Vision Boards and SWOT analysis

Threats

The biggest threat I had this month was Time. I am always so busy. I am a stay at home mom who also homeschools. I am also training to become a teacher and do school full time. When I am not teaching my daughter or studying to become a teacher or doing other things for everybody else I am doing homework. Sometimes my work is late because of time constraints and other times its due to my anxiety and depression. Another one of my threats was lack of experience in vision boards. Finally, figuring out a way to layout everything in the vision board was a challenge.

Opportunities

While I didn’t have much knowledge or experience in creating vision boards, I had the opportunity to learn how to and experience in doing so. I have the opportunity to manage my time, if I could manage my time better I know that schooling and life in general would be easier. Another area of opportunity was the layout. I researched different layouts and what looked the best.

Weaknesses

My biggest weakness is of course time management. Another weakness is self scrutinization, I always compare my work to everyone else’s and sometimes it makes me feel like less of a designer, so I know that’s an area I need to work on. Finally, the perfectionism. I try so hard to make sure that what I am creating is perfect. So much so that it sometimes takes hours or days to complete something that doesn’t take anyone else that long.

Strengths

Sometimes one of your weaknesses is also your strength. Trying to make everything perfect does take a lot of time, but at the same time I do think that I create great quality content. I am creative and I work very hard under pressure. I know that when I am time crunched I can achieve something within a very short period of time and still provide great content.

TASK 3: Mastery Journal Reflection

The critiques I received were explaining that I was using too many details in my designs. I think that this is valuable information and when I finish my final designs I am definitely going to try and put less details into all of my designs. I think that reiterating the designs and then applying what I have been told about my designs will help me on my way to Mastery.

Before I started working on my sketches I researched all of the three options for where we were going to be drawing our logos for. I decided on Marrakesh Morocco. I chose this place because, of the style and color. I think that the place shows a part of my spirit. Anyway, after looking at different pictures I had to think about what culture meant to me. I started to draw and it seemed as if their culture was being shown. As, I got further along more and more ideas popped into my head, some of which were not culture. So, I had to think about what I was drawing and the other two options. If I had an idea that was of the other two options I would write it down or draw a sketch somewhere else for me to use later.

While working on traditions I wanted to make sure that I could portray images of their traditions. I had to start thinking about what types of things would be considered traditions. I thought about food, clothing and other things that would be considered traditions. Upon drawing I noticed that in culture I had some drawings that could be considered traditional or even history. I had to really think about what I was drawing at this point to determine if the drawing could be for two or all of the three sections. After figuring all of that out I would continue to draw and finally finished traditions.

As I moved on to history the final section of the three. I pretty much had a system down and was working off of the other two as I created some of these. I also, had to do some more research of course and some of the original ideas I came up with were coins and local flags. Eventually, I finished all of them and I think that in the end I presented Marrakesh Morocco fairly well.

Reflection

The key takeaways I got from the video as I stated before on the session is that we must continue to learn even after college. Learning is such a fundamental part of life. We learn something new everyday, rather it be small or large, we do learn. I also took away the fact that I am going to have to work extremely hard this time around.

My biggest concern is whether I am going to be able to graduate with the grade level that I need. I am not concerned with my competency in the subject or in the work, but rather my time management. I struggle so much with time management. I always have. I am a huge procrastinator and I know that it gets in the way of a lot of things for me. I am worried, but hopeful that I can remind myself everyday that the work is one of the most important things going on in my life right now. That this work will shape my future and the future of my daughters.

My action plan is to be proactive by making sure I am checking classes way before they are due, that way I can work them into my schedule. I have so much to do and so much on my mind at all times, so this will be very beneficial for me. My vision for my time in the MDMFA program is that it will be difficult and time consuming, but also fun and a great resource to fill up my portfolio. My expected level of commitment is probably 25% of my time, but it may end up being more than that. This number is just what I expect. My long-range goals as a professional media designer are to open up my business as a graphic designer and become one of the best in the industry. I want to be known. I would love to be someone that is written about in a graphic design article. Overall, I want to be successful and a role model.