I have really enjoyed our Visual Aesthetics class. It has pushed me in ways that I hadn’t previously tried to push myself and has made me realize that I do have an interest in design though I need a lot more experience and practice to begin to harness any kind of real skill.
Over the course of the semester I have really begun to appreciate certain aspects of design that I had never really looked at before. I appreciate clean and beautiful typography. I am at a point where I still can’t really understand why I like it or what I like specifically about it but watching the Helvetica documentary was really eye-opening for me. I’m still a bit stuck in the Helvetica stage and can’t seem to get too far past it in a way that I can implement for my own designs but I can see where it’s going.
Clean design is important to me. I am not necessarily in love with minimalistic design but clean lines and simplicity is something I can really appreciate. Again, I struggle with finding ways to get outside of the box and keep myself from just centering everything, but I know clean design when I see it.
Information design is perhaps one of my favorite parts of the class. Just as a technical writer breaks down complicated documents and manuals into something that in theory is easier to digest, information designers take complicated data and make it accessible for people, regardless of their expertise or even interest in the field. This is an extremely valuable asset as our entire world revolves around data. Bringing in the interactive element only makes it more fun and engaging for the user. I have a lot of journalistic interests and ambitions and can see information design being a crucial tool when trying to get a point across to an audience without over-explaining or talking them to death.
In general this class has really made me think. I know that I enjoy design and have an eye for what is good and what isn’t good but it is much more difficult for me to implement ideas myself than it is for me to critique others. At this point I question whether or not my talents are up to par to really call myself a designer or if I can just take the knowledge and understanding of the field that I have gained over the course of this semester and implement it in other facets of what I do.
It’s a good thing I’m taking Motley’s capstone course so that he can help me sort it all out!