Author: Abrianna

  • Designing an App – App Update!

    As you know from my previous blog “Designing an App” I am designing an app in one of my college classes. It is so much fun and I have learned so much from it. As you know we first had to survey for people to fill out so we could see the target audience for the app. In total, I was able to get thirty-one responses, which were all very helpful. And I was about to use that to my advantage when designing the app.

    The next thing in the process was to sketch out how we wanted our app to look. At first, I didn’t know what I should do. But then I realized, that was what the survey was for. So, I looked at my survey and was able to gather what color people prefer the app to be and what layout worked best. So with that established, I was able to sketch out and design the app for the users, which I thought was very helpful. This is because as a designer you don’t want to make things that you like. You must design things for others so that they like and enjoy it and will want to use or read it.

    Some of my sketches for my app, I did change it a little in my software because I realized I didn’t need some of it.

    After this, we are just starting to put our designs into Adobe XD, which is the software we are using for this. Adobe XD is a really good and fun software to use. Last semester in my first year we only got to do one assignment in this, but it was really fun. This software allows you to preview and prototype your designs, allowing you to see how they should and are connecting. I like this a lot because it’s interactive and allows you to see what is happening and what will happen when you connect different things.

    An early concept for my login screen with some connections.

    This assignment has been super fun so far. I hope to keep on improving after it and be able to do other assignments in it. If you are also designing an app and are wondering about a way to design and prototype it I highly recommend Adobe XD. I know it costs money but, it’s a very good software and is very fun and easy to use.

  • Role Models

    I think it’s crucial to have role models in your life. They can influence, inspire, and motivate you and your decisions. I have had a few role models so far but I never had one that related so much to me. Of course, the others helped me a lot, and I am very grateful, but they didn’t have many similarities. That is why I am very grateful that I was able to meet someone recently whom I now consider a role model.

    Her name is Christy Beving, she is the founder and owner of Downtown Design. I met her when I had to interview someone in the Industry for a magazine I am making in one of my classes. I was lucky enough to be able to interview such and talented and personal person. Throughout our talk, I was able to relate to her not just through industry talk but personally. I loved the way she answered all of my questions, I was able to get to know so much about the industry through what she told me.

    Christy Beving during our interview at Zooks Coffee Bar

    Christy is such a great designer, when I started looking into her before the interview I got to see all her current designs on her website. There isn’t one design in specific that I like. I like looking at all the designs she has on her website. Her designs and so clean and cut, that you can tell the hard work and joy she has for them. In the interview, she said that one of her favorite parts of her job is that she loves seeing the business she designs for flourish. And that is why I admire he so much, she loves working on one with her clients. She is very personal with them and that is the kind of designer I want to be too.

    I admired her and all the hard work she has put into her business. She inspired me to work harder and to know my worth as a designer. I am so lucky and happy to have been able to talk with her. I was about to learn from her experiences and struggles. I was about to find out that we have some things in common, with things like our life experiences and our likes. She is such a great person, and I hope we can keep in touch.

  • Some New Friends – Relationships

    I love meeting new people and recently in college, I have been making some new friends. They are great and I am glad I could meet them and have them around. We talk a lot and get to know each other as the days pass until graduation. Where I hope we can still be lifelong friends. This is the college experience I wanted. Making good friends who last and be able to be myself with them and making and keeping those good relationships

    I have always been known as a quiet-kind person. I didn’t mind it because it was not like they were being mean about it. I was generally quiet and nice to anyone. I am like this because I wouldn’t want someone to not be nice to me. I value kindness, loyalty, and friends who appreciate me and want to hang out. One of the most important parts of a relationship, friendship or not is communication. Without communication, everyone is in the dark, and things that we don’t think are a big deal are.

    I have experienced bad friends before and I am glad I could change that now. Not that everything is perfect, things happen and people disagree. But the fact is that we are still friends who like each other’s company. And it’s not like all my old friends are bad, there are a few that I love and still talk to even now. And those long-lasting friends are the ones I love and cherish, old or new.

    So if you are struggling with a relationship right now. Just know that some things just don’t work out and that is just how it’s going to be. Not to just skip from one person to the next, but if they hurt or you don’t gel together it just wasn’t meant to be. Find the friends and relationships that truly matter and that you want to cherish and keep forever. They are the ones that will truly make you happy and make life worth living.

  • Greek Culture

    Greek Culture

    The Greeks have always fascinated me, from their culture to their architecture, they never cease to surprise me. But overall, the thing I love and find most fascinating about them is their architecture. I just find it so fascinating how they were able to build such beautiful masterpieces. They were an advanced society that where about to build things able to last centuries. So this is a more personal blog about the beautiful architecture of the ancient Greeks and how it is so important to their history and culture as an ancient civilization.

    The Greeks are known for their art, philosophy, and architecture. Also well in advances in art, technology, and poetry. But overall they were able to develop a distinct architectural style that architecture now continues to reference. Their legacy is so profound, that it is known as a period of achievement for many years. This architecture is considered classical architecture, which would also include Roman architecture. It is defined by its uniformity, simplicity, proportion, and harmony. Many of their most iconic designs include stone edifices, along with other materials such as wood and brick were also used. They build various types of buildings including theaters, stadiums, and temples [1].

    The classical orders from left to right: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. Photo: J Felton/Getty Images [1]

    There are three distinct styles of Greek architecture known as the classical orders. These were the Doric, Ionian, and Corinthian used different styles of column, proportion, and decorative details. They are most easily identifiable based on the type of column and entablature, which is the structure of moldings and bands that line horizontally across the columns. Doric is easy to recognize and simple, with unadorned columns that sit directly on the stylobate, the top steps of the platforms, without an additional base. Ionic is graceful, with a slender and graceful profile, its columns are in a spiral scroll, and the base separates the columns for the stylobate. Lastly Corinthian are the most ornate and sleek, with its most identifiable feature, is the decorative capital, the very top of the column [1].

