So as you can see from the distance between this post and the last, time flies when you're working and being tutored in web design! I've been learning so much working on other websites, naturally I began to neglect my own! I am ashamed to say so in some ways, but in others I am proud because now I can begin to drastically improve this website to reflect all of the skills I have learnt in almost a year of working at Aceville.
I hope to begin step by step in recoding this site in due course, which could be a mammoth job, but we'll just have to see how long it takes me! I'm also being encouraged by my superiors at work to take on other web design jobs on the side to help develop further; so if you need anything non craft, non gun, non specific magazine related (lol) I'd be happy to offer my services! Just contact me via my contact page.
Although I haven't had much time recently, I am now returning to continue a few personal projects in graphics design, animation and illustration too. Following on from my badge design work with the Suffolk Scout & Guides for their summer camp, I have been helping to design Felixstowe Scouts a badge for their 40th anniversary. I'll post it up soon!
Don't forget you can keep up to date on my day to day mumblings and thoughts by following me on twitter!
Posted 8 June 2010
Update from the last 2 months!
I can't believe it's been sooo long since my last post. The time has flown by! A lot has happened since 5th August. The main change has been that I have started my new job at Aceville Publications.
I am now working as an Internet Designer where I help update the websites of the magazines the company produces such as Crafts Beautiful, Let's Knit, Sew Magazine, Grow your own Fruit and Veg, Gun Mart and many many more! As a team we help design and build the websites, make sure the latest info is online (including latest news, images, videos, projects and giveaways), advertise the newest offers and produce & create newsletters to send out to thousands of subscribers!
As I am new to the web team and the magazine business, I am being trained up on the job, gradually taking on more responsibility as I settle in. There is a lot to remember and so much still to learn, but I'm getting there! After almost 2 months (with a holiday inbetween) I am really enjoying my experience and taking in my time being in a very busy working environment! The people I work with are also great, so fingers crossed I can make my mark in the team and stay on!
On top of this another era ended as the Moot 4 Suffolk Scout and Guide Camp, that I designed and ran the website for, finally took place at the end of August. I helped out over the weekend to put together a daily newsletter of the events and news of each day. Working to a tight deadline we managed to pull off 4 issues (with my help mainly on the final Monday issue) and showed off the best of the extremely successful fun weekend! See pictures at www.moot4.org.uk!
I'll try to keep up my blogs within my time at Aceville and show some of my best work on here, including the banners, features and newsletters that I produce! Check out www.crafts-beautiful.com and flick through some of the other sites on the top banner to take a peek at some of my current updates and combined efforts with the rest of the team.
Speak soon I hope!
Posted 4 October 2009
New Work Section!
Over the past three weeks I have been working hard to design, build and produce the correct sized images for my new Work pages.
The previous pages I had uploaded were only a temporary measure until I could spend enough time to upgrade them into a design that was easy to use and navigate around.
Uploaded now is work from IP1 Magazine, Moot IV and the NickToons & Skillset competition that I entered in 2008. Within each section you can see the different projects I worked on by clicking on the thumbnail links on the left hand side and viewing them Tin the window box (right) where each of the images is displayed when clicking on the number boxes, found underneath it.
I have also left space to upload my work from Felixstowe Seafoods, Felixstowe Skatepark and future website work, so there's always room for the future!
Posted 5 August 2009
I have been a busy bee!
Last time I wrote here I had more illustration work on the pipeline for the IP1 chatroom article...
Since then I have produced many graphics to help with the online, computer design of the piece. However, there have been a few discussions considering the layout of the page and how to present the word content, so we will have to wait for Issue 31 to find out if we've managed to squeeze them in or wait until a redesign of the spread next time! I will post my graphics up here in any case to show the hard work I put into the piece!
I also mentioned how I had to chance to work at Deben High School Arts Week and I was able to take up this opportunity!
From the 5th-10th July I helped Paul Rearden, Director for Learner Achievement, Art teacher at Deben and my old photography tutor, to teach filmmaking to a group of 24 students aged 11-14. I had a great week passing on my skills in filming techniques, storyboarding, planning and editing. I even got to go on a school trip again to the Movieum in London, brilliant!
We had loads of fun putting together their short films of chase sequences, music videos, crime thrillers, funny outtakes and reverse movies, ready for a screening to the rest of the school at the end of the week, which went down very well- if only we had more time! In return I received a big thanks from all the kids and Paul for all my help, and was asked to go back and teach again at an after school club in the new school year, which I'd love to do if I'm not too busy!
