While taking GRA 217, I developed a basic understanding of the Adobe Creative Cloud, along with design techniques to effectively tell a story in a visual way. However, upon reading entries from Professor Strong’s previous students, I realized that I have a long semester of learning and experimenting before I become a confident visual storyteller. One of my biggest takeaways from the blog entries is to become BFF’s with the grid. To be perfectly honest, I’m not totally familiar with this concept, in fact, I never use a grid while doing graphic design work (I have a feeling I will look back at this at the end of the semester and cringe at this confession.) It seems to be a great tool when dealing with lots of visual elements so I am very curious and interested to learn more about it.
Another big takeaway is to put time and care into each design decision. Professor Strong has mentioned in class that we are designing, NOT decorating – a concept that I tend to forget. While in GRA 217 we used to sketch everything in a notepad before using the computer, but I quickly pushed that practice aside due to my own laziness. This semester I will put time and care into planning out a design before logging into Adobe to execute it, and continue to do so after completing the course. I think that my current “design” habits are more reflective of “decorating” and I need to put that habit to rest.
