Reflection

Upon completing all five assignments, I have developed a range of valuable soft and technical skills that complement those acquired in my other courses. I enrolled in this course due to my passion for pursuing a career in Digital Design. Completing these assignments under the guidance of an experienced instructor enabled me to challenge myself and advance my skills beyond previous experiences. While I have consistently engaged in graphic design, website development, and video editing, I had not previously explored animation, particularly using After Effects, a tool I have come to appreciate. Since my primary toolkit consists of Adobe applications, learning After Effects has been one of the most significant technical skills gained in this course. Additionally, I have enhanced my attention to detail, which I consider a key soft skill.

I find attention to detail to be one of the most crucial skills in this field, especially in design and writing. I would either be too focused on one specific area while overlooking the others that still need work, or I would be looking at the bigger picture, avoiding the small parts. I think our critique assignment was the one that helped me improve that skill, as looking at someone else's work and evaluating the areas they missed or did well in has allowed me to apply that attention to my own work. With the branding assignments, I was able to learn how to have every element in a brand work cohesively, but it is not only in branding, as it applies to designing too, such as how a variety of colours work together or how a font can play a major part with the rest of the design.

Thus, the main aspects of my learning reflected in the work of this portfolio were to challenge myself and apply my branding to my other skill set, which is a website portfolio. Building the website was fun, I would say, but applying different elements while avoiding and fixing issues with the website was tough, as every time I missed something, I would critique everything before solving the problems. I would ask whether the website aligns with the brand I created for my Brand Foundation assignment, whether the previews correlate with the main work, and whether the visuals align with the submitted work, etc.

Moving forward, I am currently building a website on the side for my main portfolio of all my work, in and outside of this course, to use when I apply for the jobs I want to work in. I think this website is a learning experience of its own and will be a work to be shown within the main portfolio. Additional skills I plan to learn include other forms of digital design. Over time, I have learned skills like 3D and UI/UX design, video editing, graphic design, and now motion graphics/animation. I plan on strengthening my colour theory, typography, and visual hierarchy.

Additionally, I plan to or am currently learning skills outside of digital design because having a technical skill set is great, but determining to whom and how I will present these skills is the main challenge. I need to learn more about how I can grab the attention of a potential client and/or employer, and how I can use these skills to both strengthen them and sustain myself, as I have also learned from the course instructor's advice during our lessons. I always wanted to have my own business on the side, which is what I have been working on while in university, serving clients, but I would love to learn more about how to benefit them so they can benefit me. Thus, I am also learning business and marketing. I think that marketing with digital design goes hand in hand, as it allows for an attractive, both visual and written communication to captivate the audience I am trying to reach.