DES 200 Process B o o k Naqiyah Mustafa g00064520
Assignment
1
ONE day Visual representation of personal daily activities Initially we were asked to record our day in 15 minute intervals. After doing that we brainstormed ideas in which we would be able to represent our day in a form thats visually legible and understandable, The purpose of the assignment was to be able to choose and utilize elements for appropriate and effective communication and to present complex information such as our daily activities in an understandable and visual form.
Sketches
I decided to go with this idea because it looked extremely complicated but it had a sense of order which i believed would represent my day accurately since my day felt complicated but also had a sense of order.
Research After Deciding that i wanted to go ahead with idea 3 i started to look for examples that were similar to my idea so that it would be easier for me to conceptualize my idea.
Experimentation Once i had a clearer image in my head of what to do i started to experiment.
A really important segment of the poster was the icons that i was going to use to represent the activities that i had done in the day. i began with creating the icons in black and white to represent the activity in the simplest form.
This was my 1st iteration of the icons
This was my 2nd iteration of the icons after realizing the mistakes in the 1st one.
I then started to work with the main element of the poster which was to arrange my icons in a way that sucessfully represents my day.
Initially i wanted to create a sense of a symmetry but soon realized that wont work because it would be extremely hard to place in my icons and display my day accurately.
I started to develop my idea further and tried to place the icons around in a systematic order to try to get an essence of my day accurately.
Using my previous idea i started to formulate a structure in black and white to understand my design better and eliminate any unnecessary elements.
After creating my black and white version i started to work with colors and used colors to represent the different times in a day. To be able to get the most accurate depiction of the day and the colors, i began to research colors and was soon able to use a palatte that was most suitable for the poster. By creating a gradient consisting of all the colors in a day I was able to represent my activities and when they were done in a very orderly and visually compelling manner.
Result For my main piece i was able to represent my day in a visually compelling way by using the colors and icons. the use of color and shape really emphasizes the importance of the activities.
Assignment
2
Design Stories Design stories was a project where we were asked to read through 5 different articles and choose one of them to use in a booklet that we would be designing. the purpose was to create a multi-purpose booklet that represents the article in a way that holds true to its content. most important aspect of it was to create a booklet that considers the articles central idea and develops a layout that appropriate to represent the article in its true form.
Sketches
These are some of the ideas that i brainstormed just to see how i would want my magazine to look like. i took inspiration from online websites and library books. the sketches helped me to understand my thoughts better and recreate them in a more sensible and coherent form.
Text only version For the 1st part of our assignment we were supposed to create a text only version where we focused only on the text in the article and experimented with typography and the importance of the grid system.
After placing my text i wanted to experiment with shapes and lines to create interesting elements in the text. I wanted to use hexagons because it created a sense of a link that i think can be related to design thinking because it is an integrated form of thinking and connected hexagons gave the same idea.
This was my submission for the text only version that integrated both shapes & Typography.
I think the booklet i had created for the submission helped me learn alot about typography and the grid system. it helped me understand how to make and break the grid which i found to be very important to create an interesting multi page booklet. the text only version allowed me to concentrate mostly on the text and its placement rather than focusing on things like color and images that would be concentrated on the other part of this assignment.
Experimentation Initially I had no idea how to move forward with my Final piece consisting of color and images. I started to create multiple iterations and ideas to be able to brainstorm and make a variety of versions so that it is easier to see what actually works and can be further used.
Result Finally I decide to throw away all my generic ideas and start all over and thats how i came to making my last piece. as i began to experiment with color and line i started to form a design that i felt greatly represented my article. my design was both minimalistic yet bold and clearly portrayed the strong ideals of the article and what it was trying to represent. while experimenting with line weight, size and form i formulated an abstract line form that complemented my integrative idea of design thinking. furthermore i chose warm and bold colors to further emphasize My design. using line, color, and typography i was able to create a dynamic design that caught the readers attention and essentially portrayed exactly what my article was trying to say and what i was trying to show.
Result
reflective essay
Looking back at this semester there is so much that I have accomplished and learnt in this DES 200 class. The course has enabled me to understand the principles of communication and the ability to communicate visually rather than verbally. As Design Management students one of our strongest attributes is our ability to communicate our designs, our thoughts and our ideas in both a verbal and visual manner. This course has taught me allowed me to do so.
With the assignments that we were given there is so much that I have learnt. From the first assignment where we concentrated on the importance of visually representing information to the second assignment where we concentrated greatly on the importance of text and its legibility and readability. To design something and maintain its importance and meaning is an important thing that I am glad I was able to learn. Through this course I adopted new learning techniques, which was to use Lynda.com to learn new things about adobe softwares such as InDesign and Illustration. I also greatly used the library for inspiration and ideas as I found a variety of books and magazines that further helped me to build on what I was learning from the class.
Moreover the work we did in this class not only helped me to understand new design material and principles but it also helped me to work more efficiently and practically. I was able to manage my time and produce work at given deadlines in order to be critiqued and gain feedback. I feel like feedback was a very important part of this course and feedback from both the professor and my peers helped me to learn a lot more than I would have learnt just from my own opinions and my own work. Working with
others and looking at other peoples worked helped me to understand common mistakes to avoid and interesting things that I learnt from their work. Our weekly critiques were extremely helpful since we would get feedback from all the students and this would really help to develop our ideas and even improve them.
Furthermore in this course we ventured in various things such as typography and iconography and I think this was a very valuable learning experience for me and whatever I learnt in this course was both beneficial and extremely helpful. I found it the assignments we did extremely interesting and although they were challenging they got us working hard and even thinking hard. For most part of my second assignment I spent my time thinking really hard to create the best work but I didn’t focus on what was important which was the design and what it represented. And thus these assignments allowed us to focus on what was more important which was our designs and how we go there and not our final products. Another important thing I learnt from this course was the importance of decisions. There is no element or object in a design that is arbitrary and every single thing in a compositional space needs to have a purpose and a significant meaning for it to be part of the design. This I feel is a very important principle I learnt and I’m going to always be able to relate to this and remember it to use in further design projects.
I believe overall the things that I learnt and adopted from this course will only make my design and working methods better and facilitate me to work and think like a designer.