Projects
Homecoming Package
To start the year off, I teamed up with Drew and Chelsea to create a poster, infographic, and surrounding materials to represent this year's homecoming theme of Above and Beyond. The most challenging things about this project was how many possible interpretations of it there were, and trying to figure out which one would be best for the client. Along the way, it was challenging to push ourselves to create something original and different than the other groups in our class, and I found myself redoing the layout and feel of the infographic many times to create something that was creative and would stand out. I learned to always keep pushing my ideas further, because that is the best way to create something that is creative and eye-catching. One thing I really enjoyed about this project was being able to collaborate with my classmates, because I found that some of my best ideas were thought of when I was critiquing someone else's work, or they were critiquing mine. Together, we changed the typography, graphical elements, and layout of the poster and infographic a numerous amount of times, but in the end it payed off to see the finished products up around the school, and to see the dance they represented in person.Greeting Card
Our next project of the year was a greeting card composed solely of hand typography. This was a real challenge for me, as handwriting and drawing are definitely not my strong points. Even though it was hard for me, as a perfectionist, to get my hand type to be perfect, I really gained along the way an interest in doing typography and graphic elements by hand. I mainly did this project by tracing type and adding a few minor tweaks, but in the future I hope to push myself further to handwrite something even more original. I found myself much more in my element when we shifted over to the computer, where I added textures to make my hand type come alive. I was also able to smooth out and perfect my handwriting to make it look more clean and crisp. Overall, I'm pleased with how this project turned out, and I hope to improve my hand type skills and continue to use them in my future projects!
Olathe Internship
This semester, I've had the amazing opportunity to intern for the City of Olathe's Communications department. While there, I've mostly been tasked with designing graphics to post on their social media to advertise holidays and events. It's been a really interesting experience for me to get a taste of what it is like to do graphic design in the professional world, especially in an office environment as opposed to an ad agency. It is also cool to be able to see my work displayed on various social media networks!
Program Planning Guide Cover
This semester I, along with two of my other classmates, picked up the opportunity to design the cover of the program planning guide for the Olathe school district. This proved to be a bigger challenge than we first thought, as it was difficult to push ourselves away from what has been done in the past. When all of us sent our first drafts to the client, we were told to scrap them and come up with completely new ideas that didn't remotely resemble past ones or each other's. During this time, I experimented with a lot of shapes and layouts before finding one that worked logistically and was aesthetically pleasing.Simply Sweet Branding
For this project, we were asked to push our creativity by creating and branding a fictional company using a random number, mineral, animal, and two letters. Mine were 24, calcite, capybara, and ss, and using these elements I came up with Simply Sweet, a social limeade shop based in California and Florida. This project had many phases. The first one, after research, was logo design, where I came up with 6 totally different concepts using 100% black ink. From there, I chose the one I felt best fit my company, and added color to it. Then, I created the stationary: a business card, letterhead, and envelope that could realistically be used by the company to brand them and help them sell their product. For the final phase, I made mockups of what the store's interior and exterior would look like, as well as the uniform the employee's would wear, the cups the limeade would come in, and an app that their customers would be able to use.
Magazine Layout
Our assignment for this project is to find someone in the graphic design industry, interview them about their career and lifestyle, and then make two magazine spreads showcasing their style and work as a graphic designer. To start this project I reached out to Taylor K. Morris, who was my mentor junior year, about interviewing her for the project. I met with her in person to conduct the interview, where I learned about her job as a graphic designer at Cerner, her past job at a small ad agency, and her photography business that she runs on the side. Currently I am in the process of researching, sketching, and mocking up possible spreads before I translate them on to the computer. I look forward to continuing this project further next semester!
Time Management
I feel like time management is something I've improved a lot on this year, both inside of graphic design and outside of it. It has really helped me to be so busy, as it forces me to structure my time better than I have in the past, but I've also learned how to cut down when things get to be too much to avoid shutting down completely. I feel like I have gone a lot more in depth with projects this year as opposed to last year, so when I finish something relatively fast I continue to go back and rework it until I come up with the best option. This has helped me both produce better work and stay productive in class! I have also spent a lot of time working on projects outside of class: I came in during lunch almost everyday to work on Homecoming with my group, and I worked at home to take on outside projects in addition to class work.
Strengths and Weaknesses
I feel like my areas of strength are my work ethic and attention to detail. I am very good at creating clean work, and taking the time to fully commit to a project once I start it. My weaknesses are probably my hand writing and drawing skills, as well as pushing myself to my creative potential as much as I could.
Conclusion
Overall, I feel like this semester has gone really well for me. I've pushed myself creatively and taken on new opportunities inside and outside of the classroom. Next semester, I hope to develop my skills and projects even further to finish out my senior year.
