(Click on each title to be taken to that class’ tag and see the full journey)
MDL501: Mastery: Personal Development and Leadership
This class allowed me to learn about others that became masters of their field. It helped me realize that getting where you want to be can take a long time, and you will take side routes. It made me relax about getting to my permanent career and just focusing on the job at hand. This led me to focus on creating new portfolio pieces each week and trying to learn one new skill each time.
The techniques in this course helped in the creation of my thesis by teaching me how to set realistic goals to accomplish a project. It taught me how to look at my resources and then create a plan of action. My personal triumph for this course was just getting through it. I struggled to get assignments done because while I learned about a few intriguing cases, I did not see how it related to what I wanted to do and how it got me closer to my goal.
MDM525: Defining Client Needs
During this course I was able to refresh my logo design skills. It also allowed me to update my process. I learned how effective mind maps can be and the more iterations a project goes through the more effective the design. It also put me on the track of developing better time management skills.
These techniques aided in my thesis project by showing the importance of iteration. I went through multiple sketches and tested multiple layouts to find one that communicated my stories best. My personal triumph for this course was that it refreshed my passion for graphic design. I had hit a stagnation in my professional life and this course created a challenge that felt good to overcome. It reminded me about the fun part of design.
MDM530: Brand Development
The knowledge of this course started to make me see the importance of fonts. It also introduced me to vision boards. These have helped me to experiment with the visual identity of projects and with brainstorming. It taught me more about how to develop a brand. This started to get me thinking of how to shape my own brand.
The techniques of this course helped to shape my thesis project because it taught me how to use typography to my advantage. This is where I started to learn how to combine fonts and imagery which led to page layouts with stronger hierarchies. My personal triumph for this course was mastering vision boards. They were a lot of fun to do and they have since helped on many other projects.
MDM555: Effective Copywriting
Copy was my weakest skill at this time because my dyslexia made it hard to work with words. This course let me feel more comfortable with it. It taught me what makes good copy which gave me a stronger understanding of how to approach it and how to conduct research for it. Gaining a deeper understanding of how to structure copy made me more willing to work with it. I also gained a stronger understanding of fonts and how to create hierarchy.
The main technique that helped my thesis was learning how to create hierarchy. I did not want to create a wall of text for each page, so I had to find a layout that broke the information up. Learning how to use size, font, and color to lead the eye helped to create varied layouts that made the information easier to digest. My personal triumph for this course was getting over my aversion to text.
MDM565: Design Research
This taught me how to approach a project as more than just a visual problem. I learned how to craft a narrative and the class really challenged my skills. It was here that I felt the most growth. It forced me to use more iterations in my process. This is when I really started to grasp the importance of research and how to use it. It was frustrating but I felt like a stronger designer at the end of it.
The research techniques I learned in this class were the most help in making my thesis. I learned how to find research to support my decisions and explain the impact. It had on designs. My triumph was nailing down a more effective design process. By this point I have learned how much time to dedicate to research, production, review, and iteration.
MDM570: Organizational Structures
This course reminded me why I love working with animation. The dynamic vision boards allowed me to explore how to use movement and let me brush up on my video skills. The dynamic vision boards also let me build on the skills from the first class by letting me explore better project planning techniques. The first class taught me how to set out goals and this one taught me how to connect those goals. It also let me build on the research skills I learned in the last class. In the previous month I was taught how to collect research and how to explain it. This class taught me how to format the rationales in a convincing way. It showed me how to use imagery and not just words to prove my point.
The techniques I learned in this course helped to shape my thesis by making me approach each page like a big rationale. I learned how to use imagery to illustrate my points and how pictures can be more convincing of mastering a concept than just talking about it. These skills taught me what pictures to choose to strengthen my arguments.
MDM615: Design Strategies and Motivation
This class taught me more on how to conduct research, especially primary research. I learned some interview skills and what to look for when taking research photos. This gave me the skills on how to start a brand from the ground up. It also taught me how to put others at ease for something they are not comfortable with like doing an interview.
This helped me complete my thesis because a lot of the class was about how to present the research. I learned better techniques about formatting a rationale and incorporating the results of primary research. My triumph for this course was just getting through it again. The work was frustrating because it was the hottest week that month so I could not get good pictures with people in them and if I did find people, they did not want their picture taken. And interviews are not in my wheelhouse, so I found it difficult to use that method to get the information I needed.
MDM620: Design Integration
This course helped me learn how to shape a proposal. The design brief showed me how to combine all the research I have done and the initial design elements to present it in a format that a client would be able to understand. Learning this skill will help communicate that I know where I am taking a project. It also forced me to learn how to use more of Word’s formatting tools.
The techniques here taught me about how to walk someone through a project. This came in handy when using a project’s development to prove my mastery of each DLO. My triumph for this month was the design brief. I was very proud of how it turned out and thought it communicated the project well.
MDM650: Multi-Platform Delivery
The skills in this course helped me to become more creative when working with a theme. Rather than using specific images over and over, I focused more on specific types of lines, shapes, colors, fonts, and words to make each piece cohesive. I also learned how to create more realistic demos to show how each media asset would look “in the wild”.
The techniques here aided my presentation skills for my thesis. The brand book gave me a chance to experiment with how to layout information in way that each topic led into another rather than being a collection of separate thoughts. This led to better organization when it came to my pages. Being able to create a theme using design elements rather than specific imagery helped me to create varied layouts that still looked related to each other. My triumph was the brand book. This project proved to be an interesting challenge that made me stretch my design skills.
MDM640: Measuring Design Effectiveness
The course taught me how to review a project other than simply having it reviewed by peers. It gave me great resources to test the designs before releasing them. It also helped me learn to shape questions without leading the audience. This built onto my interview skills.
This helped my thesis project by refining my presentation skills. A lot of this was taking raw data and making it more digestible. It helped me design a layout that broke up the information into visually appealing and easy to read sections. My triumph for this class was the questionnaire. I was nervous about other people’s reactions, but the process proved to not be as scary as I thought.
MDM690: Presentation of Design Solution
This course allowed me to brush up on my web design skills. I also learned how to craft a story outside of a fiction setting. Before, I would have laid the evidence out in a logical manner. Mastering the use of CAST taught me how to take this information and put it into an interesting story structure. It made my arguments more persuasive. I have used this skill when relaying my experience to a potential employer.
The techniques in this course helped to shape the story of my thesis. Thanks to CAST I had a structure to go off of to organize my information. My triumph for this course was the thesis project. I felt that it forced me to use all the skills I learned this year, which helped me realize how much I had grown as a designer. I have since applied the skills I used for the thesis to redraft my portfolio site.
MDM691: Professional Practice
This course has helped me reframe how to focus on my professional life. I was able to update my resume and learned some great techniques for writing cover letters. The reading also made me consider more of the grey areas of design ethics. I had previously thought that creating ethical work was fairly black and white, for instance don’t work for Evil McCorporate face. Learning about cases like Truvada showed me how the field can be more difficult to navigate. The cases helped me understand how these grey areas can be dealt with.
My triumph was revamping my resume and learning more effective language for cover letters and interviews. These techniques are what helped me feel more prepared for my latest job interview. It is what helped me showcase my skills and got me the job.
