Project One Reflection

When I heard that our first design project revolved around drawing, I was pretty intimidated to say the least. I took an ample amount of art classes in high school, but in none of them did I learn how to draw. So, needless to say, I went into the first class feeling overwhelmed and ultimately wondering what I had gotten myself into. It was not even a week later, however, that I started to relax. After learning several drawing techniques, I began to realize that drawing did not necessarily mean that a perfect replica of the object was required. In many cases, creating the form and body of the object was just as important as the specific details. After I realized that drawing was not completely over my head and actually very do-able, I really enjoyed it. It was fun experimenting with different techniques and using different art supplies that I had never used before. My favorite part, however, was designing the poster at the end. I had never used illustrator before, but it was pretty easy to get the hang of the basics. My biggest issue was deciding which thumbnail to use in the end! I ended up refining two posters and blowing them both up to actual size before I made my decision. One of them was the one that I liked the best and the other was the one that my classmates liked the best in my critique. After asking my roommates and considering which one had the best design features, I chose the one that my classmates liked the best to use for my project because after I reconsidered, I realized that maybe it did have the best design features. On the original thumbnail, my major critiques were that it didn't have enough negative space, that it almost looked too put together and geometrical, and that I should incorporate gray as well, because an all black background made it seem too harsh. Margie also suggested extending the measuring tape borders so it appeared as if they were going off the page. In the end, I corrected all of my critiques and my final poster ended up looking much better! The negative space on the top and bottom of  my poster contrasts the middle section with all of my drawings nicely. I also incorporated more negative space in the middle section by eliminating some of the backgrounds and shifting things over. However, I kept borders on most of the images to give the poster an overall sense of structure and movement. Also, the borders on the images reiterates the black border on the outside of the poster and the tape measure border which ultimately draws the viewer's eye into the drawings. Overall, drawing is not my most comfortable aspect of design, and the fact that I still really liked this project makes me very excited for the projects to come!