Looking back on my initial reflections for the course which were as follows:

  • To become more familiar with design software.
  • To better understand marketing in an organizational context.
    • To better understand arts marketing strategies and how to apply concepts learnt towards these strategies.
  • To be able to gain an understanding of typography and to be able to use it effectively in design.
  • Gain insight into branding and how it affects the consumer’s perspective

I feel like through this course I definitely became more familiar with design software. I learnt how to use Adobe Illustrator and Indesign, which were two programs that I had never used before. I would, however, like to learn how to do more original art in Illustrator. For arts marketing strategies, I feel like this will be covered more next term in the second half of the course, however, I was able to learn about trends in arts participation through the case study. Typography was also a major part of the class and not only did I learn a lot about font and the different types of fonts, but I also learnt a whole range of design vocabulary and learnt how to start thinking about those elements in design. Branding was also a big part of the course, especially with the rebranding assignment. I found it interesting to learn how different colours create different reactions in people and connotations to a certain brand. In addition to these learning goals, I think that just being able to go through the process of creating a logo and collateral and then having to think about all the different elements that factor into the design (such as printing) and putting the design into a set of graphic standards was a very useful assignment and something that will be useful in the future.