Last week’s class was interesting because we went through the last reflections we wrote and talked about how students would, unfortunately, l would add extra things on their midterm project papers so that way it would fill up the page so that it could meet the requirements and while I did not do it for this paper, but I have done it before for former classes and it’s something that I’ve been doing less of.

We then looked through a presentation talking about the many types of symbols such as logos, and indexes and we then looked at early paintings that were made in a cave in Africa and how they had symbols that represented the animals that they would kill or the environment around them and this reminded me of a talk between well known graphic designers chipp Kidd and Milton Glaser at the Cooper Hewitt theatre and as the lecture progresses Milton Glaser talks about how art is a survival device and reasoning behind that is because it makes us more attentive. While I agree with that statement my belief is that it’s a survival device because naturally, human beings like to express themselves one way or another and making cave paintings was just one of many methods to express themselves, just like how gathering people around a fire were one of the many ways of storytelling.

We then watched a short film which was about a man’s life and it how miserable he was and the reason because it was essentially a routine and would not do anything memorable and throughout the film it seems that he was aware that his life was miserable, that’s why he was making poor choices because he wanted to break out of that sort of loop, and after that, the main character eventually dies and the film was finished, the professor mentioned to us that while the film was going on she said that she saw that some of our faces smiled at certain bits but later turned to frowns and I could say that I was one of those people mainly because part of me feels like that’s where my life is going because I’ve mainly focusing on my schoolwork, job, and my future and trying to get things started on my career because the way that I see things is that the earlier you start trying to do things the better it looks on your resume and portfolio. That’s why I’m trying to learn different types of design and trying to expand my “generalist toolbox”. I understand that things like motion graphics and web design is going to more valuable in the future. Though admittedly, while I am doing these things, I have to say it’s incredibly stressful and moments where I feel miserable doing these things. Though I believe, this is just simply part of the process and it’s like working out when in the middle of the workout it’s something you don’t enjoy doing but when you’re finished you’re glad that you did it.

This short film reminded of a small lecture I listened to awhile back where the speaker mentions that in a corporation in London, employees have human skulls placed on their desk while they work as almost a reminder that death is not always far away, and that its important to make a life worth living, and trying to make your life memorable so I think it was reminder for me to try to relax sometime.

Lastly, we discussed the project we will be doing, the project is about graphic designers and their story on how they made it to where they are now, it’s a group project and that worried me because, in my experience, a group project is a one-man project, but with extras. Although I have to say this group that I’m currently in everything seems to be great so far, nobody to seems to be slacking, and everyone was doing what they’re supposed to be doing. It’s made the project less stressful so far so hopefully, it stays that way throughout this project because this project is quite easy but when everyone is doing their part it makes the project even easier.