Before this course, I think I had a strong understanding of type; I was familiar with serifs and sans-serifs, as well as the common uses for each. Compared to my first course in typography, I knew considerably more going into this course.
This course is my last course in my graphic design minor. I finally feel comfortable using AfterEffects, and was able to translate my skills I learned in this course to making a video for the company I work for in AfterEffects. I always trusted my senses to utilize hierarchy and typography in my design before LATCH clarified how to organize information.
I really enjoyed the freedom we had to design the Fulbright program. We were able to choose the colors, fonts, and graphics to brand the program ourselves. I enjoyed how Tuan structured the course, by creating a timeline of how the program should be designed in increments. The timeline kept me on track to complete my program, but still granted enough flexibility to work at my own pace.
I really struggled for a most of the semester for things to “click” while designing my Fulbright program. I had never worked with so much text before and found it really difficult to sift through all the information to make it readable. It was not until I parsed through all the text and began designing it to make the information exciting to read. It was not until the final critique when Tuan began discussing what aspects of our first project translated into our program that everything made more sense. I realized all the areas in our program that we had to organize data based on various LATCH elements. I wish I had been more aware of this throughout the process of designing the program, but I was able to adopt this mindset as I made final changes to my program.
I think I asked a lot of questions, but there were also times where I think i could have asked more. I enjoy trying to figure things out on my own, but I did ask Tuan in a lot of cases where I felt stuck. I took my program to the AIGA review, and got a lot of constructive feedback there. I also had a coworker who specializes in print design review my work in progress and offer design advice as well. I never felt as though I did not have anyone I could ask questions to throughout this process.
I spent a considerable amount of time on my program, and think I put in a solid amount of practice time. I tried to make my practice time consistent, but in some areas it was very sporadic. I was also working on various design projects outside of this course, so when my practice time was sporadic for projects on this class, I was working on other design work.
As I said, I had several people review my program while working on it. However, I do wish I had more feedback from classmates throughout the process of designing it. Tuan makes us think for ourselves in critiques, and rely a lot of feedback from classmates. I would have liked to see my other classmate’s work more as we were building the programs, but also appreciated the flexibility in time to work.
I was there for every class critique, and think I participated in most cases. I am typically quiet in classes, so I think I could have been more influential than I was. I would have liked to see my classmates programs along the way to offer more feedback.
I enjoyed desk critiques more than class critiques because I was able to ask Tuan individual questions about my program. I found desk critiques more productive for me because they doubled as work time as well.
I hope my life is in order – I am about to graduate! I am currently a UI/UX design intern for a company and am designing an application. I plan on continuing to work for this company until I leave for Malaysia in January.
Tuan is very creative and fun, so I think his classes are the same.
Considering where I was at the beginning of the semester to where I am now, I think this course provided me with skills I needed an understanding of prior to graduating. I took this course out of order (as a senior this was my last GDES course I needed to graduate and it’s only offered in the Spring), but I think it was a great final course to take because it provided me with more experience in AfterEffects and InDesign. I was not extremely confident in my skills in either program prior to taking this course, but my understanding in both of these programs has grown incredibly. The distance between myself at the beginning of this semester and now is very large, and this course was one step forward in my career post-graduation as a designer.
