Final Blog Post

Throughout the semester I have learned a lot about visual aesthetics and communication design.  Most importantly I have learned how to take an idea and then find a way to communicate it visually that is not only aesthetically pleasing but also informative while taking the end user or audience into account.  When it comes to interactive media, the same design principals that are present in non-interactive design still apply.  I think it’s easy to forget to put these into play when creating something that is interactive because there are more design components to think about, but the aesthetic design can be just as important.  I have learned how to think first about the end user or end device (especially in the case of mobile design).  By thinking this way and then designing for it, I have learned how to create end products that effectively communicate important pieces of information.  I have learned a lot about the placement of important information in a design and how the use of negative space can be just as important as the visual symbols on the page or screen.

As far as a career direction, I am still trying to decide between a few different routes.  I think it would be great to work for a large company for a while to get that type of field experience.  Because I am passionate about design and sports, I would love to work for a sports company and be a part of an in-house creative team.  My dream job at the moment is to be a creative director and be able to oversee all stages of design.  Most likely I will not land this position right out of school, but I would like to work my way up to this.  Eventually I want to grow my freelance business and start my own small company doing to interactive design work.  In the beginning of the semester I was set on working mostly in website design, but now that I have been exposed to so many different career options, I am also interested in motion graphics as well as interactive graphics.  I have to admit, the first few times that I used After Effects, I hated it.  I think it was more frustration with not knowing how to use the program than anything else, but now that I know some of the basics of the program, I am beginning to really enjoy designing with it, and would definitely like to use it again in a future career.