Semester 1 Final Reflection

Projects I Completed This Semester

Choir T-Shirt

The objective of this project was to create a t-shirt for the Olathe Northwest Choir Department. The client wanted the theme to reflect peace, as many of the songs used this school year had something to do with making a change in the world. It took about a week to decide on the final concept and put it into play, as a concept I had brought to the client originally was denied because there was a hand holding a peace sign instead of the symbol itself. It was a little difficult working with a shape so simple but I ended up liking the final product. Along the way I learned to be flexible with my client and to not hold my most favorable work too dearly. Overall I now would have tweaked the design a bit with the skills I have learned recently, but this is all a learning process. The final product is more of a navy shirt than a violet shirt so it has a less feminine feel.

Handwritten Greeting Card

For this assigned project it was my job to handwrite a greeting card message and go through several phases to have it "store ready". Phase one was a rough pencil sketch, phase 2 was an ink sketch, and the final phase was designing, editing, and transferring the design onto a card. It took a few weeks of sketching, tracing, and tweaking to get the card where I wanted it to be. I had never handwritten anything for a project before, so that was a bit challenging. I also accidentally scanned my ink design in as a 300 million dpi file (haha). Like I said, learning process! This project really helped me learn the technical skills needed to take a written design or sketched drawing and make it come to life via Photoshop and Illustrator. A piece of feedback I received from other students while critiquing my card was to make the text a bit smaller and make my doodles on the side a bit larger, which ultimately made the whole card feel more packaged after I changed this. I find it funny that after this project I decided to buy some nicer Tombow markers and learn hand typography online. I'm still very much a beginner, but you will see that I got better at this later in my senior class design.

Senior Committee T-Shirt

First of all, let me start this description out by saying WHO KNEW working with different groups around the school could be so political? I sort of had to fight to design anything for senior committee/STUCO/anything of that sort because some of the people in there do not like people from the outside designing their stuff. I'm glad I ended up getting to design this shirt though. The objective of this project was to make a unisex design for ONW's senior committee. The client wanted a simple design that would convey the idea of school pride. The coordinates of the school itself are located at the bottom of the design. The raven's placement marks where the school is located. I didn't face many challenges besides the client not getting back to me quickly on what text was needed on the shirt. Overall, I really enjoyed making this and the design is easily manipulated, so I'm hoping I can create something cool for cheer with this in mind! 

Homecoming Poster

The objective of this project was to design a poster for Olathe Northwest High School's homecoming dance. It would be hung up around the halls to inform students about when and where it was taking place. My client wanted the theme to include pastels and playful elements. From this I envisioned the idea of a "cotton candy sky" and worked to make it come to life. I got started right away on this project, so while the process for this poster did take a few weeks, the main concept was finished in probably less than a week. Kierstyn and I partnered really well together because we have similar style and ideas, so it wasn't hard to agree on the direction we were going. Some challenges I faced were deciding where to put the informational text on the poster and making the font relate to the bubbly theme I was going for. Along the way, I learned that I should not ask members of senior committee for advice, because they will not end up voting for my concept anyway (haha). But really, this project was difficult because I really went off of the mood board they created, but they ended up changing their minds on the color scheme and look they were going for. I agree that it's pretty feminine, so if I were to change anything I would've made it a little less girly. I'm super competitive, so this was a pretty big let down for me. However, I really enjoyed creating this project overall and I need to learn to not get attached to my work and view one failure as a sign that I'm a failure as a designer. It's a learning process.

Senior Class T-Shirt Design

This is a design that I hand-wrote and then scanned in. I manipulated the type until it was to my liking and then placed the design on a few different packaging projects. This design was to be sold in my school to this year's senior class, however it got pushed back until the people organizing it didn't want to create new shirts anymore. I chose to handwrite the words because it gives the t-shirts a more unique feel. It took me only a few days to put this together. I had recently learned a bit more about hand typography when I executed this design so I actually like this one a bit better than my greeting card. I'm glad I pushed myself to create something a bit more personalized. I used all of the technical skills from the greeting card project to make this design come to life, and I am proud of it. I messed up the year though, but that is an easy fix. Overall, I really enjoyed proving to myself that I was capable of writing like this for this project.

