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”!

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

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

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.