Till now, I have already finished three of my project which are graphic design, photography and motion design. I have to say that I learned a lot knowledge and skills during the past two months.

In graphic design, I’ve tried to do some creative design about English words, make some black-and-white posters by collage, then make them online with InDesign. I learned some information about typography and its history, and how to make a poster。 And hte process of making poster makes me learn how to put my own ideas into the posters, by putting the most important information which you want the audiences see first in the most prominent place. Moreover, I learned some basic skills about Photoshop, illustrator and InDesign. And I finished my first crit about those posters we made, this kind of crits every two week practiced our ability to show and explain our ideas to the audience. Since English is not my mother tongue, this is extremely useful for me to talk in front of people.

My second project is photography, which I’m interested in the most, I always preferred to use film camera to shoot in the past, so this is the first time I used a digital camera to photograph different objects. I also learned how to use lights to produce the light and shadow better and use the background of the scene to shoot a professional photo. What’s more, my impression about photography was that photography is an effective way to record life and reveal our inner thoughts. But after studying, I understand that it is also important to show the deep meaning behind each picture. And after all those objects we had to shoot, I found out I prefer the shooting of human portrait or their daily moment. Till now, photography is still my favorite part of studying, I might choose that as my second year project. In addiction, I did better and more fluently at my second crit than the first time.

My third project is motion graphic which I just finished last week, it is bit different from the other two because I never tried stuffs like that, making a simple animation. We use illustrator to play with two letters we picked in the beginning, stretch them and change the color, I used bright colors to make it more strongly visual. After this step, we set rhythm in another software, and add the sound to them. I have to admit that I was bit confused during that process, but the final work is better than what I expected.

This course has helped me improve the skill I already had, and has taught me new skills and knowledge which will help me in the future. But the ideas I’ve learned about art and design is more important. In general, the first lecture of each project was always about some basic theory, then we had to practice them to make sure we really get them, the fact is that both of them are really helpful and meaningful. I’ve enjoyed what I learned of graphic arts so far.

Liu Xinyi