#design166

Feb. 20, 2020

Aight so I’m nervous about design 166 next quarter. I’ve just been so anxious about it lately, knowing that I’m not the most talented or gifted in design. I originally wanted to major in arts and become an animator because I thought that that shit was cool. I love how the colors just melt together and separate on the screen/page to create something. It just vibed with me a lot. I dig it. 

My dream job would probably be becoming an illustrator for a Miyazaki or a Shinkai film (it’s a shit ton of work with very little pay). But as I reflected over it more during winter break, I found myself dragging my hand to grab the pencil. I felt like I needed to put down something on the blank sketch paper before me, not feeling like I wanted to but rather needed to. I just wasn’t feeling the intense fire that once ignited inside me long ago. I knew I loved drawing, but something wasn’t right. I’ve felt like this ever since I entered high school, feeling like my art had to be perfect but I knew I lacked the skills. I thought that maybe I should just keep art as a hobby because I didn’t exactly enjoy forcing myself to draw every day. Are my interests starting to change? I thought that maybe I should just play it safe and get into a major that had good job prospects but is still stable, like business since I do not like STEM nor is my brain wired for it. Should I follow what society has instilled in us and go for the money, or follow what I enjoy doing? But I don’t know what I would do in that field. I knew a friend who wanted to do art but her father convinced her to become an accountant for the sake of money and stability, and she regretted it. She hated her job. 

Then I remembered that my cousin had told me about UX design, which prompted me to do some research. I learned that it was about centering design around user experience and the customer, whether it be a product or a website or an app. I thought that was fascinating because I realized that whatever I wanted to do, I wanted to help others in some way. UX design sounded like the perfect role for an empathetic INFJ personality like me, where I can be creative in my profession and still make a living. So here I am, trying out design next quarter to see if it’s right for me because I’m always uncertain, even if I like something. I hope that I can find out more about myself from this class and see where it takes me. I really do find design intriguing, from the product packaging to visual communication and marketing, but I’m just worried that I lack the skills since UW is so competitive ahhh. I have done some designing in the past and even won the best poster award for a past class project, but I’m trying not to feed my ego because I’m still kind of new to this. 

Anyways, this is starting to become a rant and I just hope that I can do well next quarter and perhaps try to get into the major... >_<

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”!

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!