On the first day of VIS 527, I won’t lie; I was a little overwhelmed. With all the Graphics majors and Grad students in the room, I felt a little in over my head. I’m an Advertising major, but I’ve been interested in magazine layout for as long as I can remember. Before I could even read I remember running my hands over glossy magazine pages as I studied the photos looking back at me. I decided to take this class because I had such a great time designing my magazine layout for the GRA 217 final, and I wanted to test my design stamina by designing a full magazine, rather than a few pages.
But thank God for the wisdom bestowed to us from previous students. I feel like I’ve somehow hit the lottery with this advice. Going through the various posts, some advice stood out more than others, such as one student’s advice to not be afraid to move on when you’re stuck. In the past, I have spent hours scrutinizing over one aspect of my project, and have gotten so frustrated with myself because I was not coming up with anything. This semester, if I do feel stuck, I’m going to take a deep breath and move onto something else; perhaps inspiration will strike when I least expect it.
Another thing I’m going to work on is showing peers that are outside my class my projects. I sometimes become protective of my work and tend to shy away from showing others my deck. If I want to go into creative advertising, I’m going to have to get used to not everyone liking what I’ve created. Every creative project goes through critiques, and I’m going to try to get into the mindset that they’re a good thing. Everyone offers a different perspective, and someone might say something that I would have never thought of.
With all this new advice in my tool belt, I’m excited to get started!
And I’m happy you’re in the course! From what I can tell so far, you have a strong vision and the eye to pull it off. Looking forward to seeing what you produce. 🙂