Currently, I am at about 100 hours. I am supposed to be at 100 hours by mid-semester in order to reach my goal of 280 hours for the semester. I think I could be putting in more hours toward my work. I remember spending an entire day on the weather report which showed me how much I could get done in about 8 hours. I know I could always be putting in more hours it is just depending on how much homework I have for my other classes. That is the only obstacle holding me back.

I believe that my definition of sophisticated has changed from last semester. I feel that I pay more attention to the little things in my work and I seek out more feedback from other people. I started accepting freelance jobs this year, which was a personal goal for me, and it has been a great experience! I really enjoy being able to work on another component of doing design work- communicating with a client. I like the challenge of communicating with people and bringing their work to life. It also allowed me to dig deeper into my design process and find what I like to do in order to get as close to the end product as possible. I really think doing freelance work has allowed me to understand how my work can be more sophisticated. Right now, sophisticated work means it has the following process: paying attention to the meaning behind the work, giving attention to detail, looking for inspiration from an environment, and gaining feedback from an outside audience. All of these things have helped me create work that is meaningful, clean, and tailored to its purpose.

In my weather report, the components that are sophisticated are the movements and illustrations. During this project was the first time that I have ever used After Effects. I was really intimidated at first because I had no idea how to use the program. After completing the first exercises I started getting used to the basics. I believe that in this case, sophisticated meant trying to understand the program at a basic level to perform movements that made sense with the project. I think the most challenging part of this project was making sure to keep all of the components on the screen until the end. I have never really had a project where that was the case and it was interesting to figure out how to do that without making the screen cluttered. I think I did a good job at trying to figure that out in the end.

I do not know how what I learned connects with what I have going on later. I am going to keep using after effects for personal projects so that I can gain more experience with the program. Since I am minoring in graphic design, I do not think there will be another class where after effects ties in so I will have to use it on my own time.

I do not think there is anything that I am unsure about. I feel like somethings I could have added that were missing would be having the end show what city the user picked and placing a voice over into the project. This would have been a good way to end the project. I think I am going to add those things later this semester so I can add it to my portfolio.

Two of the last major projects I worked on was creating an identity for Clarksville in Austin in image methodology and making a logo for a band. They are kind of far apart from one another. I think the weather report had to do more with movement of information across the screen. The identity for Clarksville resulted in a physical object- a book. It could be digital but it is mainly used as a manual and does not really need to be animated like the weather report. Based on the following qualities: amount of assets, design work, and typography. For assets the list would go weather report, identity book, and then logo. For design work, it would be identity book, logo, and weather report. For typography (amount of text), it would be identity book, weather report, and then logo. I think each project had different qualities that made each one a different challenge.

60% myself: I am the one who pushes myself to learn more through books, online tutorials, in-class projects, freelance work, and other things. Without my self-motivation there would be no reason for me to be a designer.

30% professors/mentors: This percentage is given here because without teachers I would not be where I am today. My graphic design journey started with a high school psychology teacher who studied graphic design at UT. I have continued to grow in college with the help of my graphic design professors so they are responsible for a lot of my creative growth too.

10% family/friends/classmates: I mainly gain support, advice, feedback and guidance from these important people. Even though it is a low percentage, it has a big impact on me creatively.