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Through this project, I learned how to take constructive criticism, and some common elements of design. I also learned how to better critique someone’s slide. I made a lot of changes to my slide, but I think the essence of what I wanted to get across is still there. I kept my name really big because I  wanted it to pop. My name is a big part of my life so it seemed only fitting that the eye was drawn to it. Before, my slide was sort of all over the place, with things here in there with no real purpose except to convey my interests. I did not use my space effectively. My new slide is much simpler, with the text at the bottom and one interest of mine in each column following the rule of thirds. I tried to even out my spacing. The green and blue sections are used to draw your eyes to the text. They cut the page in thirds as well. Overall, I just wanted to make my design more purposeful the second time around. Research is very important when beginning a project. If you do not research, you will not be able to back up your opinions with facts. Research is about being prepared to show what you learned.

I found the feedback I got from my peers helpful but one of the things I couldn’t change were the images as I couldn’t find a high resolution picture of what I used in my first slide but I did do what I wanted to do and make it “bleed”. Another thing that was pointed out was that I had a bright green line that made it stand out and wanted more attention and also remove a bar I had the color black. Another thing I changed was I made a part of the text very small and the exclamation marks way big at first so now the part of the text is bigger and the exclamation marks smaller so it's more visible. One thing I didn’t notice until editing was that the boxes I colored for the slide showed the lines of the box so I fixed that so you don’t see the lines of the boxes.

I chose the way this slide looks because in the articles  it said to make the slide noticeable. With the red background and the word ‘Netflix’ in the middle makes the readers know it has something to do with Netflix because those are the theme colors. I tried to make the text big because it said that big text should grab people's attention and it should get straight to the point. I placed a lot of things on the slide because I didn’t like the empty space rule. People might not notice the slide if there is a lot of empty space.

I chose to have all of the pictures on the slide say Netflix because that’s the main focus of the slide. The website said to make the slide easy to read. I thought it would look good if I clouded the slides with the word ‘Netflix’ because it shows that I’m passionate about it. It shows that my slide is connected to me in a real way. It shows that I care about Netflix.

I learned that you should contrast your colors on the slide. You shouldn’t make the colors blend in because people won’t be able to read what it’s saying. I changed the changes on my second slide because my first slide was kind of plain. I wanted to make this slide pop out. Research is very important when you’re doing a project because you need to understand what you’re talking about.  

Throughout this project, I learned how important the process of research is. I never thought that when designing something, research was needed, but it is. When one researches for design, the research shows what contrasts or what goes well together. If it looks messy or neat. And when I was finished with my first slide, I realized that it looked somewhat messy. The pictures went past the edges and overlapped each other, but I fixed that. Now in my revision of my first slide, I cropped the pictures so that they didn’t touch the corners and so that they did not overlap with each other. I also added some words, because I received feedback that some words would complete it. As a result, I am really proud of my second slide.

Reflection:
I learned that the rule of thirds really has a big impact on how something looks to the eye. When I had made my slide, it looked weird because of where everything was. The changes I made to my slide was getting rid of the picture of myself, moving the words over, and changing the font color of the word “draw.” I also changed the font of “fire spitting” and my name “Lamar Reed”. I removed the picture and moved the words over because the way they were placed made my slide look weird to the eye, so when I changed it up,the slide became more comfortable and easy to look at. I changed the color of the word “draw” so it can pop out more and font the font so it can a more cooler effect to how people see the slide. I also purposely kept “fire spitting” red so it can have a fire type color to it. Researching before a project is so important because if you do enough research, you can be prepared and know what to do instead of guessing and trying to improvise when you don’t have an understanding of the project and it’s requirements.

During this project I learned a lot about design, especially that used in advertising. One thing that is key is to have color contrast. If the colors of words on a slide are similar to the background or image that is behind those words, it can make it very difficult to read the words. I also learned that when designing a slide, as few words on the slide as possible makes it more appealing. Meanwhile, too many words makes the audience not want to read the slide.

Some of the changes I made to improve my slide were that I made the title of my slide bigger so that it is the first thing you see when you look at my slide. I also changed the font of the title because the original font I used made it look as though there was a space in the middle of a word when there was not. Originally, my slide included, in words, the topics featured in my Me Magazine, as well as images representing those topics. I removed the words representing the topics because it seemed pointless to represent my topics in multiple ways. Lastly, I replaced the image that represented music. Originally, two of the three images on my slide were outlined, and one was filled in. I changed it so that two of the images are filled in and one is outlined, and relocated them to make the slide more symmetrical. I also made each image larger so that you can see them better.

The research I did at the beginning of this project was extremely important. Had I attempted this project without knowing how important color contrast, large text, empty space, etc. are, I would have tried to cover my slide in writing that would have made it incredibly boring to read. Research is a crucial part of any project because it gives you background knowledge that you may not have otherwise had.

I learned a lot from seeing what mistakes my peers made and my peers pointing out the ones I made. One of the many things I learned is that it does not look good when a photo is touching the edge of a border. However,  I learned that touching an edge/border is different to bleeding off or on. I also learned that if I have a pattern with colors or designs that I should not break it by adding different colors because it can be disruptive and unpleasing to the human eye.

The big thing that I changed is the colors of the SLA logo and of the photo of me. I did this because one of my peers suggested it, and many others agreed with her suggestion, so I decided to give it a shot. After I changed the colors I put the photos back on my slide and saw how they looked and I thought to myself, this could work out but first I had to play around with the colors and make it work. I also changed the size of both of the pictures because someone commented on making the photo of me bigger. After I had changed the colors I did that and made it to where it was partially bleeding off. When I made the photo of me bigger I knew I had to make the SLA logo bigger so there would be a better balance between it and the photo.

The last change that I made was the placement and size of the text. I was given advice from many peers to make the text more centered and to make the equation of how I got into SLA smaller. So after I moved them around to have it more centered  I made the text of when I got into SLA bigger because that was something I thought was more important. But I still needed the part of when I came to Philadelphia so I decided I would make it smaller but not too much. Finally I decided to make the text the same shade of purple as the photo of me and the SLA logo which was #540a5c. I had to then customize a color for the text so I typed in that color number and then I had my color for the text.