Sample business cards!

So one point on my PDP that i think is valuable for when i graduate university is to have business cards that have all of my information on that can be circulated around to numerous people so that I can get my name out there more that it is currently, and also give a wider amount of people the opportunity to see the type of photography that I do and the photographs that i have been producing over the past few years!

So I got some sample card from a few different places that print business cards just really to see the different styles an types of cards that i could get have.

Before I have even seen any of these cards I ordered my own sample pack from a website for free so that I would be able to get a better idea of what my cards would look like with the design that I wanted them to have on them! The design can be seen in a previous post titled 'Card Designs'.

When the cards arrived I have numerous of my own images printed on the reverse side of each of the 10 cards that I got, each one was different as i wanted to see what type of image worked and what images didn't. As i expected some worked a lot more than others so I have eliminated a few images and have a few that i am going to stick with and some i will consider getting printed onto my own cards when i get them done. A few of the images that i liked and thought worked well with portraying the type of photograph that i do and the work i produce are the ones that can be seen in the above image. I feel they are eye catchers and leave people wanting to see a bit more which is the most important time for a business card!

Looking for jobs!

On thing i will admit to is being very lax on looking for a photography related job for after I graduate, this is mainly because i am little unsure as to where I am at with photography, I am not 100% sure if this is the direction i want to go in anymore so as well as looking for jobs i have been thinking about the different things i could do after graduation!

I have been browsing for jobs and have come across a few different assisting jobs, if i were to go in this direction i feel that assisting would be the best route to take as a graduate to gain experience.

The jobs i have come across...

I have included this point in my PDP because i feel it is vital and i should be actively looking for jobs, putting it on my PDP is prompting me to actually do it rather that me keep putting it off!

Why a website and business cards?!

The reasons behind these two development points is simply to help me further myself, I want to have an online presence which I can easily direct people towards so they can see my photography, which can be done through handing them a business card which has the url or my website on it.

For me designing my website and business cards is something that will definitely help me to get word out about my work, rather than me just going no where with it I can put business cards in different places for people to see, and if they are interested the information on it is a quick way for them to get in touch.

Updated personal development plan!

I have been thinking about different things that i want to achieve and have updated my personal development plan with these different points which i feel i could benefit from at this point;

What are my development objectives?	What activities do I need to undertake to achieve my objectives?	What support/resources do I need to achieve my objectives?	Target date for achieving my objectives	Actual date of achieving my  objectives
Photography website	Design a functional easily navigated website that showcases my photography - can be used as a portfolio.	Find a suitable web page to host my site, learn how to use the websites design features, buy a domain name.	May 2014
Business cards	Design cards that have the necessary contact information and  show my interest within the photographic field	Designing the card layout and appearance. A place to get them printed.	May 2014
Design a book	Start selecting photographs and design a book that will show numerous pieces of my work that I have produced though out the past few years	Knowing the software I use to get the best possible outcome and design. The use of good photographs for the best impact and ones that showcase my personality.
C.V	Put together a photography job specific cv for use when applying for photography jobs.	Putting together and listing all of my aims, objectives and experiences that will promote my work.
Look for photography jobs	Search various jobsites to look for different types of photography based jobs that are available.	Browsing different websites to see what is out there regularly.

 

Card designs!

So today i started to put business card designs together, I knew that one thing i wanted was my name and photography as a header on one side of the card, purely to be straight to the point and define the subject matter to people whom are in receipt of the card.

On the website that I am using to design my business cards, i just messed around with a few different options, but like with my website I have an idea of what i want and i want to put that down and make it work the best it can.

Above is what i have come up with at this point, I have yet to buy a domain name and make it live with the site i am putting together so this is really just to get a vague idea of what they will be like, as some of the information printed on the cards will change shortly.

I have ordered some sample cards with different designs so when they arrive i will be able to get a better idea of what works the best for my cards!

Putting my website together!

