Critical Assessment
Throughout the past semesters of working towards my Minor in Graphic Design I have learned a lot of new techniques and have sharpened my eye for design. The feedback I have gotten in classes have helped me grow and improve my skills as a Graphic Designer as well. While some projects have been more challenging than others, each individual project has challenged me to do better and improve my work.
When creating the Zine, I felt that I was able to learn a lot of new aspects to Graphic Design from stepping into the world of zines and printmaking. Due to the constraints from printing on the Risograph, it forced me to work within tight parameters, and challenged me to create what I envisioned within those rules. Some of the parameters were to only use two colors, this forced me to be very thoughtful about the colors I chose, and whether they related to the truism I chose. I learned how to overlap colors and set up a document in InDesign, so it would properly print on the Risograph.
Since this piece was inspired by a truism that we felt was personally relevant to us, I put a lot of thought and time into the Zine to perfect it. However, I do feel that there were improvements that could be made on this particular project. I feel the typeface that was chosen does not convey the message of the truism that I portrayed, it seems a bit too technical, whereas the Zine has a more natural feel to it. The two text offsets also make it difficult to read and should not be as offset from each other as it is.
The Wikipedia Reader assignment proved to be one of the most challenging projects I took on. Due to the amount of work that was put into it and the care to detail it is one of my stronger pieces. From the past assignments in the Typography I class I learned how to create typefaces which significantly increased my respect for typeface designers as it was very difficult. Another thing that lead up to this assignment was to make a pamphlet, which taught me how to layout type and the effects it has on the ease of reading. From learning all of this, I was able to make my own Wikipedia Reader book. This assignment further strengthened my abilities of formatting and choosing appropriate typefaces.
Within this project, I believe my choice in typeface was very appropriate for the subject I chose. I also believe that the reader was made in a format that made reading easier, without making it seem as though there was too much text on a lot of pages. The added design choices also gave character to the reader and helped tie together the book as a whole. I think that if I were to do the Wikipedia Reader again, I would add symbols or some other form of icon to add to the character of the book. I also think that another improvement would be to have a more alluring to draw in people’s attention, as I felt my cover page was lacking.
Wikipedia Reader:
Zine:
