Action Plan

I am a very honest, down-to-earth person. I am very friendly and prefer dealing with similar people in a more informal situation. I do feel uncomfortable in formal situations however a personality test has placed me as having a more formal personality due to the type of clothes I wear and by how organised a person I am. Order, order, order! Yes that’s me! I like order, control and tidiness but I do also have a side to me that needs a break from all that. An example is my house; I can’t cope with it being too clean and tidy! I love contemporary design with clean angled edges and squares – probably because it looks tidy! I am very independent and would love the freedom of either working for myself or with a business partner which is what has happened! Christine Beal has agreed to join me in the business. She has natural writing ability and more search engine optimisation knowledge than me. We do therefore complement each other perfectly. I want the flexibility of working when I want, although I have no doubt I would work many more hours than a 9-5 job. I am going to work part time hours in my current job from 1st January so I feel as if I’m getting closer to making my dream become reality.

I am really drawn towards web design as I love all the technical aspects of it i.e. HTML coding and computer programming languages. My personality test also highlighted my analytical side so I’m sure this is why I enjoy the technical side and also research! I don’t enjoy creating logos and corporate identity as I feel a lot of pressure. I find it difficult translating the essence of a company into one logo and accompanying designs. However I’ve become more confident after designing my own company logo (Refreshing Web Design). Although it’s not finished yet, I do feel I’ve captured what I’m about.

I decided to design and build a website for my portrait business as part of my HND course where I realised just how much I enjoyed it! I researched good web design on the internet and came across the website http://newark1.com and loved the boldness of the main image which held the whole design together and dictated the colour scheme. Their designs looked so striking and attractive that this confirmed my desire to become a web designer.

I’ve spoken to friends and people who want websites creating for them and I’ve had so much positive feedback about the site I built for KramersDesigns. I feel like I can put my own style into it without sacrificing the company’s own identity. My potential customers are all down-to-earth friendly people so it doesn’t matter that I’m not long established or relatively inexperienced. A previous college friend advised me a year ago about the current prices so I knew where to pitch myself within the market. A meeting was arranged between myself, Gavin of KramersDesigns and a man who was thinking of setting up as a local web designer. He was interested in using my creative skills instead of designing with templates as he does now. He said that this allows him to offer very competitive prices but I knew then that I want to design websites from scratch, thus allowing flexibility and giving the customer exactly what they want. He has since set up freelance and does earn well from it which has encouraged me that there is plenty of local business out there.

Most of my knowledge comes through reading “Dreamweaver for Dummies” and researching on the internet. I designed the website at work thinking it would be quite easy but soon realised there was much more technical expertise required. The book just touched upon CGI (Common Gateway Interface) and other technical issues but this wasn’t enough alone so I had to spend many hours researching on the internet. This served me well though as I learnt many things and now automatically research things I don’t know instead of thinking I can’t do it. One example is a recent request from a customer who wanted a form on his website that would send a text to his phone. I now believe that anything is possible and found out how to do it by researching online.

A meeting with a potential customer showed the skills needed to really draw out of them what they want. This was extremely difficult as they didn’t actually know themselves! After creating a few design options and pricing strategies we learned what was appropriate to them. I would like to improve my skill in this area though to save time in the initial process, meaning we are more likely to get the business.

I’ll be studying Accessibility for the Graphic Design in Context module. After picking inclusive design as part of the Futures presentation I realised just how important it is! Before I saw it as something I could adapt into a web design after it was built but it needs to be in the design right from the beginning. It affects the whole web site structure and colour scheme. The Newark website, that got me so interested in the first place, is in fact the worst way to design from an accessibility point of view. The Futures presentation has therefore turned everything on its head for me! But if I am to be a successful designer, I want to still be here in the future and give customers the peace of mind that their websites will be accessible.

My Creative Design Project will be a website designed with the knowledge I have gained from the Graphic Design in Context project. I have a website to design for Wrenco Ltd and I also want to design my own website once my identity has been developed.

For the Technical Skills module I want to look into PHP and Javascript more. I’ll use Dreamweaver to develop the two languages as it has a validator. I have books on the subject but will also use the internet as my source too. I want to learn how to write forms with PHP as it is supported by both the Linux and Microsoft platforms.

As I am launching myself as a web designer I will have real design jobs lined up for the Personal Project modules. One potential customer is Brighouse Textiles and another North Dean Fabrications but I know there will be more to do in the next couple of years. I have potentially 6 websites to do so far, one of which has been recommended by the last web site I designed for Dent Vanish Ltd.