Summary of Learning

Well here it is, my final reflection post as a PR Publications student! I’ve learned so much over the course of this semester that it was almost difficult to capture it into one Summary of Learning project. I chose to do an infographic using Canva. My infographic is a “PR Publications 101” poster.  I decided to do a sort of semester guide capturing all of the applications we learned to use, a course checklist of all the resources you must have, and contact information for my professor, Adam Croom.

 

I really enjoyed this course. I took this course online and found my professor to be just as involved and helpful as he would have been if I had taken the course in person. I think PR Publications gives students a creative outlet while teaching them important design applications that we will need later!

Designing for Emotion Chapter 7

As we are in the last week of PR Publications, my professor allowed us to choose any chapter of the course textbook, “Designing for Emotion” and reflect on it. I decided on Chapter 7, “Risk & Reward.”

One thing I found interesting in this chapter is the idea of “Risk & Reward.” The author discussed a case study about CoffeeCup Software’s Easter giveaway.  CoffeeCup announced via Twitter that they had hidden over  $20,000 on their website and all users had to do was find it. This increased their website views immensely. Therefore, they risked a significant amount of money and saw a reward. I agree with this strategy. I think any great business move involves risk to see rewards.

Though I rarely find anything to disagree with in this textbook, I am not sure I believe whole heartedly in the author’s statement, “The more effectively you can employ emotional design in your site, the better conversion rates and sales will be.” While I think this is applicable to several websites, I do not think it applies to all. Some users enjoy simple accessibility to information without the “fluff.”

 

Reflection

I can’t believe that in just one week, my PR publications course will be over! I have learned a lot this semester to say the least. Establishing and maintaining my own blog has been the greatest learning experience in my opinion.

I have been debating what to do with my blog after my PR publications course. To be honest, before taking this course I had always wanted to establish a personal blog but never made the time or had the courage. However, I think it is important to maintain it throughout my professional life, as a portfolio for my work. As the end of this course nears, I plan to “clean up” my blog a bit. I will select the work I am most proud of and perhaps get rid of some of my beginner work. I will revamp my blog by filling out the “About” page and adding a personal photo and my contact information.

I would like to ready my blog for the professional world. I would like it to represent my talents and abilities as a young professional. I am excited to see how it evolves in the future!

Designing for Emotion Chapter 4

This week, my PR Publications course asked us to read Chapter 4 in our course textbook, “Designing for Emotion.”

One thing I agreed with in this chapter was that surprise can be a useful mechanism for evoking an emotional response. However I do not necessarily agree with the author’s praise over “surprise and delight.” Although it can be used as a good marketing mechanism, I think in the example the author used, Photojojo, that it could strike some customers as annoying or overwhelming. I think many things are good in moderation.

Summary of Learning

WOW. I am already approaching the final design project in my PR Publications course…that went fast! Deciding which medium I wanted to use for my final project was easy, I am going to design an infographic using Canva! I have only used Canva for one previous design project, however, I felt it provided a lot of room to be creative. I think designing an infographic would be a nice reflection of one of the most important things I’ve learned this semester, which is to be more creative with my designs. I tend to stick to simple and clean, so I think Canva will be a great tool to branch out.

For my design process, I have already began brainstorming. I have gone to Gaylord and looked at several possible organizations that I would want to design an infographic for, and I have played around with a few design ideas. I will keep brainstorming, and decide which organization will be my inspiration and what the theme of my infographic will be. I will then decide which information I feel is important to display and how can I convey that information in a way that is both creative and informative. I have a ways to go but I am excited about my final project! Stay tuned.

Reflection

Over the course of the past two weeks, I have been working on a design project in my PR Publications course. We were asked to design a newsletter using Adobe InDesign for a Fortune 500 company of our choosing. I chose Apple considering I have been a loyal Apple customer for several years now and their products interest me.

I was pessimistic as I began this project. I haven’t used Adobe InDesign for a few weeks now, and I knew I would need to spend extra time getting reacquainted with the basics. Working on the layout took me several hours and I began to get frustrated. But as I started to feel more comfortable using the application, I began to feel more confident and my attitude changed.

