OUGD602: 10 Days Experience

10 Days Experience

Although I haven't had a placement during term, I had two for the entire of the Summer before and I have a placement lined up for starting in the middle of June so I feel happy with the experience that I will be doing. I am very excited for the upcoming placement as it isn't a digital agency - something I have always gone for. So it will be a good opportunity to try something different.

I have made up my 10 days by going to a variety of events throughout the year - this is something I have done since 2nd year and I really enjoy networking. It has created several opportunities for me. The events I have been to are Dot York, Manchester Digital Talent Day, a UX Talk by Manchester Digital, Hey!, Forefront, DigitaLeeds and Leeds Print Festival.

I went on one studio visit to Music, and spent the day there doing a portfolio surgery and looking around it. It was an incredible space, their work was amazing. It was such an inspiring and creative place, and somewhere I would love to work in the future.

I also attended a 3 days workshop called Work in the Web at a Harrogate based studio called Mixd. I met the people who set this up through Hey!, and it was a great opportunity to have a more intense learning experience about coding. Topics such as SASS, Wordpress and Responsive Web Design were covered and it was such a great way to learn more about web development.

OUGD602: Music Visit

Yesterday I went to Music for a portfolio review and to see what they are about. It was incredible. I feel like you hear about these creative studios, but never see them really. It was so refreshing to see that they exist and know that there are amazing spaces and projects that I could potentially be apart of.

Notes
Dan gave me presentation on what they are about and I wrote these notes:

• We have no style or discipline
• Have to be a good presenter otherwise ideas won't come across
• There is no outcome until they think of an idea
• Get clients that are like minded
• Creative human being
• Writing presentations help work your way up

Roof Terrace
They have a roof terrace where you can chill out and it has astro turf. It was a beautiful day so was great to spend time on it. I think it's cool that they have this space, would be great for coming up with ideas or taking a break.

 This wall has lots of objects from different projects on it. They even had some brit awards since they designed them! (I got to hold one omg)

I thought this was an amazing feature, its their calendar, but they have made such an amazing feature out of it. Since they are called Music, they have these vinyls hung up which have different numbers and letters on so they can make up the dates everyday. 

We went for a drink with them afterwards and they were really helpful in answering questions.

• I asked about living prices compared to Leeds - 10% more expensive
• Every year they go somewhere around Christmas - they've been to Copenhagen, Glasgow and Bristol
• They get to go to awards ceremonies a lot
• They get to visit places and help set things up (office is dead)

OUGD602: Cargo Collective

I began to edit the code on an existing theme for Cargo. What really annoys me about it is that you cannot see the existing HTML or edit it - you can only add more html. Which makes it hard for me to get rid of elements and see what is already there. 

Anyway, I started by changing colours, fonts and adding some content and links in there.

I made the caption bold and text regular

I stripped it right down to fit my design and made a container which creates two columns as there is a 50% width and floats left

I added a small caption to each bit of text and I've reached the design I came up with months ago on the top half-  just need to add the photos of underneath now.

I realised that I should add my name to the nav because when you are on my work page you won't be able to see it anywhere

This was harder said than done, since it wants everything on the nav to be a link, and I can't figure out how to add something within the nav container on the html since I can't see the existing html!!!

Here is some of the CSS that I added..

I had been editing the HTML and CSS on the main 'feed' page, and I actually realised that this meant all of the content I had added featured on all of the pages. Therefore,

 I decided to start again by creating a page for the home page, and setting the display options to start on that page.

I actually had some trouble creating two columns when I did this, and it took me a while to correct it. I had to create two separate css styles for the columns in the end, whereas previously I only used one.

I also realised just by changing the width % I could have the columns underneath each other if I want - I still haven't decided how much content to include on the home page.

Here is the HTML, showing the two container classes and how I've turned the email address into a link.

OUGD602: Networking - Dot York

I went to the Dot York conference this week, where there were 10 speakers speaking about a range of topics from design to development, and it was a really good experience.

There was a really good turn out, of about 300 people - I didn't realise it was going to be such a big event! Luckily as a student, you get free entry, and you have to pay £110 if not.

