge of Graphic Design, have done various work experience placements and made contacts in the industry.

What is your ideal job? I am not yet sure as I am still learning about Graphic Design and am not sure how I would like to specialise.

What kind of practice/business do you aspire to be a part of or do you want to run your own? This depends on the circumstances, but I think I would like to go freelance and be my own boss.

Do you want to work in this country or abroad? In this country.

What special interests are important to you? My hobbies are important to me although I do not get a lot of time to do these because of the time spent on the course. Ideally I would like to have more time to pursue my hobbies, such as rock climbing and hiking, however now because of the course I don't have a lot of spare time so when I do get time to relax I usually do something which seems like time wasting such as watching TV.

Photography Workshop

Evaluation

Here are my final 10 photographs from the photography induction workshop. I took lots of photographs in this session and I really enjoyed playing around with the different studio lighting, coloured fills and camera settings as this is something I have never done before. The results are really interesting as the same objects look completely different colours with the use of different lighting. I have tried different colours against each other, based on what I learnt in previous colour theory sessions, to see how this changes how a colour is seen. I especially like the shadows that are created and also how the colour can be seen through the transparent objects. I would like to borrow the equipment to do another photo shoot in the future, with more exciting objects. I will print these photographs at A6 size in digitial print, preferably on gloss paper.

Development on DP blog

Photoshop Workshop

Photoshop Induction Designs

These are my final ten double sided postcard designs answering the Photo shop brief.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

 9.

10.

Self Evaluation


I am pleased with the postcards I have created for this Photo shop brief as I think they do answer the brief, as they work as a set and explore my given colour, blue, and its contrasting colour, orange. The techniques I have use to edit the photographs aren't destructive, and so because of this I have been able to experiment with many different alterations. I decided to enhance the colours in the photographs, as I believe colour was the most important consideration for this brief, instead of creating an unrealistic image. I think my final postcards work a lot better because I re-took my colour theory photographs, as the ones I had taken in the colour theory session were very poor quality and also not visually attractive. I can see a great improvement in my final pieces compared to the postcard experiments I created in the Photo shop induction. If I was to create these postcards again, I would spend longer experimenting with the back of the postcard, and ensuring that the colours on the back of the postcards were more relevant.

Collection 100: Dinosaurs

Relevant Pages

Research
Initial primary qualitative and quantitative research
Initial secondary qualitative and quantitative research
Dinosaurs in arts and crafts
Dinosaurs in books and films

Design
Dinosaur card development
Book workshop
Moving image workshop
Collection 100: Final piece

Initial Presentation of Research

Subject matter: Dinosaurs

Methods for categories/organising research: 1. Alphabetical - Dinosaur names 2. Categories - Diet - (herbivore, carnivore, omnivore) 3. Timescale - When dinosaurs were discovered 4. Continuum - Size - Smallest to largest 5. Continuum - A little to a lot - How much people like dinosaurs

Feedback by: Chris

Appropriate themes of research within subject matter: Religion, Size of dinosaurs

Methods to gather appropriate: Mostly secondary on Internet, primary opinions

General feedback on presentation: Informative, a lot of research that is easy to break down

Additional research required- Primary: Visit a museum

-Secondary: Watch films about dinosaurs (Primeval) and compare with what historians say.

Action to be taken: Keep up the good research.

Feedback by: Max

Appropriate themes of research within subject matter: Dinosaurs in religion, different dinosaurs and their characteristics, art etc, whether they were real or not

Methods to gather appropriate: Threads, surveys, internet

General feedback on presentation: Clear, well ordered, informative

Additional research required- Primary: Surveys

-Secondary: Watch Jurassic Park and Walking with Dinosaurs

Action to be taken: Watch films, find fossils

Feedback by: Ben

Appropriate themes of research within subject matter: Religion with dinosaurs, illustrators who draw dinosaurs

Methods to gather appropriate: Opinions

General feedback on presentation: Informative

Additional research required- Primary: Go and photograph dinosaur bones at a museum, sketch them if you can't photograph

Feedback by: Kirsty H

Appropriate themes of research within subject matter: Dinosaurs in religion, creationists, illustrators/crafts

General feedback on presentation: Very clear

Additional research required- Primary: Watch dinosaur films

-Secondary: Look at archeology, fossils etc

Action to be taken: Watch some dinosaur programmes, like Jurassic Park, Prime Evil, Walking with Dinosaurs, and Disney Dinosaurs

Feedback by: Steph

Appropriate themes of research within subject matter: Types of dinosaurs, religion, existence, illustrators

Methods to gather appropriate: primary opinions, secondary Internet

Additional research required- Primary: Ask people knowledge of dinosaurs, go to a museum