As I grew closer and closer to arriving at my finished product, I felt very happy with myself. I was more meticulous with my work and wanted it to be a reflection of the time I put in. I was proud of what I had accomplished and honestly surprised at what had become of my “dummy layout.” After finishing my layout, I didn’t have high expectations for this newsletter. I think that is why I was so surprised. As I saw my skills improving, my standards for the finished product began to change and I grew more confident in my capabilities. This was a good lesson for me. Next project I will not be so quick to lose faith in my capabilities.

 

 

 

Designing for Emotion Chapter 3

This week, we were assigned to read Chapter 3 in Designing for Emotion, the textbook required for my PR Publications class.

I agree with the author’s perspective on the importance of evoking emotional design. I think the author makes a good point when he says, “If we’re doing our job well, the computer recedes into the background, and personalities rise to the surface.” This should be an important goal in our design process.

However, I do believe there are exceptions for when personality, is trumped by informative and functional. I do not necessarily agree with the author’s claim,”The design persona should guide anyone that crafts a pixel, a paragraph, or a process on your website.” For example, government websites. Users visit those pages for information, not necessarily for pleasure. Therefore the most important aspect of a government’s website design process should focus on being functional and informative, not necessarily evoking emotion or having personality.

Reflection

This week, I began Design Project #4 of my PR Publications course. This project required be to choose a Fortune 500 company, and design a newsletter for them using Adobe InDesign. I chose Apple as my company, seeing as it is widely recognized and I am familiar with both their products and advertisements.

Recently, our instructor has had us working with different design applications such as Canva and Adobe Photoshop. It has been a while since I have used InDesign, so when beginning the “dummy layout” of my newsletter, I wasn’t quite sure where to start. I was pessimistic about beginning this project. I was nervous I would have to completely re-teach myself how to use InDesign. After staring at my blank newsletter for a solid 20 minutes, unsure of where to start, I referred back to our previous InDesign tutorials and looked back on my previous work to get reacquainted with the application. I then looked at examples of various newsletters online to get ideas for the layout I wanted.

It took me quite a while, but after playing around with my designs, I think I ended up with a solid layout of what I want my newsletter to generally look like. I feel like my layout is clean and easy for readers to follow. While it is far from finished, I think it is a good foundation and will allow me to get creative when I start filling it with actual content. I am happy with this layout because for me, I wasn’t too concerned with how fancy this layout was, but I was more concerned with re-learning how to use InDesign so that when I come back to my layout, I am not as frustrated and overwhelmed as I was this week. One thing I know I need to work on is the creativity and actual design aspect of my newsletter. The structure is there, but it is not pretty. I think it will be fun to see how this “dummy layout” develops into a newsletter!

 

 

 

Designing for Emotion Chapter 2

This week, my PR Publications course asked the class to finish Chapter 2 in our assigned textbook, “Designing for Emotion.”

In Chapter 2, the author  discussed how we design to attract the human eye. I did agree with the author’s claim that emotion is an innate characteristic found in all human beings. It is important for our designs to evoke positive emotion in human beings in order to receive a positive response. However, the author spoke about the, “Baby-Face Bias,” the belief that, “all humans are hard wired to love babies.” While I agree that most humans evolve to love babies, I am not sure that a baby’s face evokes as strong of a positive emotional response in all humans as the author claims. Some people may associate negative thoughts with the sight of a baby, or possibly do not have any desire to have children, therefore do not get the same feeling that others do when seeing a baby.

Reflection

This week, my PR Publications course asked me to design four social media posts for an organization or brand of my choosing using Canva. I decided on Nike, seeing as how I am a loyal customer to their brand. I was excited to try out Canva after seeing my professor’s sample posts. I began by completing the Canva tutorials to get better acquainted with the design tool. The tutorials were very helpful and made me confident when beginning my own designs. Overall, I am very happy with my finished product. Nike was a cool brand to design for!