Visual Aesthetics – Fall 2011

What have I learned that impacts the way I approach the design of visual communication content? Holy manoly. The following is an unordered list written in html. It contains the things I’ve learned.

• Books are better than movies.
• You can say, “I love you,” in Helvetica. And you can say it with Helvetica Extra Light if you want to be really fancy. Or you can say it with the Extra Bold if it’s really intensive and passionate, you know, and it might work.
• I am who I say I am.
• It’s perfectly ok to plagiarize. Except that it’s not.
• Thought is finite. Except that it’s not.
• In order to create, I must be willing to destroy. Mistakes are valuable and worthwhile because they lead to better design.
• Art has a pacifying function in society. It allows people to gather about something and have something in common.
• When designing for an idea, it is important to figure out the appropriate aesthetic for what that idea is trying to convey.
• If you can’t reminisce about “School House Rock,” you’re not American.
• Casting is terribly important when making a serious film.
• Camera angle, lighting, and setting your shots are just as important in animation as they are in real life.
• Subtle things like texture and alignment can make all the difference in the world.
• My heart speaks to my brain, which speaks to my hands, which create. It’s important to feel when I design.
• Administrative debris is a design of the past. It is entirely unnecessary in today’s world of such advanced technology.
• Clutter and overload are a failure of design.

Having an understanding of visual aesthetics is important when the artifacts being created are interactive, as crappy interactive design would seem to indicate. Grouping, continuity, closure, similarity, figure/ground relationship, and I’m sure I missed some, are important in interactive design as they are in static design. Actually, with so much of our interactive design being designed for flat spaces, like screens, the difference between to two currently is not all that different. Sure, it’s *becoming* different, but as it stands, interactive design physically looks an awful lot like non-interactive design. And even when we do move entirely from flat images to 3D, it will be equally important to keep these concepts in mind. I know when we’re working with holographic interfaces, we’ll still want all our buttons grouped in an understandable pattern, and we’ll still want to be able to get the feel of the design without confusion.

About my career, I don’t know. I’d really like to go into app design I think. By the end of next semester, I’m sure I’ll be able to make a living in that field. Whether or not I’ll want to stay there is irrelevant. I mean, look at Sang: he’s got a degree in microbiology for crying out loud.

And if I didn’t learn anything else all year, I know what “shibboleth” means, and that might be useful one day. You know, like if I make it on Jeopardy! or something.

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.

In Visual Aesthetics I’ve been able to understand what my strengths and weaknesses are and how I can make improvements in my work.  I’ve realized I do my best work when working on a design that’s based on something I’m passionate about.  For example, I am passionate about shooting and editing videos and The Beatles.  My strongest projects this semester were the PSA, typography and alarm clock app.  I was finally able to shoot and edit video for the PSA, which I had been looking forward to doing all semester and wish we had been able to do more video assignments, and I feel like what was produced did not disappoint.  I struggled to come up with an idea for what I wanted to dof or the alarm clock app.  Once I decided it would be easier to come up with a theme it was much easier to design because I chose something that I knew a lot about and really enjoyed, The Beatles.  Going forward, when I have a job I need to be able to use that same passion for every project that I’m assigned.  I don’t want this blog to come out sounding the wrong way, I spent a lot of time and worked hard on each project, I just think some were more successful than others.

This was my most successful page from our final project.

It is also important to understand how to design something in a way that will allow it to function properly once it gets to the interactive phase.  The alarm clock app is a perfect example because we had to understand how to do both.  I had to figure out a way to implement Beatles designs as a way to navigate throughout the app.  I stuck with a constant theme of using silhouetted images of The Beatles that when tapped, take you back to the home screen.  If I could do this project over I would have started earlier on the design and left more time for functionality.  With the calendar page I would have liked to have shown how to add an event instead of just explaining the idea to the class during my presentation.

Going back to the beginning of this blog post, I want to spend my career creating content for a company/team/product that I am passionate about.  If for some reason I get a job working for someone else I’m going to have to use the same passion to create successful designs and content.

While I may have had a little less to learn this semester in Visual Aesthetics , only because I built my whole undergraduate career around it, there are always things to learn. I really enjoyed exploring how traditional forms of art and print work could be extended into the digital world.

My favorite projects included motion typography and the iPhone interface. It’s kind of a shame that these were the last two projects. While it’s good that we can use all that we’ve learned up until now, I think they got rushed in the end of the semester craziness.

Katie and I started an online this semester as well and we spent a lot of time working on the design and aesthetics of our publication. I think it was a great side project the experience will be beneficial to my upcoming projects next semester.

I loved taking this class for the sole reason that it reminded me how much I love design. I came into the program wanting to delve into social media and social networks, and while they’re still an interest of mine, I have rekindled by passion for creative design-based problem solving.

What I most appreciate about this class is the knowledge it allows me to use to discuss design and art.  One of BIGGEST pet peeves is when people discuss topcis that they know NOTHING about, or, even worse, when they only use evidence that they heard from a Fox News Correspondent.  Blech.  I can now say I am not one of those people when I discuss art.

What I appreciate more is the evidence and experience this class gives me for my future career.  I can now argue or discuss design choices even if I am not the designer because I now know what does not works and WHY.

I even like designing now.  I don’t think I will pursue a design career, nor do I think I am very good to do so, but I can dable here and there and produce decent work.

I felt the class went under appreciated by a lot of people, and that was mostly due to group work.  I felt a lot of the work was dumped on those in the group that were good designers and the rest of the group did the minimum of work.  And the fact that many of our assignments had to be functional made a lot of people dismiss the design aspect of our projects and make up for it with functionality.

My favorite group work was with Emily and Ty.  We completed all of the shooting together, we made the decisions for the commercial together, we sat down and edited all the footage together, we chose the music and shots together.  That’s how the project should be done.  The only other way to do so would be to assign roles, but I felt that many people chose easier jobs and neglected their work and others had to make up for it.

I digress.  I think I would like the class better if there were more individual projects.  Just because I feel its hard to design a project with so many opinions.