I actually enjoyed all of the talks, but the ones that stood out the most for me were Allison House and Phil. 

Allison just had this really positive and productive energy that was clear to see, and it was obvious how hard she works at what she does. She has worked at Treehouse, Codecademy and Dropbox!!! So has been part of some of the best design teams in the world which is pretty impressive, and she gave some good advice of how she got to that stage. 

She works two shifts a day - her day job, then 2nd shift which is a side project she wants to work on. She does this everyday, and is really strict with it. 

The second talk that I was most impressed with was Phil Hawksworth, as he was just such a confident, humorous and good speaker. What I noticed throughout his talk is that he had edited his slides and spoke about things to include what the previous speakers had said. To me, this showed what a great listener he is and how up to date and pro active he is as a professional. It kept us all engaged as well.

I met a woman called Maryam at the event, and she flew from New York to be here! We got talking, and I found out that she is a web designer for Victoria Secret in New York - dream job right there!! She was so lovely to speak to, and we went for dinner after the event and exchanged details. I was glad I went and met her as she was such a lovely person and had a lot of positive energy. I would love to work for Victoria Secret in their design department in New York one day... I love that company!! And design.. so combining the two would be a dream.

Here are my notes from some of the talks

Mr Joe - Design for Science

• Don't need to cram everything above the fold - but need to show evidence of that
• Have to advocate choices you've made to prove your thinking
• Using terms like 'I feel' allows someone to give opposing opinion - uses personal views rather than data so sets people up
• Don't confuse design with art. Design is about having an effect and doing something
• Subliminal advertising doesn't work
• Cognitive Lode
• Understanding psychology will make my approach stronger as I have the theory to back it up
• You'll always have an answer

Bonnie Colville-Hyde - Learning From Comics

• How do we make stuff people want to share
• We need to change the way we present deliverables as they are boring. Documentation is full of text if we don't engage decision makers, we fail
• People love stories. We can engage people with experiences
• Comics can provide a positive disrupter
• They get shared, and people are attracted to them - they have a novelty value
• Create helpful and productive discussions
• What makes a comic - single panels, pages, gutters, speech, machine voice, thought bubble, normal speech
• Eyebrows and mouths are very expressive
• Characters are important
• Alex Dukal - photoshop texture brushes
• Comci life - $30/40 programme to create this
• Planning is so important

Anna Debenham - Styleguides, Pattern Libraries and Code Standards

• Interface inventory - useful for existing sites
• Style tiles - in between moodboards/mockups
• A good tool for conversation at start of project to see what the client wants
• Element collages - ui elements

Allison House - Making it Happen

• Being around people who are better than you is key
• When someone produces more work than all their peers, hire them
• Name all of the elements that will be on the site, prioritise elements
• Done is better than perfect
• How to get in something like Dropbox etc - prolificness - do lots of work!! Doing more work means you can push off bad work from your site

Brendan Dawes - Paper, Plastic and Pixels

• Everyday reset to zero
• Look and read about other stuff not in industry for inspiration. Being challenged, curious and talking to people

OUGD602: Website Platforms

I've decided that although I would love to build my own website, right now I do not have the time to code something fully responsive, and I am not competent enough yet either.

So, I began to look at other options such as Cargo Collective and Wordpress. I applied for an account with Cargo since you cannot just sign up.
I have an account with Wordpress, and I tried to start customising it but I think you need to pay to be able to fully customise templates - which is £85 a year that I do not have right now. I also find it quite hard to use so I don't really want to use that if I can help it.

It is really important for me to have my own website since I specialise in web design, and so it would be really relevant for me.

I applied for Cargo Collective and got an account

I'm going to try and figure this out and hopefully I like it and can work it out to fit my own design.

OUGD602: Nice and Serious

So, Nice and Serious are my all time favourite studio and I have mentioned them before on my blog.
As they are based in London I never pursued them and I wouldn't be able to afford to live there. But, they posted this status yesterday and I had to contact them because to have an internship there would be a dream. My aunty lives in London, so hopefully I would be able to stay with her if I got it.

I emailed them saying this:

And got an automatic response back.

I didn't realise how many people would contact them! Hopefully they reply to me!