Final thoughts

These past 15 weeks I have done 24 different prompts and 72 designs total. Each week was a different challenge but I am so happy and proud of myself for what I have accomplished.

Looking back on my designs I can see changes to how I design. My goal was to feel more confident and comfortable with my design decisions and I think I have improved in that aspect through these weeks. The weeks that were the easiest for me to do were the weeks that I had a clear aesthetic that I was going for or a clear idea of what I wanted to do.

I think my favorite week was the boarding passes, those were so fun and I enjoyed being able to play with the shape of the boarding pass and get really creative. My second favorite was close second and that was the calculators, they were such a fun challenge. My least favorite I think would’ve been email reciept. I just had a hard time coming up with clear ideas for that one especially because I wanted to stick with the theme of a classroom app for the prompt. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what an email receipt would look like before trying to make one.

Some of the top things I learned through feedback and critique were:

1. Always check contrast — some things can look pretty but if they aren’t accessible what’s the point
2. Visual glue! — no floating components make sure that everything is connected somehow to the screen, even a simple gradient can help with that
3. Play with fonts — fonts can have an impact on how the design is perceived and can help a lot with making everything feel cohesive and fit with the theme you are going with
4. Give the client three completely different designs — This was the big one, make sure that everything is as different as possible in the three options, the icons, the style, the fonts so that if a client had to choose between the three designs they could pick and choose what they liked from each of them whether thats the icons the fonts of the layout better
5. Ask for others opinions — this one isn’t a new one but I really liked how when I showed the designs to different people I would get different preferences and it was cool to see what people agreed on and what people didn’t like. It was really insightful and helpful to know what works, what needs to be changed, and what is just someone’s preference.

Thanks for following along on this journey with me!