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12.4.2 Week 4 Mastery. Professional Practice

Mastery: Personal Development and Leadership –

After successfully completing the  Mastery: Personal Development and Leadership course, I had gained an understanding of what was the true meaning to the level of Mastery in media design.  This course also helped me to realize that the level of Mastery is more than just being able to create an eye-catching design, but to provide factual research as well to prove why the design is effective, using this technique helped me to provide factual claims and detailed research for my thesis presentation.  From a personal perspective, this course helped me to prepare for the expectations that were needed to successfully complete each course. My triumph for this course was taking classes after nine years of being out of school.

Defining Client Needs –

I really enjoyed the Defining Client Needs course because it gave me the knowledge and skills that I needed when first conducting a design project for a client. This course also gave the ability to utilize and implement design strategies to improve the client’s brand within competitive markets. This course has personally increased my skill to be able to draw a multitude of design concepts to give my future client a variety of different views, to achieve a new look for their logo. This course helped me to develop the sketching process for my thesis presentation website. My most outstanding personal triumph in this course was drawing 300 sketches for my logo.

 Brand Development -

The Brand Development course helped me obtained the knowledge that I needed to understand the true definition of what branding was in regard to a company. Throughout this course, I learned that a company’s brand is simply their identity, values, personality, reputation, and purpose that they share to current and future customers. I also gained the ability to use my design skills to visually express a company’s brand through various logo concepts. I personally gained the craft on how to implement two-toned colors to logo concepts, instead of using multiple colors to achieve a creative logo. The Brand Development course helped me to create my community’s logo of Henrico County, Virginia for the thesis presentation website. My greatest triumph for this course was creating something that was innovative and defined the city of Kyoto, Japan.

Effective Copy Writing –

  Effective Copy Writing was one of my favorite courses as well because it finally allowed me to create advertising designs that could be for clients of advertising firms. I also personally gained an understanding the difference between Copywriting and Copyright which is, Copywriting is the act of writing the text that could be used in the form advertisement, while the other is regarding legal rights of ownership to a design or product.  This course enhanced my skills as a media designer by showing how to create various type of ads such as testimonial ads and writing eye-catching headlines. With this course, I was able to create outstanding taglines for my community’s project that was presented within my thesis presentation. My biggest triumph for this course was finding and creating innovating taglines and body copy for the course’s project.  

Design Research –

After taking the Design Research course, I gained the ability to create a direct focus when creating a vision board. I also obtained the ability to develop a strong narrative and theme when constructing a vision board that will greatly enhance my skills as a media designer.  I personally developed my new-found ability to conduct and produce detailed research behind my designs, after taking this course. This course helped me to be very detailed and provide proven facts for my thesis presentation.  My triumph for this course was being able to create a directly focused audience, for the vision board.

 Organizational Structures –

The Organizational Structures course was another course that I enjoyed because it helped me to enhance my professional media design skills by developing motion designs with Adobe After Effects. This course has personally helped me because it allowed me to broaden my professional design skills using Adobe After Effects.  In regard to the thesis presentation project, this course helped me to start a rough draft of the thesis presentation website by utilizing my storyboarding skills to develop the look, and motion of the presentation. The triumph that experienced from this course was being able to create animations from static images using Adobe After Effects.  

Design Strategies and Motivation –

The Design Strategies and Motivation course helped to develop my new media design skills of being able to conduct deepening detailed research about the Henrico County community and having a better understanding of the meaning of what defines a design problem. This course also helped me with on how to create empathy maps to gain a tighter focus on the targeted audience. After this course, I personally developed the ability to scout around a community in order to obtain factual demographic information. This course allowed me to physically learn about my community of Henrico County by talking to residents in the area to collect demographic information, to develop truthful claims for the thesis presentation. My triumph for this course was getting out in the cold weather to capture images of the community and talk to residents in the area.

Design Integration –

The Design Integration course helped me to develop and enhance my media design skills through the creation of the Design Brief for the community project.  As a media designer, this will help me to create and provide factual research for my future client projects. My triumph was understanding the voice and tone, and at times was difficult for me to comprehend. Week by week I began to understand the overall process of voice and tone for my community. By developing the Design Brief, I was able to provide deepening documentation for my thesis presentation

Multi-Platform Delivery –

The Multi-Platform Delivery course gave me exactly what I had been eager to learn in the media design profession. I also grew an understanding of constructing visual concepts that will utilize to the brand’s identity. This course gave me the opportunity to enhance my graphic designing skills using Adobe Photoshop, through the development of the media asset designs for the community’s brand identity. My triumph for this course was creating a logo that was unique to Henrico County and avoid offending anyone with using historical figures to define the community. With this course, I was able to create the final logo concepts for the thesis presentation.  

