Quasi-Evil

Posts Tagged ‘print design’

It’s all over, sort of

The portfolio has been handed in, the sponsorship proposal presentation was done this afternoon (after some tech problems - despite my multiple checks that no matter what computer we plugged it in to, it would work - apparently, university laptops operate in some alternate dimension of complete incompatibility with the universe) and so now it’s back to normality.

Of course, in the time I’ve been staying up all hours working constantly on these two things, everything else has piled up and so it’s not so much back to normality as back to the grindstone.

I think I need a ‘To-Do’ list and it may well be time for another read of Getting Things Done by David Allen.

Web Designers are not Print Designers

I try to avoid calling myself a web designer because I don’t do it very often, tend not to finish any of the web design projects I start and am not especially good at it but I do, from time to time, design webpages so logically, I’m sort of a web designer. But if I worry that I shouldn’t call myself a web designer, it’s nothing compared to the extent that I am not a print designer.

For the group events project at uni (the one that has other people’s lack of design skills, comment for the password, stressing me out), we have to produce a group portfolio so given I’m the only person with any handle of design aesthetics, the task has fallen to me. Fortunately, that bit’s pretty much finished but we also have a presentation to do on Tuesday as if we were presenting to potential sponsors. Which means in addition to making up a three minute+ speech about something that really doesn’t require three minutes (we have to fill 20 minutes as a group and there’s six of us, it’s a stupid hoop that we have to jump through), I’m also producing the sponsorship proposal booklet.

On these two projects alone, I worked out this morning that I’d spent over 36 hours doing them (it’s more but I got bored with counting at 36), plus another four this afternoon and I’m about to go back to it and get it finished. That’s not counting the additional time I’ve spent e-mailing the rest of the group asking where their contributions are and editing the stuff they’ve sent which mostly hasn’t been in a suitable format. Don’t get me wrong, 4 out of 5 of them are hard workers, they just don’t have any knowledge in this area and it turns out that I do. I hope. I guess we’ll see once we get our grade.

Once this is done, I have to start work (well, continue work) on the website. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’m going to manage content and currently am planning on using Drupal although I’m considering ExpressionEngine, but I’d need to buy a license to get the functionality I need. I’ve trawled through huge numbers of Drupal modules to shortlist the ones to look at in more detail so now it’s a case of finalising what I need, getting them up and running to my liking and then making it look pretty. It needs to go live in December and I’ve got a provsional date in my head of the 7th, here’s hoping it doesn’t take me as long as the print design has.

Making Things Pretty

Two posts in two days? Shock horror!

Of course, there can be only one reason for me suddenly getting my arse into gear and blogging: Procrastination. I have to hand in a group portfolio on Monday (for which I’m having to type up everybody else’s notes and make it look pretty) and our group has a presentation on Tuesday (for which I’ve made the presentation - although I didn’t have to, I just got inspired and sort of did it by accident - and am now creating the accompanying booklet, again with the writing and the making it look pretty).

I’ve had a week at home alone (Scarlett’s been with her Dad) and I have got a fair amount of stuff done for the above as well as some other university related things. I sacrificed my night out on Wednesday for Halloween in favour of watching 300 and getting some sleep but what I haven’t done all week is any tidying up whatsoever. And it’s bad. I have pretty much only today to finish the stuff for uni and make the place child-friendly again. I suppose procrastination was practically obligatory.