Project Proposal

For my project I will be working with my aunt to help her start a dog walking business. I feel like I will be able to explore a little bit of design and film and be able to learn new ways to communicate things to an audience. For my media I want to create a few different advertisements through design and film. I believe I will be able to expand or contract my project based on progress.

This project is a challenge because I will be essentially creating a business platform. It’s my aunt who will be managing this business but I’ll be helping her start it and blossom it out. It is also a challenge because I will be trying out advertisement for the first time and seeing how people respond to things and what works best to get information out. I am also allergic to dogs so that might be an issue.

Project Productions

Read my research paper

Project Reflection

For my innovator I knew that I had wanted to focus on something in design since that is something I’ll be focusing on post graduation. When I was explaining the project to my dad and asking him if he had any opinions or ideas, he mentioned a few. One that really stood out to me was that my aunt was going to be starting a new business. I thought that would be best for me because I know I would be able to work with her, giving me client experience and being able to work with someone I’m comfortable with. It made it easier to get in contact with her too when it was needed.

Since it was my aunt’s business, I worked with her consistently. I would send her work and she would give me feedback and requests based on her preference. I was nervous about working with her based on my knowledge of her personality, but it worked pretty well and I was wanting to improve my work as well and sometimes her feedback really helped me move in better directions. I think working with family will always be difficult, because you don’t want to ruin any personal relations by having a professional disagreement. You also don’t want anything to spread through the family that’ll cause discomfort or awkward tension. I think in the end of the project arguments were definitely averted and that there wasn’t any tension, we were both very proud of each other’s work and progression. I also had helpful advice from my peers that I would work nearby, asking them for their opinions and ideas on work that I was doing. Being able to have outside help from people who weren’t fully aware of what I was doing helped because I was able to learn what resonated with people and what was most clear and eye catching.

Being in Freestyle has taught me about innovation in creativity and technology. My research paper was really fueled by advancements in 21st century technology. My research paper was based on a popular and new way of advertisement through social media. I was able to learn that there are cost effective ways to spread the news of a company of any size and age. Due to the amount of progression my aunt was making with her business, I wasn’t able to help her combine the advertisements I was making with social media platforms like I had originally proposed to her. I did get to complete more advertising pieces that I had anticipated because I decided to not make a video either. During my research paper I realized that posting images were more effective than creating short ads for people to watch.

I think during this project I became more open minded and patient with working with others and trying to express my vision. I got a better understanding of using Illustrator too. I didn’t really improve on communication as much as I could have. I was able to explain things to my aunt however I didn’t really bounce back and forth as many ideas as I thought I would with her, instead just allowed her to tell me what she wanted.

Something I really valued from this project was being able to set my own deadlines and own requirements for my work. I found it easier for me to be able to stay relaxed and figure out what I wanted my work to look like.

I definitely got better with collaboration and asking for help when I needed by the end of the project. I’ll be able to in the future to approach more people for help and advice on my work. I’ll also be more confident in my skills as a designer. From this I’ll also start conditioning myself to communicate better with clients by giving them advice with clear explanations that they’ll understand. I think that I should’ve been more strict with myself with trying to finish and reach deadlines. There weren’t really days of just slacking but class periods where I probably could’ve gotten more work done than I had.

I think if I were to change something about this product as a personal thing, I would want to manage my time better in the beginning. As the unit ended, I was very focused on my deadlines and completing things but I don’t think I had as much urgency in the very beginning of the project.

By giving us the freedom to do whatever we want, I was able to create every aspect of this unit, which gave me complete feeling in charge as my work. I was able to also learn more about technology and current practices through my research paper. This project was a great experience and I support it in the future as well. I was able to explore and confirm that I enjoyed working on the things that I did.

For my senior panel presentation I know that I’m going to be showing one of my advertisements from my innovator project because I’m extremely proud of the final product due to how much time and how outside of my comfort zone I went. I’ll be able to explain how I got to plan my vision and that I was very excited and thankful for the unit where I got to decide everything and be my own boss.