Measuring Design Effectiveness –

The Measuring Design Effectiveness course helped my media design profession by providing knowledge on how to develop factual demographic results when creating a design that will be seen and used throughout a community. With this course, I personally obtained the skill on how to use survey monkey that could be used to develop demographic information for a client’s project. By developing the surveys that were based on votes of the logo designs for the community, I was able to provide outstanding and factual opinions from the residents about the community’s logo to create a successful thesis presentation. My biggest triumph for this course was getting a higher number of residents to take the demographic survey.

Presentation of Design Solution –

As a media designer, the Presentation of  Design Solution course helps me to present and conduct connecting, synthesizing transforming research behind every a media design concept that I create. This course has also personally taught me that in the design world it is very important to be very detailed behind your design in order to achieve successful results. By using the theories of connecting, synthesizing, transforming, solving problems, innovative thinking, and acquiring competencies allowed me to pull together the thesis presentation.

Professional Practice  

I really wish I had this the course at the beginning of the media design program because it has greatly aided toward my media design profession. I obtain great information on how to maintain ethical and moral practices when creating a design, that I will apply professionally and personally. I also learned that it is very important for a media designer to obtain reproducing rights from the original creator, and have a document of the agreement created in order to avoid any legal action taking place.

Experience Map 

My Experience Map expresses my journey through the media design program by creating a cartoon illustration of myself climbing the hill that represents the courses. The talking bubbles represent my emotions-based and the cartoon’s animations idolize the action-based. Lastly, the detailed content explains my thinking, feeling, and doing throughout each semester.

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2.3 Mastery Journal Reflection

Take away 1.

As I have mentioned in my final draft reflection,  my overall experience creating my thesis presentation website was challenging but was fun as well. As a current Web Designer, the project for the thesis presentation helped to increase, develop, and challenge my skills as well. Before I began this course,  any time that I created a website, the only thing that was important to me was to make sure the website was eye-catching, had flare, and was creative. But after taking the Thesis Presentation of Design Solution course, I have gained and found a new understanding, of why it is vital to conduct research on how the website should be designed.  As a Media Designer, this take away is important to me because, with my new found knowledge, I'm able to take my website designs, beyond looks, and provide deepening reasoning and proven claims.  

Design Layout Sketches 

Take away 2.

My second biggest take away that I took from this course is to provide, maintain, and display my portfolio in a professional manner. Even though this take away was from after viewing a live session, I feel that it still speaks to the project as well because if my portfolio is not displayed in a professional manner and is lacking quantity and quality, then I have a great chance of losing a possible great career opportunity, so as a Media Designer it is very important to me to maintain a professional portfolio, to avoid losing an opportunity. Having, and maintaining a professional portfolio is important because according to Scivicque “ a professional portfolio can help to make a strong impression, provide proof of your value, and differentiate you from the competition”(2013, p.1)

Take away 3

Lastly, my third take away would be, to maintain balance with my website layout, which can be done by following Hampton-Smith’s principle “ Use the Rule of Thirds”(2018,p.1) and following the “ Elements of Iconic design”(Airey, 2014,p.1), whenever I construct a logo design.  As stated in the presentation, I was able to construct a convincing final logo concept, because it followed Airey’s “seven elements of iconic design”(2014,p.1) which are “Keep it simple, Make it relevant, Incorporate tradition, Aim for distinction, Commit to memory, Think Small, Focus on one thing”(2014,p.1). It is important to maintain these core principles as a Media Designer because it will help to always provide a great foundation within my design work.

References

Airey, D. (2014, August 20). Logo Design Love, Annotated and Expanded Edition, Second Edition. Retrieved from https://ce.safaribooksonline.com/book/branding/9780133812589

Hampton-Smith, S., & Hampton-Smith, S. (2018, September 26). How to create balanced page layouts. Retrieved from https://www.creativebloq.com/netmag/create-balanced-page-layouts-7-pro-tips-121310009

Scivicque, C. (2013, September 18). Why You (Yes, You) Need a Professional Portfolio. Retrieved from https://www.themuse.com/advice/why-you-yes-you-need-a-professional-portfolio

