Evaluation

Before this project I already had an extensive knowledge of Adobe Photoshop, this knowledge enabled me to quickly pick up Adobe Image-Ready and create attention grabbing animations for both this course and real design work such as web banners and advertisements. For my final project I did not use Adobe Indesign at all, i stuck with Photoshop, which was a smart idea in terms of that I was sticking with what i already knew and therefore was confident that i could produce work to a high standard, however I would like to get to know Indesign and be at the same level with that program as I am with Photoshop.

The project I learnt the most from was the PostSecret web banner animation, as even though i had used keyframe animation techniques before in other programmes, Image-Ready was completely new to me and I managed to pick it up fairly quickly which was very satisfying.

In terms of file formats my previous knowledge helped alot when it came to choosing which format would be appropriate to work in or save/export as during the different projects within Digital Graphics, things that i have learnt are how how save using the 'optimise for...' feature within Photoshop which is very helpful so that i can see a direct comparison between the native file which may be a .JPEG for example if you're dealing with a photograph and thats what the camera was shooting in (although obviously shooting in .RAW is preferable!).

My most succsesful project within this digital graphics course has to be the 'My Fake Band' project. I am fairly pleased with the end results of my animated web banner and CD cover designs. However, although I have tried to use the given time to complete the projects as efficiently as possible, I feel that if I had more time to put into pre-production so that i could plan out and make more drafts first, the final result would have been of much higher quality and had more impact on the viewer.

The project that I feel I could improve the most if given a second chance is the PostSecret web banner, it is very basic, isn't attention grabbing and certainly doesn't look proffessional however, creating it allowed me to get used to Image-Ready for the first time and pick up the skills that i utilised in the later projects.

The Skills that i have learnt, practised and refined have already proven helpfull for the freelancing design work that I have done for various bands, an event hosted by a pub, Advertisement leaflets, brochures and gift vouchers as well as photoshoots for all of which Photoshop was used and in some cases Adobe Image-Ready. I am determined to further my knowledge with skills and techniques found within digital graphics so that i produce products of a higher quality and value everytime.