End of Year Reflection

Human Faces

Our goal for this project was to create a company based on factors that other people in our class decided for us, and I created a primate sanctuary from it. It took a few months to make, and I had a bit of a hard time figuring out what I would use for my logo, but after that it was a pretty smooth ride. People loved one logo that looked like both a monkey and a human, so that was what I used. I really like how it turned out. However, I had to learn a lot about using Photoshop to edit the lighting of a picture, since I had to use it to put monkeys in a picture.

Magazine Spread

For this project, we had to interview a local illustrator/graphic designer/etc and learn about their job; my interviewee's name was Madison Crabtree. It took a long time to finish, considering I had never made a magazine spread before, and the server crashed in the middle of making it. I almost had to start all over! I learned a lot about spacing in this project and how to make a magazine spread "my own." There was one page that didn't really fit in with the rest in terms of color, and that was one thing people didn't like, but I changed it. I think it turned out pretty well, even though I later realized that I made a couple mistakes long after I posted it to Bēhance.

Prom

The Junior Committee at our school wanted us to create poster and ticket designs for prom, which was 1920's themed. It only took (I think) a couple weeks to do, and I had lots of difficulties trying to figure out what my design would even look like. During this process, I learned how to use the mesh tool in Illustrator! That was exciting for me. My classmates only got to see the version I made before I switched concepts, and they didn't really like it, but then again neither did I. Even though the committee didn't choose my design, I still like how it turned out! It's a bit simple, but still nice.

Eyed Tattoo

We started working on this project at the very beginning of the quarter, and just finished it a couple days ago! We had a free choice to pick whatever sort of company we wanted to and design a logo, poster, etc for it; I chose a tattoo parlor and named it EYED TATTOO. I think the biggest difficulty I had was in the beginning, when I couldn't even think about the specifics of my logo; I thought a squid logo would be neat, but I also liked the concept of a skull. Thankfully, my classmates really liked what I was doing with it, especially the fact that I gave detailed backstory to the founders. I ended up changing the entire concept of the infographic we were supposed to make, creating a safety poster instead of my original plan of a flow chart. My favorite thing about this was definitely the color scheme, and I thought it was really fun to make, but I think I could have done a better job on the billboard and web ads.

Time Spent in Class

I admit I have gotten pretty distracted during class, but for the most part I think I've done really well! At the very least, I tried to stay on task :>. If I didn't have any specific work I needed to be doing, I would usually be messing around on Illustrator trying to create a new drawing or something like that. I enjoy doing this at home too, but I don't always have the time for it, so sometimes I'll just doodle on regular paper if I don't have the time.

Strengths

I love (but also kind of hate) how detailed I make my work; I don't want anyone to be disappointed with how little I have, so I try to add a lot while trying to make sure I'm not adding too much. In order to make this happen, I sometimes work at home to finish something up if I'm sure that I won't have time to finish it in class.

Improvements
I take a really long time to finish my work, and that's not just in this class. It's not that I'm getting distracted (though that does happen sometimes), but just that I don't want anything to look sloppy. That can sometimes make me late when turning things in, but, even though I'm kind of busy outside of school, I try to work on big projects like these outside of school if I don't think I'll have enough in school (I know I just said this, but that's just me).

To Summarize the Semester...
I really like how laid back this semester has been, but I miss Burdolski. The sub was nice, but it's not often you have a long term sub, and it can be a bit tough. However, I think we've gotten closer as a class and have gotten better at critiquing each other without being outright rude. I have definitely learned from this semester that some projects take a reallyyyyyy long time to finish, but just because you're tired of it doesn't mean you can just slack off. Next semester—or should I say school year—I would like to get be able to make friends with the incoming juniors and give them valuable feedback, and I hope they will do the same for me.

- Brenna (っ• ◡•)っ