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Takeaways for Questionnaire

    After gathering the results of Henrico’s survey questionnaire, I was able to establish the following takeaways from this project. The overall majority of 37.5% responders feel that they would not wear the concept T-shirt, that displays the community’s logo on the front of the T-shirt. With this result, I have learned that I need to revise the concept into a design, that is more fashionable, and that is trending within the community.  I will overcome this task by creating a new questionnaire, to understand the fashion taste of the community.  With the results I will be able to reconstruct a new T-shirt concept, that will be more pleasing to the residents. Also, after receiving the results from the bumper sticker media asset, I have learned that a new concept must be made for this as well. The results came back with 75 % responders saying that they would not put the bumper sticker on their car. As with the T-shirt, a new questionnaire will be constructed, in order to gain an understanding if there is a certain style of a bumper sticker that they may like.

    After the new results from the bumper sticker are received, a new concept will be revised as well, to create a more likable and fitting bumper sticker. With the results I have also learned that there are not enough activities to do within the community, and how residents would like to have activities involving sports, concerts, food drives, and dances. The residents feel by having the stated activities in the community would help them to become more active in the community. According to O'Grady & Visocky O'Grady(2009), “Questionnaires are used to gather opinions and preferences, to collect demographic fact-based data”. After conducting this questionnaire and following the stated rule of O'Grady & VisockyO'Grady, I have found a new skill on how to meet a client’s needs, when creating a media design for their necessities. I also plan to follow the instructions of keeping the questionnaire “ relatively simple”(Collins, 2010)

Questionnaire results

Reference

Collins, H. (2010, September 01). Creative Research. Retrieved from https://ce.safaribooksonline.com/book/design/9782940439676

O'Grady, J. V., & O'Grady, K. (2009, February 01). A Designer's Research Manual: Succeed in Design by Knowing Your Clients and What They Really Need. Retrieved from https://ce.safaribooksonline.com/book/graphic-design/9781592535576

Takeaways for Questionnaire

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Henrico Design Survey

https://forms.gle/Dho4o3Z7gH3NQ16P9

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Henrico County Demographic Survey

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CWGLKCQ

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Mastery Journal

Multi-Platform - Delivery 

Connecting/Synthesizing/Transforming —

After reviewing the feedback that I had received It was decided to go with the alternate route, to avoid offending Indians tribe’s views and religious beliefs, using Pocahontas as a logo concept, and as a representation for the community’s brand Identity of love, unity, and peace.  After conducting further research the choice to use the state’s heart was decided to use as an alternative concept for the Henrico community. The symbol is seen in the public’s view throughout the community and makes a great connection to communicate the brand's Identity because of it represents love, unity, and peace. Through illustration the joined open hands represent the brand’s identity of unity in the community. The open hands show a connected communication to the illustrated heart that represents the love that the community of Henrico County is known for. The half circle makes communication between the heart and open hands that evolves into the brand identity of peace because when you put together love and unity, you will always find peace.

Problem Solving —

The Residents of Henrico County need a way to regain unity within the community because throughout the years the level of morale has decreased. The solution produced ways to encourage residents to engage in face to face communication, that will result in a way to increase the morale and unity, that the community is known for, through the use of media assets such pole banners, welcome signage, bumper stickers, and T-shirts.  The result of creating the media assets will lead to regaining the love, unity, and peace that the community is known, as well as increasing the overall morale level.

 Innovative Thinking —

By creating a pole banner that promotes the community’s brand Identity of unity and peace and placing the pole banners throughout the community helps to solve the design problem of regaining the unity and peace that Henrico County is known for. It has been proven that pole banners work because they are able to reach a larger demographic of the target audience (LRT Graphics, 2019). Creating welcoming signage that encourages the community’s brand Identity of unity, love, peace, and placing them at the entrance of Henrico county, solves the design problem to reestablish the community’s brand identity of peace and unity. It has been proven that using outdoor signage works because it “quickly builds brand awareness” (Perrine, 2017). Developing the bumper sticker moves in the right direction to regain unity and peace, through a transportation perspective.

Also, with the use of the bumper stickers helps to develop the brand identity of unity and peace through the vehicles that travel through the area often. It has been proven that this is an effective promoting method because the message of the brand will be communicated to drivers, within their daily travels. The media also works because studies show that “90% of the people are more trustworthy through word of mouth approval” (Nicholson, 2019). By creating T-shirts for the community helps toward creating and encouraging residents, to engage in face to face conversation. Going in this direction helps to solve the design problem of regaining the unity and peace that the community is known for. Studies have proved that T-shirts are a great form of communicating and promoting a brand because it turns the target audience member into a walking billboard, that will be promoted anywhere that they may go. This also helps the purpose of the brand to promoted through word of mouth, creating a faster result for the solution within the community (Brown, 2018)

Acquiring Competencies —

Throughout the overall process have I learned, how to create a brand identity for the community, and how to create media assets to promote and communicate the brand identity’s message. I also learned how to create illustrated concepts, that will still create a communication to the identity of the brand, and not offend other cultures with illustrations of Pocahontas’s silhouette. Lastly, I have gained a software skill with using Adobe InDesign to create a branding guide.

