Style Guided.

This week has been an example of one of the more enjoyable weeks of the course. I'm enjoying the current assignment, and feel that I'm progressing well with it. During self study last week, I managed to complete the initial draft of the Corporate Style Guide. Feedback welcome and needed, of course. This included the completion of the stationery (letterhead, business cards and envelope) which can be seen as part of the Style Guide. I'm pleased with the designs, and feel they meet the P.A.R.C. principles well.

Last week I mentioned my apprehension about moving on to the artwork for the CD. I've now moved on, and feel pleased with the initial ideas I've come up with. I'm starting with the Digipak® Outer, as I feel this is probably the more important aspect of the cover, and will probably provide further inspiration for the Digipak® Inner and CD Body once I've settled on a theme. I think, for me, this process of development is probably the more appropriate.

I'm in the process of digitising a few of my ideas and will upload for feedback later on the week, possibly on Thursday. Feel free to check back.

In the creation of one of my ideas, I decided to splash out and join iStockPhoto, which is a royalty-free stock photography site. The images aren't too expensive, and good quality. Definitely worth it to get what you're looking for from a design and if you can't find any free images. I'd recommend it.

Working with print brings new issues up when working. Having done a small bit of print work for a friend recently, I've had a small bit of experience. Things like bleed are so simple yet so important to the final product. The fact is, though, that I still feel nervous when it comes to preparing things for print. There's a plethora of issues to take into account, and in short, it's difficult to get things perfect. I guess experience is what's required to improve, as well as improving knowledge of the subject.

During the seminar group today, we discussed the progress of the 'A1 - SketchBlog' assignment. I have mixed feelings towards my own progress. I feel nervous in some ways, but at the same time I feel confident. I feel as though my abilities regarding the aspects covered in A1 have improved massively over the year, and have been presented effectively in the development work so far in the A7 assignment. However, I don't feel that some of this work has been consistent throughout the year, and has been somewhat absent at times, particularly some of the ideas generation methods. Granted, this does show that I've developed, but I can't help feeling that the times where A1 has been a bit neglected may let me down.