Deadline is on the horizon

It is the night before deadline and this will be most likely be my final blog post for my year 3 reflective journal! Today I have been doing some final printing for my research files and I have just bound my final book so the end is near. I am feeling fairly positive about my submission for assessment as I can safely say I have worked as hard as I can which I hope is evident through the standard of my work and the amount of effort I have put into my presentation. I also have far more work than I have ever had for a submission before, and whilst this workload spans 2 terms my work is probably about the same amount as the whole of year 2 combined. 

Reflecting upon this last term I can't believe its gone so fast and it seems like yesterday I was starting my fairy tale project and yet I have come such a long way in that time. I have really enjoyed working with Indesign to compile my book layouts especially as the layout designs themselves are such an integral part to the overall feel of the book. My Photoshop, Indesign and Illustrator skills have vastly improved over the past term which makes me feel a lot more confident about my future as a freelance illustrator. I never thought I would say it but I am ready to leave university and become freelance as I feel I have prepared myself as much as possible for this moment and I feel positive about the direction my work is taking and the self promotion and skills I have behind me.

My plans for after assessment and the degree show are:

- Make a list of skills to improve and focus on bringing Photoshop, Indesign and Illustrator skills up to an expert standard.

- Expand my online presence with a Facebook page, Tumblr and LinkedIn and keep things constantly up to date

- Contacting blogs, magazines, art directors to try and gain notice, work and be published

- Continue collaboration projects with Henry Jackson and Ashleigh Berryman and try and start new bonds within textiles and graphic design

- Keep working hard!

So that it is for me as I have a few last minute things to finish off for hand-in! 

Portfolio collection

After all the effort laying out and printing my portfolio the day has arrived to collect it. Gabby and myself had to go to London to pick them and I am so happy with my final and it has been worth the wait. I'm glad I paid a bit more to have the screws only visible on the back and the whole book is really well made. The only gripe I have is that they didn't score the pages inside so it doesn't lay flat so that is something we will have to do tomorrow which is an uneeded hassle at this point! I'm really glad I chose to have lots of different sized inserts and pages inside as I feel it gives my portfolio a sense of narrative and journey which is relevant to my projects. I'm really looking forward to converting it to a professional portfolio after assessment and I really hope an oppurtunity arises soon to send it out! 

My precious portfolio

The annoying thing with having to take a day out to go to London is that I've lost a lot of valuable working time as I had to borrow a laptop with a working battery and even then I couldn't charge it so I was left writing my project summary by hand. Tomorrow I need to print my second book ready to be bound and finish off typing up and arranging my research file to get them bound in the print rooms. I feel like the next day is going to be very stressful but it can be done! All this extra effort takes time...

Unexpected trip to London

I can't quite believe it but I am on the way to London! With the year one and two's hand in on Friday the print rooms are the busiest I have ever seen; yesterday some people were queuing over 2 hours for a computer but luckily I have been managing to get in early enough to grab one. However the print queues are horrendous, often 10 people at a time and the amount of times things print wrong or don't load onto the printers properly and I have to re-queue has slowed me down a lot. It doesn't help that the Guntons printers seem to decide to throw a strop several times a day and leave marks allover my prints!

Layout for portfolio concertina

As the delays have been a lot more severe than I expected I wasn't able to finish printing my portfolio in time to post it off to the printers and so here I am on the train to drop them off which means another journey using up valuable time although it is quite nice to get away from the print rooms for the morning. I think printing has taken even longer because I have been quite ambitious with my layout and scaling as I want my portfolio to feel interactive and tactile as well as professional. However it also means the layout and order of my portfolio is quite confusing so I am just making up a paper mock up to leave with the binders to make sure everything goes correctly.

Fashion development portfolio page

The good thing about printing my portfolio 9 days before hand-in is that I now have that time to focus on paperwork and printing and binding my final books to go in with my portfolio. This is probably the most prepared I have ever been for a hand in which is comforting to know although it's needed as there seems to be so much more work involved. I am going to sit down later tonight and make a final list of the work left to do for hand in to make sure that nothing will be forgotten.

Joint crit with Glyn

I have been finishing my final book layouts and illustrations over the last few days in preparation for portfolio mock ups this weekend and printing on Monday. This afternoon I had a joint crit between Gabby, Glyn and I to discuss portfolios and last minute changes. 

Idea for portfolio layout

I'm really glad I had Gabby as my crit partner as we have been working so hard together and it's such a nice feeling to see us both bringing everything together for the end. We both also have similar ideas for how we want to layout our portfolios so it was a good opportunity to ask questions that we both needed answers to. I found it helpful as we discussed having final books in the portfolio and Glyn recommended having them outside of it in an archive box with the portfolio which I really like the idea of. Unfortunately I haven't got the time (or budget) to get a custom made archive box to match my portfolio at the moment so that is something to think about after assessment and I will possibly get one from the university shop for now to keep the books together and give an impression of what I wanted. Glyn also seemed to like the idea of an unconventional portfolio in the sense of different paper qualities, scales and folding pages and so I am looking forward to mocking up my portfolio ready for printing. All this work with Indesign for my final books has really got me into book layouts and I think it's something that I will really push on with this summer.