Here is a poster I created that got published! The objective of this project was to create a poster for Olathe Northwest High School's production of "Guys and Dolls". The client wanted to use the colors associated with the show, red and yellow. The marquee lights and brick wall background gave the poster a classic show feel. It took about two weeks to design this poster. I used a lot of different skills and elements for this one, similar to my Homecoming poster. The lights were a freebie off a designer's site that I manipulated to my liking. The brick wall image in the background was darkened so that it was barely there, but it gave the poster some texture. The dice were also image traced and manipulated. A challenge I faced with this project was formatting all of the informational text (just like the other poster). Layout and format is something I'd like to improve on. I changed the text size up top so it would be more visible while still looking clean. Overall, I'm really proud of this project and the way it turned out. The design process was not too difficult.

Dairy Farms Midwest Social Media Campaign 

Dairy Farms is an actual company located in the midwest that promotes nutrition and dairy products. I was contacted to design their upcoming social media campaign. The client wanted a bold, sleek, and feminine design geared toward young female athletes. This was the largest project I have done so far. I created 25 of these graphics without pay, so I think I could use this project alone for all of my endorsement hours this year! This project was done over the span of a few months. I "completed" it in October, but two separate sets of changes were made through November as well. A very big challenge I faced was working with clients who told me "do whatever you like!" and ended up tweaking one million things afterward. It's ok though, I'm thankful that my client was a bit challenging because it taught me a few things about doing work for clients in the real world. 1) Taking on a project this big should be a paying job. Don't be afraid to accept pay. 2) The people you are working with will most likely know nothing about design. Keep this in mind when you are writing back and forth about changes. 3) Make a contract or set a deadline that is firm and final if you have other things going on. Some clients will not understand that you have other priorities besides tweaking the project. I made a lot of changes, some I was not particularly fond of, but that's the way working as a designer is. In the end, you bite your tongue and do what your client says. Overall, I'm really glad I took on this project because I gained real world experience and pushed myself a lot with this one.

Python Branding Project

This was my favorite project I have done in graphic design. It was an original branding project that I was assigned this year. I created a brand from scratch, called "The Python". It is an imaginary tattoo shop in New York City. I wanted this brand to communicate a modern, sleek feeling with some rustic and gothic elements. It was a style I hadn't tried before, and I loved the final product. This project probably took about a month and a half to complete, because there were many aspects to it. You can see the entire concept come to life when all of the elements are grouped together on the full Behance board, https://www.behance.net/gallery/57843111/The-Python. A challenge I am still facing is image size and printing for my matte board. I tend to always struggle printing because I always use some pattern or texture that gives my projects issues (oops). I changed the color scheme a lot on this project to make it look less "cartoonish". I'm really happy with the gold, black, and white. It feels more sophisticated. Overall, this was my favorite project I have done in this class and I hope to use this style on more of my projects in the future.

Time Management

I have used my time in class much better than last year. I am very focused and I enjoy all of the work that I do in here. I stayed productive when I finished early by checking out design tips (I have some sites bookmarked) and creating inspiration boards on Pinterest for future projects. If I thought I was done with a project, I asked for feedback often from my peers. This year I learned that I should have other eyes on a project, not just me. I took on a lot of extra projects this semester, some I have not even included in this because they were from late summer or too small to showcase. I work on lots of projects at home and I spend time sketching/handwriting things in my room. I am always trying to use my time wisely.

Strengths

I am very strong at quickly coming up with concepts and getting a head start on the creative process. Brainstorming and experimenting come naturally to me. I also have a strong eye for design, so it is usually easy for me to look at my own projects and tell that something is a little off. This is also helpful when I am helping out other designers in critiques. I enjoy helping others and being a leader. I am also always trying to improve whatever I do, so I also view this as a strength of mine. 

Areas of Improvement

I need to improve on not getting too attached to my work and accepting changes and critiques from others. Technically, I need to become better at layout and manipulating type. I would also like to improve on my drawing skills as well. I work on improving myself in these areas by pinning sketches of other artists I like and drawing similar ones for the sole purpose of learning. I also learn to accept some things as they are. Sometimes people will not like my work and I need to be okay with that.

Summary

I loved my new drive this semester. Something clicked this year and I realized that 1) graphic design really is my passion and 2) if i want to improve, I really need to work. In my own life, I've become a much more organized, productive person, and this reflected well on my work in this class too. I'm glad I tackled a lot of projects in here, but I would've changed how I interacted with some clients, especially Dairy Farms. I should've made it clear how much time I had to work on a project so I wasn't still juggling it late after the deadline. The overall take-away I had from this semester was that when you really dedicate yourself to something, amazing things can happen. Your passion really shows itself. Next semester I would like to learn some new technical skills and take on bigger outside projects. Burdolski, thank you so much for supporting me in my college search and always giving me helpful hints on how to improve as a designer. I owe everything to you. I can't wait for next semester!