Journal 14 // Inspiration

Over the course of this past year, there have definitely been a lot of different things that have inspired me. I came into graphics very excited, but also somewhat nervous and not knowing what to expect. Ever since I was young I have liked making things on the computer; my mom would never buy cards for family because I would want to make them myself. I would always consider my "audience" and if it was for my grandpa I would find a baseball player to put on the card, or if it was for my grandma I would put a golfer.

Being in graphics was the first time I was really around people that had the same passion for design that I did. I think meeting all of these people and spending so much time together really made everyone a better designer. I would say I have definitely say I was inspired by my classmates. Seeing other people's projects that had the same parameters with such different outcomes shows how infinite design solutions are. Some projects made me wish "I should of thought of that" or I wish I knew how to do that. It was interesting to start to see everyone's strengths come out in different projects in different ways and aspects of the project.

Along with this, it was easy to pick out my own weaknesses, especially with the different programs. I was pretty comfortable in Illustrator but I had never had much experience with photoshop. I still know that I have a lot to learn when it comes to photoshop and after seeing many, many interesting work from using it I am motivated to learn. The same goes with aftereffects and flash. Like most people in our class I didn't have any experience with the programs so it took awhile before I became comfortable using them. I would say the most influential thing for me was knowing how much potential there is in design because of all of the tools and resources we have available to us. Knowing all of this has especially lately kept me motivated to keep exploring, revising and working toward higher expectations for myself.