Lots of random website and design stuff. Been experimenting around in illustrator and PS teaching myself stuff from various tutorials.
2 [Thoughts and Reflections]:
So I am going to recap the changes I've noticed thus far. I know I've been putting off posting but its difficult to get into the ritual of everynight posting when theres so much stuff to do.
First off this is a placeholder while I get the website up and running (thats the fun part).
Taking a while because I am reverse engineering some existing sites (or parts of them) as well as producing all the content and customizing the layout and teaching myself how to do all of this.... (CSS mostly because I've never learned it but I'm picking up bits and pieces as I go along)
So I've noticed my skillset is expanding daily as I continue to teach myself various techniques via web tutorials. Also my list of resources is expanding exponetially as I continue to encounter new problems with AI, PS and Dreamweaver and subsequently do some research and experimentation. So I'm becoming a more experienced designer...
(I'll label it 'self taught' but I don't really think there is any other way to learn. You have to try something, fail and fail again until you work it out on your own to truly understand it. Otherwise you're just following along as the teacher tells you what info to regurgetate on the test and ultimately forget within weeks. This gives me a nice little segway into the american school system... It is awful. Having both my parents as teachers as well as being a student my entire life has given me plenty of insight into the flaws in the system. The east has it right and their standardized tests prove it: Test first; Fail; Then learn from mistakes. If we had any sense in this country we would start with a complete overhaul of the public school system. Stop putting the kids on medication and special needs and force them to learn how to really work and earn something. Tangent. Forgive me. Moving on.)
Right so skillset improving, resources and tutorials expanding and finally I'm being a bit more healthy.... Weird I know, but something about the routine of a 9-5 really works for me. It even gives me time in the evening to work on my own projects so in actuality I'd say I work on various projects for a number of different parties including myself from 9am to about 10 or 11pm (with a number of breaks for food and other necessities). Seems like an excessive work day but I'm finally doing things I enjoy working on and not laboring excessively on subjects which don't fascinate me.
(Not that I regret the hours I spent contemplating and memorizing physics equations, but I feel that the theory was just more interesting than the raw memorization... I mean in todays modern world all I need is google to tell me a formula so why should I be forced to spend days flipping through flash cards when the theories are more applicable to real life scenarios. Understanding how friction works as opposed to the formula helps much more when driving in snowy conditions.)
So I'm healthier and my sleep cycle is much more normal than it has been since college started. I used to be up around 9 am on MWF followed by a nap from 11-1 and than I'd be up til 2-4am until I crashed. So unhealthy. Now I go to bed at like midnight and wake up at 7:50am on the nose. I am still kind of tired but I feel able to cope because the physical demands aren't excessive outside of a basic daily exercise routine. On top of that being at home is much better for my diet because my wonderful mother loves to cook and keep the fridge stocked. Not only that but she occasionally shows me a kitchen trick or two which improves my abilities to survive on my own eventually. Also she cooks healthy foods, not the kind of crap usually found in the confines of a college campus. Some people I know have the worst diets I've even heard of down at school.
3 [Photo-Op]:
This has been the hardest part to do... I always have my camera on me but I go into work bright an early and don't get out until dark... Try finding something new and interesting to take pictures of in the same three locations: Home, Car, Office...
Saw the last of the apples from our tree. Rotten and half consumed, bloodied and bruised but still hanging on the branch refusing to surrender to winter's icy claws.
Also saw the employee of the month parking spots at whole foods... They were completely blocked in with snow from the plows. Guess they weren't very good employees...
4 [Something I learned]:
Lots of tutorials in PS, AI and Dreamweaver site things.
5 [Learning Link of the Day]:
I think I am going to change this section to make it a tutorial which I follow and show the end result.
Anyways here are some sites which have good tutorials:
http://vectips.com/
http://www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/
http://line25.com/
http://www.vectorials.com/ (Links to many other sites from here)
Heres a design site I need to look at later:
http://dirt2.com/
6 [Things I did for Others]:
To be continued.
7 [Things I did for Myself]:
Stocked up of vector resources and fonts.... Epic.
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