Advanced Representation

Course code : ENVT1010
Course co-ordinator : David Watson

Introduction

Life in the modern world has become increasingly competitive. This is particularly true when it comes to finding a job. Sometimes, simply being the best is not enough - you need to sell yourself. This course is all about promotion; promotion of yourself and promotion of your work. In a few months time, you will need to get a job and you will be presenting your work as part of an important degree show. Your success (or otherwise) in these two tasks may well have a profound influence on your future career. However, it is also important to see yourself in the context of the wider design world. It is important to know who you are and where you fit in the world of design. Studying the work of other designers and studying designed objects is a good way to create such a perspective.

Course Diary

The course diary gives an overview of the timetable, weekly topics and submission dates for this course. There may be occasional changes, so check back frequently.

There are two student groups for this course:
Group A = Landscape Architect and the Garden Design students.
Group B = Digital & Graphic Design, Creative Industries and 3D Digital Design students.
Groups will be taught on alternate weeks as below.

2009-10 Session Diary
DateGroupRoomTitle
Thu, 21st JanAllLab AIntroduction and branding project
Thu, 28th JanAllLab AWhat is web design?
Thu, 4th FebAllLab ACV writing and web design overview
Thu, 11th FebAllLab AThe structural layer (HTML)
Thu, 18th FebAllLab AThe presentation layer (CSS)*
Thu, 25th FebAllLab ABuilding a web page (layout with HTML & CSS)
Thu, 4th MarAllLab AGraphics and colour for the web †
Thu, 11th MarAllLab AWeb typography
Thu, 18th MarAllLab AFindability
Thu, 25th MarAllLab AUsability & navigation ‡
Easter Break (3 weeks)
Thu, 22th AprAllLab AHosting & domain names
Thu, 29th AprAllLab AAccessibility
Thu, 6th MayAllLab AOpen workshop
Thu, 13th MayAll-Website hand-in

*"This is me" - hand-in
†CV - hand-in
‡The designed world - hand-in and presentation

Aims and Outcomes

This course is about technique. You will learn how to best represent yourself and your work using both digital and traditional media. You will learn how to communicate your ideas clearly and confidently using a range of presentation techniques, including a website. You must:

Format

The course runs over 12 weeks and consists of four projects and a number of workshops. The workshops are mainly computer related and are based in the Tower computing labs, see timetable for details. You must complete all 4 projects in order to complete the course. The results of each project must be submitted at the times given for assessment.

Workshops

The 6 workshops will focus on web page design and digital techniques that enable you to represent your degree work and to present your portfolio in a professional manner. The various topics are given on the timetable although this is only meant to be indicative and may change to suit specific requirements. Detailed tutorials etc. may be given at the workshop sessions or made available on-line.

Projects

You must complete 4 projects:

  1. "This is me" (branding) - You will design and produce a co-ordinated business card and A4 headed notepaper. The card and notepaper have two purposes. Firstly they will be used as vehicles for the development of your personal branding. Secondly, they will be used as a basis for the CV you will create in the next project.

This project should be submitted as a .PDF file (maximum file size 2MB) and uploaded to the coursestuff website during the class on the day of submission. The file must be named using the following format: Student ID_brand.pdf. For example, if your ID is ab123, your file will be ab123_brand.pdf. Use the Coursework Submission page to upload your work for review and assessment. Take a look at this example format for the business card submission. It was created in Adobe Illustrator and saved as a PDF file. A maximum file size of 2MB is set for this submission but in most cases your file should only be a few hundred KB at most. Do make sure that all images used are correctly compressed for screen resolution - this will help keep file sizes down.

  1. Curriculum Vitae - Using the branded stationary designed in the previous project, you will produce a CV for yourself. You will need a CV to go with your future job applications and the content is just as important (if not more) as the design. Susan Hudson (Careers Co-ordinator) will be giving a talk and advice on CV writing on 1st and 8th February.

This project should be submitted as a .PDF file (maximum file size 2MB) and uploaded to the coursestuff website during the class on the day of submission. The file must be named using the following format: Student ID_cv.pdf. For example, if your ID is ab123, your file will be ab123_cv.pdf. Use the Coursework Submission page to upload your work for review and assessment.

  1. Eye of the Beholder – We live in a world that is almost entirely designed and most of the time we simply accept what we see for what it is and never wonder about the story behind it. The truth is that for every designed object there is a designer, irrespective of whether the object is a mundane part of our everyday life or whether it is a desirable design classic.

However, designers often take their inspiration from the natural world or from serendipitous conjunctions of natural, abandoned or "found" objects. This project aims to help you make connections between the random and the designed.

Choose a "found" object (or collection of objects) that you find aesthetically pleasing. Maybe you already have a favourite pebble that you keep in your pocket or maybe there is a particular variety of apple that you like or maybe you stumble upon a crushed baked bean tin. Write a critical analysis of the object, focussing on aesthetic criteria such as colour, texture, use of materials and size. Take photographs of the object in order to illustrate your points.

Each mini essay should be presented as a webpage using a template you will be given. All the essays will form a new section of this website similar to the sections on Designers, Artists and Heroes, and Designed World, created by students in previous years (see below).

This project should be submitted as a .HTML file and and one or more .JPG files. These files will be uploaded to the coursestuff website during the class on the day of submission. The file must be named using the following format: Student ID.html. For example, if your ID is ab123, your file will be ab123.html. Image files should be similarly named using the following format: ab123_1.jpg, ab123_2.jpg… Use the Coursework Submission page to upload your work for review and assessment.

