PP blog

My father has been in the creative media industry for over 30 years, working both as a graphic designer and a web designer. He is now self-employed as a freelance graphic designer so he has knowledge of all aspects of the industry. It is due to his immense experience and insight that I asked for his advice when considering my career path. Despite his time in the graphic design sector, he strongly recommended I don't follow his footsteps, his reasons being: - there is limited room for growth, as he knows I am a fairly ambitious person this would frustrate me after time in the job - clients often have a good idea of what they want, therefore your creativity is often stifled making it a frustrating job As he knows my personality well, my fathers' advice is the most useful I could have seeked out. I trusted this advise so much I was persuaded to drop graphic design as a career path, despite it being my strongest subject at university. I also reached out to an app develope...

To help me develop the best portfolio site possible, I conducted thorough research into other portfolio websites. I have got into the habit of doing this with all my work as it helps me generate new and interesting ideas. I looked at www.awwwards.com for the latest award winning portfolio websites. This site is regularly updated with the latest cutting edge design trends, making it an incredibly useful tool when looking for inspiration. It is vital that it is regularly updates as design trends can come and go very quickly in web design. It is because of this I will have to keep my portfolio site as up to date as possible to avoid it looking aged and unprofessional. Another site I used for research is www.pinterest.com. This site is one of my favourites when looking for design inspiration as it contains all kinds of design ideas from a mix of professionals and amateurs. Using pinterest enabled me to search for specific portfolio sites, in my case I looked at web dev sites, graphic d...

Evaluation of work To collect enough work for my portfolio, I had to look back through previous years for appropriate material to use. As I anticipated, my work was generally of lower quality than I wanted to include in my portfolio. I therefore had to decide, did I want to show off all my skills, or just my best work? Fortunately I was given this exact advice by a creative industry portfolio expert; who advised me on 'quality over quantity' and 'no to put average work in for the sake of it'. While I was evaluating my work, I shocked how much I have improved as a designer/ developer without realising it. My code is much neater now, and my designs are more innovative and well executed.  As I wish to pursue app development, it was integral that I include the work on my app Motivize. However, as this is an on-going project it was a difficult task presenting it in my portfolio. I was forced to fast track certain aspects of the design process, specifically...

After speaking with several of the placement students this year, I have realised how beneficial doing a placement year is. Most of the student already have jobs lined up with their placement employees which eliminates a lot of the stress and uncertainty with graduating. They also develop their skills during the placement meaning third year assignments are much easier. Unfortunately I felt I couldn't do a placement year as I had already taken two years out from university.

Social media After being advised multiple times by guest lecturers, I have made sure all my social media sites are clean and professional.    Laura Whitaker from Dynamic said she regularly checks the social media of applicants to try and get a feel for their personality. The process of cleaning my social media involved going back to the start and checking for any profanities, inappropriate rants and drunken photos. Fortunately for me this was a quick process as there were only a few images that had to be removed.  In the guest lecture from Delete, I was also advised to make my accounts private to stop employers viewing your profile. However this goes against what Laura said as it would prevent employers from getting a feel for you. I decided to compromise and follow both pieces of advise: keep a clean and professional social network that promotes me as an employable individual. Networking sites After some quick research and listening to my ...

http://www.howdesign.com/design-career/on-the-job/protect-your-work-online/ When researching 'how to protect your work' I cam a across this article. I found myself disagreeing on most of the points made. 'Add watermarks to your work' This isn't ideal for a portfolio site as it detracts from the quality of the imagery presented. 'Disable right click' Doesn't prevent theft because users can just screen grab the image. 'Publish small or low res images' Again this is awful advice as you want portfolio images to be of high quality. 'Digitally image everything you post' ' Doesn’t actually  prevent  theft. And is totally terrifying if you really think about it too much' When I was in class, I came across a site offering cheap copyright protection, however I was warned this is a scam as you never pay for protection.  What I have gathered from researching copyright, is that it is very hard to truly protect your work.