-Secondary: Find out about exhibits, look at fossils

Action to be taken: Possible theme - dinosaurs in the media

End of Week One
My evaluation
This week I have presented my research to other students, and thought about where this project could go.  After thinking about how I can categorise all the information I have collected, I would really like to use this as a theme for the project.
To continue to develop this project, I think I need to learn a lot more about dinosaurs, as the initial primary and secondary qualitative and quantitative research I collected was about dinosaurs in religion. I don't think I feel strongly enough about this subject to create a 'Collection 100' product, and also, from the research I gathered, most people did actually believe in dinosaurs, and those who didn't had firm religious beliefs that I do not intend to challenge.
What I did gather from my research, however, was that most people didn't know a lot about dinosaurs, with many people only being able to name Tyrannosaurus. Even though a lot of people I asked were my age, a few responses were that people weren't interested in dinosaurs as they thought they were scary. I think it would be a good idea to create a product which would appeal to girls, as I think most of the dinosaur books existing are aimed exclusively at boys.


End of Week Two
My evaluation
I have spent this week experimenting with different design ideas before coming across an idea which I think will relate to the initial primary quantitative research I collected. I really enjoyed the moving image workshop, but I don't know how relevant it would be to create a video, when the focus point I have decided on is how facts and figures about the dinosaurs can be categorised. Now that I have an idea, my next step is just to get on with drawing the 100 dinosaurs, as well as continuing to learn about dinosaurs.

Week Three Progress Crit
Issues Raised:
- Will 100 of the same idea keep the readers interest, especially as the product is aimed at children? It could be a good idea to include different activities on the cards, for example each set of 10 could contain a different activity, such as colouring in the dinosaurs.
- The cards need to be interesting and easily understandable. Include the pronunciation of each of the dinosaurs names and what the name means.
- When you know what you are doing with the cards you can think about packaging, and whether they should be placed in a book.

Action to be taken:

At the moment, I think the most important action is to continue to create the cards, ensuring there is interesting information about the dinosaurs as well as facts and figures. When all 100 cards are created, then I need to think about packaging, and how the cards would be distributed. I think it could be a good idea to include quizzes to test what the reader is learning as an activity to keep the readers interest. I also need to plan more activities like this.

Week Four Progress Crit

 Issues Raised:
- Revisit brief, check you are answering all aspects of it, especially - is it product and packaging, promotion or advertising?
- Make sure you know and it is clear who your audience is, what the product is, why you are creating it etc.
- Make sure there is a consistency in the grid.
- Need to give instructions on what you are supposed to do with it - is it a colouring in book?
- Decide on context - the facts seem like they would be difficult to understand for children, yet the font and colouring in style isn't relevant for teenagers. Make sure format, font, and information is suitable.
- Introduction, explain the topic.
- Need a key to explain what the symbols mean.
- Make sure that there will be a visual consistency between product and packaging
- Is it now a book or cards as planned?

Action to be taken:
After the crit I decided that my target audience would be children, so I need to make the product more understandable and suitable for children. Also, I think I will include colouring pencils along with instructions and an introduction to the topic so that it is obvious that this is a colouring in activity. I think I will create a book instead of individual cards now, as I do not have designs for the back of the cards, and also considering price - I would have to print all 100 on to card instead of paper.

Week Five Progress Crit

 Feedback from students:

- This is awesome! The illustrations and idea is really good and visually engaging. Only thing we can think is its not too clear how it will be packaged and what size. Will be better once printed. Just not clear who the target audience is.
- Who is it aimed at - children or teens?
- Is there a purpose for the lack of colour?

Action to be taken:

After these comments and questions from other students, I decided I really needed to choose which format the book will take when it is printed. I will do this by printing out mock-ups and choosing a style I like. I need to concentrate on packaging that is visually consistent with the book, as I haven't spend much time on this yet, despite this being an important consideration in the brief. I believe the lack of colour will be understood better when I create an introduction/instructions page as suggested in last weeks crit. I will continue to experiment with font and layout, as my target audience is still not clear. I would still like to be able to include all the information about each Dinosaur as I think this is an important part of the book.

Rationale

For the Collection 100 Brief my theme is dinosaurs.  I have created a children’s colouring book with 100 dinosaur colouring in sheets, containing facts and information, as well as an introduction to dinosaurs and other activities. I have categorised the dinosaurs into alphabetical order. The target audience is both girls and boys, around 7 to 8 years old.

Final Evaluation

I have evaluated my Collection 100 Brief in the end of module self evaluation.

Front Cover

Introductory Pages

Back Cover

100 Dinosaur Cards

Photographs of Final Book