I’m alive I swear! I’ve been busy with work and catching up on adulting. The current library campaign has also been taking up a lot of my energy. (sdlibraryadvocates on Insta and FB if you wanna take a look!)
I’ve been trying to create posts highlighting library resources and spreading awareness of the proposed budget cuts. I also had to make Instagram and Facebook accounts. That was the easy part, figuring out how to connect them was more difficult. I printed off 30 posters at my local library and have yet to hang them around town. I’ll get to that on my days off, this Wednesday and Thursday.
An Instagram post I designed in Canva
In other news, I’ve been preparing for school and buying books. Hopefully, I can keep the momentum going in the effort to save the library! I was able to talk to the president of the SD Library Association and find out that there will be more resources coming.
The college homework saga continues! We are currently designing the nameplate, or title, of our magazine. After scrolling through adobe fonts, I finally found my font: casserole. Which is such a fun name and just warms my Midwest heart.
But picking a font was just the beginning. Now I have to expand my Illustrator skill set and figure out just how to manipulate type. I haven’t done a whole lot with typography so I consulted google and found these really helpful videos.
I learned a lot about the pencil tool! I’ve become so comfortable with the pen tool, that I haven’t tried it. That ends today!
Brainstorming
My magazine title is musings. After thinking and surfing Pinterest, I wanted to try incorporating a quill nib into the title.
some generic quill nibs (not my pic)
I started sketching how I wanted the nib to replace the i in musings.
some of my scribblings!some iterations
I like the one in the middle. I don’t think I need a dot for the i. This week, I’m going to check in with my teacher and get some feedback. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to knock out the middle pieces of the quill either.
That’s all for today folks! Did you learn anything new?
I’ve been chipping away at my final projects! Right now, I’m finalizing my last article spread. I really want to have it nearly finished so I can get feedback and turn in my magazine before class ends tomorrow. Here are my different iterations: I think I’m leaning towards the last one. Maybe I’ll change the…
I’ve been steadily working on my perfume label in class. Initially, I wanted the perfume to have the scent of bleeding heart flowers, but since the bottle is an amber color, I decided on an orange scent. I’m still playing around with font combinations for the brand. But I am happy with the body copy…
Jessica Walsh is a graphic designer, creative director, author, illustrator, design teacher, and founder of the design agency &Walsh. Her Career Walsh was born in Rhode Island in 1986. Before even stepping foot in college, she coded and designed websites at 11 years old. She got her BFA at Rhode Island School of Design in…
In my Media Development class, we are mocking up and designing the interface of our own apps. This sounds pretty straightforward, but I’ve learned I need to know more about how to make proper surveys, determine my target market, add links to my social media stories, and create personas.
What I’ve learned:
I need to have a wider audience on social media.
If I want the best swath of information, I have to reach a lot of people. And as a person with a small personal following, that has made me get creative.
So some of my own suggestions for widening that survey scope is to post it to Facebook, Facebook groups, Instagram (stories and posts), Snapchat, Substack, Reddit, literally everything. Check out survey swap response websites, and text relatives who fall into the target market. Try it all, the worst they can say is no, or just not respond at all.
Ask the right questions!
Ask what is only relevant. People aren’t going to want to fill out any extra questions. Research what good questions to ask users. Articles like this are helpful.
Format your survey correctly
Run through your survey in preview mode if possible and see if friends can read through it. I sent my survey out into the wild and realized that where I had a short answer option, a multiple-choice format would’ve made it easier to analyze.
Get tech savy!
Learn how to post links onto all social media platforms. I had no idea how to post links on Instagram and Snapchat, but now I do.
That’s all I have for now! After I learn how to create personas, I’ll have more to update you on. What else should I cover? Let me know below.
