Month 1: Mastery – Professional Development and Leadership
In the beginning, I didn’t get the point of this class but as I read the book I finally deciphered it. It was a beautiful picture of where I was heading and while I am not yet a master, I am getting there.
Month 2: Defining Clients Needs
Typography poster design. This was fun as I was learning the importance of layout, contrast, type, and more. I also was learning how to articulate the needs of the client into a physical piece.
Month 3: Brand Development
Rainy Day Toys! This was the beginning, a second beginning of feeling like yes, I this is where I need to be. Creating a branding campaign and being honest about the why’s and how’s I came up with my solutions was awesome.
Month 4: Effective Copywriting
I had a few hard times during this program, but this one was the first time it was hard because I didn’t get the content. Ad writing, testimonial ad writing was and is difficult for me to wrap my mind around mentally.
I finally learned to wireframe my projects and boy did it save me a lot of time. I also learned to draft design mockups within photoshop to give a good visual of how the website will look for the client.
Month 6: Organizational Structures
Fast, Fast, FAST and TIRED!
This was the last four weeks of what I call the sea turtles phase of my degree.
Sea Turtles WERE EVERYWHERE!!!!
I had to sketch logo designs for the web mocks from the previous month, create the vectors and prepare to create a motion graphic. I learned After Effects in 48 hours. I also returned to my love of video editing and created a promo for the relief concert.
Month 7: Design Strategies & Motivations
This month we had to choose whether we begin work on one of the thesis projects or if we go back and revise our work based on feedback. I didn’t receive any feedback other than, the class can move forward but I knew there was work to be done, so I plotted out a path to revise and improve the work.
Month 8: Design Integration
This month began with inspiration as a designer and ended with furthering our revision processes for the program in preparation of our thesis.
Month 9: Multi-Platform Delivery
This month was another round of revisions for our previous work and it felt good. I felt my personal style coming forth, my creative confidence and willingness to step out and try something new and different.
Month 10: Measuring Design Effectiveness
Did it send the message I meant it to? I remember doing a set of Instagram covers for a client and one of them was focused on money, so I did old school Scrooge McDuck Money Bags...
The client asked why I uploaded wedding dresses with money on them.
The point of this class was to survey an audience, something we had learned about early, but I had forgotten about, to see how to effective the design was, then take some time to tighten things up before month 11′s thesis.
It was nerve-racking to send that survey out, but I got useful feedback that was pretty helpful.
Month 11: Presentation of Design Strategies
In this course, it was all about verbally and visually communicating the purpose of the iteration. We delivered a thesis, which I learned that I am not as good of a communicator as I thought. I also learned that I belonged here. I had been fighting so long to prove that I was good enough to be in art school, good enough to be a designer, good enough to survive this program, I finally realized that I am all things and belonging. I worked my ass off and I’ve made it. It’s been hard fought, but worth it.
Month 12: Professional Practice
I assumed this class was one on resumes and portfolio building but it was a class on ethics. Ethics are important to me as a Virgo, I like things in order, I like justice. So learning that I can mix my sense of justice, my passion for ethics (often channeled in my political work) into my actual design work by choosing to do the ethical thing and even in researching societies and finding one that promotes expansive social work from the artist. The finer points of this class for me was that as a designer I should respect my craft, my clients, and the work of another artist in everything that I do.
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