Hello everyone! Here is some advice for this upcoming class. It will truly be a labor of love, but if you put in effort, you will end up with some incredible work that is completely unique to you.
- Don’t put too much pressure on yourself for your first draft. Strong projects take a lot of time because good design takes a lot of thought. For your first turn in of a project, put all you can into it, but just know you will get a significant amount of feedback that will make you and your project better. You will have time to redo projects and trust me you will need it, so take the critiques of others seriously.
- Thrive on critique and give it back. The only way to grow is for people to tell you what you’re struggling with. If you aren’t used to getting advice on your designs, get used to it because it will only help you. It is also really beneficial to critique other’s work because you start to see things in other people’s work and then you can apply it to your own. It makes you a more conscious designer.
- Get involved in design projects outside just this class. If you aren’t designing anything except for class, you will be really behind your other classmates and it will be really frustrating because it will seem like they’re improving more quickly. This is easily remedied if you get involved with anything design-related outside of class whether its for a campus publication, an internship or even a professor’s design work. There are countless opportunities to build your resume and portfolio with professional work so take advantage because it will definitely inform your work in this class, too.
This is going to be a wonderful semester so take everything in, breathe because it will get stressful and enjoy!
