Wednesday 12th February 2014

http://www.ehow.com/info_8494789_size-should-standard-landing-pixels.html

http://helpx.adobe.com/en/photoshop/using/aligning-layers.html

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/create-shape-layers-in-photoshop-cs5.html


This morning I got in and saw an email off my client saying that they were happy with both the business card and letterhead design and wanted them to go to print, so I sent the files over to Julian who has sent them to print. As these were both fine I spent the morning working on the holding page for the website. This didn't take as long as I thought as it is simply an image with the logo and some contact details on, so it was just a case of redesigning the business card so it was suitable for a website. 
Before starting, I told Adam what I was working on and he asked if I had ever designed a website or holding page before and when I said I hadn't he printed off a PDF that he said he found useful when he started designing for web. The PDF is 108 pages long so I haven't had chance to read through it all yet, but the first section was really helpful when designing my holding page this morning as it gave me all the information on how to properly set up my document in the right colour mode with the preferences set so that the colours won't change on screen, as well as how to properly set up a grid, and how to snap all shapes to pixels. This document went into details about everything you could possibly need to know about designing for the web in both Photoshop and Illustrator so it was definitely helpful when creating my holding page, and will make things a lot easier for me when it comes to designing the rest of the website. 
Reading through this document has made me realise that even though I am competent using the Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, I don't think I use any of them to their full capabilities. There are still a lot of things that I don't know how to do that would enhance my designs and make my experience working on the computer smoother, an example being using shape layers like this document recommends. In the past I have always created smart objects, and pasted graphics from Illustrator in as smart objects, but this document informs me that if I use shape layers then they are easier to manipulate, they don't slow Photoshop down as much and they keep the file size down. 
I think to improve on this I need to read around the subject more. There are lots of tutorials and PDFs online that are full of information that would improve my skills in these programs and generally help me improve as a designer that I could save on my computer or print off and use as guides when working on projects. In addition, Adobe provide endless tutorials, and design blogs and agencies always relay this sort of information, providing their readers with hints and tips to use when designing. I think I need to get into the habit of reading design blogs and news feeds and following relevant twitter accounts and generally be aware of the information available online as these tips, tutorials and guides can come from anywhere and the knowledge is can be extremely valuable.

The afternoon has been quite quiet. I have some projects coming up that I look forward to doing, including working on designing and building websites which I am excited to learn about. However, at the moment there isn't a lot that needs doing so I spent the afternoon looking at blogs and trends for 2014 to try and find a topic that I could write a short blog post about for the Revolution Inc.'s LinkedIn account. A reoccurring trend was flat UI design, but Adam informed me that Jack is planning on writing a blog post about the same thing, so I have decided to change my idea. I didn't have time to work on a new blog post today, but in the morning I am going to write a post about getting a placement, as I thought that this would be a good thing to write about from my perspective, having gone through the process of contacting agencies and arranging my own. I definitely found the talks from other students more useful than ones from tutors or designers when I was applying for placements as the students giving the talk knew exactly how I was feeling as they had been in that position themselves and I really felt that they could relate. Adam asked me to write an article about something that would get a lot of hits and I think that this will. Writing it from my perspective will allow me to provide information that students really want to know, such as what questions to prepare for in an interview.