COMD 1100- Graphic Design Principles 1
COMD 1100: Graphic Design Principles I Course Reflection
What is the first thing you here when someone says Graphic Design principles? I thought of it being the basics of graphics. What’s a design and ways designs work. If you’re thought that as well you would be correct in what we learned in course but however it was still slightly different that I thought, it would be.
I came into the classes not knowing anything about design principles or how you go from step a to b when drawing or designing. When I thought of design principals, I thought it would be working more on the computers designing projects but that wasn’t quite it. So, after the first day I wasn’t all too sure what I would be working on.
After buying supplies, I realized we would more be working on tactile and be going to the real basics before getting on the computer. We learned things that a lot of people would take granted for on the computer such as margins which usually on a computer you can easily tell if your margins are even using the guidelines programs such as Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator. However doing it using the eye and a ruler was tougher than expected. Sometimes you would measure things out and say yes my margins are right but then when you draw the shape up, it might come out slanted or the margins come out wrong. After many different projections, it became more natural using a ruler and getting margins even. We then transitioned from using black to finally using colors. Using full colors, it became obviously why we used black only at the beginning.
We needed to learn how to focus on our margins and handling tensions first before we got into how perspectives affected us. Then we went on to handling patterns and what creates or defines a pattern. Now that those became easier to do we were now able to focus on getting the colors right. The mixing of colors and how they dried on paper was harder than I believed. We’re using basic colors so if one wanted a purple one would have to mix two other colors first then apply that on the project sheet. It sounds easy in theory but it was challenging. When you mix the paint one might not always get the same tone of color unless the exact amount of paint is measured and used again. For example, if you wanted a purple tone, one would mix blue and red however, mix that same blue and red one might not get the same tone again. The tone might change as well if different tools one used to mix it the first time were different than the second time. Now imagine at the beginning of class having to do a project with colors instead of black. I would not only have struggled with the margins and not making my object seem as if it has perspective but also with the consistencies of the paint.
Not only did we use our hands in class but also sharpened how our eyes perceived what we see daily. In designing it’s not only important to know how to draw it’s also important to know how you or other customers perceive things. Designing principles theory, it turned out to be what I thought it would just without the computers.
