Hello designers! I hope you all are excited for VIS 317, it’s going to be so a lot of fun and great experience! It’s also going to be a lot of hard work, but trust me it will be worth it in the end when you see your final portfolio so hang in there. Here are some tips to help you prepare for it:
Start early.
I know you should do this on all your assignments, but let’s face it not many students start every assignment they get early. If you get into this habit with your design projects though it will make your life so much easier. I started my animal illustrations right when I got them and worked on them a little bit at a time every day since they can be very frustrating. It made the project a lot more fun to design, whereas waiting until closer to the due date to start will leave you less time to develop your concept and try out multiple solutions.
Get help.
Definitely go see Professor Strong for office hours whenever you need some advice or are stuck on a project. That’s what she’s there for and she gives great advice about your projects and a lot of the time you will learn more about the programs and design theories in general from talking with her. Take advantage of the great help, and she’s really fun to talk to as well. I spent the entire day before the typeface exhibit in her office perfecting my panels and it was honestly a lot of fun!
Stay confident.
Remember that everyone has to start somewhere and learning is a huge part of the process. I remember coming in on the first day of class with my movie poster thinking it was amazing and was so excited to show it. Now I look back at my original and think oh my god what was I doing? Don’t let this get you down, you will get so much better over the semester after learning more of the design principles and learning how to better develop the concept of the design. Now I look at my projects and am proud of all the hard work I did to elevate them to the level they’re at now.
Good luck and have a great semester!
