Design 166 Winter 2017

My journey through Design 166 is finally over! Looking back, it was an amazing experience. Annoying and challenging at times, perhaps even hellish... ok maybe it was a stressful experience... BUT now that I am reflecting back on it all, I think that this class really helped me learn what it means to be a designer. I know I’m still only a freshman, and I have so much to learn still, but right now, it’s clear to me that design is very rewarding, and is worth every amount of effort! I’m thrilled I was able to get a 3.7, and that I have the privilege to study what I am passionate about. 

What helped me succeed

Seeking help -- I went to every CLUE session, signed up for as many office hour slots as possible, and even went out of my way to talk to current design students and ask them for advice. I was nervous about all this in the beginning, not only because I was shy, but because it takes courage to willingly ask someone to critique you. You have to be ready to hear that your ideas suck, be ready for them to point out all the obvious mistakes you made. Only through making mistakes can we improve! Honestly, I fail at a lot of things in life, but that’s kinda why I want to be a designer... so I can fail in a way that leads to success! Haha I’m so lame.

Working together -- I was worried that my other classmates in Design 166 would be super intimidating, and I guess they were at first, but in the end, I think everyone feels the same way. We all want to succeed, and there are only so many spaces available in the design school, but why should that stop us from helping each other? Throughout the quarter I made more and more friends. I started remembering people’s names, so if I ran into them at some point, we could share our struggles and complain together haha. But for real, critique each other, because there are only so many instructors, and honestly, the more talented your classmates are the better because you can be sure they’ll give you the best feedback.

Interest -- I liked to and continue to read about design in my spare time. “Medium” is a cool website for that, lots of inspiring articles written by professional designers! I also went to a few free HCDE speaker lectures just to listen to the professional designers talk about their careers. Moreover, I registered for a lot of design related classes to also take during winter quarter along with Design 166: Architecture 150, Info 200, and even a HCDE Directed Research Group about process blogs (which inspired me to write this process blog you are reading!) 

Perseverance -- it’s a lot of work, and it will consume your life, but putting effort into this class is what really helped me earn my grade. I didn’t spend as much time with my dorm friends as before; There were days where I forced myself to wake up early, and days where I had little to no sleep; Some days I even considered giving up. Wow, this is starting to sound like a cliche motivational speech... I’ll save you the embarrassment and just say, you gotta work your ass off.

Of all of the projects, project 3 was the most challenging. It wasn’t a challenge in that it took a certain type of person... I think its difficulty was mainly due to the amount of time it took to make each iteration. 

With each project, there were different mediums to convey an idea: photos, graphics, and physical objects. The easiest design medium in terms of quick iterations is clearly project 2, as you simply use a computer program to make each change. Even though I had no experience with Adobe Illustrator at first, once I picked it up, I had all kinds of tools to bring my ideas to life (and I could do it all sitting in front of my computer!). For project 1, it was a bit more challenging, because you need to go out into the world to find design opportunities. Your iterations depend on not only chance of happening upon a relevant subject, but your own ability to apply the compositional techniques into your shots. 

As for project 3, when it comes to three dimensional design, you are in an entirely different realm. Sketching will only take you so far when you can’t sketch in 3D. And I don’t mean being able to draw cubes and perspective drawings. (I actually practiced a lot of perspective drawing just for fun on the week we had to turn in design sketches for our boxes, but honestly it doesn’t have much to do with the actual product. The sketches are mainly for conveying your idea, and even a disproportionate but simple sketch can be sufficient when done right.) Once you start to work with physical objects, that’s when you can clearly see the faults and successes in your work. I had some crazy sketches, but when it came to creating nets and trying to fit it all together using cardboard, it was a rude awakening. Every box you make can take an hour or several hours depending how complicated it is. (By the way, your high school geometry skills will actually come in handy after all! I often used the Pythagorean theorem and needed to add lengths using my phone’s calculator. It’s nothing too difficult, but just a fair warning for those of you who can’t stand math).

Anyways, main point here is that this project is TIME CONSUMING! I’m pretty sure most of my classmates and I pulled an all nighter the night before the box was due. All of this was quite frustrating, and I think if they had allowed us to use a laser cutter life would be much better... maybe in the future they will be more lenient about that...

