What was easy? Manipulating the size and position of the shapes was easy since Figma is not a very complex program. I was easily able to move the shapes anywhere I wanted inside the frames. Also, the use of black and white instead of other colors made the process easier since arranging them into patterns that tell a story was the main focus.

What was challenging? Deciding on which nursery rhyme to use was difficult since it took me a while to come up with design ideas in my head that could go along with each Gestalt principle. Also, although some of my frames look simple, it was difficult to ensure each frame dealt with a specific principle. Frames 3 and 4 were probably the most difficult since it took me a while to fully understand how to use negative space to my advantage. Frame 4 I ended up redoing completely which took a while. Also, it was difficult at times to figure out which frame went with each principal since some of them are similar.

How could I improve the assignment for the next class? While I am happy with my designs, some of them are more complex than others. Perhaps I could have done a better job at making sure each frame is more closely equal in terms of how much detail it contains. However, the Jack Horner rhyme is simple and it is easier to communicate stories in certain frames than others. I probably could have experimented with scale a bit more and done a better job at improving issues relating to symmetry since that was a issue I dealt with.

How might you apply your knowledge in future assignments or work scenarios? I will definitely continue to use Figma as it is much easier to use than Photoshop or Illustrator. I will use it for future projects for sure. Also I can now use my knowledge of Gestalt principles to manipulate the eye to follow a specific direction. This project proved to me that it is possible to create art that is complex despite shapes being so simple, so that will play a role in my ability to create designs.

How did a specific reading or video inspire or help you? Before I began designing in Figma, I watched many nursery rhyme videos so I can get a visual look at what each line looks like and use it to inspire my designs. I also found some old Gestalt Nursery Rhyme examples that better enhanced my understanding of the project. The slides on Gestalt principles that served as the introduction to Project 1 introduced me to Gestalt principles and I looked back on those slides many times to ensure I understood each principle.

2. Using InDesign was easy in my opinion. Although I have not used it before Project 1, it was not hard to use at all for this project. Once I went back and saw how to place each photo in a frame, the process was pretty repetitive. It was a nice learning process that could be a good alternative to many of the programs I have used previously for presentation-like projects. Also, changing the image size and playing around with adjustments was getting easier the more I progressed through the project. It just took some time to get used to.

3. Taking the pictures was kind of challenging. I took many of them with my phone camera, but the quality was not so good at first. I was unhappy with how most of the pictures have came out originally, so I retook almost all of them. When I did that, I tried other techniques to improve the quality. I turned the lights off in my room and used my desk light to create a soft light that greatly improved the quality of my images. I tried a different camera as well, but the quality was not great so I went back to using the phone camera. That took a long time to do and a lot of trial & error. Once I did that, it took a while for me to get used to understanding which photos would go in which portfolio. After reviewing parts of the class videos and the Project instructions, my confusion was greatly lowered and I had a better understanding of what to do. After all, files can get a bit messy when you need to have 3 separate files saved for 16 different images. After progressing through the project, however, I felt more confident and less confused.

4. To improve my project, I am sure I could have done more to improve the quality of my photos in Photoshop. A few of my photos, especially towards the end, were a bit lacking in terms of how many adjustments I have made to them because a few images I thought looked better without a ton of changes. Maybe I could have done a better job with the compression of the images, but I think that went okay. I did not want to lower the image quality too much, but I had to get some of the images to a smaller size so they would fit properly. I also could of possibly played around with the image size better when taking the photos so that they would not look so weird in the InDesign frames, but I tried my best. Furthermore, I could have taken the images better because some of them I had a hard time cropping due to some strange angles I took the photos at, hoping those angles would improve the quality of the images. They did, but in doing so, they were kind of harder to make look better when cropping them in Photoshop.

5. To improve the assignment next time, I would ask the professor to organize the instructions document a bit better because I found it a bit difficult to follow at times even when a lot of my confusion was cleared up in class. I just took me a while to understand which photos were going into which portfolio and to realize which sizes each photo would need to be for each portfolio. The instructions could have probably been simplified a bit more and organized a little better to clear up confusion. I think I did okay though the more I progressed through Project 1.

6. Since I now understand image sizing better, I could use my newly acquired knowledge to change the size of the images to enhance their quality for specific reasons. Also, I would definitely use InDesign again because it was not difficult to use and would work well for many art-related projects in present and future DMA classes (In DMA, there is quite a bit of art-related projects.) I now also have a better understanding of how to improve image quality, so of course I will use my knowledge in other courses because I use Photoshop a lot for all my DMA courses. Also, since I now better understand file organization, that will come in handy for sure.

7. Going back and watching a couple of the class videos from the past few weeks have helped me a lot in understanding what to do because I could follow the processes that Professor Dunkle was showing us on his screen. I also read a couple articles on image compression so I could better understand how to do that since some of my photos were kind of big. I think those helped improve my understanding of the project. I probably could have watched videos on how to make better adjustments in Photoshop, but I think I did good.

Here are a few before/after shots of my photos: