Graphic Design Essentials: First Semester Reflection

Valuable Takeaways...

This semester I learned how to make a pattern using Adobe Illustrator. To make an object in your design mirror on either side, you select the object (the one that goes off the artboard) and copy it. After doing Command F to paste it directly on top, go to properties to move the new object. To move up or down, adjust the y axis. To move left or right, use x axis. After this, you should have the exact same object on the opposite side of the artboard. When you are all done with your pattern, select all of the objects and expand shapes. Go back and copy the background color. Place the copy directly on top of the pattern. Select everything, make a clipping mask, and go to pathfinder and use crop. Drag your pattern to the swatches panel and you’re good to go! In addition to this, we worked with some dielines for our boxes. I chose which patterns I wanted to go where on the unfolded dielines. After the decision making, we sent them to a company (whose facility we actually toured!) to have them printed.

This project doesn’t seem like a very collaborative exercise because we didn’t work in teams. However, I got a lot of feedback from my classmates through this process. They helped me when I was stuck in terms of ideas and technology. I asked them countless times what they thought of a design and they gave me honest feedback, which I really appreciated. Oppositely, I also helped my peers and gave them a second opinion when they asked me. And it made working on my project easier when I took little breaks to help others.

The collaboration couldn’t have happened without communication. I think that we all found verbal, face-to-face communication helpful. Bouncing ideas off one another and Mrs. Z made us better speakers and listeners. However, I don’t think that the directions were very clear. And it definitely could have been me, distracted at the end of the day or something. But communication was a little rough. We had trouble finding out what the next step was without talking to Mrs. Z.

As always, my project management skills could be improved. I am a perfectionist so it took me a lot longer than some other people to finalize my icons and decide on colors. But, I am trying to be more organized and set hard deadlines for myself. It’s no fun to rush at the end so I need to work on time management.

Greatest Strengths and Weaknesses

I think my greatest strength is advice-giving and honesty. I don’t mean to pat myself on the back but I feel like I give good advice when my classmates are stuck on something. Maybe that just means that I’m creative or a good problem solver. My greatest weakness is probably time management. I have a few of my friends in this class and, even though I love them, they can be very distracting. I often got off task so I’d be neglecting my project. I think that I need to learn how to tune them out sometimes.

Using what we learned...

This is the dieline template for the outside of the box.
(These colors are the Pantone versions.)

I really want to put the things that I learned to use and maybe apply them in client work or future projects. Knowing how to make patterns is an essential skill as a graphic designer. As a result, I’m going to make more patterns and experiment a little more. Something that we did but I would like to work on would be the usage of the Pantone book. I want to use it again so I can figure out what went wrong with my final box. I must have messed up some of the colors when transferring them from the Pantone book to Illustrator. The way it printed looks more like it did on the computer. I’m kind of sad that my box looks the way it does because I thought that I did everything right.

Things I would change...

I didn’t find the traditional pattern making assignments very helpful. Personally, I think that they took up a lot of time that could have been spent working on our projects. The 50 lines, one stamp pattern, and one trace pattern assignment probably would have been just as effective. They turned out good in the end, but I think that we would all be much further on our subscription boxes if we had skipped some of those assignments. In addition to this, I’d go back and use the Pantone book properly so my box would look the way I wanted it to.

These are my completed patterns.
(Not all of them were used on the box.)

Conclusion

This was a good semester. I enjoyed getting to know the seniors, going on a field trip, having food parties, and laughing a lot. Most of all, I’m thankful for the support from Mrs. Z and my peers. Here’s to another semester!

This is my original pattern.