InDesign Task

Write Up:

What type of films do you like?
I like all the saw films, Hide and Seek, Amityville Horror, 28 Days Later, My Bloody Valentine, Horror spoofs such as Shaun of the Dead and Scary Movie. I like horror because most of them are just cheesy and bad, and funny stuff like paranormal activity. My Bloody Valentine was kind of scary but I rarely find a film that scares me. I like ones with a good twist at the end like the first Saw movie. The Saw films are good because they’re so gory; it’s kind of funny. There’s a horror called mirrors where a woman rips her jaw apart.. it’s pretty funny.

What’s your favourite TV show?
I like a lot, Friends, Supersize vs Superskinny, Facejacker, Phonejacker, Family Guy, 20210, Glee, anything with Derren Brown and the soaps Hollyoaks, Eastenders, Corronation Street.

I like a wide range of Music
Drum n Bass , Dubstep, Oldskool, Jungle Breakbeat, R+B, Garage, Bassline, Cheesy Pop. If I had to pick a favourite style I’d say R&B when I’m getting ready, gets you in the mood. Listening to anything that’s chart at moment, Tinie Tempah, Young Money, Dizzee rascal.

When it comes to food I like anything Italian. Pasta dishes, lasagne, garlic bread (goes with anything). I can cook a really good roast dinner, if I do say so myself. Also do curries, I cook a nice cashew nut curry. I go through phases of liking different foods though, I went through a phase of eating loads of Greek yoghurt with honey and muesli. I love cooking and I’m always trying new things, apart from meat and fish because I’m a veggie!!

Designers I like are people like Linda Zacks, extraoomph.com. Claire Coles, although she's more textiles and Si Scott.

My Hometowns Bury St Edmunds, a little town down south. I have one brother, one sister, one step brother and one step sister. My dog is called Mojo, he is a greyhound and I love him :)

Click for full thing

InDesign Task - Page Layout Research

Speaking from Experience Self Evaluation

What problem did you identify?
An issue with time management with new starters, and the adjustment to a full time degree course.

From speaking to students, taking questionnaires and from my own experiences, I quickly discovered the problem with the adjustment to the course. The main issue was that we don’t always stick to a plan and tend to leave random notes and scribbles, rather than structuring our time more effectively.


What evidence did you find to support your decisions?
My own weakness at time management was enough to know there was an issue, and from talking to other students I quickly found I wasn’t alone. It’s not that we’re all useless with time management; in most cases people are generally organized. The issues lies with prioritization and planning, we may not what we need to do but we will always ‘run out of time’ and wind up rushing the day before deadline.


What methods did you use to gather your evidence and what forms did it take?
I recorded my findings in a notebook, which was later typed and put in the sketchbook.


What methods of research did you find useful and why?
I found that my primary research and the research from my own experiences were most useful baring in mind the project title.

What research could you have carried out that would have proved more useful?
I could have done wider questionnaires outside of friends and students within the college. Could have been more beneficial to gain that wider spread but I also feel that the research I had was more than sufficient for the task.


Five things you would do different next time

1. Being able to print text onto my badges..
2. Carry out more research
3. Probably test some more initial ideas. Felt I developed enough but didn’t get the widest range of initial work (as always).
4. Get the cover printed on better quality papers, had to use my own photo paper for cover, didn’t really match the rest of the booklet.
5. Make the lid a little more sturdier. The product was left in the sun one afternoon when the weather was amazing. The lid didn’t like this though, warped everywhere…

Badges

Speaking from Experience – Extension

To add another product to the project I thought I'd design a poster to be included with the pack. However I wasn't actually happy with the quality of the designs and didn't really think it would add much to the product in terms of looks, and purpose. The sheets are shown below with annotation. They may be some cropping. Blogger's still cropping all my images, click to see full ones :)



The first image is basically the concept for the poster. I've carried through the same font as previous and added the suggestion of time with the letter 'o'. The second image has a change in angle to add more interest and make it look less flat and dull. After this I started to experiment a little more with colour to make it 'pop' more. And finally I have a failed attempt at emphasizing the time idea by trying to add a pendulum. I know.. it looks bad.



