Final Post on Senior Project Management

Portfolio Editing:

For our class we had to come up with a six week plan on what we hope to achieve before the end of the semester. I have been working hard and have managed to keep up with the schedule I made for myself. It makes the class easier to get through having something to do. Keith Jones, the Graphic Design instructor, has been kind enough to help me go over my designs now and in the past to make sure I have the best possible work. Luckily I have most of my designs already finished, they just need a bit more editing and then I'll be able to slide them into my print and website portfolio. 

I have finished seven out of 21-22 tasks I've set myself so I feel pretty confident that I can get it done with the amount of time left. Especially since I have all of Spring Break to work on everything. Trust me, I'd prefer to enjoy to enjoy myself but all of my teachers have assigned homework at the last minute and is due when we get back on April 2. So work, work, work for me.

Post 8

About Book:

One of the most relatable quotes from the book, for most people, is "I go through the chores, the correspondence, the obligations of daily life. Again I’m there but not really. The clock is running
in my head; I know I can indulge in daily crap for a little while, but I must cut it off when the bell rings" (McKee, 69). Because most days I just go through the motions to try to get through the day, but I don't actually feel inspired to do anything. Just making it through the day seems like an achievement, especially when all you want to do is go to sleep. As a college student this quote from the book is fairly accurate to what I do Monday-Friday every week. I do the work but I don't do it for pleasure or because I am inspired, I do it because it has to be done.

Post 7

About Portfolio:

I have continued to work on images to add to my website and come up with new and creative designs as well. So far I have added; 3 new logos, 3 brochures (front and back images), and 3 business cards. None of these, unfortunately, are real companies but they look clean and professional. I am going to edit these images to be more readable on the computer screen but other than that I will continue working on more designs to add to my portfolio. 

About Group:

The big day came, we turned in out process book and the website URL to the teacher and are officially done with the project. We did not have to present our work to our employers or the class, which was kind of a relief. Now that we are done with the website we have moved on to working by ourselves to create a resume, and continue to work on our website portfolio.

I now have to come up with a proposal about what I hope to achieve in the next 8 weeks by Tuesday, and I have to find a phrase from The War of Art to use for our discussion as well.

Post 6

About Group:

We have finished our parts in the assignment which is good since it it due the 8th of March. As of now we have sorted through our group notes and gave them to our team leader to help her with the process book. She managed to complete the process yesterday during class time and we will present it  together to the class on the 8th. Hopefully we have recorded everything necessary, and we have everything we need for our website as well. If all goes well our employers will decide to use our website from now on. 

About Book:

The second part of the book (Book 2) still mentions "Resistance" every now and then but luckily it has moved on to more motivational chapters. These chapters have to do with the drive to succeed and to stay motivated doing what you do. Even pushing yourself father with the work you love, to not lose the passion in your work. Doing this means "Resistance" can't stop you from achieving your goals. Just as long as you can stay motivated you can continue doing what you enjoy and have a fulfilling life. 

Post 5

About Group:

We had another critique today, but there were only two people here that weren't in our group who got to criticize. Our site, for the most part, is done and everyone liked where it was heading. It's a bit challenging when we aren't sent good images to use but we have managed to polish up the website rather nicely. All we really need to do now is add a "wow" factor and social media links, though there was a suggestion of a newsletter, which we might create at a later date. We are still working on making everything work though. Our next step will probably be making sure the website works on a variety of browsers.

About My Personal Website:

I have started putting together my personal website that will contain my portfolio. It has been rough going since the site I was going to host it on, Hostgator, made me upset when it decided to try and charge me $136.00 for my site. What made it even worse for me is that it had promised that it would be $2.99 per month but wouldn't let me pay monthly. But I digress, I had help from a friend and we found me another site that ended up being a perfect fit for me. The site is called 1&1 Internet Inc. and it is so simple to use. It allows you to see it in laptop mode, tablet mode, and phone mode which allows you to edit it so that everything is readable. Thanks to this site I managed to throw my website together pretty quickly, though I need to still edit pictures and the text that came with the template. Other than that I am very happy with the work I have done so far.

