After 11 weeks of being in CSC318, I have much to think about and reflect upon. What have I learned? What has changed? What do I know now that I didn't before? The truth is, these questions are quite abstract. I could certainly list everything I have learned, but I don't believe any reader of my blog would benefit from such an act. Instead, I believe it is more important for me to explain how my mindset has changed. Before, I wasn't very creative or artistic. I would see people create beautiful works of art, and I would wonder, how did they create such a thing?
However, this class made me realize something important. Art isn't just the technical ability to create visual works - it is any expression of human creativity. You can be completely ignorant about the first detail of visual art or graphic design, yet in terms of mindset you can still be extremely artistic and creative. If you can imagine beautiful, innovative and unique creations that build upon your life's experiences while still being different from everything you have already seen, then for all intents and purposes, you are an artist. There are many products I have used and many gadgets that I have seen which I believe I could improve given my experience with this class, because I can now utilize my artistic abilities to rigorously evaluate products.
However, I believe there is one skill that I am still sorely lacking. How do I create art? This is a massive topic that people get degrees on. So it may be unreasonable for me to believe that it can be incorporated into a 12 week class that has so many topics to cover. However, I believe it is important to remember that this is 2017. There are many design tools out there that are geared to provide the best user experience. Anyone with the desire to learn and the right information and teachers can learn quite a few things in a few short hours. I believe it would have been better if at least 1 or 2 lectures was actually dedicated towards rapidly prototyping beautiful, artistic designs. I will probably learn this stuff myself on my own time because I want to learn. But I have many friends in this class who I believe aren't particularly enthusiastic about doing any extra-curricular activities. These people also mostly focused on doing the writing parts of the group project rather than the artistic part. I believe they would have benefited if the class actually had some specific lectures about visual design, such as how to use Photoshop or Illustrator.
Bibliography
www.adobe.com/Photoshop
www.adobe.com/Illustrator
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