To finish the semester I thought it would be a good idea to reflect on it a little bit. So I got out my pen and paper and made some spider diagrams, spilling out my thoughts on what I have enjoyed and what I had found challenging. The images are below.

 

The main thing for me that I really enjoyed was seeing how far I have come from the start of the semester, when I did not know really anything about branding, I just thought a brand was mainly a logo and a name. I wasn’t very wrong. I feel like I have really transformed through these past few months and feel like the journey, watching my brand keep changing and developing was really fun. Learning how to improve each part of my brand from help from Daniel and feedback from my class really helped me progress and I think that was my favourite thing about the past few months.

I also feel like I learned a lot of things that I never knew or heard of before, this made me a designer, thinker and doer. I also feel like I learned a lot of change and accepting that i can always make things better and I don’t have to stick with the same idea, I can change my mind and grow as a thinker and designer. I learned a lot of skills this semester that will be very beneficial to me, for example, lots of group feedback. This was good because I got to practise giving other people my thoughts, which sometimes can be hard if my thoughts are on the critical side, but I learned that this is a part of the design environment – everyone has their own taste and opinions. Hearing others opinions has made me a more open and considerate person I feel, and learning to talk criticism and seeing it as helpful advice is another skill I ahem learned along the way.

I have had some challenges too, as seen above. One of my most prolific ones was tryiing to narrow down everything, finalise it and really get everything perfect. It took me a long time to do this with parts of my brand for example my colour, guidelines and imagery. All of these had me debating and trying out various options for weeks but I finally got there in the end. This Branding module has taught me that I should improve my decision skills and be more brutal when it comes to picking what I like or don’t like, finalising things and narrowing down what is needed and what isn’t. But I feel my challenges were overcame and feel like in the end I have succeeded in making the brand I wanted – a fun, creative modern brand. I have enjoyed so much of this module, from crafting my very one monogram to building my own website that is now functional. My progress and journey through this semester is what I am most proud of and how much I grew and changed as a designer, so I can’t wait to see what I create next semester.