Post 4

About Group:

The group is going well, we had to get in front of the class Tuesday and show what we have on the website. I had a little time before hand to make some necessary changes so that the site looked better. Sadly when we got up there it hadn't loaded correctly so it showed the old format. Thankfully my friend updated it quickly and got everything working the way it was supposed to. We got some feedback on our site and it was good. We just need to make some minor changes and everything will be suitable for a respectable shoe website.
After the critique we worked separately on the site, and with some help I managed to figure out all my issues getting the checkout function to work properly. I am still irritated about the fact that the template limits what you can and can't add, but I am working around what I am given. As of right now I am pretty much done with my part of the website, just need to polish it up a bit. The company has upgraded our template so that we can keep working on it past the 20th of this month.
The only thing I don't like about my task is the fact that they are severely lacking in the accessory department. It's not that they don't have options, it's just that they keep sending pictures of socks when what we need is more variety. A site gets boring when all one can look at is socks. But I will persevere and make this site look as good as I possibly can.

Post 3

About Group:

The project is going alright, we have finally moved on to trying to work with squarespace. I must say working with squarespace has been a challenge. It would not let me add pictures to the page I was assigned, the shoe page. And the next day we got to work on it my files had been deleted so I had to start all over again. To make matters worse we only have 14 days to complete it using this template before the trial expires. Hopefully our client will extend that deadline to give us more time to work on it. So we worked on it on Thursday and I got two of my pages up and working, sort of. The images finally stay on pages I created but I cannot figure out how to click the images and make them take me to a separate page. It is a challenge, but one I am sure to figure out soon.

Post 2 The War of Art

About Book:

I am still on the first book, or part, of The War of Art and I just have to say I am getting tired of hearing the word "Resistance". It is in every other line and it honestly just means procrastination. In one chapter it compares "Resistance" to Jaws, Alien, and Terminator because "they can't be reasoned with". No, they can't be reasoned with, but they are also things that kill people. "Resistance" doesn't kill people, it just keeps you from doing things you need, or want, to do. I feel "Resistance" every day but I never let it stop me, I never fail to do my work. I might forget it sometimes, but I will never not do it because of "Resistance". I know that this book is good, but I am having a hard time enjoying the first book because of all the bad analogies.

About Group:

Also, I have changed teams on which I am working to build a site because one classmate dropped the class. As a result I have been added to another group, but luckily we are all getting along great. So the people we are doing the website for own Valley Sole, a shoe store, and they need the help improving their website so that it flows more naturally and has better content. Let me tell you a little about the site; their home page logo doesn't match the logo on their store or on any of the other pages on the website, the have a podcast page but only have one podcast posted, people can't order the shoes online but instead have to call the store so the store can order them from the company, and they have an about page that gives a lot more information than was required. My group has divided up the work for the project and we have gotten together and worked on the thumbnail sketches done for our site. I am working on the Shoes and Accessories pages for the site because their layout was confusing and didn't allow a customer to choose a size or a different color. As of right now I have created a mock-up of the site in Illustrator and posted in in our group to see what comments my group members have. 

Post 1 on The War of Art

The book has very short chapters and a lot of it makes sense. We - artists, writers, singers, songwriters, etc. - struggle to keep doing what we do. Sometimes you sit in front of your computer,  or canvas, and lose interest in what you are doing so you never complete that task. I suffer from procrastination, which is what I believe the author in this book calls "resistance". The book is easy to follow and not hard to understand, but having the author say "You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the School of Architecture. Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I’ll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas" (pg 15) was a bit too much. Any artist has seen some of his paintings and though they aren't spectacular they weren't terrible. He got rejected and told that his work wasn't good. Resistance didn't "beat him", people killed his dream of becoming an artist. So for the author to say something to that extreme is an overstatement.

There will be an update on this book next week.

Real Post 1

  Hello again! I am back in action and will be writing about my experiences in my Senior Design management class instead of book and movie reviews. So let me explain a little about this college class.
  With a group of classmates we will be making a website for a company so we can learn what companies like and don't like. As a result we can get experience in both the Graphic Design aspect and the Web design part of our future. So far we have contacted our company to set up a meeting but unfortunately it was set for today (which was a snow day so classes were cancelled and the roads were icy) so it was cancelled. I was a pretty good group and hopefully we will be able to set up a meeting so we can start work on this website.
  I will be posting updates regularly as a mandatory thing and will keep you all up to date on out progress on the assignment and any other assignments that go on in class. I will also try to write some more book and movie stuff but my class schedule is hectic so no guarantees.

                                      (not my work unfortunately)