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Mastery Journal

Discuss how each course in your degree program contributed to your personal and professional development as a media designer.

Mastery: Personal Development and Leadership – This first course allowed me to get back into the academic groove. Working in APA style again was interesting, and it contributed to my personal growth as a designer by giving me the ability lay out all of my ideas in a concise manner that clients and other peers would be able to understand. Plus, this class was kind of a kick-start into the media design program experience.

Defining Client Needs – By learning to define client needs, I will be able to provide a better design for my client, as well as ensuring that the target audience is taken into consideration. Designing a logo for the city branding project allowed to me to get back to basics with the sketch phase, and let me flex my creative muscles. Overall, this course gives me the ability to think as a designer and a client.

Brand Development – Building a brand is different from designing a logo. It encompasses a multiple of media, and represents a company as a whole. This class contributes to my personal and professional development, by teaching me what it takes to create a successful brand. Research as well as design goes into building a brand, and one without the other will ensure failure.

Effective Copywriting – Working on my writing skills was an important part of this degree process. Copywriting can either ensure an ads success or failure. In this class we worked on an ad for a non-profit organization. By learning how to craft tag-lines and callouts, I will be able to put this towards my professional career.

Design Research – A large amount of research goes into media design, and that was the one thing I knew I would be taking into my professional career. Making informed design decisions, and translating a client’s design ideas into a workable marketing vehicle is what this course taught me.

Organizational Structures – I had never worked too much with motion graphics before, so this was a new experience for me. Creating a dynamic vision board and a cinemagraph has enabled me to work on design that incorporates motion. Understanding how motion can take a brand to the next level is important as a designer. Now that I have the skills to work with this different form of media, I can bring this into my work career, and help my future clients.

Design Strategies and Motivation – Working on a re-branding project let me look at something old and figure out how to revamp it. Personally, this course put me through the ringer, but taught me about organization and how to balance work and school life. Professionally, I will be able to take the knowledge I gained from conducting demographic research, and apply it towards my future design methods.

Design Integration – The work that goes into creating media assets is extreme. In this class I continued my city re-branding project, working on the voice and tone of the brand; as well as making media assets that represented the city. Research, branding sketches, asset experimentation, and rationales are my professional takeaway from this course.

Multi-Platform Delivery – My takeaway from this class was the need for rationales behind your designs. In the professional world, it’s important to have valid reasons for your design choices. 9 times out of 10, you are more likely to convince a client of a particular solution if you have to the research to back it up.

Measuring Design Effectiveness – This time around we were testing of city re-branding projects overall design effectiveness. Conducting surveys and providing the public with options is a valid way of testing your design. I gained a better understanding of my target market, and have refined my critical thinking skills.

Thesis: Presentation of Design Solution ­– This course further allowed me to explain my design choices, as well as the reasoning that could be backed up by the main DLO’s of our design program. As stated before, being able to validate the rationale behind your work is important for the clients you work with in the future. Furthermore, how you write determines how connected the viewer will be to your work.

Professional Practice – As the last class in the program, was taught about the morals and ethics in the design world. Copywrite, design standards, and much more goes into professional practice. My takeaway for the future would be that I will conduct myself in a way that doesn’t jeopardize my personal integrity, and protects the publics interests; while satisfying the client.

Described how the techniques in each course helped you complete your thesis project (do not include month 12: Professional Practice) and you described your most outstanding personal triumph in each course.

Mastery: Personal Development and Leadership – Learning how to properly write in an APA format. This prepared me for what was to come with the Thesis project.

Personal Triumph: Completing the first course with little to no difficulty. I was really scared that I would fail at the beginning, so being able to do well in this class helped build my confidence for the rest of the program.

Defining Client Needs – This course showed me how to approach a client’s need the correct way, and ensure that the brand and the needs matched up.

Personal Triumph: Understanding the client. We created mind-maps that gave us insight into the prospective target market. I was proud of myself, when my work began to align itself with the client in the proper manner.

Brand Development – This showed me that “brand” and “logo” are separate, and that it takes more than a cool design to capture your audience’s attention.

Personal Triumph: Creating the logo for the first big project was the highlight of this class. From the sketching phase to the refinement phase, I loved making a logo that began to encompass the brands overall voice and tone.

Effective Copywriting – Learning to write in a convincing manner was the base of my project. I had to convince people that I fully understood the degree plans DLO’s, and this course helped me with that.

