14th Feb

This week has been very hectic. I have had four projects to work on over this week and two are only two weeks long. I have given these projects more priority over my other two projects to ensure they are completed on time to my fullest abilities. I have realised however that having this many projects and juggling them is quite stressful. I feel that I have not really produced my best over this week due to this fact of being stressed out over the four projects. I think that in the future I should sit and write a detailed time plan of when to work on what and what to complete for that particular day when I have a lot of projects to handle. This will help me with my designs and help me to not become stressed and tire myself out and not be put off about my work.

7th Feb

This week I have taken the final chose designs and have spent some time creating them into proper images on the computer to get a general idea of how they will look. I have played around with various designs of the ideas and have finally narrowed down the designs to the very final design. This design will be the one I will work on over the next couple of weeks. I am happy with this design but I feel it is quite poorly made let alone needing a lot of development work on it.
I feel that the reason why my work is slightly poor is because my photoshop skills are not very good. I need to look at doing some more detailed photoshop sessions and to look on photoshop tutorials online to work on to help improve my skills. This is something quite important to look at and carry out in my own time as it will be an investment on my behalf.

31st Jan

This week I have carried on with my designs. I have also evaluated each and every design. I feel that I have spent a little too long designing and evaluating these designs and feel that I need to really move on in the process of my work.

24th Jan

This week I have spent working on design ideas. I have come up with a few designs based on my idea of centering around the books theme of 'cats' and the bad luck they bring to the main character Frank. I feel that a lot of the designs are nice but none are designs I want to fully further on. I suppose none of my designs are 'the one'. I am disappointed that I have produced a few designs but am not satisfied with the ones I have produced. I will need to spend more time working on my designs and producing greater ones. This is quite time consuming but if this results in a really good design to further develop rather then a poor design to be developed then it would make my project far more interesting and final out come a lot better.

17th Jan

This week I have spent the week researching. I have looked at the Australian target market as well as researching a variety of book covers. I have compared UK best sellers to Aus best sellers, looked at the variety of covers the book already has as well as looking at crime novels and penguin design in general. I have evaluated and gone into particular detail over each of these points to ensure I understand what has already been produced for the markets. After all of this research I feel confident in progressing to the design stage. I do however feel that I have spent too long on the research process and feel slightly 'unfulfilled' because I have not begun the design process. I have however kept to the list I had created for this week which shows that this method does work for me. I will be creating lists for each week on things to 'complete' as I find this ensures I get things done and do not forget things to look at and work on.
In the future I feel that I need to stop forcing myself to research  everything at the very beginning of the project. I think that I should allow myself to relax a little more and allow myself to research through out the brief rather then trying to research the entire project at the very beginning of the project.

10th Jan

This week saw the start of my brand new brief. I have to design a book cover for the book "the postman always rings twice" as well as an essay. I have spent the week reading the book as well as starting initial research. I feel reading the book has made me feel prepared and well equip into making designs for the cover. I feel reading the book has helped me to understand the book as well as pick out key points and themes that I can work from for the front cover. However, reading the book was quite time consuming and ate a lot of time in my week. Reading the book was very helpful but I know in the future I may not be able to do this due to time constraints. I feel that for future briefs I will not really be able to read the books before I make designs for them. I think that I should look up summaries and short essays about the book in question rather then the book in the future to enable me to be prepared for designing but it will take half the time then I have taken.
Because of this I feel that I may be behind in the start of my project. I feel that my time management isnt up to scratch. I will sit and make a detailed list and time plan of what to do for the next week and try to keep strictly to it.