I had very little knowledge about graphic design and most of my classes at Concordia were rather focusing on industrial design. Therefore, I took this course as an opportunity to learn more about certain principles that could be applied in the visual side of my work.

 

Similarly to the production of furniture and objects, with graphic design it is just as important to take in consideration the public, in this case being the commercial and digital culture. To do so, it is important to think about the message we want to translate with the use of thought through decisions around language, type, color, image or illustration treatment and the interaction. Before this course, I always believed that a project had to be clearly summarized or that an adjacent body of text had to complement the work to make sure that the viewer would understand the message. But I realise that sometimes the work itself can be stronger on its own or with few keywords and that if it is carefully designed, the meaning or message will be understood naturally. In other cases, the goal might be for the designer to not impose his particular view but rather to let the user make his own observations and opinions.

 

With the first project I did with my teammate, we decided to do a short video compilation that showed the repetition in our daily life routines and how almost every student’s routine is very alike. We initially wanted to add text over certain images of our survey data that was done amongst students or to create a storyboard with images and text but we finally decided to simplify it. Instead we made categories of similar tasks that were based on the survey’s responses and kept the text very concise and bold at the beginning of the video, which was used to grab the viewer’s attention.

 

Similarly, to this video, my final project had very little text and now that I look back, it might have been unnecessary to have as the illustrations were pretty self-explanatory. I wrote small captions underneath each one to describe the trait or behaviour that I was trying to translate but they could easily work without them.

This final project was also a good way to explore different illustrations styles and help me find one that suits me better. As we saw in this course, a designer’s logo or particular style can be a branding tool that is representative of their image. Being still new to graphic design, I am still learning to find the medium(s) that work the best for me and to find a personal style but so far I am more comfortable with creating digital visual work that aims for simplicity.

 

Finally, the most important and interesting part of this course was the content about identity and representation, as I immediately felt concerned. Graphic design can give us the opportunity to explore our identity but also to translate someone else’s or give a voice to those that cannot be heard. It is essential to do research both theoretically but also by going directly towards those concerned in order to represent them with respect and dignity. In the future, I hope to be able to reach people or specific groups of people with my work and create meaningful reflections.