Personal Triumph: Coming up with a tagline for the non-profit ad we created.

Design Research – Research was another important part of the thesis project, and finding info that backs up your work is imperative when you try to explain your design choices to others.

Personal Triumph: Figuring out how to back up my work with a rationale that made sense to the reader. Plus, I began to get the hang of forming narratives for the project we were working on.

Organizational Structures – This class helped me learn the importance of hierarchy.

Personal Triumph: I hate—absolutely hate—most of After Effects, so creating a working dynamic vision board, and then a cinemagraph was really satisfying.

Design Strategies and Motivation – I used the re-branding project in my thesis presentation, so ironing out the details of this was important to my las project. Some of the techniques I learned were designing problem statements, and creating multiple solutions.

Personal Triumph: Forming the elevator pitch for the re-branding project.

Design Integration – Month 8 contributed to my thesis presentation by teaching me how to provide a thorough rationale for my design work.

Personal Triumph: Designing the media assets for the OKC re-branding project was awesome, but getting really positive feedback from my professor and peers was really nice.

Multi-Platform Delivery – The brand-style guide was basis of this course, and after completing it, I was able to provide a proper rationale for my work, and then present it in month 11.

Personal Triumph: Making the OKC logo, and creating the brand style-guide for the overall campaign.

Measuring Design Effectiveness – Understanding your audience is a key part of design. The survey gave me the ability to test my project design effectiveness, and then present it in my thesis later on under “Connecting, Synthesizing, and Transforming”.

Personal Triumph: Getting done with that survey, and receiving a good grade in the class. This class was a bit of a struggle for me, so when it was done, and I saw that my hard work paid off, I was elated.

Thesis: Presentation of Design Solution ­– Working on the layout design, and website creation was what we worked on in this course. Researching web design and hierarchy contributed to the creation of my thesis presentation.

Personal Triumph: Being done with the course. This by far was the most difficult course. Creating the design thesis was tedious, and when it was finished, I felt like a weight had been lifted off of me, and I was proud of my work.

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Experience Map

The last assignment for this course was creating an experience map. An experience map highlights the ups and downs of a process, as well as some of the thoughts and feeling you had during that time. My experience map detailed some of my thoughts, feelings, and actions during the MFA program. Overall, it was an interesting way to look back at the degree program, and see how I excelled—or didn’t—at different times in my academic career.

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Peer Reviews

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Thesis Website

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Examples of Website Layout Ideas

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Course 11-TPDS Mastery Journal

This month we worked on our Thesis Websites, and while this course has been treacherous, I do think I’ve come out the better for it. Between peer reviews, constant revisions, and mountains upon mountains of research; this class has given me the skills to properly problem solve, research thoroughly, and think creatively.

Conducting Research

The first take away from this course was how to properly defend my work with research. When going in to the thesis assignment, I had somewhat of an idea as to how I would put together my website, but I didn’t fully understand how much research would be needed. Backing up design choices with studies that have proven their value became second nature. We had previously done that in past courses, but I believe that this class has put me through the ringer when it comes to citing sources correctly, and making sure that I’m not just quoting my source, but also explaining that logic in my own words in order to prove my choices are correct. My personal growth has definitely been affected for the better, and I would say that I will be able to apply this knowledge to future projects as a media designer. Being able to defend your design choices is one thing, but being able to back those choices up with research proves that you’ve put the time and effort into your work, and actually thought about what’s best for your client.

Peer Reviews

Conducting and receiving peer reviews has been instrumental in how I continue to improve upon my work. When working on my projects, getting that feedback from a third party always helps me see things that I might not have noticed. As designers, I think we can get tunnel vision when it comes to our own work, so having some look at your designs from an unbiased view point allows to you get the info you need in order to make your work better. Working on this thesis assignment is a great example of this. Some of the information that I included on my DLO pages lacked the proper depth, and there were bits and pieces that could be moved around in order better accommodate their pages theme. Overall, getting critiqued allows me to be a better designer, and it also helps me see things from a different viewpoint. Sometimes when I was giving a fellow student a review, I would notice things that we did similarly, but seeing it on their work instead of my own showed me how I could improve as well.

