my blog review...

Genesis

I was immediately drawn to Paul’s work because he can do so much with so little. The idea of taking a concept and being able to visualize it and then design a logo to incorporate all aspects of the concept is absolutely brilliant. There are a couple integral parts to being an expert in VDDI: the first part is being able to visualize the concept in your head, and the second part is to the ability to interpret that concept using the tools you are given.

Magazine or Book?

Being a food guy, I loved the idea of incorporating food into the blog post. I had some really great feedback in the comment section. Some of the comments were about my ability to create a picture with words. This is something that I feel I need to improve on; however, it was very encouraging to get that positive feedback from my peers.

Me or you? Lots to learn…

I create the picture within that post. I was particularly proud of my ability to learn a new type of expression: typography. This was one of my favourite parts of the course, designing that picture.

It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white…

Another opportunity to tie my love for food and wine into the course, great! Most of the time when I surf the web, I would see a website that I liked but didn’t really know why I liked it. After reviewing this post, I realized that a few weeks into the course, I was looking at things with different lenses. I was more critical, I asked more questions, I wanted to know why they used that colour, why the picture was there, why they chose that font etc..

You win…

I think this post builds on the last one, where I now understand why design decisions were made. By looking deeper into the meaning and questioning every detail, I am able to gain insight into the minds of the designers. The course builds from week to week and it is nice to see that my posts reflect that.

Doing laundry…

This is a really neat analysis on the use of colour. While I was writing this post, I couldn’t believe how everything made sense. I thought maybe tide was just lucky that they used orange and yellow, but no. These colour decisions for major brands are well thought out and have a lot of planning behind them.

Design evolution…

I really enjoyed putting together this mock-up for the class. I was really surprised at what I was able to put together. While I was building the mock up, I found myself questioning every decision. Why green, why that shade of green, why icons, why pictures, why those pictures, does it look cluttered… everything that was taught in the course was going through my mind.

Flawless evaluation…

Now I am able to properly evaluate a website. I have the knowledge and the tools to breakdown the different properties of a website that make it appealing to the eye. This post was a personal critique of a website that won an award.

I love the idea of creating a design blog to reflect the course. I have really enjoyed this exercise and reflecting back on the posts, I feel as though I have gained a much greater understanding of VDDI.