The Eye of the Beholder - A pro-forma for your Designed World submission.

The link above will take you to a webpage. That page is a template for your "Eye of the Beholder" project essay. In order to add your own content to the template, you will first need to save the file to your desktop. To do this, right-click on the link and select "Save Target As…" from the menu. Save the file to a convenient folder using the naming format described above. Open the file in a text editor and add your content.

Plagiarism warning!

In the past, students have found it convenient to copy text from other websites and include it with their submission. Please note that this is plagiarism and if found out, you will fail this project. Consider this an essay; you should use your own words. If in doubt, please ask.

  1. Personal Website - This project is very much a digital progression of the CV project. However, the web format does give you a whole range of additional options not available to you in print. You will design and implement a personal web site showing a range of your work along with CV details and using the branding livery developed in the first project. It is important that your web site remain on-line while you look for a job so you will need to organise your own personal web space outside of the University (there is a lot of free and low-cost space out there). You should also consider acquiring a personal domain name. All of these issues will be discussed.

The website submission is to be made by email. An email must be sent to the course tutor before 5pm on the date of submission, with a link to your website. Your website must be completed and available online at that time. Unavailable websites will be treated as late submissions. The course tutor's email address can be found in the course brief.

Submission dates are shown with an asterisk on the Course Calendar.

Assessment

Assessment for this course will be based upon the 4 projects as follows:
"This is me" (branding) 20%
Curriculum Vitae 20%
Personal Website 40%
Eye of the Beholder 20%

In all cases, your work will be awarded merit for quality, attention to detail and good design.

Projects from previous years

The 2008 Project

The Designed World 2 - Links to all the work.

The 2007 Project

The Designed World - Links to all the work.

The 2006 Project

Designers, Artists and Heroes - Links to all the work.

Course Documents

There are currently 16 files in this section

File Listing
  Filename Size (KB) Date Modified
balloons.jpg 34.5 28th Mar 2009
designed-world.html 3.3 28th Mar 2009
ENVT1010 Course Brief 09-10.pdf 72.5 20th Jan 2010
Example Business Card.pdf 21.9 28th Mar 2009
example_web_page.txt 0.6 28th Mar 2009
eye-template.html 3.4 11th Mar 2010
Garden Design Flier Brief 2008.pdf 15.3 28th Mar 2009
index.html 0.4 28th Mar 2009
page1.html 0.3 28th Mar 2009
page2.html 0.3 28th Mar 2009
Personal Branding.pdf 293.8 28th Mar 2009
Portfolio_Green.zip 77.4 28th Mar 2009
Portfolio_Grey.zip 77.5 28th Mar 2009
Portfolio_Orange.zip 77.0 28th Mar 2009
Portfolio_White.zip 100.7 28th Mar 2009
This is me (5x5).pdf 6.7 28th Mar 2009

Support Materials

There are currently 8 files in this section

File Listing
  Filename Size (KB) Date Modified
Build Your Own Website sample chapters.pdf 4,206.2 28th Mar 2009
Composition and Typography.swf 1,228.5 28th Mar 2009
Curriculum Vitae.swf 84.0 28th Mar 2009
Graphical Elements and Colour.swf 784.3 28th Mar 2009
Interview Questions.pdf 15.0 28th Mar 2009
Interview.swf 84.1 28th Mar 2009
The Presentation Layer.swf 222.2 28th Mar 2009
The Structural Layer.swf 418.1 28th Mar 2009

Career and CV Help

Build a website online for free

If you have no interest in the mechanics of web design and you have no money to spend on a website, try out the options below. They enable you to create a template driven website using a simple WYSIWYG interface for free.

Portfolio Templates

These portfolio templates are complete websites consisting of 6 pages; a homepage, 3 portfolio pages, a CV page and a contact page. All you need to do is add the content. You can also change the colours and layout by editing the main.css file.

Portfolio images should be a maximum width of 565 pixels wide but can be any height. Don't forget to change all the page titles, h1 tags and footer text to include your own name. You should also add a descriptive alt attribute to each image.

Download Green Portfolio Template Download Green Portfolio Template Download Grey Portfolio Template Download Orange Portfolio Template

Preview template: White | Green | Grey | Orange.

Example Websites

Graphic Design

Garden Design

General Web Design Learning Resources

A Web Design Toolkit

Although most web designers will prefer to work with applications like Dreamweaver and Photoshop for maximum flexibility and functionality, it isn't really necessary. A perfectly adequate toolkit can be had for free. The applications listed below are all you need to create brilliant web pages.

Aptana StudioWrite your XHTML and CSS code in Notepad++, create and edit your images in Paint.NET, preview the results in Firefox and then upload to your web server using FileZilla.

If you prefer working in an integrated development environment, take a look at Aptana Studio. In a nutshell, it's Dreamweaver without the WYSIWYG editor and because it's open source, there is a free version and it's available for PC and Mac.

XHTML Stuff (the structural layer)

CSS Stuff (the presentation layer)

CSS Reference

CSS Templates

Web Hosting and Domain Names

Free Web Hosting (no banners or ads)

Cheap Web Hosting

Superior Web Hosting

Domain Name Registration

See the Reading List for details of key texts for this course.

Copyright David Watson 2005–2010
XHTML, CSS