What I found interesting while doing this project is that you can’t conceptualize in 3D. Humans aren’t really able to do this: when you look at a piece of origami, can you see exactly what the steps were to get to that finished product? Neither can I. Perhaps a professional origami maker could, but it still would be really difficult. I guess the lesson I learned is that you have to just practice and get comfortable with the medium to be successful. I made a ton of shitty boxes, but at least with each mistake, I was able to figure out what to do better next time. 

And now, enjoy some images documenting project 3!

This highlights how creating a low fidelity physical prototype can be even better than a sketch. Using index cards, I was able to quickly bring out an idea I had and see how it would look in the real world. It’s helpful having something you can hold and interact with, as you are designing an object someone will eventually touch, and not just look at.

I wasn’t joking when I said I would “get my hands dirty”!

Here it is:

I’m stuck again! Surprise surprise. I have a few box ideas in mind, but I know they’re boring. They need to be way more interesting or functional or aesthetically pleasing to get me a good grade. Moreover, I’m losing focus of how these boxes will have been supported by my initial research. There’s so much I need help with…

To make all this worse, I’ve been terribly sick! It’s difficult bending over my cardboard and cutting when I have to cough and sneeze and basically drown in my own mucus trying to sleep at night…

How do I make my package as functional as possible yet still unique? I have like a scale in my head, at one extreme is total functionality and the other end is total aesthetic. The former is basically just a box and the latter is just a sexy looking box but it can’t hold shit

I’ve been falling behind on posting here, because the cardboard project is indeed the tough one. But in fleeting free time I have, I’ve been reading medium articles, and here’s a quote I found that resonates with me. I’ll make the bigger connections in the morning or when I have time, but for now, just know that behind the scenes, there’s lots of design going on!

Project 3 week 2 has finished. I’m starting to feel depressed again. I haven’t even started working with my cardboard, and I had little sleep. I made many sketches, it felt like hundreds, and I narrowed down to 6 sketches to bring to critique today. But I didn’t get any feedback from the instructor! I feel like maybe I should have stopped him after class to get feedback, but I was so tired I didn’t think to do that. I made so many sketches but I looked around and I can tell my peers made tons of sketches as well... I’m not special! I think a mistake I made was worrying too much about the neatness of my drawings. I should have worked harder on the conveyance of my ideas... And on that topic: my ideas were all vague! I don’t have even one solid idea, even after all the sketching and playing around with index cards and tape. I have models, but I feel like it will be impossible to implement them into the cardboard and still follow all the rules.

This week was the first week of our cardboard project. Our task was to observe eating behaviors, study packaging, and take pictures or sketch out our observations. In class during critique, we discussed the implications of our findings and how they can be applied to our design work in the weeks to come. Here are some shared ideas and my takeaways from the discussion:

There are 3 essentials to keep in mind:

Human behavior, interaction with package

The way the package physically holds the food, functional archetypes

Aesthetics, what makes it interesting

It’s a give and take between protection and visibility

you want the contents of the package to be as available to the customer as possible, but it also needs to be packaged in a way that keeps the food safe.

Here is the week represented in pictures of my “research”:

Amazon delivery boxes are very simple yet effective at protecting their goods. Obviously, it’s not designed to deliver lunch

It’s a miracle! I came into this project with 0 experience using illustrator, 0 experience with editorial design, 0 experience with typography. But I beat the odds! It’s sad that project 1 screwed me over GPA wise, even though I took a few photography classes in high school I got a below average score. But this is just awesome! I made my design fairly simple because I felt behind my peers, disadvantaged somehow by my inexperience to make stunningly intricate covers. But everything worked out somehow!

Even if I got a perfect score on project 3, it’s impossible for me to get a 3.7, due to the way the numbers average out. But I’m still going to try my hardest! This feeling of accomplishment is reassurance that I have what it takes to be a designer some day!

What a week it has been! Today was the final critique and we were tasked with bringing in a few final iterations of our cover ideas.

A New Friend

This week was interesting for me because I met a senior in the Industrial Design program: Emily. I met her over Reddit during last summer, when I had posted some questions about the design program before even coming to UW. Over PM she gave me some advice about how to succeed in Design 166, as she had gotten a 3.7 direct admit back when she took the class. This week, I was privileged enough to meet Emily in person for the first time! She gave very straight forward feedback, and didn’t sugar coat any of her points. I met her two times this week, but it’s unfortunate we didn’t meet sooner because I didn’t have enough time to bring into fruition all her suggestions. 

