HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR DESIGN AESTHETIC?
My design aesthetic can be defined as eclectic and maximalist. I enjoy
using bright colors and bold elements to characterize my designs. I
often find myself leaning towards the strange and unique, drawing
inspiration from both retro and modern trends to create my own work.
WHAT OBJECTS INSPIRE YOUR AESTHETIC?
I am inspired by a lot of different objects. I really like the aesthetic
of early 2000s technology, like the trend where the outer shell was
clear plastic to show all the colorful wires inside. I enjoy the clunky
and colorful nature of older technology where sleekness and slimness
weren’t the goal. I’m also really inspired by science and scientific
samples, like petri dishes and chemical elements. There’s a whole
subsection of the art world where people grow different bacterias and
molds in petri dishes to make colorful compositions and I find it kind
of gross, but also really fascinating.
WHAT WAS YOUR EARLIEST DESIGN MEMORY?
As a kid, I loved to go to bookstores and libraries because I loved to
read. I got bored and distracted very easily though, so I didn’t have
the patience to browse through every single book and find the one I
would like the best based on descriptions. I remember choosing what I
wanted to read based on the covers and titles of the books, then reading
the back. I remember always thinking I didn’t know why anyone would make
their book cover ugly, because nobody wants to read a book with an ugly
cover. I’m a little more articulate about it now, but I believe that
good design stands out, and the user is more likely to go for something
well-designed if they have many options.
HOW DO YOU DEFINE "INTERACTION DESIGN?"
From my limited experience, I know that interaction design deals in the
experience of the people who will be engaging with your design. I would
assume that you are designing around the consumer and how the average
customer will think to interact with your work. Intuition of the wants
and needs of the user seems like a driving factor behind interaction
design.
WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DESIGNING FOR
A PRINT PRODUCT AND A DIGITAL PRODUCT?
One big difference in designing for print versus digital media is the
color mode. Each have different capabilities in terms of how they use
color, and the designer has to account for that when considering which
colors to use. Print products typically have more restrictions on their
possibilities; texture, color, scale, and legibility are just a few of
the things you have to think about when designing something for print,
whereas designing digitally doesn’t have relevancy in many of these
considerations.
WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SAW DIGITAL DESIGN
IN THE WORLD THAT SURPRISED YOU?
Actually very recently, when I was finding links for class on Laurel
Schwulst’s sites. I was surprised how interactive these sites can be and
I found a lot of joy in finding the ones that didn’t necessarily serve a
purpose for an online store or business, but were made just for the
interests of the designer and those who visit their page. Looking at
these sites and picking out my favorites made me think about the
intention behind web design. Everything I clicked had a reaction to my
engagement, because that’s what the designer told it to do. They assume
that if they design something that looks clickable, the user will want
to click it, so they have to make it do something.
WHAT DOES "UX AND UI" MEAN TO YOU?
I know their definitions– user experience and user interaction,
respectively. I know they deal in the user’s relationship to the design,
especially in terms of digital and web design. I don’t know much beyond
that.
WHAT ARE YOU MOST INTERESTED IN
LEARNING IN THIS CLASS?
I’m excited to learn more about web design in general and making
interactive designs. This is a niche that has interested me since I
began my design studies, but my previous courses have not really delved
into that aspect of design yet. I think web design might be something
I’m interested in as a career, and I’m excited to learn more about it to
figure out if it’s something I want to pursue as a minor or as a
post-grad.