Over the past few months one things I have been spending a decent amount of time of is putting my website together. In stead of straight out buying a domain name and creating a website from scratch I have gone through a hosting site that will host my website and have my own domain name at the same time. The hosting site that I have chosen to use is Digital Photographers Gallery. This site seamed like the best option for hosting my website as I have seen previous websites and am really impressed with how the look and work.

I must admit it took me a little while to get to grips with navigating the website and getting the full use from it to put my work together how I could see it in my head.

First I went through some of my most recent photography work to see what I wanted to include on my website and I put a few different images into a folder so I knew exactly what I wanted on there,

 

I wanted to separate my photographs into different categories, even though it is very much all nature and landscape based there is different areas that I have photographs based on, so I wanted to keep them separate so if someone wants to look at a certain type of thing they will know exactly where to find that type of image. 

On the items tab that can be seen below I created different pages to break the types of photographs down into categories. I unchecked the gallery link as I didn't want all of the photographs in one place, which is what would have happened if I were to upload everything into one area. I then created a few different page links titled landscapes, nature, wildlife and other - the different categories that I wanted to use throughout.  I also have home, about and contact pages where different information can be found.

I found that when I added in now pages they went into a strange order so I reorganized everything that put them into an order that I was happy with and one that would flow throughout.

Below is an example of how some of the pages are active whereas some are deactivated as I didn't want them within my website, the deactivation can be seen on the gallery link;

I then started to look at the deign of my website and what I wanted people to get from it, I wan to have a website that is easily navigated and shows my work to its best. I chose a theme from the ones that are openly available on the site itself;

With this theme it enabled me to have my images almost full bleed across the page and when selecting and image link, such as the landscape images you scroll through them horizontally using the scroll bar at the bottom on the page or navigating using the right and left arrows which i quite like.  The theme is really only the main thing that I altered, I left all of the tap link colours and things like that the same colour as the theme set them to as they work well with what I want. One thing I changed was that I wanted the home page to display a slide show of some of my photographs, so as soon as people clicked onto my site they could see some variations of the type of photographs I take.

I simply wanted the header on my page to say 'Lauren Morris - Photography' which I changed in the settings.

And this is what it looks like displayed on the website I am designing;

Above you can see the different links that I have added in to separate my photographs into categories, at the moment I am happy with the design and it is something that still needs working on, just with uploading and categorizing all my photographs.

I uploaded some of the photographs I wanted to use onto the designing area of the site;

 

Then from the different link i created for the categories, different folders had been made so that I could select photographs to go in certain folders which would put them into the different sub headings, or links on my site. 

As an example here are the images that I have put into the 'Landscape' section of my website;

and this is what they look like actually displayed on my website now

Here you can also see the horizontal scroll and the other navigation that is available via the 'back', 'previous' and 'next' buttons as well as the use of the arrow keys.

This is just one axample of what I have done with the different sub headings within my site but I have done the same thing on every other page but just broken down my images and placed them into different headings depending on what they fit best within.

After I loaded all of my photographs into the different sub headings I arranged them into specific orders, ones that I felt flowed and worked the best for all of the images that I have used at this point.

I then started to think about the different types of contact and social media sites that I am using and wanted to link onto my site. The only site that I really want people to have access to are my Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest, but I also wanted people to be able to like and share the work on my site as well as talk about it via Twitter and Facebook.

 

You can see below what this now looks like on the homepage of my website, all of the links to the left are visible no matter what section of the website you click onto, so it is always there to use as a quick navigation if needed.

At the moment I have a small selection of photographs uploaded onto my site, I still need to add some more on into the different sections to show more af a variaty of work.

My contact page and about my pages are very simple and brief, I want to work on them a little bit to make them better but from a design point of view and how it is all flowing I am very pleased with how my website is looking.

I also want to purchase my own domain name for when I actually make my website live, this is so I can advertise it and also get it printed onto business cards and put it out there in different places.