What did you learn?
In this assignment, I learned the essential steps to developing my
own card. Specifically, I learned how to use rulers to represent creases in my
card, became proficient with layers and creating masks, develop paths for text,
and create artboards. All of these skills serve as the crucial steps to making a typical holiday card.
What was easy?
I found that adding new layers and adding text through text paths were very easy. The buttons are easy to identify, and once I became familiar with their locations it became second nature.
What was challenging?
I struggled with finding a suitable background for my card. Perfectionism aside, I especially struggled with turning my card into an artboard. I couldn’t get the exterior of the card to align for the longest time. Eventually, I was able to get it to align but it was frustrating in the meantime. I wasn’t sure what I was doing wrong.
How could your submission be improved?
I feel like my submission could be improved if I found a better background to serve as a scenery. While I’ve seen birthday cards that have beach scenes on the front, I feel like mine doesn’t work well.
How could I improve the assignment for the next class?
I would appreciate a video that goes over all the quirks and uses that artboards can do. While the instructions were straight forward, they still confused me because even when I felt like I followed them exactly, I struggled to properly align my card.
How might you apply your knowledge in future assignments or work scenarios?
I found this project to be very useful because now I understand how to make cards. In addition, through the methods I learned in this project, I could also make paper dolls, brochures, and other paper advertisements that could use graphics and text on the inside and outside of the document.
How did a specific reading or video inspire or help you?
I found great inspiration in the example that was used in the instructions. While it wasn’t birthday related, I could envision what elements I needed and where to put them. For instance, when I saw the pumpkin for the back of the card, I knew that I could do something similar, but birthday related. Thus, I used some birthday cake clip art for the graphic on the back.