Exhibition

Last week (from the 19th to the 22nd) was the date of the college exhibition, which was hosted by Milsom Place in Bath.

Helping to arrange the exhibition and take part in it was a really interesting experience!  I have never done anything like that before and I feel that it was a really interesting and useful thing to take part in.

My main jobs were to design the portal to display interactive work and sort out the takedown on Sunday evening.  The first job was not very difficult but quite time consuming.  I came up with a number of ideas on paper before creating three initial prototypes.  One of these was chosen and I worked on it further, adding extra features and fine-tuning the appearance.  I had it complete with a few days to spare and thought (wrongly) that everything would be smooth and easy after that - which turned out to be a big mistake!  An hour before the opening on the first night of the exhibition we lost the internet connection (which I had paid for, annoyingly!) and there was mass panic. Maybe a slight over-exaggeration there...a couple of students in the centre of Bath were panicking - but there was panic nonetheless!  After talking to the duty manager and trying different locations to connect to the lost connection, we discovered that a nearby business had free wifi and luckily one corner of our top room was just inside their signal - so we moved the Macs and away we went!

The takedown was quite easy and went very smoothly (everything was packed up within half an hour) and the only problem was (and still is) that I had a lot of trouble finding extra transport.  This meant that I still have five of the pictures from the exhibition in my dining room - but these things happen!

Overall I enjoyed arranging and taking part in the exhibition.  It was very informative to have my work used and rated - and as this was my first time receiving criticism from members of the public I will not lie, I did not know how to react at some moments!

For me, I do not think that the exhibition has had any direct bearing on my career - but it has given me some more experience in arranging and planning and has opened my mind up to networking events.  I also am quite happy with the appearance of my portal for the exhibition and believe that it will look good in my portfolio as an example of my work.

Self Directed Project Link List

Here is my link list for the Self Directed Assignment hand in:

Research Links

Initial App Research and Tutorials:

-          http://papermashup.com/html5-geo-location-using-the-google-api/ - Geolocation Example

-          http://www.mobilehtml5.com/post/371921120/tutorial-your-first-mobile-html5-app-the-basics - Mobile App Basics

-          http://developer.practicalecommerce.com/articles/2309-Develop-a-Store-Finder-with-the-Google-Maps-API-Part-7-Driving-Directions - Using Google maps API for directions

-          http://adamzwakk.com/?p=343 – Bus stop locator tutorial

-          http://headwayblog.com/2007/05/30/google-maps-bus-stops/ - Another bus stop location tutorial

-          http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/mobile-web-apps/html5-geolocation/ - Geolocation tutorial (based around iphone)

-          http://www.edumobile.org/iphone/iphone-programming-tutorials/how-to-implement-core-location-and-the-google-xml-weather-api-on-the-iphone/  - Core Location (iphone) and info about weather apps

-          http://www.ehow.com/iphone-maps/ - Page on ehow containing map tutorials (aimed at iPhone)

-          http://genealogy.about.com/od/geography/a/google.htm - Aimed at genealogists but has some relevant info and links to map building sites

-          http://ofps.oreilly.com/titles/9781449383268/ch01_id35816976.html#ch01_id35816966 – O’Reilly books “Building Android Apps with HTML, CSS and Java”.

-          http://senior.ceng.metu.edu.tr/2009/praeda/2009/01/11/how-to-pure-html-android-application/ - Information on containing html5 app for android phones

Geolocation

-          http://diveintohtml5.org/geolocation.html - Dive Into HTML5 website, information on the geolocation API

-          http://papermashup.com/demos/html5-geolocation/ - Google maps and geolocation demo

Geocoding

-          http://www.iphonedevsdk.com/forum/iphone-sdk-development/52235-address-lat-long.html - Core location geocoding

Google maps API Docs (Inc geolocation, directions etc)

-          http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/reference.html - main API ref

-          http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/tutorial.html - google maps’ "hello world" tutorial

-          http://code.google.com/apis/maps/articles/tutorial-iphone.html - Basic iPhone tutorial

-          http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/geocoding/  - Geocoding API

-          http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/reference.html#DirectionsRenderer – Help with google maps API Directions Renderer

-          http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/services.html#RenderingDirections – Further help on rendering directions

Help Sites (Stack Overflow etc)

-          http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5533958/google-maps-api-v3-geocode-javascript-if-json-value-exists - Accessing latitude and longitude in JSON response

-          http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2177548/load-json-into-variable - Loading JSON response from google maps API into variable/object

-          http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5729902/getting-a-json-response-into-variable - Loading JSON response into an object in javascript

XML and JSON Tutorials

-          http://www.w3schools.com/dom/dom_nodes_get.asp - XML DOM and Attributes

