The motion typography assignment was definitely my favorite. After being accepted, I visited a graduate school in Pittsburgh that I attended last year. In the class, they were being introduced to After Effects and a previous student’s (amazing) work was shown. Ever since then I have wanted to do a project like that.
Even during bootcamp, when we were first given our final project I pulled out my notepad and pencil and tried to come up with a plan. I didn’t rush to the lockers to grab a camera and start shooting because I had no clue what I wanted to shoot. Before, I thought that was just how I worked best. Now, I have a stronger appreciation for the process and a stronger understanding of how employers appreciate the process.
I don’t think the class really impacted how I see my professional future though as I already knew that designing needed to be a part of it. To be completely truthful, I don’t know how challenged I felt in it either. Granted, I was close to an art minor in undergrad and have taken graphic design and digital art classes, but I felt the class was missing a bit of direction. I will also fully disclose I stopped doing the reading a couple weeks in. I’m sorry, but I know I don’t learn from reading, and if we’re not even going to discuss the readings in class, I won’t attempt. Maybe if I had I would feel differently, but we didn’t talk much about what good design was or what made it good design. I know a lot of people though the kerning in-class activity was simply busywork, but that kind of thing forces you to think about it. We should have turned it in or at least swapped with someone else for feedback.
Other thoughts…
I think pairing the alien typeface and motion typography assignment back to back would have made more sense rather than doing other, unrelated projects in between.
As I’ve mentioned before, I think group projects like the PSA could be tweaked for each of us to get more of it. Shooting video is definitely easier in a group, but editing is harder. Have groups to develop a storyline and shoot, but each edit individually. Could also spark some interesting conversation on shot / editing choices each person makes.
I think each project was dragged out too long. We didn’t need a week to sketch. Sitting in the exam Saturday, I also thought that having a full-class critique and then having the project due 2-4 days later would be helpful. Don’t look at them all together again, but let us get the feedback and incorporate it into our projects. So much changes when you go from paper sketches to computer generations that another step of feedback in the process would be beneficial.
I’d propose having the “final” in-class critique and the same day go over the next assignment. The next class period the first assignment would be due, giving us time to make minor tweaks, and the class after that sketches for the next assignment should be do. In this way, we’d all come out of the class with stronger pieces and at least one more project. I think saying that we only had a semester to cram a lot in was an excuse and we could have been pushed a lot harder. I know many others would want to kill me for saying this, but I was expecting the whole semester to like the last two weeks were (in all classes). I didn’t want to feel comfortable going out of town for a weekend, leaving my laptop behind (on multiple occasions.) Isn’t the saying you spend 2 hours outside of class for everyone 1 hour inside? Again, I didn’t read, but I didn’t spend close to 7 hours a week on this class.
In summary: I enjoyed the class, but I was expecting more. Here’s to hoping next semester is a rude awakening.