Here are some takeaways from meeting her:

Rule of thirds isn’t just for photography! She made it clear that you need to pay close attention to how your cover activates and interacts with each of the third intersections. This is something I need to practice more...

As a person, she is very tenacious and hardcore. I walked into the design studio (our meeting place in the art building) and saw her arguing with one of the teachers about not having enough time on her senior project. She works hard, but she makes sure to work hard in the right way, you feel? She’s not afraid to speak her mind and tell others that something needs to change.

When Emily designs, she lets loose! As a fourth year student in the design program, she has had a lot more experience in design than me. It makes sense that she designs without any limitations. When she looked at one of my covers, she said she could tell I wasn’t “pushing it” enough. I agree, and I think it has to do with my personality. I am a shy person, so maybe that reflects onto my designs. I like to play things safe. Emily, I can tell, makes crazy decisions in her work. Crazy as they may be, her iterations all seem so beautiful to me. She asked to play with one of my illustrator files to demonstrate what it means to “push it” and she totally made my cover look way better! And she was just playing around with the type and scale and color and placement, yet it still looked better than the pieces I labored over for two weeks (disclaimer: obviously I didn’t use the cover she played with because that’s plagiarism and against my morals). 

Friday’s Critique (Today)

It went well! I was torn between my two final ideas, but feedback from my peers/teachers really helped me decide the final one. One of the ideas I was attached to looked pretty neat, it was aesthetically pleasing, but my other idea was actually the one I chose to submit. It was much more simplistic, and I was surprised the idea had come this far. It turns out that it had communicated the idea of the book better than my other one.

Always look at your cover from different perspectives! Professor Muren came by our class, and his advice actually helped me choose my final cover. From far away, my complex idea may seem good, but up close it got a bit too busy. I ultimately went with the more simple idea. Also the colors were on fleek.  

Final Thoughts

Is design a career better suited for extroverts? Meeting Emily is just one example, but there are other cases that lead me to this thought as well: The design process is a heavily collaborative process. The people who aren’t afraid to speak their mind or who aren’t afraid to fully expose their own errors are the ones who get the most feedback. Shy people tend to get the short end of the stick. Throughout 166, I’ve learned to open myself up to others more than I would in other classes.

This week started off very stressful, but gradually, it has become a lot better! Definitely an improvement from last week.

Sunday

I usually don’t get as much design work done on the weekends. This Sunday, I tried to do work, but I kept on falling into a pit of emotional despair. Using Illustrator was frustrating, and I kept getting errors and felt much more limited than if I could just draw my book covers in real life. I stayed up very late talking to some friends who live on my dorm floor about how I feel so lost and nervous about getting into the design major. Many of my friends actually felt similarly about their majors. Competition is inevitable, so what’s best is to simply accept it and move on. There will always be someone better than you. I recently stumbled upon an article written by Sebastian Gabriel, a senior designer at Google. He had a quote that speaks deeply to me:

“There will always be more talented people than you. Look up to them and try to catch up.”

Monday

I was extremely stressed on Monday because I had committed to Office Hours, for that day, but had nothing to bring in! Over the weekend I thought about how I could create more finished book covers out of the sketches I brought in Friday, but I hadn’t done any design work. Using Illustrator is difficult for me because I have no experience with it, so I guess I put off starting my project for too long. Right after my first class of the day, I ran to the library, sat down and created three variations of one idea I had. I wouldn’t have any of my other ideas to bring in, but at least I would have something. 

At office hours, it turned out my most effective idea was the original sketch, not any of the random experiments I made on Illustrator. Aubree really focuses on how ideas are conveyed, and during critiques, that is what she tells the class to focus on the most: How could this idea be conveyed more effectively? She gave me some helpful Illustrator tips for how to use layers and grouping to my advantage.

By the way, this week’s theme in lecture was all about typography! I never took typography seriously, but the lectures actually convinced me that it has a big impact on the transfer of information to people. Also Curlz is the best font.

Tuesday

Tuesday was mainly doing homework for other classes.

Wednesday

I decided to go to drop-in advising to discuss admissions into the design program, and also backup plans for if I don’t get in. Ann, one of the advisers for the design program, answered all of my questions and was very helpful. She even gave tips for how to prepare for the workshop in June if I don’t get a 3.7 (and trust me the odds of that are high).

