Emily Scherer

1. What I learned from this project is how to make things animate using a prototype. I also got a lot more practice using auto layout and how to make my frames look really organized from it instead of free handing it. 

2. What was easy was coming up with the idea and creating the layout by sketching it first. Coming up with the name and the logo was very simple and easy to do as well. Once I learned how to animate things everything became easier and was very repetitive when making the levels. 

3. What was challenging was getting the hang of auto layout because it wasn’t working for me at first when I was trying to make my frames and organize and then learned I had to group them in a specific way for it to work. Learning how to animate the seal so the ball would move and spinning the wheel and swiping the animals to get them to match in the levels was hard to figure out but once I got the hang of it, I was good and realized it is all just used with the prototyping tool. 

4. My submission was improved because I added a menu button and improved my add friends so it was more advanced and interactive and changed some of the colors so they fit the scheme better. Also fixed the scoreboard so it was more aesthetically pleasing. 

5. The professor could improve the project for the next class by teaching more in depth of the prototype tool and how to make auto layout work for a whole frame of things in it, like how you have to put them in groups for it to work. I don’t think anything really needs to be changed. 

6. I will apply the knowledge I learned from this project in my future career because I now have a lot more experience using figma and will be comfortable and confident doing a project for them in my job using this knowledge. 

7. The app Candy Crush helped inspire me for this app I made because it is a simple fun app and is addicting. I did my own spin on it while also using some of the same ideas and also made my own version of it. 

1. I learned a lot about coding in this project because I have had very little practice with coding. I learned that it is very particular and you have to make sure you type everything right or else it won’t work. In my experience I had a typo and couldn’t figure out why my pictures weren’t showing up on my website but then realized that the code wasn’t spelled right and once I fixed that it worked. It is definitely an interesting concept and fun to learn once you know what you are doing. 

2. What was easy for me was following along with the code on the google slides and putting it into my website code. Also making the figma version of it to see the draft of what it is going to look like and see how similar it looks on the website from figma. Having the navigation go from page to page was simple because you did it from figma and then put it in your code. This makes it easy when you click on something like portfolio and then it goes on that page and then is the same for all the tabs. Also when you click on the emily scherer design it would take you to the home page no matter what page you were on. 

3. What was challenging about this project was like I said before getting my pictures to show up on my portfolio page because it was in the code but not showing up on the website. This was fixed because there was a typo and shows how particular it can be. Another thing that was challenging was my header and footer on each of my pages because they also weren’t showing up in the website. I noticed that there were a couple things wrong in the code after looking at it. The text was set to the same color as the header so you couldn’t see it so once I changed it to white it was there. Also I had to copy and paste my header and footer to the other pages in the coding because it wasn’t there in the website and had to do some organization with padding and other things like that. 

4. My submission could be improved by adding more organization so my home page and the other pages wouldn’t look so empty. The pictures and words are so small on the page and leaves a lot of room. Could probably use a little more padding as well. 

5. The professor could improve this for next time by showing how to have more organization on the website. Have a way to make it look more aesthetically pleasing. 

6. I will apply what I learned in this project to my future career because if I am on the creative side of a marketing agency and have to create a website for the company I will have knowledge of coding so I will be able to create it for them. 

7. Class time and the professor’s website helped me learn a lot about coding because I could inspect it and see that code and helped me to see what I did wrong and see why something wasn’t working and what had to be fixed on my website. 

https://www3.canisius.edu/~Schere11/dma370/project2

https://www.figma.com/file/rFcjENHymd0ytWXFtcfBHp/Untitled?node-id=0-1&t=Qo4cYvMn1rGxsTbE-0

https://www.figma.com/proto/akX1LVVC1DyiY9UmSyE1xp/Project-1?node-id=25%3A8&scaling=min-zoom&page-id=0%3A1&starting-point-node-id=25%3A8

1. I learned a lot from this project because it was a lot of experimenting with different things to see what works. It was a lot of trial and error and I had to learn a lot about the prototype tool to make sure it is going to the right place and has the right effect on it so it flows naturally. 

2. What was easy was designing and coming up with the idea of the music player. I have been recently going to spotify to look up sleeping and focus sounds and realized that it would be a perfect idea for this project. Creating the layout of the app was quite simple to me and I knew how I wanted to make it after doing a quick sketch. 

3. What was challenging was definitely the prototyping because there are so many frames and had to have so many arrows going to different frames so the buttons would work and was confusing. Also making sure everything was laid out evenly and in the same position on every frame so it looked organized. 

4. My submission was improved because we talked about it in class and got advice on things I should fix like my hamburger button. I made the hamburger button actually work through all the frames and made the app design more organized. 