Reflection

I enjoyed the course of Multi-Platform Delivery very much so. This course provided everything that I was looking for in the Media Design Master’s Degree program. Throughout this course, I have grown as a designer through illustration and theory.  I went from just creating illustrations that looked outstanding, to creating concept illustrations that have support, research, and reasoning behind them.

I also grew an understanding of how to create, and understanding of making visual concepts that will cater to the brand’s identity, and not create any type of confrontation. This course has also given me the ability to finally enhance my skills and create portfolio ready graphic content using the Adobe creative suite software. With this course, I was able to enhance my graphic designing skills using Adobe Photoshop, through the creation of the media asset concepts for the community’s brand identity.  Lastly bringing out a new skill using InDesign to create advertising such as booklets and branding style guides.  

First Concept

Pole Banner

Signage/ Bumper Sticker

T-shirt

Branding Guide

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Mastery Journal- Design Intergration

Connecting/Synthesizing/Transforming —

I started off with creating characteristic adjectives in the voice and tone chart.  The chosen characteristics of peaceful, united, loving, and elegant, where captured by driving around the community. By conducting this research allowed me to select the correct imagery and video footage, that expressed the brand’s identity of peace and unity. The Static Vision Board consist of images that explain unity among the residents of the community. Elegant homes for growing families, and top-quality education for the children of the community. Moving forward into the Dynamic Vision Board, through the research of royalty free stock footage and music, the brand’s identity was expressed through motion and sound.  The stock footage contained views of the elegant landscapes, and scenery of the community’s lavish homes to create a connection to the brand's identity. The Dynamic Vision Board also contains video footage, of families playing together, and two diverse residents shaking hands, connecting the community’s unity. Lastly by using a low tempo, that consisted of a piano and violin, helped to connect the brand identities relaxing tone.

Problem Solving — The design problem that needed to be solved was, residents of Henrico County are in need of a way to regain unity within the community because throughout the years the level of morale has decreased. The solution will produce a way to encourage residents to engage in face to face communication, that will result in a way to increase the morale and unity, that the community is known for.

 Innovative Thinking — By promoting the brand identity through the air, online and environmental advertisements, Henrico County will unite residents and increase morale in the community This will create innovation because it will reach all of the residents of the area.

Acquiring Competencies — With this course, I have learned, that graphic design goes far beyond of graphical art. When creating a graphical advertisement through dynamic motion or print, research must be conducted to understand the voice, tone, and identity of the design. Throughout this course, I have enhanced my skills in research and motivating myself to improve my writing skills.  

 Reflection - As stated in the Design Brief, the entire process of this course was very challenging for me because my writing skill level still needs work. I believe that I may need to take courses again on how to develop a well-structured sentence. I also ran into the challenge of not being able to quickly comprehend content that was not visual, and plan to work on that weak area.  But throughout my challenges, I was able to obtain the skill of pushing my graphic art beyond design, and into research and reasoning.  

The understanding of voice and tone was difficult for me to comprehend. But week by week I began to understand the overall process of voice and tone for my community. Because of this project, I have obtained a new skill, that is far beyond just design graphical art in Adobe Creative Cloud. With the knowledge that I have obtained in the course, I will start to apply research and reasoning behind more of my graphic design. By doing so, I believe will help to develop my career and myself

 Design Brief

Solution

Swot Analysis

Media Matrix

Primary Color and Typography 

Problem Statement

Empathy Map

Proposed Voice and Tone

Dynamic Vision Board 

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Mastery Journal- Design Strategies and Motivation

Connecting/Synthesizing/Transforming - What research did you conduct and utilize to arrive at the design decisions you present –

My research began with the first assignment of Exploration were, I used Google Maps to explore the communities in the city of Richmond, VA for a prospect selection to create the identity development for those chosen communities. Then moving forward to the next assignment of week 2 was I traveled to each physical location, and captured images of the Henrico County, Fan District, and Downtown communities of the city to document each community brand identity.  After creating the SWOT Analysis, Empathy Map, and Interviews of the residents in the community helped me to conclude the design problem of an advertising platform regarding entertaining activities in the county that could cater to the Millennial target audience members way of receiving information.

