End of the Year Essay

Before coming into this class, I took Typography I with Lorena; that being said, I felt as though I knew the basics of typography like type classifications, things like ligatures, orphans and widows, n and m dashes, quotation marks versus tick marks, and various other type fundamentals. This class helped me to better mix typefaces together as well as create hierarchy within a work.

This semester, I loved the challenge of the Fulbright program; I much preferred it to the weather report and felt as though I did a better job executing the program. I was not a fan of the weather report at all and didn’t take it seriously, which was poor judgement on my part. With that in mind, I made sure to really put major effort into the program that I designed for Fulbright; although I can fix a few things to refine my design, I am happy with the outcome.

I think the “it” you are referring to is the connection between the two assignments of the semester; I believe that connection are the L.A.T.C.H. elements we discussed at the beginning of the class. I definitely feel as though I asked a good amount of questions throughout the semester; however, I wish that I would have pushed myself a bit more that way I could ask questions about more challenging tasks instead of questions about the basics. Regarding answers, I was always given a good answer to my question or I was answered with another question, which would help me to figure the solution for myself.

When it comes to practice hours, I have definitely put in enough time, although I wish I would have chipped away at the project more rather than squeezing this project into just a few weeks. I would ask for feedback from my GDES friends as well as Tuan and Jimmy. The class crits that I was a part of were very insightful and helpful and I took what was said about my work to heart and tailored it as so. At desk crits, I found myself intimidated at times because I feel as though I am a moderately experienced designer compared to my classmates, so I was always nervous when Tuan would come around to critique my work.

Unfortunately, my life is not in order; this semester, I was in a horrible car wreck in which my car was totaled; thankfully I was okay and so was the other driver, but dealing with the stress of that whole situation has been awful. Due to that, and other events, I have been pretty emotionally unstable this semester. I since have sought out a therapist and have been seeing her every few weeks, which has been such a blessing. With the school year coming to an end, I feel like I am in a more stable place than at the beginning or even middle of the semester.

I think Tuan’s classes could be more “creative and fun” by making them less predictable; it seemed as though every tuesday was a critique + work day and every Thursday was a work day, or vice versa. Having class time to work was amazing, but the predictability and routine of the weeks made me feel less motivated to show up to class if it was just a work day. If we did different things in class here and there, I think class would have been more interesting for sure. I especially enjoy when Tuan demos things because I really feel like he explains well and he always takes questions.

Since the beginning of the semester, I definitely feel as though I know more about type, as far as combining typefaces and creating hierarchy within a work. I’ve also grown emotionally, especially in the last few weeks. This Fulbright project really made me value this class more and I plan on refining it to use as a part of my portfolio in the future.

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