5. I believe that this project is very straightforward and gives us a chance to be creative. I don’t think there is anything that needs to be changed for the next time. 

6. I will apply what I learned from this project to future job positions because now I can say I am proficient in figma and understand how to be creative and create an app if I ever need to do this for a future job or project. 

7. What inspired me to come up with this idea for my music player app is my own experience of what I was going through at the time this project started. I was recently just starting to use Spotify to help me focus on homework and sleep with their relaxing sounds and thought to myself how it would be nice to make an app that only had that function. 

Emily Scherer

1. I learned how to make a banner for the town banner, I didn’t know how to make the formation of it before this project and I feel like it will be beneficial in the future. I also learned how to make the road from the stroke and then getting rid of the fill attached to it and then how to add a dashed line on top of it because I was so confused at first and didn’t know how to make the roads, but that method made it so much easier. 

2. What was easy was making the pattern of the fish because making patterns was in our other project and had practice with that. Also, making the compass was pretty easy and didn’t take too much to make it look nice. It was also easy to figure out what place I wanted to base it on and look up the map and put it into my project to trace. 

3. What was challenging was doing the roads and making sure they were each made separately and didn’t have a fill attached to them because I struggled a lot with this and had to redo it a couple of times, but once I figured out the right way to make the roads it worked out a lot better. Also, I had a lot of trouble with the organization of the layers because everything was going on one layer and things were on layers that they weren’t supposed to be on and I had to take some time at the end of my project and reorganize this because it was a mess. 

4. My submission was improved because I submitted it to the dropbox and then got feedback and worked on it some more until I thought it was done and then resubmitted it. In my resubmission, I added things like a new pattern of fish, more street names, a couple more symbols, more organization in my legend and dashed lines on the streets with the bridges. 

5. The professor can improve this project for the next class by going over the tracing more when you get the screenshot of the place you want to use because that part can get very confusing and I definitely got lost trying to make my roads. 

6. I will apply what I learned on this project to future assignments and classes because this project really gave me the practice I needed on illustrator because now I know the importance of putting things on the right layer and have more confidence now and know what I am doing and how to work it. I will use my knowledge to help me with a future job or internship where I have to use adobe software. 

7. The link to a Twitter thread by Jason Grinblat inspired me because I was looking through all the maps and posts and was giving me ideas of what I could include in my project and let me brainstorm ideas of how I wanted it to look like. 

Emily Scherer

1. What did you learn?

I learned how to create a pattern and put it in my project on illustrator because I didn’t know how to do that before and don’t have much experience on illustrator because I usually use Photoshop more. I also learned how to do the logo and make it look more 3D and sharp/cleaner. Also how to create something on the computer and then being able to print it out and put it together because I have never done that before. 

2. What was easy?

What was easy was doing the logo because you just had to work with the layers. You just had to copy and paste the logo and move it a little down to make it look 3D and then just hide the other stuff to make it look cleaner. It was also easy to come up with a story to write on the side of the milk to show why they are the best milk and why someone should buy it and make the product sound really good. 

3. What was challenging?

What was challenging was making the coffee cups because I had a hard time drawing something that looked decent and not messy and also trying to come up with two ideas so I had a variety and not just the same coffee cup on both sides. After a while of brainstorming and trying to sketch things, I did end up being successful and found a way to create a clean, nice looking coffee cup. 

4. How could your submission be improved?

My submission was improved by changing the pattern from the swirls to creating my own pattern of a cow print to match the theme of the milk carton. 

5. How could the professor improve the assignment for the next class?

He could improve the assignment by making a new pattern required because I feel like it is important to match the theme of the milk carton and show that you can be creative and practice doing a pattern and not just using what you did from a lab. 

6. How might you apply your knowledge in future assignments or work scenarios?

How I will apply my knowledge to future assignments is having more confidence in illustrator and knowing what I am doing when I have to use it again for a different project. I will also know how to print something out that I made and know how to put it together. 

7. How did a specific reading or video inspire or help you?

What helped me do this project was the labs because they worked into the project and made us go step by step because for one lab we would do the pattern and then for another lab we did the logo and these labs gave me the knowledge to know what I am doing so I can be more creative with it. 

Emily Scherer

1. What did you learn?

I learned how to cover backgrounds and all the different ways you can do that. There were many different tools you can use to get rid of the background of a photo and it was easy to figure out. I also learned that if you do command J it will let you choose a section of the image and put it on top of another section and then I lowered the opacity so it blended in with the background. 

2. What was easy?

What was easy was importing my individual photos into the template and using the tools I was taught to remove the background of the pictures so you could blend them together. 

