What skills do you have already?

About 4-5 years ago I had a very boring summer and decided to teach myself photoshop, from the influence of computer gaming and the community around it. I began learning how to create cool forum signatures for members when they post, which I then later moved onto experimenting with different types of imagery and effects which I could create. Within the community there were weekly SoTW competitions (signature of the week), where you would be given a brief with a specific theme and you had to create a signature for this. It was an excellent way for me to test what I learnt each week in that summer and onwards, to be restricted to what you can create and to make the most of it.

In November 2008, I was asked from a family friend to join them in a new business, as they wanted to start doing clothing printing instead of just selling fashionwear. I took up this chance and began learning other software such as SignGo, Versaworks and Adobe Illustrator. From this I learnt about vectorising images, how to prepare them for this (converting the image to black and white, vectorising, then separating for different colour prints of vinyl). As the years went on we then gained new machinery and were able to create multicoloured transfers, where I was then confident enough to see how people who had been using it for a few years were doing it, to then propose a new idea to them for preparing the images and for it to be more accurate and simpler to do.

During my time at the course in Plymouth University, I learnt the basics of Adobe Dreamweaver and Flash to create; my own website and a small game. Though I may not use Flash again it was good to see how it's done, and the difference in coding compared to Dreamweaver. I did learn alot from learning Adobe Dreamweaver, but it was mostly because I wanted to know more and did the research to satisfy myself for this.

We are now getting an embroidery machine in which I am now learning how to "Digitize" an image, so that the images can be created to be embroidered onto clothing. Due to the previous programs that I have learnt from the beginning and the techniques that I have picked up along the way, I was able to easily interpret the program and understand what needs doing without much support.

To put it in a list, the skills I have already aquired are;

•  Knowledge within programs: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop. Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Flash, SignGo, Versaworks, Design Studio, Amaya, Windows & Mac OSX operating systems and software.
• Competant with machines: Summa cutter, Roland VersaCamm, Amaya XT embroidery machine, Heatpress/Cappress, Scanner.
• Creating designs for: Car wraps/designs, Stickers, Advertising boards, Clothing, Posters, Logos, Website layouts, Profile pictures/signatures for websites.