-          http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/netfxjscript/thread/29a2f351-5bb2-4edd-ac19-c2e4d3b6f4d0 - Parsing XML Info

-          http://binodsuman.blogspot.com/2009/05/parse-xml-response-in-javasript.html - Parsing XML

-          http://think2loud.com/reading-xml-with-jquery/ - Parsing XML using jQuery

Other Research

-          http://jquery.com/ - jQuery homepage

-          http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2010/04/a_pixel_is_not.html - "A pixel is not a pixel" (mobile browser issues)

-          http://www.romdas.com/technical/gps/gps-acc.htm - GPS accuracy

-          http://www.gps-basics.com/faq/q0121.shtml - Factors influencing GPS accuracy

-          http://www.vecteezy.com/Vector-Icons/14975-Free-Google-Maps-Pointer-Icon - Google maps marker image

-          http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2292820/css3-support-in-mobile-browsers - Mobile CSS3 Support

-          http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5834915/html5-form-submission-issue - forms and javascript

-          http://mashable.com/2009/01/15/the-future-of-web-apps/ - Information on the future of web apps and design

-          www.html5canvastutorials.com – HTML5 Canvas tutorials website (used in canvas experiments – on CD)

-          http://happyworm.com/blog/2010/08/23/the-future-of-web-apps-single-page-applications/ - Creating single page tabbed web apps

Final portal design - still needs some tweaking!!

This is my final design for the twenty exhibition portal - it still needs some tweaking and actual text included (currently the text is almost all placeholder stuff)

http://fruitfulcreations.co.uk/exhibition_portal/final_design/

I also created this image between college work sessions - this is a small copy (sized for a 1080p widescreen desktop):

Last portal prototype

This is my last prototype for the college exhibition portal.
Once one is chosen I'll go back through and re-colour, clean up and finish it all!

http://fruitfulcreations.co.uk/exhibition_portal/prototype3/

Back to work!

Interview with Industry Professional

Today I interviewed Gary from Studio 74 Creative Design, a company offering both print and web design services in Midsomer Norton.  I found the conversation very interesting, and it has given me some much needed information to start out freelancing on my own!

I asked him what his position in this business is, and what his job entails - he told me that it is a two man outfit and he is largely a designer, but his job can involve almost anything else involved with the design process, including keeping contact and meeting with clients.

I then asked how difficult he found it to initially break into the industry.  His answer was luck, he said that he had a million and one jobs before he began working in design and just happened to be in the right place at the right time!  Many employers want to see a portfolio and most people coming out of college have similar lists and types of work - but it apparently can help to show ingenuity with things like idea books - these can show what you are capable of doing!  He started off doing very basic work and gradually worked his way up, then set out on his own.

My next question was relating to rates and what to charge - to which he replied "whatever you can get away with!".  He told me that it also depends on your overheads - also generally the more experience/more time you have spent in the industry, the more you can charge for your services, but a good starting point is 15-20 pounds an hour.  He told me that rather than state a per-hour rate, it is often better to charge a set cost for the job, but to specify a cut off point so it cannot be dragged out.

I then went on to ask him about networking and its advantages and he told me that he doesn't actually do very much!  He did suggest that Creative Bath are good for the breakfast events and other activities, but many of the events aren't specifically for designers and you can often end up being one of a minority!

My penultimate question was if there are any common cons or pitfalls that I should look out for in the industry.  One that immediately came to mind was people pulling out halfway through on long jobs - the solution to this that he suggested was to charge 50% up front for bigger jobs.  This gives both the designer and client an incentive to make sure that the job is completed.

And finally I asked if it was better to advertise or have business cards.  He told me that business cards are often very cheap to have printed, and it can be helpful to keep some about in case a job or potential client comes up - but the best advertising is by word of mouth and is often better than other types!

Busy busy bee!

I've had a busy day or two!  Close to finishing most of my work now!  Spent last night and some of this morning working on some prototype designs for the exhibition portal, here's my two ideas at the moment:

http://fruitfulcreations.co.uk/exhibition_portal/prototype1/
http://fruitfulcreations.co.uk/exhibition_portal/prototype2/

Such original names ey?  Prototype 1 and Prototype 2!  Wow, outside the box!

To offset the disturbing un-imagey-ness of my blog this week, here's two versions of a funny thing I created in illustrator from a design I made a while ago now, it's going to go on the back of a set of playing cards in UV reactive ink...when I can afford it!!

Right...back to work!

Freelance work

I did have some freelance work lined up - the work I bid on was editing photos!  Unfortunately, when I found out more about the job, I decided to decline for moral reasons.  Without going into specifics, the client wanted some photos doctored, and the nature of the doctoring made me wonder if the activity was perhaps supporting a mental/personal issue, or possibly something less legal.  I thought hard about it, and decided to withdraw my bid/services.
Back to looking!!