Month: <span>April 2008</span>

Published April 24, 2008 by

Focus, focus

From a bleary-eyed perspective, does someone want to tell me how to get motivated for a uni subject I really don’t like, because no one likes it and there isn’t really any of that class-mate bolster you up business happening? We’re simply groaning from week to week and feeling elated that our tutor is off to a Design Conference (Which they tell us to go to – but most of us can’t afford) next week and we don’t have to show.

I will go to AGIdeas next year. They plug it so much, it’s like the Prahran campus comes to this grinding halt. Tutors waste portions of class plugging the thing and they extend the early-bird price way out to get as many along as possible. Third year and possibly my final year probably deserves it.

I have this brilliant tutor who yesterday took it into her head to set a timed task for us. It was a fantastic way to use class time and get the little bludgy students working, also clever in a simulating a deadline, she makes me feel as if I’m earning my degree. We had an hour and fifteen minutes to set up this 20 page document (You didn’t have to fill all the pages) with this set text. So, establish your grids, create your stylesheets, proof read and what not. It was oddly exhilarating, except that I concentrated too hard on the computer screen and so got sore eyes (Does that sound pathetic?). Attack of the INTJ. Focus, focus. Forget reality, right now it’s the task and the rest fades into oblivion.

Why doesn’t that translate into this other class… I’d then be this gungho homework machine and have it completed!

…I finished with 10 mins to spare and was happy.

Design Uni

AGIdeas homework motivation

Published April 23, 2008 by

I COULD MURDER A CURRY

There’s this awesome character in the Terry Pratchett books, his name is Death. He has kind of this half wonderful, half terrible existence. Note now that Death doesn’t actually kill people, he merely assists progression, it’s difficult to describe. Death frequently tries to escape to try understand ‘humans’ by ditching his role for something along the lines of being a chef. In short, he’s a skeleton that rides around on a big white horse called Binky, he keeps his scythe in an umbrella stand, people mostly don’t seem him because they don’t want to, and he talks LIKE THIS -with authority.

The curious thing about Death is that he as as real as the Pratchett characters get. I’ve just finished reading ‘Mort’ and there is a scene in which he begins to take on Death’s role – Mort becomes this intensified reality, more real than anything else in DiscWorld.

I find it interesting. I’m not really sure why.

Perhaps it’s that life-death, intensified living thing? Or perhaps I’m just a nerd averaging one Pratchett book a week (And it’d be more probably if my supply was in-house).

Books Humor Life

Death Mort nerd terry pratchett

Published April 23, 2008 by

Geoff talks

Scott has posted up about Geoff’s preaching gig last Sunday.

Here it is.

I am still unsure about the cohort we seem to attract on the rare occasion this happens – it seems we (or he) is a novelty. At least it makes for a fun lunch afterwards.

I like Ranges. It puts YVV in it’s proper size bucket – too big. That saying, I like YVV too. I am still lacking a gauge for how much.

Church

Church Geoff preaching

Published April 19, 2008 by

Fred Forever?

No way!

Today we bought a 1998 Lancer! Absolutely beautiful in comparison to the sluggish Fred, who’s had his day, well and truly – 1986 Corolla’s can only last so long. In the true trend of Rebecca’s cars (This being the second), it sits on the red slider, away from the faded into orange and closer to a deeper actual red. Colour is important*… at least it’s not a wussy light blue like that Corolla we tried – mind you that was a nice car, but the guy wouldn’t budge on the price and was offended we’d asked for less (even though Dad spoke with him last week) *whooowhooo stereotypical salesman alert, so it did make the decision easier.

It is nice to have finally found one. In the meantime, we’ll last out til Monday when the rego on Fred ceases and then we will take the old beast to wreckers to cease him. Muahaha. How about euthanasia? (or is that just creepy?). Then we will drive wherever we need to in our shiny new lancer without having to listen and hyperventilate in working out if the auto is going to conk out at the lights or need to crank the heater to blow the excess hot air away from the engine to prevent overheating.

I truly hope it serves us well. At the moment anything will seem better, so time will tell. And hey I have no official mechanical inclinations at all so I’m really not your (wo)man.

Oh elation!

*That is a lie

Life

car

Published April 18, 2008 by

The grapple

I have been feeling increasingly flat about this whole ‘study to be a designer’ thing today. I have a small inkling that it’s simply the homework blues but the homework blues can seep ever so slightly into, the crap-what-have-I-gotten-myself-into despair.

The other part of this inkling is that at the moment my idea of graphic design is too tightly tied with the fact that I can’t draw very well and it’s hard to find examples of designers that are the same and have this weird affinity with writing instead.

If you could find me an avenue where design and writing were intrinsictly linked, I would be a happy happy girl. Gosh I’m becoming reliant.

To brighten the room, let me share the web-based folio I made for my interactive web class. Although I ran out of time and never managed to work out how to get my fixed positioned site to sit centrally via CSS (How do you do that btw?), I’m relatively happy with it (except the slight off positioning of one of my links – damn, the things you realise later!). Curiously the site looks a billion times better on my lovely shiny new mac than it does on the PC I built it on – ahh screens.

Have a look.

I’ve been really impressed with the web tutors at Swinburne, although I’m mystified why they bothered teaching table based layout before they launched into CSS. The assignment could be created in either form. Why?!

My next self initiated task is to turn the static thing into a blog template to give myself the experience in creating templates from scratch.

This is the stuff I enjoy.

My question is, can I possibly get myself a job in the web-design/print-design/writing field with what I’m studying?

Yes you silly girl, you can, you just need to get over your loathing of package design and your mistrust of anal retentive development methods.

Create Design Life Uni

frustration web design