Managing Time

This month has been stressful. Between work and school, and the ridiculous summer weather that Oklahoma has, it has been a serious juggling act. Managing my time properly (or sometimes improperly) has been a battle. With large projects like this, creating calendar updates, or blocking out time to do my assignments was very helpful, but at the same time, sometimes life just got the better of me. I had one late assignment during this course that made me approach the rest of the course a little bit differently. Figuring out how to properly balance school, work, and life is the most difficult thing I had to do this month, but I believe I am the better for it. The takeaway from this was that I need to find a happy medium between work and school. As a designer, I am working on multiple projects at work and then more projects when I come home and begin school. Staying ahead and taking the time to sit down and work on my assignments, instead of pushing everything to the weekend is what I had to change. This is important to me as a designer, because I never want my work to suffer because I procrastinated in one area in order to accommodate for another.

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Mastery Reflection

This month we worked on design effectiveness. Tasked to create a survey that measured how well our re-branding campaigns preformed, this course was a bit of a roller-coaster. Creating a survey was more in-depth than I expected it to be. With work and the Oklahoma weather being a bit of a hinderance, I struggled more in this class than I have with any of the previous courses. Still, the overall process has allowed me to get the perspective of my target market, and apply their suggestions in the future. There were several takeaways that I gained from this process.

The first would have to be the process of forming design survey questions. How you formulate question will have a large impact on how your designs are received, and how much data you can analyze to improve your work. Christopher Peters notes that “the way you structure questions and answers will define the limits of analysis that are available to you when summarizing results” (Peters, 2019). My survey consisted of more open-ended questions, and in doing so, I limited the amount of people who would want to take my survey. Comment based questions can sometimes be seen as too tedious to answer, and usually it does not get the in-depth response that you would need to better your designs. Furthermore, people tend to want to be liked, so their answers may not be how they actually feel. Multiple-choice questions give people that sense of anonymity that makes them feel more comfortable. Plus, you can gather a good amount of information from multiple people, and it gives you a better chance of reaching your chosen demographic.

Secondly, creating a demographic section in the survey is important. This ensures that you are getting the needed responses from your target audience. Without this portion of the survey, the responses you gather can still be applied to improving your designs, but you can ensure that they will reach the specific audiences you are marketing towards. With my survey, it reached several people in the age demographic that I wanted to reach, but the outreach wasn’t as great as I wanted. With that being said, this would be my third takeaway. Using the online platform seemed to reach more of a younger generation—which was good—but there was a significantly smaller amount of people over the age of 50 that responded. In the future, I would utilize different survey platforms like mailed questionnaires, or surveys that you hand out at events and then are resubmitted before they left. Overall, this process has shed some light on what I need to fix in my design, as well as what works and how it correctly represent the group of people, I’m marketing to. In the future I will use the information I have gathered, and this experience in order to always try to stay objective when it comes to my designs, and take criticism in order to improve my work.

References

Best, K. (2006). Design Management: Managing Design Strategy, Process, and Implementation. Switzerland: AVA Publishing.

Peter, C. (2019). How to Design and Analyze a Survey. Retrieved from https://zapier.com/learn/forms-surveys/design-analyze-survey/#styles

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Brand Styleguide

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Mastery Journal

This month, we were required to create media assets, as well as brand style guides for our city branding project. Keeping both of these aspects of the projects brand consistent was very important. For the media assets, I created pole banners, signage, bumper stickers, and a social media platform. Each of these assets needed to fall in line with the brands voice/tone as well as its characteristics. Reviewing the other materials that we had already worked in previous courses, and reworking my design brief was something that helped me work on the media assets and keep them consistent with the brand. The brand style guide that we worked on, also needed brand consistency, and information that was easily understandable by our target audience. The key takeaway from this month’s course was brand consistency. Keeping all aspects of your brand consistent with the brands voice/tone and characteristics keeps the overall campaign on track. Furthermore, keeping brand assets constant allows the entire campaign to feel coherent, and makes the information more accessible and memorable to the public. The research that I did for this course was specifically over typography, shapes, and imagery. The media assets relied heavily on communicating the right message to my target audience. The typography that I use is a combination of sans serifs and serifs. They are easily readable, and they connect to both younger and older generations.

