aMUSE me

Heading into this first semester of grad school, I was most excited for this Visual Aesthetics class. I had only briefly interacted with Photoshop and never touched Illustrator and/or After Effects. However, I knew that learning these tools and understanding the viewer’s perspective would be beneficial in my future career. I was excited to test out my untapped skills of graphic design – which I soon learned was much harder to be decent at than I originally thought. I had always considered myself to be creative minded but shortly found out that in order to be a great communicator of visual aesthetics you have to think outside of the box. I have enjoyed this class because it has pushed me to use programs I have never used before and it has challenged the way I look at my own work and attempt to see it through the eyes of other individuals. I have never feared critiques; instead, I found the class critiques beneficial for evaluating my work based on my audience and what the project calls for. The most important thing I have learned in this class is to create for the audience. It doesn’t matter how great you think your work is or how proud you are that you spent 15 hours creating what you think is God’s gift. It is all about how others view it, if it is what the client has asked for, and if is speaks to other people not just you. Without this class I would not have had a grasp on any graphic or digital design, but now I am able to see the design within anything and everything ranging from typeface to classical art. I think that now I am able to appreciate designs I would have used to glance over and therefore have more inspiration for my future projects and endeavors.