In the evening, I took Aubree’s feedback from Monday, used it to create a few iterations of my idea, and then brought those iterations to CLUE. Dana, one of the Senior student designers, helped me find different ways to position the title and author, and helped me choose a typeface.

The downside was that I still only had one solid idea. I had two other ideas, but they were nowhere near solid. I didn’t even have a full vision of them in my head, just the concepts.

Thursday

I anticipated Thursday would be the most stressful and busy day of the week, but it ended up going smoother than expected. I experimented with mediums and I cut out the letters of “Alone Together” and put them on an old photo I took for the last project. For another idea, I used a screen full of code I made on accident! I ended up finishing three different book covers and printed them all out before 9pm. 

Another thing to note is that I met a student in the design department over Reddit and she agreed to help give me tips and feedback! 

Friday

Critique was quick, because everyone only had three pieces to show instead of six. My biggest takeaways:

Make sure to test print before mounting next week, so you can ensure your blacks are actually black

My typeface matched the code too similarly, I need to try contrasting it better

Alignment is very important! Where does your title/author start and end?!

Cropping = simplifying images while making them more interesting.

Thoughts

I’m sitting in Husky Grind crying over a bowl of couscous. Not actually crying, but I feel very dead. I am losing touch with reality. Walking back from critique, I lost all sense of direction. I became aimless. BASICALLY TODAY SUCKS. My week has ended on a sour note.

Monday

I didn’t do any ideation Monday. Instead, I spent most of this day rereading the design readings, so I could prepare for the quiz. Sadly, I only got 13/15. Hopefully the quiz isn’t too weighty on the GPA for the whole class.

Tuesday

I finally started sketching. My choice of location to come up with ideas was the second floor of Allen Library. I skimmed through the passage of the book, and I looked back over my notes I had taken on the book before. I made some more mental maps, even though I had already had themes in mind. Thick black sharpie in hand, I got to work and sketched about 20 different concepts onto orange sticky-notes. 

Wednesday

Before CLUE on Wednesday, I spent time in an empty classroom to get a better idea of what my themes were. I went full on HCDE charette style and placed my sticky-notes on a white board. I started by clumping similar ideas together, and then I wrote down common themes I found. 

Next time, maybe I should have organized my sticky-notes in a way that highlights which of my ideas were the most communicative of the theme. Friday’s critique, after all, was all about finding the sketches that had the clearest ideas.

During CLUE, I felt the sense of getting “whacked on the side of the head”: This references the reading we did about creativity. Sometimes, you get stuck in a mental trap and don’t realize you are going about things the wrong way. One of the design students’ reactions to my idea made me realize I wasn’t thinking about the tone of the book. One of my ideas, having a mother holding an iPad like a baby, to that student, was very silly. She asked if the tone of the book was childish. This was really important feedback, and in the future when I further my book cover ideas, I will keep in mind what the author’s voice sounds like in her writing.

Thursday

I wasn’t scheduled for office hours this week, but luckily Emma had an open slot of time in the morning and I was able to rush over and get some feedback on my ideas. She made interesting suggestions for my photos: One was that I could integrate both photos and illustrations into the book cover. Maybe I can print out a photo of a brick wall, and then tear it and layer it over another image, and then take a photo of that! I’m excited to play around with different mediums for this project.

After my classes, I headed straight to Suzzalo library so I could finalize my sketches, scan them, and print them. I felt like my ideas weren’t very good. Sticky-notes will only take you so far. I used graph paper and sharpie to make more ideas. I started with tiny boxes for ideas, then I made larger boxes to make iterations of certain ideas. 5:30 pm to 9:30 pm. 4 hours of straight sketching and perfecting. 

I’m realizing that coming up with ideas and sketches uses a lot of paper! 

5 mental maps, 47 sticky-notes, 43 cover iterations, 5 full sized final sketches (my sixth submission was a photo I had already taken with text on it.) Not counting sticky-notes, I used up 27 sheets of 8.5x11 paper! Sorry, environment! 

Friday: Critique 1 of Project 2

Today was awful! I felt (and still feel) super tired. My eye bags are very dark. 

Something that surprised me is that two of my ideas that had received praise at critique were ideas I came up with on the fly and didn’t think much of on Thursday evening. It just shows how ideation isn’t something you can force, sometimes it just happens. Moreover, I didn’t recognize one of those ideas as being very good, because I didn’t spend as much time trying to come up with it. However, the viewers don’t have any idea how much time you spend on your project, they just see it as it is: a cover. So, once again, my takeaway is don’t get attached to ideas! You never know when a little doodle can turn into a potential winner.