 Problem Solving - What design problem were you solving? What design problem does the medium you designed for solve according to the industry? How did you solve the problem?

 The Residents of Henrico County are in need of a newer form of advertainment for weekly entertaining activity going on in their community in an advertising style that fits into today’s modern technology of mobile devices. This is important because, in the modern times of today, most people look for activities that they can partake in through their mobile devices for free, rather than pay for a copy of a newspaper to explore the entertaining activities in the community.  As the Designer, I'm solving the problem by promoting entertainment activities that can be a view across social media platform to cater to the Millennial audience.  

 Innovative Thinking - How does your work compare to others in the industry? How did you approach the subject of innovation? How is your work innovative? By developing graphical advertising content for the Millennial audience of Henrico County will reach to them on a level that they are familiar with, creating innovation because a large majority of entertainment activities are posted in the newspaper or on paper flyers across the community.

 Acquiring Competencies - What did you learn overall throughout this process? Any new software? Techniques? Skills? Explain. All though I did not get a chance to enhance my software skills, I did develop a new skill of being able to deeply research about the Henrico County community, and having a basic understanding of what a design problem is and how to develop it.

   All though, this course was not my favorite, due to the lack of still not being able to fully understand the research and design connection of the course. I did overcome to the challenges that I faced, throughout this course of not being able to quickly understand of how to develop a correct problem statement, and how to transform and understand of how to identify the brand identity. I did enjoy getting out the house and going out to take pictures of my city of Richmond, VA, and collecting information through the interview process from the local residents in the Richmond Virginia community to get a better view and understanding of how they really feel about the community that they live in.  

I also learned about what were some of the community’s strengths, and weaknesses that the residents endured each day, and to develop and plan of possible opportunities that could possibly decrease the weaknesses and increase the strengths of the community using the SWOT Analysis. During the research process, it was also decided to select Henrico County as my community selection, in order to maintain focus on an area of Richmond, Virginia that was not over established. I really don’t see myself using the few things that I was able to obtain too often, in my career of Graphic Design, but I do see of where it may possibly be useful as a Freelance Graphic Designer when trying to pitch to a potential client.

Henrico County 

The Fan Area

Downtown

Persona1

Empathy Map Persona 1

Persona 2

Empathy map persona 2

SWOT Analysis 

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Mastery Reflection

Narrative

What makes Kyoto, Japan the best place for Karaoke, because we invited the word Karaoke Come to our notorious Karaoke bar, barcode, where you can be the life of the party while rocking the crowd with knocking your socks off bodacious pop music by our, show-stopping hypnotic DJ. Hungry? No need to leave, we got you, with our mouth-watering cuisine that will keep you begging for more. So, what are you waiting for? Come join the party and rock the night away with us.

Storyboard

The motion graphic of the storyboard will come in with a fade in animation that will glitch from the start of Kyoto’s logo, between the transitional glitching of the logo will display video content of people partying to pop music, singing karaoke, and enjoying Japanese cuisine. Also, it will contain, the vision boards theme, word font, and color pallet, after all the content has been shown, the motion graphic of Kyoto’s logo will then transition from glitching to a still image of the logo.

Dynamic Vision Board

The dynamic vision board begins with people partying, to the karaoke band on stage, while the theme word “Party” overlays on the video, with both using glitching effects to capture the moment of its surroundings. Using the vertical distort video effect, the next video transitions into showing a happy couple feasting, and then transforms into a colorful audio wave representing the RGB, and CMYK colors from the static vision board. Lastly, the dynamic board evolves into the font types “Impact, Times, and Arial” with flashing text animation to capture the tone of the party crowd and ending with a motion graphic of the Kyoto logo.

Parallax Imagery

For the Motion in Context project, the motion graphics style of Parallax Image was chosen, to give the target audience the 2.5D perspective, to make them feel like they are a part of the experience. The Parallax Imagery animation starts off with an animation zooming in on a young couple enjoying Japanese cuisine, then transitioning to a zoom out/ zoom in animation of a woman singing Karaoke, then lastly crossfading into a zoomed in animation that focuses on the DJ, hyping up the party crowd.

