These past two years I have acquired a fascination with design and culture. Throughout this time I have worked in developing that interest when I’m designing. I feel like that has really influenced my more successful pieces and has helped me grow as a designer. Learning the basics of design as well as how to utilize them as brought me a long way. My incorporation of the elements of design with my visions seems to be improving, and I feel like my Material Studies, Weather Report, and Cognitive map really show that.
Out of all the projects I have done, the Material Studies project is the one I have felt the most connection with. The assignment was to create a word that correlated to a material of your choice. We then had to photograph the word in a setting that would bring both the material and the word together into a holistic piece. I saw this project as a chance to bring out more culture in my design, particularly my Mexican culture. The material I used was Pan Dulce or Mexican sweet bread. I was inspired by this material because Dia de Los Muertos was coming up and that is a very important holiday for me. The Virgin Mary is a prominent figure during the day of the dead and often her figure is put in front of many alters. Pan dulce is also a common food that is used as an offering to the dead. I ended up creating the word “Dulce Maria” or “Sweet Mary.” It was a delightful process getting to eat the bread to create the letters. I then created my own alter to photograph my piece in which I incorporated one of my own personal friends I was honoring for the holiday. Everything that I put into my photograph has a lot of meaning as well as personal touches from my own life. I wanted to create a lot of symbolism to unpack in my photograph. I hoped to initiate a feeling of comfort by making my picture look very warm. I also feel like the natural comfort of the bread complimented with the candles made for a successful outcome.
Another Project I wanted to bring culture in was my Weather Report, the objective was to use the concept of LATCH to create a motion piece that organized weather conditions and temperature in different cities. Initially I was not going to do this, but as I thought of the cities I wanted to select I was once again influenced by Latin American culture. I decided to do my weather report over cities in Chile. I chose Chile because it has a very diverse landscape. It is the location of the driest place on Earth and it is also the country that is closest to Antarctica. Not only that, but it is home to Andes mountains and the whole left side borders the ocean. When I began to make this video it was winter here which meant it was summer there. When doing my weather report I wanted to highlight the warm weather as if to make people want to go there on vacation. I further added to this by creating actual scenery from each of the cities I chose. I also wanted to challenge myself in using masking as well as type movement in a more sophisticated way. Although I liked the outcome of my video. It did come out to be a minute long. Which meant it was 30 more seconds than it had to be. After doing this project I realized that despite the fact that I have improved on executing the desired effects, I still think I can work on organizing things in a more efficient way. Although I was content with the graphics, I thought that my display of the information could have been given more importance.
Finally, I chose my Cognitive map, and it is probably my favorite out of all the maps I created. I used what I learned from the symbol project much more prominently in this piece. To me, this final product seemed the most complete of the three maps. The objective was to create a map that would help someone make a decision. During the time that I made it, I had trouble thinking about what to get my friends for Christmas with the budget of a college student. I tried to think of gifts that were more low budget as well as gifts that were very thoughtful. I left many of the answers open ended enough so that anyone who actually followed it would still be able to make it more personal to their relationship with that person. I also gave options for those people who have to give a “I kinda have to,” kind of present in order to make my map more holistic. Although I did not connect this project to Latin American culture, I was influenced by pop culture when thinking about the different phrases I used as well as the gifts that I thought of in order to make it connect more to the viewer.
I have barely been two years into my graphic design study and It is apparent that I have improved quiet a lot since I started. I had little to no knowledge over the adobe cs6 programs as well as any knowledge about type and how to best utilize an image. I have started visualizing the elements of design in everyday life and that has helped me to connect more with my work. I am also getting better at putting more meaning into everything I create and it is satisfying to see that I am developing that skill. I aim to connect on a deeper level when I create work, but I can also realize that finding a balance between displaying information and creating everything I want to create is one of the many things I can work on improving.