Other than being extremely tired, I feel terrible because the grades from project 1 came back. I DID BAD. All three were either average or below average compared to the total point averages for the whole class. And a photo I reprinted and remounted LOST A POINT FOR POOR MOUNTING!?!? I spent so much extra money and time to print and cut those out, and even cutting myself with the exacto knife, only to have a point taken off. Maybe it was because my eraser made light smudges when I was centering the photos, but those are very small! I’m so disappointed... It may be only one point, but due to the heavy grading, every point matters on your final project. 

I also felt deceived. On the lecture slide from Wednesday, they showcased some of the best photographs from students, and one of my photos was on the slideshow! However, when I got it back, the grade for it was actually just average, and they didn’t post it up in the hallway. Seeing it in the slideshow gave me confidence, and I felt hopeful that it would get high marks, but none of that matters, it was an average photo to them and I don’t deserve any recognition.

As harsh as it sounds, the main takeaway is that you should never get your hopes up in a class like Design 166. It’s a weed-out class. I’m not going to get a 3.7. That’s OK. 

In this class, I am swamped with so much work, but it turns out I’m not working hard enough. The thing with weed-out classes is that even if you are working hard, everyone else is working hard too. My peers have been so helpful and friendly, and I wish we could all go into the major and learn design together. Sadly, there just isn’t enough space. I hope that if I don’t get in, at least the most talented people will make it through and become great designers one day!

I know I told myself before than failure is good, as it helps you improve. But right now, it feels like I’m not getting the improvements fast enough. It’s just failure after failure after failure, and my final grade reflects all those failures. My self esteem is lower than ever before. 

Today is Friday, January 20, 2017. Other than today being Inauguration day, it was also the day we turned in our final three submissions.

One of my biggest regrets was saving the whole printing/mounting process for the night before. I did have office hours on Thursday, and I wanted feedback before printing any finals, but it still felt like a time crunch. It took me longer than expected to make last-minute Photoshop edits. Printing is tedious as well. If the colors print totally different than you expect, or you make mistakes while cutting out your photo, you’ll have to go back multiple times like I did.

This morning during critique, we were tasked with voting on which three photos to submit. I was surprised by my peer’s feedback on my photos. Some people thought photos I wasn’t too attached to were actually praiseworthy. Also, one that I spent a long time on actually seemed boring to others. This experience highlights the importance of having second opinions.

Takeaways and thoughts

When you spend a long time working on a certain concept, you fall in love with it. You invest so much effort into your creation, and you expect success to come out of it. Good design not only requires being able to recognize when you are “polishing a turd”, but also being able to let go of that turd. Moral here: Don’t get too attached to your ideas and keep an open mind to new ones.

Design 166′s first project was a great introduction to design. Before this project, I took photography for granted: I saw it as mostly self-expressive, merely an artistic pursuit. Now, however, it’s clear that photography is a great medium to professionally communicate a message. I’m very thankful to have learned about composition techniques, as they are the key to designing images that people will naturally enjoy more. This class has also given me invaluable hands-on experience as well. Reading about design is easy, but putting it into practice is a whole different playing field. The amount of effort that goes into the design process can only be learned through doing. 

It’s a Tuesday night. Only 3 days remain until the final project is due.

Despite not waking up at 6:45 am to take photos this morning, I still had a good day. I woke up around 9 am and chose some photos to print out and bring to office hours. 

The best decision I made all day was to leave a lecture from a different class just for the sake of going to office hours. I was with Aubree again, and just like last time, her comments were very helpful. One photo that I thought was not very good actually ended up catching her attention, and some of the photos I took on the day I doubted my skills were actually not too bad either. Takeaway: YOU NEED SECOND OPINIONS! Especially if you are new to photography, like I was. You may be surprised what people notice and you totally overlook, whether it be an obvious flaw or a diamond in the rough!

She gave me lots of tips of how to use Photoshop to enhance my photos. 

Things I noted (by the way, make sure to take notes during the office hours):

-Use the “levels” function to bring out your lights and darks. A bland, flat photo can be totally transformed by doing this!