3. What was challenging?

What was challenging was that my background color and pattern didn’t really work with my images and my pattern was so intense that I couldn’t see the color of the background and didn’t come through or blend well together. Also what was challenging was creating the mobile version from the desktop version and definitely struggled with that but was able to figure it out after watching the class video. 

4. How could your submission be improved?

My submission was improved by a lot because when I first submitted it the images weren’t blended and were just each placed on the template and saw the pattern and the color of the background and just didn’t look great and then when I realized what I needed to do I redid it and made the images all blend together and definitely looked a whole lot better. 

5. How could the professor improve the assignment for the next class?

You could improve the assignment by maybe taking out the background color and creating a pattern because I feel like for at least mine, it didn’t really fit in the whole scheme and worked better if you just used your images and overlapped them and took a section of a image and put it on top of another image with low opacity. 

6. How might you apply your knowledge in future assignments or work scenarios?

I will apply my knowledge that I learned in this project to help me on future projects and labs that we will be doing in class and can also help me in classes I will be taking next semester and is just a good skill to have when applying for jobs/internships. 

7. How did a specific reading or video inspire or help you?

The Erik Johansson surreal photography website helped me on this project because it inspired me to think outside of the box and not make my project so basic. 

Emily Scherer

1. This project made me learn a lot about photoshop. I was a beginner before this project and had no clue how to use any of the tools. I struggled at the beginning but I learned so much and am able to say that I am comfortable with photoshop because I used to be scared of it. I learned how to get people and glares from windows out of my photos and make them look a lot sharper. This was so satisfying though because they are pictures that I genuinely enjoy and were ruined by people and stuff like that so I love that I am able to crop all that out and have better photos than before. 

2. What was easy was creating the lighting adjustment curves because you just had to play around with it and would always make your photos so much nicer and would give it a darker/sharp kind of lighting. All you had to do for the curve adjustment was make a slight S on the line and it would work well with every photo. 

3. What was challenging about the project was trying to get people and other things out of my photo by using the stamp tool and other tools while also trying to blend it in and make it seem natural and not out of place or where you could tell that it was photoshopped. And also the my portfolio with all the pictures and creating thumb drives for it was very confusing and didn’t know what I was doing until I was shown and then got the hang of it pretty well. 

4. How my submission could be improved is making sure the photo looks neat in some places because there were some spots where I used the stamp and lasso tool to cut people out and looks a little blurry and was a little noticeable. I tried my best to make it blend in and I feel like it worked pretty well, but could also be neater. 

5. How you could improve it for the future class could be to simplify it or find an easier way to replace your photos with our photos and to maybe have a little less photos because it can be a little overwhelming and confusing with all the files. 

6. I will apply what I learned from this project in future assignments because it has helped me with improving my skills with photoshop and will be comfortable using it for future projects. 

7. The videos in the project 1 slideshow helped me a lot to learn what I had to do in photoshop and how to make my picture look better. Without those I would have been really lost. 

Emily Scherer

https://www.figma.com/file/RL4W6eRZtjZQiHr6YPGhS9/Project-2?node-id=4%3A12

1. learned how to add more animation to the frame and app than I did in the first one. I learned how to use smart animate and how to use fewer frames with the new feature and using my design system to make it easier for me to make the design and text the same on each frame so I didn’t have to do it manually each time. 

2. What was easy for me was creating the format and structure for the game and coming up with the frames and writing what everyone’s score is and whose turn it was and drawing the pictures and just coming up with the whole idea. 

3.  What was challenging for me was making the app interactive and giving it more animation because I had trouble trying to figure out how to make a button look like it was clicked and show that a person guessed the word. I had to work through this to make my app more interesting and entertaining because if there wasn’t any interaction or animation then it would be boring. 

4. My submission could have been improved by adding even more animation and interaction to the frames and possibly figuring out how to show the picture being drawn and show what the players are seeing. I feel like that would be a really interesting touch to the project. 

5. I don’t believe you could improve this project because it was very straightforward because it was just making an app for people to use when they have to quarantine and this project gave us the opportunity to be as creative as we want and do pretty much anything and I think that it was a good idea to let us be in charge of how to create our projects and not just tell us what to do or design. You were so helpful and really helped bring our designs to life when we didn’t know how to do something and give us ideas when we got stuck and made us think outside the box. 

6. I will apply this project to future assignments and in my career, because I will use the knowledge I gained to help me understand prototyping and interaction more in case I need it in my future job and will be prepared. 

