One of my main hobbies are photography. The last year or so I have worked on and off with building my brand and my own website. But somehow it all got lost in life. (covid-19 and society in a kind of limbo state not helping much). Lately I've been playing around with Adobe Xd after stumbling upon a class on here, realizing that; Hey I can make my own web design!

After playing around in Adobe Xd for a bit, I realized that this was actually quite fun. And that is what brought me here to this class. You see one of my returning problems is that I am all over the place, learning all the things at once and not directing my focus at one thing at a time. I thought this class might bring me some clarity, and give me a good ol kick in the but to find some specific areas to focus on. And it sure did!

The process

Discovering my graphic design focus - image 1 - student project

While watching the classes, I wrote down the different types of design. The I crossed out the ones that did not make me overly excited, and wrote down some keywords for the ones that did.

My next step was to go into the attached file and write down everything that was listed under each of my three fields of design. I made sure to use different colour for each field, and connect the ones that was the same. Discovering my graphic design focus - image 2 - student project

My list of tree fields to focus on is:

1. Branding design.
2. Package design.
3. Digital design & social media.

When I was writing down and connecting the fields together, I could see that this was a cohesive mix of fields that would overlap in some ways but also have their own ways going forward.

Now what?

Going forward based on the list I just made, there are both skills I need to brush up on and skills I need to learn. When it comes to digital programs I already have a base in using Adobe programs so I will continue to use these as my main programs. I might learn Canva down the line as I see that there is alot of people using this software out there. This would be especially handy if I am to make and sell templates for social media, branding etc.

When it comes to traditional media, I think I will benefit from exploring and playing around in general. But for now this will be more for relaxing and not getting bored with just looking at the screen all day every day.

After all I am a human, not a machine.

Practice projects

I am all ready working on branding my photography and creating a website so that will serve as my main practice projects. I also have a couple of other art related, personal projects that I might use down the line.

Fears, hopes and dreams?

I think it is human to fear failure, but if there is one thing I have learned it is that even in failure you can find valuable wisdom and knowledge to take with you for the future. Therefor what I fear most is not failure. What I fear most is that I end up losin my focus, getting bored or just tired if what I'm doing and then wander off into doing everything at once. I hope that I can manage to keep focus long enough to both learn and actually develop some projects. Even if it's just a project for some made up company.
When it comes to dreams, I am not sure what to write. I just want to be happy
and do what I love and enjoy. I know that this is not specific for design but it is as specific as it comes at the time being.

Thank you for this class, and good luck to everyone out there figuring out their way.

Ida Jacobsen

Northern born photograpger & artist

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