What did you learn today?

Today I learned that things will not go how you planned. Instead of meeting my client at their office, they surprised me by coming to our office early since they were already in the building. Thankfully I was prepared with what I wanted to go over and was able to go through all my talking points. However, the client decided to stick to the previous design for the research mixer considering it would be happening soon. They also decided to go with the previous designs for the workshop posters, asking me to revise the copy on those as well. While I am disappointed I won’t be creating new designs, I understand the client’s want for sticking to designs that already have worked for them.

Making sure a project’s goals and deliverables are clear is also very important. It’s almost impossible to start a project well if the details aren’t clear or finalized. Everyone has to be on the same page and the deliverables should also make sense with what the goals of a project are, like with the group project today. A lot of the time was sent discussing these details, which I think will make it more productive when it comes to the design process.

What challenges did you have?

A challenge we all had was trying to finalize the group project and the deliverables we settled on. Having little information on the new Klitgord building, it was difficult trying to brainstorm ideas for the logo and signage. Still we all tried to pitch with a brain map to help generate ideas before we talked about updating signage for the existing buildings. We felt the confusion for students on navigating the building would make for a good project. Still we had to make sure all of the work could be done within the next day, and settled with combining the signage and Klitgord building by making up what departments would be on one floor.

During my meeting I felt a little unprepared due to my client asking if I had met the previous designer, who they wanted to use the work from, and if I had the schedule for the entire process of the Honors Scholars presentation. I felt it made me seem out of the loop with my client and wasn’t what I was hoping for.

How did you help each other?

A lot of communication and helping each other understand parts of the school, or information, and learning about signage defiantly made today productive. Ultimately making sure we all felt good about what we were doing for the group project and that it made sense gives us a better starting point for our sketching phase. Have to especially thank Erin for bring the idea to mix both the original project and the revised signage for existing buildings!