7. The video you showed us in class about the new way that came out on Figma for prototyping really helped me because it was so much easier and a big time saver. I didn’t have to make as many slides because of how I could just put them in my design system and would work for my whole project. I remember how much of a pain it was for the first project having to create a frame for each thing and was way too time-consuming. 

Emily Scherer

Cuisine: I used the typefaces Sacramento and Barlow/Barlow condensed because I thought they paired well together and wanted my word cuisine to look fancy and then the other words to be pretty basic. 

Sports: I used the typefaces Tangerine and Josefin Sans because the same thing I said above, I wanted the word sports to look fancier than the other words like London. 

Architecture: I used the typefaces Gloria Hallelujah and Gill Sans because I wanted the word architecture to look like it was built like a building and had character and then I wanted the word London to be basic and show off something similar to London’s typeface called Johnston that they use on everything with their underground subway system and maps. 

History: I used the typefaces PT Mono and Lora because I felt like they went together really well and complimented each other and gave a more basic vibe because there wasn’t a need to make anything fancy on this frame.

1. I learned that the typography that you use actually matters and there are ways you can space out the words or condense them to fit the space without having a lot of margins. I learned to use up my space and fill it up with the text. I liked how in this project we had to combine things that we learned in class like the typography and the color schemes. 

2. What was easy for this project was picking the place I wanted to base it on because I love London and all the aspects of it like the cuisine, architecture, sports, and history, and thought it would be a fun place to base my stamps on. I also thought placing the pictures and the typography went pretty smoothly and didn’t have too much trouble with where to place it while also using the rule of thirds. 

3. What was challenging about the project for me was finding a color scheme that works with my images and the place I chose and also doing a different color scheme for each frame. I would have to make a rectangle with a color in my color scheme and put it behind my photo to make it fit in more. 

4. My submission could be improved by possibly improving the typography to fit the boxes more because sometimes there is blank space around it. I did go and fix my submission after I already submitted it because I only had one generic color scheme for each frame and was too boring so I added more color schemes to give variety. 

5. How you could improve the project for next time could be to emphasize more about the different color schemes because I wasn’t sure If we needed a different one for each frame or if I could stick with just one and I realized it was for each frame because it said something in the google slides, but I don’t believe it says it in the actual instructions. 

6. I will apply what I did on this project to future scenarios because I am sure when I have a job someday I will need typography for a project I will have to send my boss and is just a good skill to have. Also knowing how to create a color scheme will come in handy if I am on the creative side for a marketing team. 
7. The reading that helped me with this project was “Alignment Principle of Design” because it showed me examples of what is good alignment and what is bad alignment and what I should try to avoid doing. Also showed me how useful a grid can be when trying to create good alignment.

Emily Scherer

Metaphor: Apple of my eye

1. I learned from this project how to combine two pictures in a creative way. I had to think outside the box and not just stick with a simple design. It got me out of my comfort zone and forced me to use photoshop and not just stick to Figma. It made me more comfortable with my abilities to use photoshop and learned things on there I didn’t know before and was able to successfully combine two images to represent a metaphor. 

2. What was easy for me was creating the pattern for the background because I just used two icons on iconify on Figma and just put the apple in the middle of the pupil of the eye to show the metaphor “apple of my eye”. It wasn’t too hard to make a pattern for the background of the image because I just duplicated it once I had a pattern and then also lowered the opacity to make it transparent and could see the image on top. 

3. What was challenging for me was having to use photoshop because I haven’t really had to use that very much and was confused about how it worked. I had a hard time trying to figure out how to make my eyeballs in the trees different sizes. I continued to work on figuring it out and was successful.

4. My submission was improved after submitting it because I tried to do it without photoshop and it didn’t look as good as it could have so after the feedback I remodeled it and changed what I had before which was cartoon eyes to real life like eyeballs and had to merge it into the tree instead of what I did before with just placing the cartoon eyes on top. 

5. How you could possibly improve this project in the future is to maybe not even allow Figma for this project so people are forced to use photoshop to advance their skills and get more advanced-looking work. 

6. I will use what I learned from this project in the future because I will need the knowledge of how to use photoshop and Figma in my future classes so I won’t fall behind and will help me with my future job someday if I am on the creative side of an ad agency. 

7. The reading “Exercise 11.2: Visual Metaphors” by Amy Gillard inspired me and helped me come up with my project and gave me examples of what it is supposed to look like and had something to base it off of, but then still did a completely different thing. It also showed me how mind mapping is a good way to brainstorm different unique ways you could represent the metaphor. For example, for mine, I did an apple and an eye which is the most basic thing you can do, but after doing a mind map I realized I could do so many other things like an apple tree but instead of apples falling from the tree it could be eyeballs.