Hello, my name is Layla Dessouki and I am a design student at Freestyle Academy. In the course of the last two years I have developed my skill and passion in photography, graphic design, and social justice. Outside of school, I like to read and spend time with my friends and family.
For my Senior Showcase, I am excited to share my Junior Documentary and Senior Zenith projects; these pieces reflect my best work and most meaningful growth during my Freestyle career. For my documentary, I researched activism in the Egyptian Revolution. I recruited my interviewees, Amr Hamzawy and Wael Ghonim, two prominent figures in the revolution. I struggled in the design of my book, partially because since all my photos had to be my own, and I couldn’t fly to Egypt to take more photos. For my zenith, I chose to create a photo series of minorities and different little microaggressions. I photographed different mise en scenes that I set up, and researched information to go along with each photo.
I would like some feedback focused on the visual experience of flipping through these books. Did the photos and graphic design elements add to the overall theme and text? Did you feel like the stories were clearly and thoroughly told? In short, if I decided to revise these, what would you suggest I do differently?
Next year, I plan to pursue peace studies at Chapman University, as well as pursue a double major in public relations and advertising. I am excited about moving to Southern California and working with my professors and networking with professionals in my chosen majors.
You can reach me at layladessouki@gmail.com
Documentary
The Price of Revolution
Zenith
How Did It Feel?
Growing up as a woman of color in America, I’ve been hit with little microaggressions for one identity or another. I’m a woman, so I shouldn’t have a career, or my skin is dark so people assume I don’t speak English. Based on these experiences, I decided to highlight marginalized groups in a way that might not be expected.
My research paper was about teaching kids about social identities and microaggressions in school at a young age. Originally, I wanted to do something relating to youth and social identity to go with my research project. My idea then expanded into what I ended up doing, which still connected to my research paper, but in a subtler way. I had a lot of different photoshoots that involved different types of people and locations, so I had to contact people to model for my shoots. I used my friends or family as my models for most shoots, but coordinating and finding days where I could schedule different people for different shoots was somewhat of a struggle, especially because I was trying to get too much done in a short period of time.
Although it took me a little bit longer than I had initially expected, I was able to schedule all my shoots and models. I think if I were to do my project over again, I would give myself more time to get everything I needed done and to plan things better. I put myself on a schedule that did not give me a lot of time, making the quality of my project not as high as it could have been. I have a habit of not planning things completely through, causing me to spend more time on tasks that could have taken me much less time.
Despite my issues with timing, I was still very productive and actually finished my project earlier than I thought I would. By being productive, I was able to balance out the time I lost in being unorganized and slow. I also applied social and civic responsibility in my project. I used my photos and their captions to educate on society and public good. In my junior year, I mostly just was guessing on how to use different Adobe applications. For my zenith project, I worked a lot in Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop, and improved my skills and ability to use these apps successfully and efficiently. I also gained some experience in Adobe Illustrator for some of my graphic design elements.
This project taught me a lot not only on how to improve my skills using media but also taught me a lot about others. I had to do a lot of research in order to set up the scenes I photographed and their respective captions. Since my project highlighted discrimination, it showed me what things can be like for those who don’t have my privilege.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1RF-LtQxrJhn7Lmedr5CyyKWQMWhxHpzZTfCKIWMNfKU/edit?usp=sharing