Connecting/Synthesizing/Transforming 

Studying Lower’s (2016) “Animation frame settings” for the Dynamic Vision helped out to develop the frame rate of the animations, this was Important because a fast but steady pace was needed to capture the look and feel of a party. To help prove that Parallax Imagery was the correct style to use for the motion concept to capture the message of the brand. Research findings from Author Harrington were found which stated that the Parallax Imagery effects “add perspective and depth to backdrops, as well as motion graphics” (Harrington, 2015). With that research found it helped proved, Parallax Imagery was the correct style to use because of its perspective technique to make the target audience member feel as if they were there. 

Problem Solving

Finding copyright free stock video and photos became very hard at times, but was corrected by finding the open source websites Upsplash and Pexels. It was a must to have copyright-free content, to avoid copyright infringement  

Innovative Thinking

By using the Parallax Imagery effect for the motion concept and creating a Dynamic Board filled with glitching effects and fast-paced animation of people coming together to dance, sing, and eat Japanese food, it creates a journey for the audience and making them feel as if they were there, setting this apart from other nightclubs/karaoke bars because they do not take this approach.

Acquiring Competencies

At the end of this process I acquired, a new skill and understanding of how to create motion graphics, and how to create video animation with just using Adobe Photoshop and After Effects.

Reflect

With my new gained knowledge of motion graphics, I plan to pursue a career as a Motion Graphics Designer and create side projects for my portfolio.

References

Harrington, R. (2015, January 29). How to use motion control 3D in your projects. Retrieved from https://www.lynda.com/After-Effects-tutorials/How-use-motion-control-3D-your-projects/166366/370644-4.html

Lowery, O. (2016, June 30). Animation frame settings. Retrieved from https://www.lynda.com/After-Effects-tutorials/Animation-frame-settings/483236/506054-4.html

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Design Research- Mastery Reflection

From the beginning and middle of the course was a huge challenge for me, I struggled with the assignment because I didn’t understand and couldn’t get a sense of direction to create a vision board that was focused to one group. Then became very frustrated and confused after receiving feedback that my design for my first vision board that created a focus for target audience members who enjoy Japanese artifacts, nature, and culture still was not focused. After conducting further research and drawing inspiration from my modern culture vision board from the branding course, I was able to gain a better focus on the vision board by narrowing it down karaoke. Karaoke was chosen because it’s very popular in Kyoto, Japan among the younger audience members. With this direction I was able to also create a more focused narrative, that only spoke to a group of people who like to sing karaoke, party, and eat Japanese food.

For the area of synthesizing, I feel that I made a great connection when creating the concept for my wireframes by following the rules of smooth scrolling that Revill (2014) state “allows users to easily bypass the information in which they are not interested and go directly to that in which they are” and following the quote of  Patel (2014) “better engaging content” which is the reason why responsive design is a must to reach and display on both desktop and mobile devices when creating a website.

Desktop

Tablet

Phone

For Problem Solving, my design problem was trying to create a focus narrative and vision board. I did not understand at first and became frustrated and confused because I was always told that, by having a group of people who like Japanese artifacts, culture, food, and nature was not classified as one group. So, I resolve the issue by choosing karaoke because it mainly focuses on younger audience members who like to party, and have fun.

In the thoughts of Innovative Thinking, the standard design choice mostly consists of colors, shapes, text, and photos that collage and match with each other. When it comes to constructing infographics and vision boards I feel my designs are still standard, but I plan to present stronger innovative thinking concepts to this project in the future by researching and studying from other designers that will hopefully result to a concept that presents creativity and originality.

Regarding Acquiring Competencies, the following techniques I feel help to improve me as a designer are Krug’s (2013) “Not Thinking”, and “it’s important to make it easy to tell what’s clickable”. By using these techniques, I feel would help to improve my construction of website designing to make a website that is user-friendly that the user does not have to think and never confused about, the functionality of the website. Lastly improving my voice and tone skills by studying Busche’s (2017) “Powering Content”.

References

Busche, L. (2017). Powering content: Building a nonstop content marketing machine. Sebastopol, CA: OReilly.

Krug, S. (December 24, 2013) Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Third Edition. Publisher: New Rider. Retrieved from: http://ce.safaribooksonline.com/book/web-design-and-development/9780133597271

[mood board] (2018) Retrieved from https://99designs.com/blog/tips/how-to-create-a-mood-board/

Patel, S. K. (2014). Responsive Web Design with AngularJS.

[Responsive design multiple devices] (2018) Retrieved from https://responsivedesign.is/examples/

[Responsive web design layout] (2018) Retrieved from https://designmodo.com/responsive-design-examples/

Revill, L. (2014). JQuery 2.0 development cookbook: Over 80 recipes providing modern solutions to web development problems with real-world examples. Birmingham: Packt publ.

