Graphic Design Final

       Graphic Design Final


      The first project we did that I really enjoyed was the Poster Design project. This project was an advertisement we created for a made up event, that was to take place in the Sprint Center. This project took around a week and a half to do in class. A big challenged I faced was how to make the all the info need, like the time, date, location, etc; all fit into the poster without making the poster seem to crowded. Originally I wanted to use this font that looked cool and fit the theme for my poster, but I switched it after my teacher suggested it, because made some letters and the @ sign look very distorted. Originally in my design I wanted to have a very bright and color poster, but I found this nice picture of Adam Sandler that worked really well with a dark background, so I decided to go with a darker colored theme. Overall I'm happy with my poster design but wish I spent a little more time with blending everything in and making sure everything looked natural together on the same background.

       My next project that I really enjoyed doing was my typography project. In this project we took four quotes and wrote them out, and created a design around them. This project also took us around 1.5-2 weeks to complete in class. One challenge I faced was my own stupidity, because I accidentally made all my graphics in color and didn't save the black and white version, so I had to go back through and remove the color. One of the pieces of feedback I took from my teacher on this project was to use more symbols within my graphics. I changed the word "bee" to a little bee graphic and I changed the word "rewind" into three backwards pointing arrows. A change I made from my original idea, along with the inclusion of the graphics, was making sure that the color scheme I used fit with the tone of the project, and  that it wasn't just random colors. For example my quote from the Bee Movie uses a yellow color pallet to resemble Bees. Overall I liked this project a lot. I like how much creative freedom we had, and how I was able to choose goofy quotes, yet still make the project look professional.

       Another project that I enjoyed was our Info graphic project. This project was started in 1st semester and we finished it in 2nd. I enjoyed this project for a different reason, and that was because this project was a learning experience for me. Before I get to that, this project was one where we researched a topic of our choosing, and made an info graphic for it. This project was a longer one, and probably took us around 3-4 weeks to complete. I faced a lot of challenges during this project. My biggest was how little information was available about my topic. My topic was about two companies (twitch and epic games) and their revenue throughout the years. These companies aren't obligated to share their revenue statements publicly, so I could only find estimates on how much they made each month. This lead to a lot of empty space on my info graphic, and a lot less time spent on the design since so much was spent trying to find any data possible on my topic. A piece of feedback I took from my teacher was to use more original graphics that weren't just outlines of pre-existing symbols. I had to change a lot from my beginning idea, my main change was having to switch what my info graphic originally focused on, and I added monthly users cause their was slightly more info on that. Overall my opinion on this project was that it was not that good. My project looked very rushed due to my lack of info to display and everything looked sloppy. This was one of my favorite projects though, cause it really showed me the importance of managing your time wisely.

       Over my time in graphic design I feel like I have used my time well 95% of the time. There are some days were it has taken me to long to start getting focused on my work, but I feel like those days have become far fewer. This semester vs last semester (after my infographic project) I've learned how important it is to manage your time wisely in class.

      I feel like I have a lot of strengths in E-Comm. I feel like I have gotten very good at using Photoshop and I have come a long in in Illustrator because I had no idea how to use it at the beginning of the year and now I'm pretty good at it. When comparing my projects from last year to the ones from this year I feel like I have had a lot of improvement.

       In E-Comm there are also areas I can improve in. A big one is Adobe Products, especially Illustrator. Even though I have improved a lot in those programs I feel like there is always a lot of room for improvement in anyone who uses these programs.

       What I loved most about this year in Graphic Design was how well it prepared us for the Graphic Design job field. Especially towards the end of the year we were doing projects like creating logos that are valuable things we can us in the future. We also got to use at least three different Adobe softwares which better prepared us. Even though we got to use 3 adobe softwares, there are still more of them that like 90% of us don't even know what they are used for, so I would add a day or two near the beginning of the year that just shows us and explains the purpose all of the different softwares, and I would implement more softwares into the class curriculum so we can learn the basics of more of them. Next year, even though I'm going to be in Video, A goal I have for myself is to keep up with my graphic design learning, whether it be at home or something, I still want to learn and improve my Graphic Design skills.