After all that excitement it was back to business last week, updating the Moot IV website with new subcamp logos and information to download, creating the adverts for the IP1 website www.ip1zine.com and taking photos around the construction site of Felixstowe's new skatepark for www.FelixstoweSkatepark.co.uk ! Visit the skatepark website to read my posts and see my entire gallery of close up photos.
I will hopefully be going back regularly to the construction in the next 3 weeks leading up to the completion to keep a detailed log of the final few stages of the build.
As well as this, I am continuing to take on more web design projects and in this month hope to improve this website by redesigning the Work pages and finally adding the interactive Flash movies to the header banners!
Posted 19 July 2009
IP1 Illustrations
With my last illustration for the swimming article being published in the current issue of IP1 Magazine I have received great feedback from my peers and readers of the mag. We started working on Issue 31 as the new version was released and I was asked to produce some more illustrations, which I was happy to oblige!
My job this time round was to produce illustrations for the 'Pre-party in a Chatroom' piece. I was asked to create an illustrated title and the icons for the MSN debate based around the discussion that took place. Having worked hard the last couple of weeks, yesterday I finished the illustrations and presented them to the team. Again I have received great feedback on all the images and they are to be used in the next issue released in August!
See a peek of one of the icons on the left!
In addition to these I am now going to be a part of the team that designs adverts for the IP1 website www.ip1zine.com and I may also be creating more illustrations for the chatroom article. I'll keep you up to date when I know!
In other more unfortunate news I was offered an internship at Locker and Riley, but due to expenses this fell through last week. Yet, to be positive, I've now got the chance to work at the Deben High School Arts Week and I'm going to keep applying, while continuing to work on my web and graphics design projects and experience!
Posted 26 June 2009
Felixstowe Web Work
In other news I've also been keeping busy by branching out into other website work.
I have been helping out with the new Felixstowe Skatepark website by sharing responsibility for the photography for the site. To do this, each week I go to Orwell Green, take photos from interesting angles showing the recent developments in the structure and then make adjustments on Photoshop such as the brightness and contrast, cropping the image or any cloning that may need to be done.
In another role for the Felixstowe Skatepark site, I am using the content management system Wordpress, which the site runs in, to creating the news posts each week that tell the visitor what is happening with the build so far.
Another project I am currently working on is designs for a new website for Felixstowe Seafoods. I am getting to completely design the layout for the site whilst sticking to the content needed by the company and restrictions of Wordpress, which this site will also be running in.
Hopefully working on all these different websites will give me the experience so that I can either earn a great job to help begin my career in digital design or start to run my own successful website design company!
Posted 10 June 2009
Social Networking
Moot IV is getting closer and closer and in a bid to try and get as many people to sign up as possible the Web Adminstrator for the Suffolk Scouts website and myself have decided a good way would be to attract members through social networking sites.
So far we have set up groups for Facebook and Bebo. Click on the logos to take you to their pages.
By doing this the Scouts and Guides can keep in regular update with what's being done for the camp and get some inside gossip too! It has been a great experience for me to learn, having thought I was a Facebook gal through and through and now I realise the advantages Bebo has to offer!
This week I have been focusing on getting the Moot 4 website up to date with new sub camp pages!
As there will now be a need to add more detailed information for the lead up to the big weekend, I have been working on setting up spaces for the sub camps of Japan, China, UK, USA, Mexico and Central. To do this I've been designing a new layout of the website with subcamp buttons down the right hand side of the page and so far the little flag circles have gone down well!
There is also big emphasis being put on the Moot 4 Sunday evening event 'Moot's Got Talent!' Therefore I've added an extra page ( www.moot4.org.uk/moots_got_talent.html) to the activities section of the website displaying the details of how the members can get involved and show off their great skills!
Only thing left now to do is make an advert that can be sent round the groups to encourage people to get a-practising!
- I have recently changed the info so you can see where my thoughts are of what I want to do now and in the future!
Also as an update to my last blog post, you can now download the new issue of IP1 Magazine and check out my illustrations on page 30 at www.ip1zine.com/magazine !
Posted 29 May 2009
Catch up from the last month!
Ok so it's been a month since my last post so it's time to look back at what I've been up to!
Inbetween attending interviews and updating my portfolio, I've been doing some more work for IP1. We've been working on rebranding and promoting the ShowOff (www.ip1zine.com/showoff) by using professional photographs representing the four sections Music, Film, Images and Writing.
In order to do this I've been coming up with ideas and mock ups of how to integrate these photos into the website using different backgrounds, colour schemes and layouts.
