And We're Off...

I've genuinely surprised myself this week, as I've actually enjoyed getting stuck in and doing some work! This, for me, is a strange experience; to appreciate work. Yet it's also a great feeling, to know that I'm finally enjoying what I'm doing with my life. On the other hand, there are still the niggling doubts in my head on the odd occasion, which sometimes counter my positive feelings.

This week I've managed to get quite a bit of work done on the first assignment. I've finished the project goals, the target audience, and now the delivery requirements just need a touching up before they're completed. I've spent a lot of time in College this week starting my competitive analysis, looking particularly at the BBC site dedicated to John Peel, the 'Great Briton' that I'm designing the site for. I suppose the fact that this is a BBC site and therefore it's so well designed in terms of accessibility and content, etc. has been quite nerve racking. How am I, as inexperienced as I am, supposed to compete with that?! However, using the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) method of analysis has actually helped highlight some negative aspects of the site which I'll hopefully be able to capitalise on over the rest of my assignment- I feel better about that now.

In terms of an update on last weeks journal entry, I'd like to say my time management wasn't as bad as I thought it would be! The hardest part is the actual planning, but when I've got that down, sticking to it wasn't as difficult as I'd assumed it would be.

My aim for this week is to complete the competitive analysis, and to get on to the initial stages of the screen design. I also need to allot myself some time to find some examples of good design, stick them in my book, and add some annotations to them... this, so far, hasn't proved to be my strong point. Another target is to manage to get an indexing/page numbering system sorted for my sketchbook.