My blog

Lately, 29/1/2009, at 1:53 posted by Morena

Too many things to tell..so little time and energy to write here
So why on heart do I have a blog??? Because I wanted to build one myself and because I always kept diaries but only for couple of days, so, I am sorry, this is the way I am..
Today I'm celebrating 3 years with Dan..what an amazing thing! It's too good to be true, but luckily for me, it's true and we are also looking for a house to buy which is exciting! :)
Yesterday the guy that used to work before me came to the office and it was so scary! He's applying for a graduate scheme I felt so shitty :( God knows what's going to happen to me :( Which is a shame, I really love it at TR, I love the brand, my job and how much I can learn and grow!
So I can only try very hard to study and learn as much as possible..then I'll be ready for the world!
In the meantime let's keep fingers crossed and hope good things will come my way (to those who wait :)

Learning Graphic Design, 16/1/2009, at 16:53 posted by Morena

Had a chat with my boss about creativity..I never feel stuck between the strong brand guidelines we have here at Thomson Reuters.
I love them!
I love the idea that if I stay withing the lines, my products will not be wrong..
But still, we can push it a bit further. The purpose of brand guidelines is to guide..not to create strong boundaries and repress creativity.

So what can a Front End Web Developer do to spice it all up a bit? Add some dynamically displayed content.
An this is where jQuery comes along.

But what about out of work? How am I showing off my creativity? I am not! And I am not entirely sure there is any..Plus I should not forget how random I end up displaying content on the pages!
I need to go back to basic: to learn the principles of graphic design, start drawing a bit more (which I never do..) and apply it to web design.

I've chosen a course in Graphic Design Basics at City Lit.
I was expecting lots and lots of theory..but in the end we started drawing after the first half hour!
We had a logo to design for an Internet Cafe without using words. So I instinctively thought of the @ sign and a cup of coffee..I thought I was not being very original, but almost everybody was using the same symbols. The interesting thing was that everybody had made it their own way.
I shall upload my logo shorty, I have to draw it on A4 for Tuesday, so I will take a picture and put it here..

I realised that still I really need to learn more about Alignment. Proximity, etc..and I've started reading a very good book my boss recommended: The Non-Designer's Design Book which I started reading yesterday and I find it really interesting.

Today I already have applied principles of Proximity and Alignment to the web page I've created at work.
So, so far, so good.

Next Tuesday I think we will start doing Types. I'm quite scared because I've always seen Type as something you pull off the internet, make a logo/a site name with and stick it onto your website.
I am aware of the process of designing the type myself..but I could never be bothered to do that.
Well, it looks like I will have to :)

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