In an effort to work on expanding my skill set into creative design I enrolled in an intro course to graphic design. I’m looking forward to some more formal learning, as opposed to my scattered tactic of dabbling in ideas and new programs here and there whenever I could squeeze in some time. This will force me to dedicate time to learning something that I’ve wanted to do for the past year or so, and will hopefully motivate me to continue being productive in pursuing my career interests in new media.

After I got over the initial sticker shock of my text book (how quickly I forgot about college bookstores being out of school for only two years!), I was quickly intrigued and captivated by not only its textual contents, but, would you believe it, the design! I guess it would be a bad sign if your graphic design book wasn’t easy on the eyes, but it has definitley reinforced how interesting this topic is to me.

Given I can make the time, and my projects aren’t overly tacky and embarrassing, I will share them here. Hopefully when I look back at the three months of the course, I will have grown as a designer, a creative thinker, and visual communicator. If not, at least I will have increased my knowledge in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. And I’ll have done something more productive then re-watching season 1 of Gossip Girl on DVD, not that there’s any shame in that ;)

This image is the professional example I selected for my first project illustrating asymmetrical composition. I’ll save my observations for the class message boards, but I do think its worth noting the copy, “Time is change happening.” Chew on that for a while.

Image taken from my calendar by artist Rodney White

I’ll leave you with a quote: “Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.” – William Plomer