I was also asked to produce the artwork and simple animation for a new IP1 game 'Shoot the ShowOff'. I have been working hard to create characters from the photographs, design a beach scene for it to be set in and then come up with ways ofmaking this interactive within Flash.
Website manager Tom Juby has then used these to create the game using Flash & Actionscript AND it is now on the IP1 website ready for you to play!
Even more good news is that my illustration for the learning to swim article 'My Name is Fiona and I Can Swim' is now out for you all to see in the new issue of IP1 Magazine!
Issue 30 is available for anyone to pick up in shops, cafes, bars, pubs and libraries in and around Ipswich, Felixstowe and Bury. At the time of me writing this post you can't download it from the website but in a few days it should be available from www.ip1zine.com/magazine.
Right I'm off to beat my top score on the ShowOff game! More posts soon!
Posted 18 May 2009
Added features
I've just added a new page to this website - a Site Map. Here you can view all the pages and where they are located within the site, making it easier for you to explore my films, designs, illustrations and volunteer work .
Another new feature I have been working on is the badge design for the Moot IV summer camp. Today I have been including the final design, chosen by the Suffolk Scout and Guides camp organisers, into the website as the new Moot Logo. Take a look at www.moot4.org.uk
Posted 14 April 2009
All things bright and beautiful...
It's been a couple of weeks since my last blog, as I have just attended an Easter short course at Central Saint Martins College in London. Here I spent a week learning all things Flash, from animating in Flash to creating Flash websites with drop down menus, scroll bars, pop up windows and all sorts of funky, fun interactive features using Actionscript!
It's all very exciting and all I have to do now is put it to the test. Stay tuned here to see some of my examples from the class and any new Flash work I do in the next few weeks.
As well as my adventures in London I have also been working on some illustrations for an article on swimming for IP1 Magazine! One or two of my final images will be used in the next issue of the magazine out in the next few weeks!
A link to the issue will be posted on here soon. Meanwhile see a preview of one of my illustrations on the right.
Posted 9 April 2009
IP1 Magazine Section
As I spoke about in my last entry, I want to create pages to show all the work that I do. I have now finished the a new section displaying my voluntary work so far for IP1 Magazine!
On this page you can see the ideas I pitched to the IP1 team for the website, the character designs I have done so far for a Recent Comments feature on the IP1 home page AND the work I have put in to create the Flash animations for the Magazine page (going online soon).
Over the last couple of weeks I have been putting a lot of effort into my additional work for the Suffolk Scout and Guide Moot IV camp that I am involved in. So to be able to show the work I have done so far and am working on now, I have created a new section!
Wow how the weeks go so fast! I've been busy finishing my IP1 grab mag animations and have finally shrunk down the files enough to be able to play on the web easily. All those hard days of learning layer masks, actionscript and movie symbols are starting to pay off! Watch a sneak preview of one of my grab magazine animations below.
Today I am beginning to learn more on CSS and div tags to improve my web design skills ready for the job that is waiting for me around the corner!
Meanwhile more voluntary work is coming in from Moot 4 in the possibility of sub-sites for each sub-camp e.g Japan, so I'll get to show off some more of my graphical skills!
Aaaaaand...the winnning badge competition design should also be arriving in the next few days, so I can then begin enhancing and neatening up the design, ready for print! Keep track of the Moot 4 camp website I have designed at www.moot4.org.uk .
Posted 5 March 2009
Phew, what a busy week!
So this week I decided that it was going to be a good week for me, even before it had began!
I started the week with my new search for a job by applying for many jobs all around the country - I really can't wait for the chance to use my new web skills and to learn more!
Next I cracked on with my IP1 animations. Having completed the movement I'm now learning how to reduce the file size with symbols, ready to put on the web. Think I'm going to work hard to get them finished next week.
Yesterday I carried on the job search and today was fun day (as it is Friday) and I decided to dedicate the day to start "working" through my new Flash tutorial book (How to Cheat Adobe Flash CS3) to have a less stressful day. So far its I think it's pretty good for learning those small techniques that make everything look great!
Take a closer look at my Flash character so far and I'll keep posting it up here as I learn more!
Oh and I also joined the bandwagon and signed up to Twitter- take a look at my Tweets on my profile page.
Posted 20 February 2009
My New Look Website Is Here!
After weeks of long hours behind the computer, I have finally finished the new colourful re-design of my website!
With it comes this lovely new feature of a blog. Here you can keep track of the projects I am currently working on and see the development from initial ideas to the final product. It's a great way for me to keep you up to date!