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4.4.1 Mastery Learning Project: Project Reflection

         I really enjoyed the Effective Copy Writing course, before learning about the course, I thought it was about, the type of copywriting, that is used to preserve the rights of a creator’s content. But correctly learned that the course was about writing content such as advertising campaigns, flyers, taglines, and magazines. The non-profit organization that I chose for the adverting campaign project was the Children’s Disaster Services Organization. This was my organization of choice because, I have a big heart for children, and always strongly felt they are number one on the list of saving and helping in a disaster. Therefore, making it important to create public awareness, to gain volunteers and donations to end child suffering from natural or human-caused disasters.

        I got off to a rocky start and feel a little behind creating the six sketches for my concepts, because of having to repair my vehicle so I would have transportation, and being affected by Tropical Storm Michael, that caused power outages, and major flooding in my area. When my apartment regained power, I was able to sketch the six concepts with ease, because of my years of experience as an artist, drawing sketches since my days of Art courses, during higher general education years.

        Following Felton’s (2013,p.246) “Just plain folks” theory, I sketched a little girl named Grace, that was a victim of a natural hurricane disaster, making her a possible contender as a spokesperson. Using Felton’s (2013,p.86) “Expert” rules, the first persona that I created was a woman named Joy Mallery, that was a Head Chef, owner of her own Diner, and a volunteer cook for the Children’s Disaster Services Organization, and chose to include her in the concepts reading and serving home cooked hot meals to the children. I chose to use Joy as a persona because through her character she speaks to the target audience of volunteers and donators. I attempted to use Grace as the second persona but then received understanding feedback, that because she was a child, she should not be used as a persona, but as a possible spokesperson, and included her in the comps as that.

        Miss understanding the first initial comp assignment, I submitted three of the strongest sketches, instead of three rough drafts for the testimonial ad. Corrections were made, and three initial comps were created to resolve this issue by studying the “What is a final comp?” (Smallish, 2014). The most challenging part of making the testimonial ad comps were the taglines. It was a tedious task because I had to develop a tagline that was catchy, not cliché, and stayed under the seven words rule. After studying Swartz’s (2018) “Tagline Guru”, and Felton’s (2013,p.224) “Invoke the Rule of Threes” I was able to create a memorable tagline, “Love, Care, Restore” for the organization. I chose those words for the tagline because it voices the organization’s goals, which is simply to provide love and care to the children and help restore their lives back to normal from the disaster, as stated from my discussion.

        The concept presents Grace (a natural disaster victim) still being able to jump rope through blown down trees and houses and have fun despite, that she lost everything because of Hurricane Maria. The idea behind this concept is for viewers to see even though she is having fun, donations are still needed so she can have fun in a better environment. Grace makes a great candidate for this ad because she shows she can be happy, no matter her surroundings.

        This sketch shows Joy serving a hot meal she has cooked to the child disaster victim in a shelter, along with other children with smiles on their faces, as they eat and enjoy their food, that Joy has prepared. The idea behind the concept is to make a public awareness that volunteers are welcomed to join and help Joy serve smiles. She makes the perfect person because she is able to bring joy to children, and displaying the image that others can too.

        This concept drawing shows Grace trying to restore Puerto Rico by herself and surrounded around trees that had fallen because of the hurricane.  This concept ad makes a public awareness that Grace needs help from volunteers and is the right person for this concept because she is a child that simply needs help to restore her land.

        The sketch shows Joy without her cooking attire on and reading to the children in a disaster shelter. She shows she is the correct person for this ad because of how she is smiling while reading to the children and may possibly get other volunteers to join as well.

        The ad concept displays Grace playing fetch with her dog Rio, in the middle a street because there is nowhere else to play due to the blown down houses and trees and they make great candidates because the image grabs the public’s attention, to help immediately.

        The final sketch shows Grace reading her favorite World Nature Magazine and determined to learn how can she help to restore Puerto Rico. She is the right person for this concept sketch because she presents the idea and somewhat of a call to action for others to pitch in because she can’t do it by herself.

