Design Baby: When an Epiphany Hits You
Journal of my first design class
Note: The black image borders are for differentiating the images from the white background of Medium platform.
Prologue: Design Baby
Hearing stories from my friends who had previously taken the visual communication design class, I was little daunted to imagine how much I would need to work in order to get a good grade (while handling other heavily project-based courses). Yet, thinking about doing fun projects, I was more excited for my first design course.
First week of the class was relaxing. I could easily get full points for finding examples of good and bad visual design and explaining why they have (or do not have) successful communication. First time using Adobe Illustrator pen tool initially frustrated me but I began to perceive it as a fun game.
I soon realized the course had been going easily because it was the first week of class. I got points off from details that I had’t think of when I turned in the first, actual design assignment and it made my overall grade drastically fall (in my standard).
I decided to write about my process of doing each assignment (along with my Arduino Baby journal series). My hope is to show what I have learned in each assignment and eventually use the blog posts for building my portfolio.
Episode 1: When an Epiphany Hits You
The third course assignment (or the second design project) was creating visual layouts that use type hierarchy to provide more readable information for the viewer. The following were the requirements:
Requirements
Select one topic (below) to focus on from list below create a composition that uses successful type hierarchy.
Use a 7.5 × 10" composition
Use visual cues discussed in class for creating type hierarchy (weight, whitespace, graphic elements).
Use no more than two different typefaces.
Solution should only use type and basic graphic elements (no illustrations, photos or additional imagery)
Color should be limited to black, white, and one additional color of your choice. Lighter percentages of black (gray) and of your color are also OK.
Out of three given topics (recipe, season calendar, and resume), I chose the season calendar. Its description was as the following:
Option 2: 5th Avenue Theatre Season Calendar
This option should include a list of at least five shows from the Fifth Avenue Theatre’s current season. Each show should have pertinent information such as the name, dates and times, description, ticket price range, music/director credits, and other information you find pertinent. The poster must include information on where people can acquire tickets. Information should be pulled from 5th Avenue Theatre’s website.
I was first overwhelmed by how much text I needed to shove into a piece of paper. My first iterations were heavily influenced by the grid system I learned in class. The problem was that they looked…just OK.
On the day of in-class peer critique, I asked my TA for a critique. He asked “what is this paper supposed to be used for?” I became speechless and thought ‘Shoot, I should have thought about the audience — a rule of thumb for UX…?’ A classmate thankfully saved me from awkward silence by commenting that mine looked like flyers.
I was shocked when my TA commented on the inconsistent margins and told me otherwise my assignments looked good. I wasn’t sure if that meant I would get a good score on what I just showed to him. But, I still strongly sensed that my work wasn’t good enough.
Again, the problem was that I ran out of ideas. I just couldn’t think of any other ways to arrange the information to make my work more appealing.
I approached my professor for her critique. The first thing she said was the margin was way too small. ‘NOOO, now I gotta squeeze all into the smaller box?’ I became more frustrated.
Soon after, the professor announced that she posted some examples that past students created. I immediately looked and awed by how good they were (= way better than mine).
“Yeah! That one was made by <a student name>! He was in my class and our TA showed us how it could be improved.” said a student who took the class in the past. “WHAT! HOW? IT’S SO GOOD!!!” It was another day that I realized I still had a loooong way to go in my design journey.
When I discovered that one of the examples posted resembled Vignelli’s design, I Googled his work for more inspiration. I also tried applying some aspects from the examples on mine. When I put a pink box to create an grid outline, I sensed that I was finally starting to have something.
From that point, I wasn’t frustrated anymore. I was rather having fun experimenting one idea after another.
With more helps and critique from friends, I finalized my project as below:
Through this project, I learned that a good way to get inspired is observation and analysis. Look at other people’s work and ask yourself “why this design works or does not?” Viewing people’s work is also a good opportunity to discover new design styles and favorite designers too. An important note, however, is that don’t let other people’s ideas overshadow yours and don’t just copy their work.
Project Completion Date
April 18, 2016
Project Duration
1.5 week
