Visual Aesthetics – Fall 2011

The biggest thing I have learned this semester is that I am capable and that I have good ideas.  I never pegged myself as the best illustrator or the best graphic artist but getting to that point is a lot of fun.  I am loving the idea of making things look good and learned that I may have a better eye for it than I imagined.  That’s pretty good, right?

I thoroughly enjoyed the variation in projects.  While I wish that the class was longer, I do believe that we covered such as wealth of topics that while I don’t feel like I’m an expert, I think I can go back to each topic and keep designing so I can continue to feel better and stronger about the content that I create.

I discovered my style throughout the class as well.  My distinct design voice definitely favors the clean, simple and sleek.  Through trial and error, I decided that the busy and complicated don’t bode well with how I design.  I think there is beauty in blank space and that direct aesthetic doesn’t have to be boring aesthetic.

I definitely am more of a strategy kind of guy but pride myself on being able to do the production side of things as well.  I think that learning about visual aesthetics will be massively helpful as I continue this program and after graduation, into the job market.  I have developed an eye for this kind of stuff and am exciting to see how that will benefit me and compliment my career choices in the future.

I can’t wait to take this stuff to the next level.

How do I sum up this semester in a blog post? Where do I even begin? I have discovered so much about my likes and dislikes surrounding the world of interactive media this fall. Sometimes, I get this panic that I have so much more to learn, but then look back and can’t believe we have done so much!

Goals for next semester:
– I’ve always loved crunching numbers and presenting data. My newfound interest (as cliche as it sounds) is definitely infographics. I really want to build up my portfolio with those in the spring.

– The motion typography assignment was my favorite by far. I spend so much time on that darn thing! I would blink and three hours would have passed. It felt like a moment. The bitter-sweet part of this assignment was that I could show it to non-iMedia students and they would think it was ‘pretty cool.’ Then I would want to shake them and say “Do you know I spent hours and hours and hours of my life on this!?!?” And it still really didn’t look “that” neat. Regardless, I am going to make another motion typography video in the spring for my portfolio. When you can find something that makes time pass in an instant, you have to know you’re zoning in on a passion.

– I have this really quiet voice whispering at me to look into video production and filming in the spring. It makes me nervous, because film is so competitive and I am very very far behind. I hope to develop my capstone project around short informational films. I really want to return from Costa Rica with a solid grasp on the 7Ds and Sony cameras, so I can hit the ground running in February.

It’s been a great semester and I am really looking forward to the Capstone class in the spring!

Visual aesthetics has been a challenging but rewarding course.  I’ve learned about the world of design and about my own design aesthetic, and even though it’s not fully developed yet, I believe I am on the right path toward becoming a great designer.  I can thank this course for that.

Some of the most important things I’ll take away from this course are how to communicate and talk about design as a designer.  I came into this program with no design knowledge so to hear terms such as “sans-serif” “line weight” “vector” “gestalt” and “rasterized” threw me off at first, but now I am fully confident in what those terms and others mean, and how they affect design aesthetic. I can walk into a design firm and discuss design in design language.  I can also discuss and demonstrate the process of design.  At first I hated having to do wireframes, sketches and content layouts, because I became used to creating things as I worked on the final product.  Now I realize how important those things are. They have helped me cut time in half because having an idea about what you want to do and how you want it to look is so much better than going into a project blind with no direction. Plus it expected in the professional design world.  Creating a final product without sharing ideas with the client first would be ludicrous so I’m glad I learned how to effectively do those things.

I also learned that design is not only about making things look pretty.  Design is also implemented in the way the information is presented.  Design should be clear and concise with the intended user always in mind.  It’s not about what I think looks pretty (because I’m not designing for myself) but it’s about what the users wants to see and what would effectively guide them through whatever information is being presented.  Illustrations, drawings, colors, and fonts can be as pretty as they want to be, but if they user cannot make sense of it (such as overly used script font) then the product is not successful.  Even looking back on my old designs, I can see how the Visual Aesthetics course has impacted me in a positive way. I would typically use bold bright colors and jarring typeface when completing assignments because I thought it was cool.  I had to learn that what’s cool to me is not always cool to my audience and unless I’m designing something exclusively for myself, the audience is the most important.

Visual aesthetics unlocked my creative thought with assignments such as creating an alien typeface and creating a motion type video.  It added to my arsenal of tools by pushing me to learn programs such as After Effects and Illustrator to engage the audience in my presentations.  Although I’m not a master at any of the tools I used in the course, I have become better, and I will continue to become better as time continues to tick.

I can honestly say that I really appreciate this course and the adages of my professor.  Being very knowledgeable in the field of design, he was able to impart design wisdom in me and was always full of insight when critiquing my projects. I appreciate that (even though I never got an A on assignment) because with each project I became better in design and the presentation of it (due to increased emphasis on the important of presentation, something I can apply to any project).

Part of the reason I wanted to attend grad school (other than learning new skills and ideas) was because I was very uninspired in the environment I was in. I worked as a graphic designer for a small nonprofit. While it was a great experience, it was very easy to creatively burnout. The culture was not creative minded, but I needed to be creative. It was a constant struggle.

What I will take away from visual aesthetics is the process. While I tired to sketch and have a process in the past, no one cared how I got my design, they just wanted me to have a design. Now I know I need to go through the proper steps to truly create a better product.

In undergrad, I was constantly told how important process was, but I didn’t really understand it until now. Having a creative process is extremely important. Starting at the brainstorming stage is important. You can’t just skip to designing with out having a clear, worked out plan. It saves time and energy in the end.

I will miss this class next semester, as I love the chance to creatively problem solve. I hope to have more chances to do this next semester and in the future.

Throughout this semester I really enjoyed doing all of the Visual Aesthetics projects.  I would have to say they were my favorite to do, because each project was very different and we got to do a variety of things.  Coming into the class I did not realize how challenging it would be to create things that I was proud of.  I have come to realize that I need to absorb as much design as I can from as many places as possible in order to expand my mind on the subject of visuals.

I am really proud of most of the work that I have done in this class, and I find myself wishing that it lasted longer, or that there was an option to continue in the spring. I think I could definitely benefit from this class if it had lasted longer.  But now it is up to me to continue to pay attention to visual elements around me, and to hone my skills.

I really enjoyed doing each project, but the iPhone interface in particular was my favorite project of the semester.  I feel like it came out looking great, and looking at it makes me feel like I have come a long way since the first days of bootcamp.  With each project I completed I came away with different skills, and at times it feels like I have such a long way to go until I am prepared for a real world job.  At moments like that I try to think back to the days in bootcamp when I could not use to pen tool properly, or to the times when I was in the lab for the final bootcamp project utterly stressed out wondering if I was going to be able to complete the project.

Every time I finish a project I can look back and think about what I have learned during that process.  My favorite thing is when I am working in a program and I figure out a short cut or I think of a work around that I had never thought of.  I am looking forward to what I will learn in the coming semester, because looking back on what I have learned in this past semester is kind of staggering.  I hope that I learn as much if not more in the spring.