Final RE Post

a reflection on my time in the program

I took the above photo the first week of class because the slightly dazed and confused expression on the turtle’s face was the perfect representation of my state of mind. Coming into this program, I was unsure what to expect. I had left a job I loved to move to Colorado and felt it was the right time to pause and think about the next steps for my design career.

The strategic communication design program seemed like the perfect place to pause, but it was a big adjustment leaving the workforce and putting myself in the student mindset again.

What did I learn?

Physical + digital making.

This was a big focus of the program and I’m glad it was. Fall semester we focused on a new technology or digital tool every week with RJ. I had a lot of failures, but built things I never thought I would. I think the major take away from fall was learning how to learn new tools and exploring ways to realize an idea.

Leadership

There was another big focus on leadership this year. Lisa took us through Fall semester helping us explore leadership qualities and our own perspective on what it means to lead. Spring was focused on leading teams and organizations.

Over this past year I think my view of leadership has shifted from being a bound set of tools and tactics to a productive expression of personal skills and passions. I also now see the opportunity for design at all levels of an organization.

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship and design processes were the major themes of RE Studio where we navigated case studies and flexed our skills on real projects.

My team’s project this year was focused on data privacy, an unexpected area of learning and understanding for me. My team faces an enormous challenge: how do we help people understand the implications of surveillance capitalism so they will want to take action for change? Besides learning how to distill a complex topic into a gateway for understanding, we had to learn to pivot (a few times) to finally get to an idea we were excited to make.

Branding

Branding was another area that I leaned into this year. I started with very little experience with graphic design, and general principles of visual design and while those were both areas I was able to practice on a weekly basis, I really got to play in the strategy side of branding.

We also had to prepare and present our ideas for critique every week. This was one of the more difficult parts for me. Having one week to realize a fully fledged branding concept was not only difficult as part of the workload, but having your thoughts and designs critiqued was mentally draining. It took me a better part of the year to finally give in and start to present work I didn’t think was finished. Presenting critique-worthy work is a different skill than simply selling your idea.

UX

We had plenty of practice this year with wireframes and customer journeys and my biggest takeaway is that I never want to do it again. I’m glad I have an understanding how the sausage is made, but I hope to not have to be the one developing any digital sausage moving forward.

What did you find challenging?

Making — I’m good at coming up with an idea, but find myself surprised every time at the amount of work it takes to realize that idea. I think my head exploded about a dozen times when trying to navigate through a new digital tool (rhino 3D, javascript, etc.). I would find myself easily frustrated when the tech wouldn’t work as I wanted. It required a ton more research and learning to finally realize my idea.

Critique–Again, I found that I put a lot of pressure on myself for the weekly critiques in branding. As much as I wanted to not care, there were a lot of late nights and early mornings to get the work to where I thought it should be. At that point, once I had put so much care into a project, having it critiqued was challenging. The lesson here is to show your work early and often so you might be nudged into a better final project.

COVID — I need to work around people. In early March, when the University pushed all classes remote, I wasn’t expecting to never set foot in the studio again. It was challenging to stay engaged while remote, and being much more of an analog thinker, sitting on the computer working on a shared document hours on end does not suit me.

Burnout–Being an accelerated program, there is a lot packed in to one year. I think I started to struggle about midway through Spring semester and had a hard time finding inspiration and appreciation for the work in front of me.

Maymester–At peak burnout for me, classes went remote and we kicked off into 3 weeks of design sprints. I was already familiar with the format and was looking forward to the change of pace and energy in the group. As I understood it, design sprints were about uncovering insights and testing solutions in low-fidelity prototypes. What we did in the Maymester design sprints felt more like free labor, each team executing a similar concept with the expectation of having a polished, client-ready solution after one week… and working remotely. Energy of the group was low and this was definitely the lowest point for me this year.

How are you different now then when you started?

I have more confidence in my ability to design and execute. The way this program is designed, we had to learn to make on a weekly basis, often several projects at once. I think I fought back for a lot of it, but I now have more of a bias toward action than I did at the beginning.

I’ve also learned to share my work more. I saw how sharing my work beyond the program helped validate my inner perfectionist.

I know where my strengths lie and some of my weaknesses. I am an ideator, a strategist and a strong supporter of those around me. I thrive in the intangible space of design. I struggle making things tangible, because I always think they could be better. Knowing these truths about myself has been part of the journey of this year.

We are living in a crazy world today, and one that is almost unrecognizable from when this program began. While the future is more ambiguous than ever before, I feel more confident as a creator and a designer than ever before.