Week 5

This week, I completed my wireframe sketches, which seem to be on the right track. I also completed my Good'Ville Case Study website on Webydo. I still have to buy an official domain name for it, but I think I will just link it to my portfolio to save money

Week 4

This week, I finished my ideation sketches for my Self-Authorship app. I showed two different directions that this app could go- either realistic or futuristic, which would allow more flexibility and less constraints in my design. However, my boyfriend just happens to be a Software Engineer in Charleston, SC, and has willingly agreed to develop the realistic approach to the app for me. He has developed a few apps of his own, one of them getting over 100,000 downloads. I am even more excited to continue with ideation and design of this app knowing that there is the possibility that it could become a real app on Google Play and possibly the iTunes app store. Next week, I will have the wireframes completed and ready to be looked at, and the mockups will be due the week after that.




I have also started working on the website on Webydo for my Good'Ville Case Study, since it was already designed to be rendered into a website. I am a few pages into it, and am struggling with linking all of the pages together, which I will assess during next class. So far I am learning a lot of different features on this site-building website, and hope to design an even better version of my case study.

Week 3

This week, I put together the tentative schedule of project due dates that I am going to follow for the rest of the semester. It seems like a lot at first, But I feel that if I set my mind to it, everything will get done. Two of my projects don't require any adjustments, and the rest require either making explainer videos, a website, or a redesign. While I am excited to revisit and adjust the projects I have done while I was here at Millersville these past three years, I am more excited to start my Self-Authorship project. I have decided to follow the advice of creating an app to raise awareness or Gingers. I will do this by designing an app in which you can transform any person into a Ginger. How I will render that out remains to be thought through. Below you will see the schedule for my project due dates and in-progress critiques.

Self-Authorship Proposal

For my self-authorship project, I had the idea of raising awareness of Gingers (since I am one) through a mobile or iPad application that "Snaps" someone and turns them into a ginger for a day. Below is my proposal:

Ever since high school, I have been referred to as a “Ginger.” For years, people with freckles, pale skin, and auburn, red, orange, or strawberry blonde hair have been given the name of Gingers. Over time, many negative terms and stereotypes have been formed about us, such as being soul-less and having the ability to steal others’ souls, “redheaded stepchild,” having relations to the devil, fiery tempers, and one that really pushes over the edge is an episode from the show South Park that gives the false illusion of Gingers having a contagious disease called “Ginger-vitis.” All of these derogatory remarks have contributed to many gingers being bullied just because of their looks and the stereotypes against them.

My goal is to raise awareness of Gingers, and show others that we are much more than just the false rumors you hear about our kind. I would also like to give other Gingers the confidence they need to embrace who they are, and that their red hair and freckles are gifts, not cause for penalty.

There are already some attempts to raise awareness, such as the Redhead Days, where hundreds of Gingers will gather for a three-day long festival in the Netherlands. They have even set a World Record of 1,672 natural redheads in one place in 2012. Other attempts include Kiss-a-Ginger day, Hug-a-Ginger day, and multiple pages on Facebook geared toward the goal of encouraging Gingers to love and cherish who they are. As humorous as it may seem, and some aspects of it is, Gingers have feelings (and souls) too, and I hope to open everyone’s eyes to that fact in my own unique way. Soon we will no longer have to hide in the shadows, we have plenty of sunscreen!

I received positive feedback from this proposal and idea, so I am going to run with it and have fun!

Week 2

This week, I didn't have to go into class on Tuesday, since we were all split into two groups to come in on either Tuesday or Thursday to have their work looked at. On Thursday, I showed my work, and the pieces that werethe most approved were my live.learn.buzz app that I designed with a partner for Interaction Design, and a Futuristic Interface that was designed in the same class with a larger group of students.

View the videos for these two projects here.

Other projects that were chosen to be used included my case study for the event that my classmates and I in Design for Social Equity organized and designed called Good'Ville. I was originally told last semester to design it to be web-oriented since print isn't my strong-suit, and the people who viewed it seemed very pleased with how it turned out. It is not yet a working website, but I do have a working prototype of it that can be viewed right now on Invision. Another Design for Social Equity project that I am featuring is a Peace Poster Project that a classmate and I designed and organized together.

The next is a website that I designed with my partner and three Computer Science students for a real-life client in a course called Advanced Computers in Design. While the website turned out pretty good, the most important part was the process we took to get our finished product and the fun learning experience we had. Here it is in my Behance portfolio.

A few other projects needed to be revamped a little more, such as my hollistic dog-themed Digital Publication, but it was suggested to use an illustration from a web page that I designed in my intro to experience and interaction class.

Other Projects that were assigned to us were ones that we are all supposed to do, including a Self-Authorship project, Self-Promotion, Resume, Cover Letter, and Business card, and finally the all-important Portfolio site. 

Week 1

Week 1 was basically an introduction to the course, and what is to be expected of us. Coming into the course, we were required to have all of our files from previous courses organized so that we can look through them and decide which projects are good enough to be put in the portfolio, which ones need tweaking, thrown out, and projects that needed complete revamping, or completely new ones.

We were also supposed to figure out where we want to be in three years from now. Ideally, I would like to become a User Experience designer working for a design studio with a free-flowing, easy going atmosphere, who does work for particular clients. I am trying to stay away from anything working in-house, because doing the same type of design for the same company seems a little boring and monotonous, in my opinion. I am very open to studios that take on rather unique clients, and I was told to look at the work that potential employers have done to scope out and see if they might be a place that I would like to work. I am particularly looking in the Southern region of the U.S., specifically South Carolina or Charlotte, NC. For one I've always loved the area, people, and culture down there, and secondly it is a decent area to find UX careers, especially in Charlotte and Atlanta.