Theory

Week 1: what to expect http://www.ink2industry.com/work-placement-in-design/

Happiness Connective Discount Card

http://www.plasticcardonline.com/blog/?tag=discount-broadway-tickets

Monday 17th March 2014

This morning when I arrived I completed the alterations that Adam suggested for the Secure By Integrity website. As I had completed the majority on Friday this only took me an hour to finish. I sent proofs to Adam and he said that they looked much better and that he thought they were ready to send to the client. I then forwarded the proofs to Julian who was full of praise, saying that I had done a really good job, that he was impressed and that I could go ahead and arrange a meeting with the client to discuss my progress. In addition, he also said to arrange the meeting for Tuesday or Thursday, if I wanted him there, suggesting that it wasn't a necessity. This really made me feel good about the project and makes me feel like my designs are even stronger again. I feel like I am constantly improving in this job but to have completed the proofs for my first ever website design and have such praise from the director, and the chance to hold a meeting on my own really is a huge compliment. 

Despite the opportunity I would like to arrange the meeting for a time when Julian can sit in, as I don't think I am quite ready to run a meeting alone. However, I am excited to see what my client thinks of the work I have done so far and push forward with this project.

The rest of the day has been quite slow as I don't have any other work to do right now. I spent the rest of my time chasing clients for information which means that I haven't been able to get on with any other design work. In between emailing clients and talking to colleagues I have been looking on numerous design websites and blogs to try and get some ideas of things that we can tweet and Instagram to boost the social media for Revolution Inc.

Friday 14th March 2014

Following my conversation with Adam yesterday he used the printed version of the pages to make notes for me to follow and refine my design on screen. These notes were very helpful and I think that I have learned a lot from Adam yesterday and today, but most of the notes were picking up on the finer details such as spacing, alignment and text sizes, meaning that all of the tweaks I had to make were quite time consuming. Originally I had planned to complete the website by lunchtime to then send to the client so that I could then spend the afternoon working on other projects. However, these changes took me a while to do. After I made the initial changes Adam told me to concentrate on making two page perfect (the home page and one inner page) so that I could send those to the client because I don't want to spend a lot of time completing all of the pages for the client to not like the style of it and want to make major changes. I decided to work on the home page and news page. After I had completed both I sent them to Adam who then had some more changes to make that were, again, finer details. This means that unfortunately I didn't quite get the site finished today as we finished early and I ended up spending all day refining the pages.
Hopefully I only have an hour's work left on this website, so I should easily be able to get that finished on Monday morning, before moving on to a compliment slip and letterhead that I was asked to do today that I also didn't get round to working on. 

Thursday 13th March 2014

Today I spent another day working on the website for Secure By Integrity. Yesterday I managed to complete the home page and some of the inner pages, so I spent the morning working on the rest of the inner pages. By mid afternoon I had completed everything that I thought I could do, so I sent each page to Adam who then printed them off and spent and hour going through it with me and giving me pointers on how to improve. 
I had mastered the basic design of the website; I had a solid colour palette and fonts styles that run consistently throughout all of the pages, but I wasn't aware of how different modules work when building a website. The actual building of the website is something that I hadn't even given a second thought at this stage and it didn't cross my mind that I would have to design the website to fit a certain framework; I thought that you would be able to build a website in any way you designed it and didn't consider that their would be limitations on the developer's side of the process. Adam took the time to explain to me what different modules there are and showed me some websites that he has designed previously so that I could visually understand how the different modules work together. He then went on to show me how the modules look when logged on to the website to edit it, and explained that I should separate everything as best I can so that the modules are as flexible as they could possibly be. In addition he told me to consider what changes may be made in the future, all of the modules for the website will be added at this early stage, so changes need to be considered and incorporated into the initial development. 
After this conversation I definitely had a better idea of how to lay out web design to make the modules as flexible as they can be. In addition I also learned other smaller tips such as how to align everything, how much space to leave in between each object on the page and how to use different font styles to break up the text on the pages, in order to maximise the level of engagement that the website has. 

Wednesday 12th March 2014

Today I spent the day working on the website for Secure By Integrity. I managed to finish the home page quite quickly so I looked at completing other pages. I have always found that I am better off completing drafts of work and refining them rather than trying to produce a piece of work that doesn't need developing, so I decided to just come up with a simple home page that would need to be tweaked, before doing the same for the other pages. Today the most important thing I have learned is what layer comps are and how to use them. The PPP handbook by ustwo suggested that I use layer comps, but didn't really explain why, so I searched online for more information and discovered that they are used to show different variations of things. As I was designing inner pages of a website where the header, navigation bar and footer would remain consistent, I thought it was an ideal time to try to use layer comps. I managed to create a layer comp for each page which is now making it a lot easier for me to flick from page to page to see how the layout of each one compares to the others. In addition, because I am using layer comps I need to be organised with all of my layers, meaning that it is motivating me to group all of my layers and specifically label everything and put it all in the correct order to make it easier to turn layers on and off when it comes in updating the layer comps. This, in turn, is keeping my layers panel very organised which is a lot easier to work with.
By the end of the day I had got to the stage where I had something on each page, but I still don't think that it looks right. Tomorrow I would like to learn how to save all of the layer comps and individual files and get opinions off Julian and Adam in order for me to move forward with my design. I think it might also be an idea to go back to the web and research more website designs that I really like (or don't like) to try and inform my design a little bit more. At the moment I have create a flat design, but a lot of the modules have coloured photography in and they don't quite tie in together. I either need to make the background and skin of the website more interesting by adding gradients and textures, or replace some of the photographs with simple illustrations to match the style of the skin. 

Tuesday 11th March 2014

Today I worked on the actual design of Secure By Integrity's website, and as predicted the Pixel Perfect Precision Handbook by ustwo studios has really come in handy today. I had previously used this guide when designing the holding page for Sales Force 10, and therefore Photoshop still had the right system preferences for designing for the web. However, I still needed more tips if I wanted to create a professional website. 

Today I learnt how to properly set up a grid with subdivisions, how to snap shapes to a grid, and how to properly align and distribute things within my file. The latter has been the most important today as I already had an idea of how to change my grid setup and my shapes were already set up to snap to the grid, but I have been simply using grid lines and rulers to line things up which isn't a 100% reliable method. Thanks to this document I have now learned how to align and distribute things so there there is equal spacing between each object and they are perfectly in line however they need to be lined up. I have only been working on the home page which is mostly made up of boxes that will lead to different pages, but as I have to work at 100% to ensure that when I nudge an object it moves by one pixel, lining up the text in the navigation bar and footer would have been difficult if it wasn't for learning how to align and distribute.
I think I have made a good start on the home page today and I am happy with the design. However, I am very confused about the content, and although I shouldn't be worrying about this because I am only designing the website, it does have an effect on my design because I need to be able to map everything out so that I can design all of the relevant pages. The business I am designing for runs screening on people that are to be employed in certain job sectors that require such checks, for example cash handling. During our initial meeting the client discussed a website layout, explaining that they want a banner image with a list of the sectors they cater for that each link to a page, as well as separate boxes underneath for each service that they provide, with a page leading to each of these aswell. This means that today I haven't been able to get very far with the design as I have no imagery for any of the boxes, nor do I have confirmation of any of the sectors or services. I have emailed to ask, but I got a vague answer back, so tomorrow I plan on pressing the client for specific information so that I can push my design forward.