Sophomore Portfolio Review

After reflecting on all of my past design projects I have been able to see my growth and I feel as though I have come a long way from my first deign class. When I began as a graphic design major I had no prior experience using the Adobe programs and I also don’t think that I fully understood what the major entitled. I was indecisive about my major because at the time all I knew was that I wanted to do something involving the arts, but after taking Typography 1 I knew that I had chosen the right path. Over the course of two years I have acquired technical design skills as well as conceptual skills regarding the design choices I make. The courses I have taken thus far have helped me to refine my eye as a designer to think about how each component of a design (color, type, size, graphics) creates a meaning and effect on the overall project. Listed are the three assignments that I feel I have gained the most learning experience from and have impacted my skills as a designer:

The Type Specimen Book was my first exposure to InDesign and book making which taught me about layout design, grids, typography, and organizing information. I remember entering this project with such excitement because we had the freedom to design it to our liking as long as it included the required information and text. I started out with a brief grid system but ended up tailoring each page differently. I also did not have a well thought out meaning to most of my design choices such as color palette, size, and use of shapes. At the time I made my decisions based on wether of not I thought it looked “cute” per se. Looking back I should have thought more about the concept of my book and made decisions based on the research I had done on my chosen typeface. This project required that I organize a large amount of text in an organized and legible manner which taught me the importance of alignment, tracking/kerning, and margins specifically for books. I am aware that I will have more book making projects in future design classes so I think this was a good introduction to it as well as a good way to gage how I was able to handle such as task in a given amount of time.

The Symbol Project gave me experience with symbol and icon making, refining and iterating , and thinking conceptually. With this project I was able to better understand how line weight, negative space, shape, and detail all effect the meaning and interpretation of a symbol. Symbols exist as a medium of communication and are designed to convey some type of message. Most of the symbols that we encounter in our everyday lives (i.e street signs, app icons, computer buttons) are non-objective which I had the most difficulty creating for my topic “exercise” but ended up gaining the most learning experience from. Symbol and icon making are things that I know I will be using for the rest of my design career so it was helpful to get the experience of the symbol making process.

The Weather Report was my first experience with After Effects and animating. This project helped me to further improve my organizational/layout skills through the concepts of location, alphabet, time, category, and hierarchy. My biggest challenges during this project were familiarizing myself with the program and making sure that all of the information on screen transitions from from-to-frame in a seamless manner. There had to be a logical flow to my animation and an emphasis on speed and timing. I grew from this project because I learned more about my ability to quickly pick up a new program and how to design for something requiring motion and transition.