My design problem deals with reaching multiple age ranges, so selecting fonts that worked for both demographics was very important. As far as the psychology of shapes go, I selected geometric shapes that were a direct call back to the logo. The shapes have a free form feel that wrap around the imagery, and support the text on the media assets. As far the imagery goes, I did research in order to see what would communicate the brands ideals, and get across the voice and tone properly. Overall, the research that I did contributed to this project, and helped me synthesize my findings, and helped me connect the different aspects of this project into a cohesive unit. The design problem for this project was the generation gap beginning to form in the downtown OKC area. My goal for this project was to reach people from multiple age demographics and bring them together as a community. The way I solved this design problem was thoroughly researching both demographics, and seeing how advertising affects both. Media assets specifically played a role in solving this problem. The pole banners and signage communicate a community that is inclusive and creative. Additionally, these types of assets work with the amount of foot traffic that cycles through Oklahoma City. It reaches my demographics because it follows brand characteristics, and it clearly connects with both multiple age groups.

Lastly, the assets solve the problem by adhering to the brands voice and tone. Oklahoma City’s brand characteristics are welcoming, classic, eclectic, and inclusive. By keeping the media assets consistent with those characteristics, I was able to solve the design problem the city faced. My work differs from others in the industry because of its use of geometric shapes, research, illustrative imagery, and demographic inclusivity. By utilizing multiple design competencies, I was able to create something that reached multiple age ranges. Researching multiple design ideas that cater towards different ages allowed me to combine them into something that worked for everyone. One of the things that I struggled with was possibly losing my target audience. When you use too many design ideas you risk alienating someone. With that being said, the imagery and shapes that I chose to use helped create a more cohesive brand that stood out from other brands. Brand consistency is what I learned from this process. Keeping everything coherent and brand consistent helps your audience connect to your project. Furthermore, you don’t run the risk of confusing your audience when you have assets that directly connect to the rest of your brand. I can definitely utilize this as a skill in the future. Bringing this into the workroom or even other class projects, will be beneficial.

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Mastery Journal

Overview of the material and concepts learned this month

This month has been a process. Juggling assignments along with work and personal issues has made this one of my most difficult courses. We further delved into the branding of our chosen City’s this month. A long with completing our design brief’s we created static and dynamic vision boards that showcased our texture, color palette, and typography choices for this assignment. Creating the dynamic vision board is what I missed this month due to personal and work circumstances. More research was required for this month, and figuring out how demographics played a role in advertising was instrumental in my work.

In completing the design brief we focused on voice and tone, as well as media assets. Voice and tone play a large role in the branding of the OKC Metro area because they need to correctly identify with the city’s brand. Additionally, creating media assets will act as promotional advertisements for the city, and create word of mouth/generate interest.

Connecting/Synthesizing/Transforming

The research I conducted centered around marketing and creating the proper voice and tone. For marketing, I researched more of the community’s demographic, and saw which age ranges were using digital or print media. The older generations had some experience with digital platforms, but most utilized print media on a larger basis. It was the opposite for younger generations. Social media plays a large role in advertising to them, and Instagram in particular was the main avenue for them to see different event going on downtown. Creating the proper voice and tone required the same amount of research as well. Due to the different age demographic, I had to come up with a voice and tone that reached both generations. Creating a brand voice chart helped me identify the brands characteristics, and how these contributed to the campaign. In the end, these forms of research allowed me to finish the design brief for this course.

Problem Solving

The design problem that I faced was still the same as the previous course. There is a generation gap beginning to form in the downtown OKC area. Creating a voice and tone for the city’s brand, as well as creating media assets is the solution. The voice and tone establish the city’s brand and fall in line with the community’s vision and overall personality. For media assets they solve my design problem by generating interest in the downtown area, and reach multiple age ranges.

Innovative Thinking

I approached the subject of innovation by researching different media assets and how they would generate interest for the OKC Metro area. Retro marketing is another way that the branding for this assignment is different from others. This is a marketing technique that utilizes the feeling of nostalgia along with the modern advances we see with present day product and packaging. Due to the fact that my problem statement revolved around the generation gap in the city I chose, using this form of marketing can bridge that gap. It takes the old and the new, and creates something that reaches multiple age demographics.

Acquiring Competencies

This process has taught me the importance of time management as well as proper research in to marketing materials. I stated before that personal and work life kind of got out of hand this month, so I missed one of the assignments that was due for this course. My takeaway from this is that I need to prioritize better, and that creating a schedule when things are getting difficult will help me push through and get things done on time. On the other hand, research has become one of the tools that I have added to my tool belt. Demographic research played a role in how I established the voice and tone for this project as well as the media assets. I didn’t work with any knew software, but I did learn some knew tricks when it came to Illustrator and InDesign. Creating different layouts with these programs is something that I can take into future assignments as well as work.

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