In love with Lynda

I was told about this site in a recent tutorial, and then again during our flash re-cap class. It is fantastic!

At the moment I have only completed some of the free tutorials but I will be signing up soon for some intensive courses.

I know my software skills need improving and although the Vis Com course has taught me loads about design (Grids, layouts, typography, colour etc) I don't think they've taught enough software skills. Of course, the argument is that students should use their own initiative to discover more and develop their own skills, and whilst I agree with this, I think the course could have done better than 2 x 1 hour lessons on Photoshop and Illustrator in the first year. And lets not mention the infamous Flash lessons!

Anyway, this is exactly what I've been looking for. An invaluable way of learning, and as someone who likes to learn visually, for me, it's perfect. I really feel I can now put all the theory of my course together with the practical skills from Lynda.com to push my skill set as a designer.

PPRD - Panda a go go

I recently met with my friend to start designing the logo and stationary pack for Panda On A Bike (POAB). He wants the logo to be literal, so he actually wants it to show a panda on a bike - shame as I wanted it to be typographical only but I got over ruled. That's what creative directors do.

So I went away and came up with some early ideas.

I went back to show him and found that he had already bagged a client for an advertising job. Good news and bad news. Good news; it's a client. Bad news for me because it's a TV advert and therefore no graphic design needed to be completed. Bad news also because we need to send them an invoice for the time that we (the royal we) have spent doing it. Which means no more messing about in Illustrator with the logo, we have to go with what we've got, which is ok as we're both happy with it. I am now trying to get all my Uni work done for the hand in this Friday, and produce a stationary pack (or at least an invoice sheet) as soon as I can. No stress then.

The final logo will look something like this.