I never realized how comfortable I was at my old job back home until I was thrown into a 
new environment. To work in Web Services in a higher education setting you need to have not only an understanding of design and technology but also understand the school, the product, the message. Earlier this semester I joined up with a few other classmates to work on the Elon Lacrosse Club Website. In one of our first meetings I couldn’t help but feel a little lost and out of place. I had no idea why I felt a type of anxiety just from being in a meeting. Then I realized, I had no idea what the foundation of Elon University was, what the message was, what the history of the school was and more. I always knew that one factor of design was knowing your client and product, but it was in that moment I realized how important that role is when building a product. We can only create what we know…therefore researching and understanding our product, the client and the message is the most important part of beginning any project.
Many of the designers who spoke in the videos from this week talk about the purpose of meaning behind the content. It isn’t necessarily the content itself, but how the content is presented. Ask any artist or designer and they will tell you their main goal is to emotionally effect people whether it be through a message or specific meaning; they want their work to resinate with others. They do not create content just to create content, or change a font or color for the sake of doing it. Every decision has a reason or a thought process behind it. In order to do this artists have to have a deep understanding of that message or meaning. Many people may not realize it, but research plays a major role in the life of a designer. When I am working on a new project, the first thing I do is ‘Google it’ and see what others are doing in the same area. From there I then pick and choose what I like and piece things together to make something new that gets my specific message across. By having a solid foundation artists are able to create more meaningful works of art.
Everyone wants to create meaningful works. They want to influence, change someones mind, make an impression. By establishing a solid foundation artists are able to make better aesthetics decisions in order to create these pieces.
As one artist said it best, “At the end of the day the only thing that is important is that [the art] is emotionally engaging to people”.