I want to take some time to reflect on my graphic design journey so far. I am now working on my final projects and my evaluation is coming soon. On April 18th to be exact.

We have worked on projects from a children's book, packages, restaurant brandings to a beer brand and packaging. I have found each and every project challenging and enjoyable. Truth be told, some projects were more enjoyable than others.

The project that I enjoyed the most was the children's book. I enjoyed every aspect of it from writing the story to illustrating the story. My story is about a little girl named Vallery who won't eat her vegetables and her responsible, older sister is always telling her to eat her vegtables. Through nightmares and being scared, Vallery finally tries vegetables and ends up liking them. I'm not much of a writer but I think that illustration also plays a big part in telling a story. I have loved illustration since I could pick up a pencil. I loved my children's books even before I learned my ABC's, so the opportunity to create my own book was appealing. As eager as I was to create my own book, I quickly learned how difficult it can be. It definitely helps you to appreciate the books that you read as a child, and not just see novels on a higher level. The difficult thing in creating a book is first of all to write the story. From there, you have to create a style that depicts the mood of your story and illustrate it in a way that conveys the story visually. The whole process of mocking up a book was difficult but fun.

Another project that I enjoyed was the beer branding. We had to create our own beer name and create a label for it. I created a beer called King Beer. I decided to keep it clean and simple by using a two colour solution: black and white. Black and white is not only simple and classy, but it's the maximum contrast you can get. By keeping the colour palette simple, I allowed myself to do some ornamental work on the label. I thought this suited the name 'KING.' I have a crown as well as finer detailed designs that frame the label. I enjoyed the challenge of creating my own label and coming up with a series design of the label, package and poster. I don't drink alcohol, so researching other beers and learning about label requirements was new to me. I had to design for a certain demographic- but on a topic that I had no experience in. I am proud of the work I did and the brand I created.

For my illustration class we had to create a series of five patterns. My topic was flowers. I created some colourful and some simple designs. No matter what the style was, the flower design was carried throughout the swatches. The next step in this project is to create a swatch book. I am enjoying the research and thought process behind it. It takes me back to the challenge of creating the children's book, in terms of managing and organizing layouts.

Other projects that we have worked on was a restaurant logo and menu. The logo design was one of my hardest challenges. I picked the name 'Elite' and that made it difficult for me to really envision what a logo would look like. I got so many opinions on what people thought of when they heard the restaurant name, and that gave me an overflow of information that confused me. I am still in the process of editing the logo to suit my liking. I had to create a menu for the logo. The challenge with that was selecting the food that would go with the type of restaurant. The other challenge was the layout of the menu itself, but it was useful because I got to use InDesign more. As teachers have told us through the year... if you're to know a program inside out, it should be InDesign. I find that to be true with each project. It's helpful with layouts but I am still adjusting to properly using the program.

Through all of the projects that we have done, I have enjoyed all of them. All of them have given me a challenge. Some of them I enjoyed more than others but I can't complain about anything that challenges me as a designer. My first evaluation went well but I was told to focus on one element in my design. I have tried to do that this year and tried to keep my work simple. My next step is to open up a little bit more and feel completely comfortable in asking questions and not being afraid of critiques.