SImplified version in yellow with a slight fade on the E to drawn they eye more to the word time. Also tried to add in a hand to make it look like someone was literally organizing the letters to give the appearance of 'management'/ time management etc.




This page shows another attempt at making a poster. I was getting frustrated at the previous design and didn't like the look of it at all. The newer version tries a different layout and style but eventually decided I was wasting my time with a poster. Who would have this in there room?? Wasn't included in the end as I thought it would spoil the finish of the other pieces (which I was happy with)

In Design

FINAL DESIGNS

**IMAGES ARE STILL BEING CROPPED - FULL VIEWS WHEN CLICKED**

Calendar



Packaging


Booklet

Final Stock choices after Testing (recorded in sketch book)

Final Stock choices after Testing (recorded in sketch book)

Calendar:
Glossy Photo Paper 160gsm
Mounted onto black card for durability and strength

Packaging
After much trial and error I’ll be using mount board

Booklet
Thin grade double sided satin papers.


COSTINGS
Calendar
1x Gloss A4 – 50p
1x Card A4 – 25p
12x Mini Magnets £3
T£3.75

Packaging
Mount Board - £1.62 a sheet with possibility of 2 nets per sheet
Foam Padding - £2 sheet with possibility of 2 cuts
Magnetic tape - £3.50 3M roll
T£7.62

Booklet
7x Double sided A4 sheets. 7 sheets at £3.50, 7 at £1.75
T £5.25

Further Items Required
• PVA
• Double sided tape
• Craft Knife
• Steel Ruler
• Hell of a lotta’ patience

Estimated Cost – £16.62 +/- Mock ups – Testing and further material costings

Text Final Design

Here is the font I will be using throughout the design work. It’s a font I’ve adopted myself from Arial Black and Alien Encounters.

The reason I’ve gone for such a thick heavy type is that I wanted to reinforce the idea that time management is a very bold and serious issue. This is also the reason why I didn’t go for a fancy, swirly type. Plus, from looking through the research, this type of font is graphically relevant. It’s being used a lot recently and it’s current with graphic design trends, which should appeal to the target audience.


ALL MY IMAGES ARE STILL BEING CROPPED?? - CAN SEE FULL VIEWS IF YOU CLICK THEM

Design Ideas - Concept

Pack containing foldout, calender and badges.


Calendar Dimensions
25.6 x 18.3

Badge Diameters
30

ALL MY IMAGES ARE STILL BEING CROPPED?? - CAN SEE FULL VIEWS IF YOU CLICK THEM

Existing Product Research

What do student currently use to manage time:
• Calendars
• Diary
• Phone Calendar
• Mini white boards
• Briefs stuck all over walls
• Sheets all over wall
• Marker pen all over walls!
• Alarm reminders on phones
• Notice boards
• Pinning things on fridges.


Further research into existing products – concepts and market releases evidenced in SKETCH BOOK

Found some really cool design work being used. Some interesting ideas too, calendars where each day tears away and it’s a match you can burn away.

Also seen a lot of use of heavy type, which is starting to catch me eye. Really like the contrast and it defiantly grabs the viewer’s attention.

Time Management Research (Recorded in SketchBook)

The research I’ve gathered is secondary taken from various web pages. I did find some pretty interesting stuff though, on planning yourself and some people’s experiences as well.

The main point I’ve got from this research is Procrastination. I’d heard the term before but never really understand it. Procrastination though, is essentially putting off certain tasks in favour of doing something more desirable such as.. nothing. There’s two type of procrastinators though, those who do nothing and those that put off smaller work for bigger work. If I’m being honest I will sometimes sit down and within no time find that 2-3 hrs have just disappeared but in most cases I think the second point is true as well.