-Aubree made a useful analogy for when it comes to making your subject stand out. Your photos are like real estate: you want to make the most value out of your given space. Or another way to see it is like a game of monopoly: You want to put your houses on the most expensive properties. I guess the analogy is a bit confusing, but basically, make sure the image gives you the information you need. For one of my photos that was a bit too busy (she said it was uncomfortable), her recommendation was to crop it so the subject would be larger and more important (which added more value to the space for that situation).

-I often worried if my ideas were too abstract, and Aubree said that a good way to check is to ask yourself this: in one image, what is the book about? Does your image communicate what the book is about? The emphasis is on communication! Your ideas can be as cleverly abstract as you want, but they’ll do you no good if your client cant tell what they’re looking at. Just imagine a customer wandering around a bookstore and they see your image on the book cover. Do they get it? 

My goals for tomorrow:

-Edit and choose the six photos for mounting! I will wait until Thursday to print and mount, because I have office hours with Emma on that day. It’s last minute, but the more opinions the better!

-I have completed the readings already, but I feel like I don’t understand them as well as I could. I want to reread parts of them and if I have time I will do the optional readings.

Final thoughts:

There are two types of halfway decent photos for project 1:

1. Photos with excellent composition, but lacking in clear connection to the book

2. Photos that connect to the book, but look terrible.

I realize an aspect of process blogging I have forgotten is including visuals! (I have no idea how to insert photos on a post using tumblr mobile. Talk about poor user interface!) Here are some pictures I took of my progress on assignment 1!

When using Photoshop, make sure to change the colors from RGB to CYMK before printing! The left is RGB, the right is CYMK (the original I wanted).

This is an example of how NOT to bring a contact sheet to office hours! The images are far too small, and when you show it to your instructors they wont be able to give the best feedback because it can be difficult to tell what’s going on in the photos. The proper way would be to have no more than two photos per 8.5x11 page. If you have many photos to bring, print on normal paper to save money.

I made six mental maps total for six themes: Loneliness, connection, change, hiding, dream/reality, and separation. Mental maps are great for generating many ideas, but don’t get too attached to them! You learn what actually works by going out into the world and taking photos of your ideas. Mental map ideas can be either too cliche or too abstract to connect back to the book’s main idea. Even now I have a hard time telling which ideas are good and which are bad. However, I can’t deny the extreme helpfulness of mental maps when it comes to generating tons of ideas!

I hoped that I would become more creative today and find some good shots, but I guess things didn’t turn out as expected :(

I went out to take photos with friends from high school. Although it was fun to get their input on what kinds of shots would look interesting, overall having other people around felt like a strain on my photo taking experience. I felt obliged not to “drag them around” to random areas. We went to capital hill first because I wanted to find a spot where I had gone before so I could have my friends model as humans in the shot. However, the location had been closed off, so my opportunity had been closed down! Later, my friends insisted on going to the international district because it was more familiar to all of us. I thought maybe it going back again a second day in a row wouldn’t be so bad, but it was very unhelpful! I had already taken lots of photos there, and I didn’t find any creative sparks. Ultimately, I came back with nothing of any value. Again, the feeling of running out of ideas persists!

My plan for tomorrow is to wake up at 6:45 am again so I have a bit of time before classes to get more shots. 

I still don’t have an exact plan of what to shoot. I’m going to have to be more creative... yet practical. I have to clearly deliver my message (which I am starting to feel indecisive about--I’m losing track of what my message is!). In order to deliver a message, I not only need the right subject, but also perfect composition! 

For the rest of the night, I will be doing the assigned readings. 

Some thoughts:

-I feel like I’m getting better at recognizing when a photo has good composition, but when it comes to actually capturing a photo with good composition, I always come out empty handed! It’s difficult for me to wrap my brain around all the different composition techniques I have read about and put them into practice.

-Sometimes it feels like my life is revolving solely around Design 166. But like most students, I have other classes to worry about as well! Not only are there other classes to worry about, but just life in general has become smaller. I haven’t been hanging out with my friends as much lately, other than today. Life as a college student had once been a vast, unexplored world. But now my vision has narrowed down to my success or failure in this specific class. 

-I don’t expect to get over a 3.7, but I’m still very invested in doing the best I can. Every time I get confused about a design concept, take a boring photo, or receive comments from friends on my photos (such as “no offense but I have no idea how that connects to your theme”), I feel less and less motivated to try again. As the due date for project 1 approaches, every design choice I make seems to have more severe consequences.