Reflect + Present: Final Review SP21
As my first year as a Graphic Design MFA student comes to an end, we were asked to create a final presentation compiling and analyzing our semester as a whole. The audience for this presentation were faculty and experienced graphic designers who, without previous knowledge of our work, gave us feedback on our strengths and areas we should work on.
Looking back at my semester, I can see immense amounts of growth both professionally and personally. Some of the areas I worked on the most were polishing my typographic skills, the conceptualization and creation of stronger prompts for projects, immersing myself in new areas of design, crafting better analog pieces, and overall working on the sophistication and elevation of my assets. My classes and professors this semester were incredible at pushing us to experiment with different design avenues and taking our pre-existing skills to the next level.
First off, in my Graduate Typography II class with our professor Christopher Sleboda, we focused on polishing and working to reach a sophisticated use of typography. For the first half of the class, we focused heavily on creating books and pieces with large amounts of copy, which really helped with learning more about the micro-levels of type as well as the bigger composition elements. One of the highlights of these projects was my ‘Book about Books,’ a book analyzing typographic details such as trim size, page structures, grids, typeface sizes, weights, leading, front and back matters, amongst many more, of five well-designed books.
Aside from this, we also got to design a significant amount of posters and other typographic matter such a book covers and custom letterforms. These helped in the further understanding of composition, layout, consistency, and working under restrictions.
Moving on to my Graduate Studio I class with our professor James Grady, we learned amongst many things, to push ourselves into delving and learning new areas within design, elevating our craft, working to our highest potential, and trusting the process. Throughout the semester I further advanced my skills in motion graphics, data visualization, photography, sound, and others. With the help of my professor, I was able to push myself and come up with more conceptual and abstract briefs for my projects. Aside from this, I also worked to expand my projects through the addition of animation and analog assets besides just restricting myself to digital. Although I’m extremely proud of all my projects (which can be found in my previous blog posts,) my first project ‘ Emotions + Semiotics’ showed this new appreciation of both the abstract and concrete, as well as my experimentation of new design avenues. For this project, I created various visual representations of emotions through vectorized symbols and icons, and beverages.
Moving on to my Interactive Design class with my professor Christopher Field, I was able to work on creating successful visual systems, interactive installations, and overall learning how to take into account the physicality of my projects. The first project I created for the class was an interactive installation titled ‘The Fortune Loop’ which allowed users to receive and give fortunes simultaneously through a self-generating system.
Moreover, I also came up with ‘Scented Memories’ a set of ten flipbooks bringing to life some of my precious memories through an interactive experience, while classifying them with scents.
Finally, for my Design Theory class with my professor Yael Ort-Dinoor, I was able to learn and discuss current topics regarding the field of Graphic Design and beyond. Through the class, I was able to work on formulating my thoughts and opinions regarding various topics through our weekly discussions. For this class, I created a video essay titled ‘Creativity + Play’ regarding the topic of playfulness and how we can adopt it as working designers to enhance our output.
An additional highlight of my semester was our Research Collaboration Project book for our Graduate Studio I class with James. Aside from creating three spreads dedicated to Anagrama and Sebastian Padilla, one of my favorite design studios, I had the honor of being chosen to create the front and back covers.
Overall, it is difficult to put into words, more so a presentation, how much I learned and grew these past few months. I received positive feedback from my judges regarding my depth of research in all my projects, my ability to bridge the analog and digital, the expressiveness in my work, my ability to create visual systems, and my use of personal storytelling. Aside from this, they pointed out a difference in energy between my typographic work and the rest of my projects, commenting on the fact that I was able to let myself experiment more through my letterforms and typography than in the visual assets of my other projects. For this, they recommended I take a look at my body of work as a whole and think of ways I could make it more uniform. They also suggested I try out personal projects throughout the summer to diverge from class-led prompts and look at everything with a rested and fresh pair of eyes.
Although we’re always going to be our own harshest critic, I am happy to say I am proud of myself for the work I created this semester. I learned a lot about myself, what I want from my design work, and my process. Being a proactive human and designer, I am eager to continue to explore and reach even higher levels next year.