Key Points on Procrastination
• Procrastination isn’t always bad; in fact it can be very good.
• Good procrastination is avoiding errands to do real work.
• Pays off to put off errands to do real work that need doing. If a project inspires you, it can be a win to blow off everything else your working on to complete it. Yes, those errands may cost you more time when you finally get around to them. But if you get a lot done during those few a days, you will be more productive.
• It’s not curable it’s work-able
• The cost of an interruption is not just the time it takes but that breaks the time on either side in half. You probably only have to be interrupted a couple of times a day before your unable to work on hard problems at all.

BAD PROCRASTINATION
• People who fail to write novels don’t do it by sitting in front of a blank page for days without writing anything. They do it by feeding the cat, going out to buy something the y need for their apartment, meeting a friend for coffee, checking mail. “I don’t have time to work,” they say. And they don’t they’ve made sure of that.



Really liking the idea of using procrastination in some way. It seems like something that really resonates with a LOT of people and would be really good to work with.

Help show the two types of procrastinators and push towards the good. It’s maybe not the best ideas to put off small tasks but if I angled it towards, ‘do some work instead of cleaning’ it keeps it away from graphics. Don’t really want to say do CTS, do some REAL work, however true that is.

Ideas on Time Management

Some of the tools people use for planning there time

Activity Logs – Listing and organising how you use your time. Find out what you mainly waste your time doing. Can be a pretty dull week writing all this stuff down but its helpful in the long run. A couple of month back, I did one of these myself and found I was spending a lot of time procrastinating on PS3 rather than finishing off small bits of work. I’ve stopped now, as I don’t have it anymore!

Prioritisation Lists - List and categories all the things on your list and order them in terms of importance/marks maybe. Obviously everything’s important but some more than others. Work out what’s going to be best for that time.

Personal Goal Setting – Plan to complete tasks and reward yourself your finishing them. Willing yourself on that you can watch a bit of telly AFTER you’ve wrote your evaluations.

I think its hand to pick or choose which one of these methods will work best for a majority of people. Something like this will be aimed at a wide range of people and we’re all different. What might work for some may not for others?

Speaking from Experience – Rationale

Brief
Aid people to manage there time more appropriately.

Who needs to know?
First year students, who perhaps aren’t expecting the workload.

What do they need to know?
The pace of work and how to handle it.

Why do they need to know?
Because first year students may not be used to what they’ll be doing and don’t want to fall behind through poor time planning.

What will they respond to?
Possibly a guide of some sort with tips from my own and others experiences of planning time.

What research is required?
Not tonnes imo. A lot of the information will be coming from what we have experienced so mostly primary and not too far spread. Could extend to talking to students from other University’s and Colleges to get a wider spread.

Speaking from Experience - Ideas and concept building

CONCEPT 1
Time management

Ideas

• Planners
• Notice Boards
• Protestation Kits
• Wall charts
• Pin ups

Research

• How do people manage there time
• What do they use, what works, what doesn’t.

Resolution

• Guides
• Posters
• Booklet/foldouts
• Mail shots
• Which ever will be more appropriate based on above research. Possibly something you could have with you day to day like a diary.




CONCEPT 2
Places to go in Leeds: -
Shops/Nights/Visits – Guide to Leeds. Student style (cheap stuff!)

Ideas

• Top places to see
• Cheap nights
• Cheap takeaways
• Star rated places, where’s best

Research

• Shops and places themselves.
• Find out who goes and why they go back
• List off all the popular student spots from primary and secondary sources.

Resolution

• Guide
• Booklet
• Foldout
• Posters
• Mail shots





CONCEPT 3
Know the building

Ideas

• Staff names
• Workshops – Rooms/Staff
• Maps
• Facilities and there opening times – location.

Research

• Rooms and facilities – list who runs the rooms, times etc.

Resolution

• Guides
• Maps
• Large format poster to hold the info