I have seen tremendous growth within myself and with my knowledge of design and the programs that accompany it. Even between semesters you can see how my knowledge has grown with my after effects animation, The Cosmos, in image methodology and my weather report in advanced typography. They are both done in after effects. The Cosmos is very rudimentary and rough because I was barely learning the program. I was beginning to plan out my projects but had not yet started following the tentative plans very well and therefore things ended up getting rushed. This is relative to most of the projects I was doing at this time and before. It was somewhere around the middle of Image Methodology and Gdes I that i began to take planning very seriously. Because I took more time to plan out my decisions ahead of time with the weather report, it came out as a much more comprehensive animation. And while I still have much to learn with After Effects, my process has made huge progress and makes the whole project feel less frantic.
The final product of the ‘Rules’ section in Graphic Design II, the buttons and instructions, are a good indication of how much more I have grasped the concepts of type and design and how they communicate with each other. It was easier to have an understanding of the feelings I was trying to invoke in the viewer yet more difficult to find appropriate design techniques to satisfy those feelings because we have a certain location we are trying to share with other people. Because the product was trying to be so specific about the way it was presented, the type and design decisions had to be made with precise care. A year ago most of the decisions I made would have been subconscious whereas now I am much more aware and conscious about every decision, every tweak I am doing to the work. This awareness is still fairly new yet is making a change in the work I can see. I await the development of these skills with quiet anticipation because I am excited to see my work really grow and develop more from it.