I had a lot of fun creating our final project, the infographics map of an area of our choosing. For mine, I chose an intersection close to my house. There was so much I learned from this project. To start, I had never heard of Coolors, the random color combo generator, nor knew that such a site existed. I loved how easy the site was to use, and it was very helpful. The colors I used for my project were inspired from the site, but with my own touch and tweaking. I ended up going with a “rainbow sherbet” type color palette. Second, I learned about live paint from the lab and practicing with it. I attempted to use the live paint feature in my project, but I was having difficulty and resorted to the pen tool to draw the area. Third, I learned how to do the arched banner and the steps required to achieve the “warped” effect. I had always wanted to know how to do that, and probably would’ve played with that even more if time didn’t get away from me. Fourth, I learned about overall aesthetics, spacing, and creativity. This project was broad enough that it allowed you to get creative and do it your own way. In regards to what I found easy with the project, I would say that would be creating my symbols for the map, although they were very time consuming. Some of my symbols I traced with the pen tool and modified a bit, and some I made free hand with the pen tool or paintbrush. I enjoyed playing with colors and shapes for this part. The compass and scale were also pretty straightforward. The challenges in this project for me was trying to perfectly align the blocks of color with the roads using the pen tool. I plan to practice more with the live paint in the future, which would probably save me more time and frustration! Other than that, I took my time with the project and everything else seemed to be fine.
My submission could be improved by adding even more symbols, even if they aren’t actually there in real life, to fill in some more of the space on my map. I also did not want to clutter the map though, so there would need to be a balance, which I thought I achieved. I also could have done some more variation with the roads, maybe some different line styles and colors. I do not think there is a way the professor could improve this project for the future. I found it to be enjoyable and it allowed me to experiment artistically. The aspects of the project were all clearly discussed and demonstrated, and I was able to review class zooms smoothly if I needed to see something again. The different parts of this project could absolutely come in handy in a future assignment or work scenario. Two things come to mind particularly, although any skill we practiced could be used again. The warped banner is what comes to mind first, and that could be used in almost any setting for a cool, eye-popping effect. I see them in advertising and in posters all the time. Finding the right color combination is also a useful insight to have when creating advertisements or other graphic works. The colors play an important part in the cohesiveness of the project. If the colors clash or are too all over the place, the project isn’t very visually appealing. Lastly, I did not have any outside reading or video inspiration for this project. Thank you so much for a wonderful semester, I really enjoyed this class!