Advanced Type Midterm Essay

I am on track with my hours that I declared earlier in the semester. I think that I have enough hours because of all my extracurricular activities outside of class. I am on the cross country and track team at school which requires hours of practice and dedication. I am on scholarship and have to do what is required of me to maintain that. I also do a lot of volunteer work. It has been difficult to keep up with my expert hours and balance everything but I am doing my best.

Sophisticated is work that one can be proud of and feel like they have completed what they aimed to do. In my weather project, I communicated the same pieces of information in different formations which I believes I achieved in a sophisticated fashion. My weather report was simple but I really wanted to work and focus on trying to capture the choreography and movement. I thought my weather design was good but it could have been made more sophisticated. I feel like I achieved my goal and created a sophisticated piece of art.

Learning more about after effects has been so helpful and I really like the program. It definitely connects to the portfolio app we made last semester in image methodology. The weather project has made me pay more attention to space, time, colors, and especially movement which I think are all important principles of design. Freshman year we did the circle book with helped with movement but it was interesting to use movement more like choreography to a dance. I still have a lot to learn with the program but it has made me very interested in the animation field.

I think overall I would want to know more about after effects so I can make more things and and expand my skills on animation. The part that I was most unsure about in this project was what typeface to use. I have a hard time picking one that goes well with the rest of the project. I feel like I need a better strategy and purpose for picking a typeface. This project definitely challenged me and made me focus on the relationship of motion to meaning. I think understanding this relationship better helps one communicate what needs to be communicated.

I think the value of the project is very high and important. It allowed me to discover more about after effects and the relationship between motion and meaning. The idea of choreography is challenging but so important to know as a designer. A project that I think relates to this is the portfolio app that we made in image methodology. It was my first time using after effects so it was very challenging but I was glad I was familiar with it before starting the weather report. I would say it is important that I did the portfolio app first and then did the weather app. The two are close but my skill level between the two is far. Another project that I find important was the plotter project from image methodology because it was about creating a strategy and was about making our own process which I think was also involved in the weather report. I think all three of these projects have many aspects that make them close together. What sets them apart is my skill level but have these two projects before the weather report better prepared me.

I feel part of this class and I have gotten closer to my classmates that I would definitely consider them my friends. We have bonded over projects and I love that we all go through it together. As a designer, critiques and feedback are so helpful. I think our peers help us grow the creativity within us. Actually anything that I experience has had an impact on my creativity. I feel like I have brought a lot to the game because I participate in crits and when we have work days, whoever I sit by, I always ask them for feedback or what they think about my work and I do the same for anyone who wants my opinion. I think the key to bringing something to the table is listening to what my peers are asking and to give them the best advice/feedback I can. All this stems from my creative growth entities.