                              Initial Testimonial Comps

        During the process of making the initial comps, it became difficult to find free stock images, that resembled the concept sketches, resulting to only finding one image that captured the message behind the concept of Grace. The three initial strongest concepts, were created using stock images that spoke through individual voices, and then grabbing the attention of  the volunteering and donating targeted audience, The headlines, body copy, and call to action  were created by following Felton’s (2013, p.209) “ Imitate Speech rather than writing” because as you read the content you feel, as if the testimonial campaign ad is speaking directly to you, along with the memorable tagline as stated using Felton’s (2013, p.224) “Invoke the Rule of Threes”

                             Revised Testimonial Comps

After receiving feedback, I adjusted the text to be legible, by using a bolder San-Serif typography. I then went back to week two and studied the (Full Sail University, "Setup-for-Print-: InDesign", 2018) tutorial to adjust the bleed and trim to show crop marks. I then aligned the content to the live area of the document to avoid, any of the content being cut off during the printing process.

                               My Three Takeaways

·         Always provide research to back up your options,

·         Create memorable concepts and maintain creativity

·         Keep a positive, and an open mind for feedback

                                      References

Children's Disaster Services volunteers. (2018). Retrieved from           http://www.brethren.org/cds/volunteer/

Felton, G. (2013). Advertising: Concept and copy. New York: Norton & Company.

Setup-for-Print-: InDesign. (2018, October 21). Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/268827362

Smallish, C. (2014, May 27). Designing a Print Ad. Retrieved from  https://www.lynda.com/Design-Page-Layout-tutorials/Designing-Print-Ad/155264-2.html?org=fullsailold.edu

Swartz, E. (2018). TaglineGuru. Retrieved from https://www.taglineguru.com/functional.html

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Final - Tradition Toolbox

Strengths

Creativity, highly skilled in Adobe Illustrator, professional content, and color.

Weaknesses

Finding clear images, struggling with toolbox structure, lack branding experience.

Opportunities

Deeper research, research toolbox examples, view branding tutorials.

Threats

Not having enough time, tired, not being to get sleep

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Final- Geography Toolbox

Strengths

Creating the garden concept, professional use of color, connecting the logo with Kyoto Japan’s gardens.

Weaknesses

Finding non-copyrighted images, having issues using the pen tool, defensive to critiques.

Opportunities

Practice how to use the pen tool, filter google images search, view pen tool tutorials

Threats

Not having two days off from work, nothing having enough workspace

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Final - Modern Culture Toolbox

Strengths

Capturing the modern culture concept, bringing the logo together with the toolbox,

Weaknesses

Having issues with the text boxes, struggling with the type font, find an easier route for the construct the color palettes.

Opportunities

View text box tutorials view how-to articles for type font, use Adobe’s Color software

 Threats

Time management issues, working split days, under able to think with loud neighbors.

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Final- SWOT ANALYSIS

Strengths

During the process of my toolbox project, the strengths that showed in each toolbox were, creativity, a skilled designer, and knowledge of Adobe Illustrator. Also, being able to quickly understand how to use new tools of Adobe Illustrator Creative Cloud.  Even though this was my first time learning and comprehending the meaning of branding and how to create the concepts behind it, I was able to learn at a fast pace, during week two of the course.

Weaknesses

The weaknesses that I experience during the development of my toolboxes were, being defensive to critiques about my logos, not getting enough rest or taking breaks from my toolboxes. Also, because I’ am still trying to gain industry experience, I became lost in the first week, causing to lose track of time. Because I work overnight, some days I was greatly fatigued and causing me to fall back in one of my assignments or working on the assignment the day of that it was due. Thus, resulting in not being able to manage my time, and becoming overwhelmed doing week four.

Opportunities

The doors of opportunities that I came to realize to overcome my weaknesses were, increasing my knowledge of branding, by studying a few books, and online videos of the importance of branding, and how it pertains to me as a future Media Designer. Also viewing a few Adobe Illustrator tutorials to enhance my designer skills.  By following this path, would open doors to finally gain industry experience, and earning my Master’s in Fine Arts of the Media Design program, and learn how to take in critique, not as an insult to my work, but how to improve myself.

Threats

Unfortunately, when opportunities present itself, it is always accompanied by threats, that stands as a roadblock to pursuing that opportunity, so the goals that result from the opportunity, will not be achieved. The threats that still to continually stand in my way of experiencing the opportunities that wait for me are, never having enough time, because I work a full-time job overnight. Which is the cause of not being able to be ahead, as I wanted to throughout the design process of my toolboxes. Also trying to find the right sources to create the toolboxes, to connect the logo and Kyoto Japan’s brand, which became very difficult at times while trying to juggle my Art Gallery at the same time.  

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Final Toolboxes

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Final Tradition vision broad

Geography vision board - in progress

Modern culture - in progress

SWOT - Still in progress