    Their architecture was so advanced and a beautiful part of their culture. Also, having uniformity, simplicity, proportion, and harmony reminded me of elements that should be in a good and effective design. This is because Architect is a part of the design industry. So learning more about the history and how they specifically build things, helped me realize they are closely related. Architecture and Graphic Design are two different parts of the Design Industry but are very similar. But more than anything they are both can be very amazing.

    Source

    [1] McLaughlin and Stamp. (2023, June 14). Greek Architecture: Everything You Need to Know. architecturaldigest.com. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/greek-architecture-101

  • Marketing Relating to the Media Design Industry

    Before I took my marketing class at Southeast Tech, I thought marketing was just the selling of products with just a little bit of advertisement to help it sell. But now that I have taken the class, in just the second and third week I learned that there is so much more to it. Marketing is so much broader than that, it is the process of creating, distributing, promoting, and pricing of goods. This made me understand that the Design Industry and marketing go hand and hand.

    I knew that designers could work in the marketing department of a company. But what I didn’t know is that it is part of marketing, not them just working together. I thought they were their separate things and all that marketing covered was the selling of the product. The more I read and researched for my class the more sense it made to me. A part of marketing is promotion and promotion is getting your product out there so people can see it and want to buy it. Advertisement is part of a promotion, and designers are a part of advertisement. I knew that designers worked with marketing but I didn’t know that they were a part of it. And not just that, from my research, they have some similarities with each other.

    Graphic showing marketing and design go together and are not two separate pieces, just like a puzzle.

    I never thought that taking a Gen. Ed. would bring so much information I didn’t know. I thought that I knew at least a little about marketing going into this class. But now that I am taking this class I realize I don’t know anything about marketing. And I definitely didn’t know how it related to the Design Industry. But now that I do know, I am excited to learn more in my marketing class so that I can be aware of how the market works and how I can use it in my future career.

  • Packaging and Display

    Have you ever purchased something just because of its packaging or the way it was displayed on the shelf? It always made me laugh to think that people buy things because of this and half the time it’s something they don’t even need. But then I realized that I have done this a couple of times, be it choosing one product over another or just because it looked good. I noticed that I have trouble passing things off because of the presentation of it. It’s also surprising how much of a difference it can make seeing an item online vs in-store. So this is one of my experiences that I just had to buy something just because of the box it was in.

    Once I was scrolling through some videos in my room when all of a sudden I saw this advertisement for a product, Cirkul Water Bottles. I knew about this product before but I never showed interest in it or when I did I never looked into it more, so I never got it. But this time when I saw this new advertisement they were releasing new bottle designs. One in particular caught my eye, so I looked it up. I began to think “Yeah I would buy this, but only when I saved up enough money for it or I will just ask for it for Christmas.” I didn’t need it but I thought it would be cool to have, but just seeing it online didn’t give me the drive to buy it right away. That is until about one to two weeks later I saw the exact bottle at a Walmart where I was shopping.

    My Cirkul Water Bottle I bought

    The Box
    I don’t know why but seeing it on that shelf made me want to get it then and there. But what surprised me was the quality of the box the water bottle was in. I just thought it was going to come in a regular flimsy box or not a box at all, but this box made me want to buy it. Looking at the box I thought “Only expensive things come in these types of boxes.” It was heavy-duty and had a magnetic flap to open and close the box. But most of all like the water bottle, the box had a chrome color that changed depending on the lighting. So the packaging played a big role in me wanting to buy the product.

    The Display
    I know I didn’t need it and I already had a water bottle. I went through all the pros and cons of the water bottle. But I stood my ground and told myself that I would get it another time that I didn’t need it and that I could use the money somewhere else, like to get food. But then when I was just about to leave I saw the display case, “Limited Time Bottles.” All of a sudden I wanted that bottle again. I didn’t want it to be gone the next time I came and I didn’t want to have to wait for it if I ordered it online. So I got it, I got the water bottle I just had to have because the box was pretty and the display told me that the bottles were going to go away soon.

    From this experience, I learned that packaging and display play a big role in the promotion and selling of a product. They use these methods to grab your attention and make you want their product. It could be a really bad product and people will still want to buy it. Not saying that the water bottle was bad at all, I still use it a lot. But the fact that the bottles are still on the shelf saying that they are going to go away soon was a little annoying to see. They got me and my money, so next time this happens I am going to be more aware, and not buy something just because of how it looks. You should always research the product before you buy it, and always be wary of the products you spend your money on.

  • Good Friends

    I think friends are one of the most important things in this world. Today I went out with an old friend from high school. I never got to hang out with her since we graduated and only saw her in passing. When I got home today I realized that that was the only time I have ever hung out with her one on one. She was one of my best friends from high school, and today was the first time I hung out with her alone. This made me realize that I took our friendship for granted. But not just hers and I took a lot of my true friendships for granted.

    For me, there were a lot of iffy friendships in high school. I grew up in a small town in South Dakota and went to a school with barely 200 kids from pre-school to 12th grade. As we grew up some of my friends started to act differently than they usually did. Maybe it was just them growing up, but I thought they acted differently and by the way they would treat me, I would question if we were still friends my friends. But this one friend in particular was always the same, of course, we would disagree at times but she was always the same and didn’t change. I always knew we would be friends and never questioned it. But as I grew up I would sometimes change so that I could hang out with my iffy friends. She was also subjected to the same iffy friends, so we were in the same boat. But I didn’t care because I wanted to hang out with my iffy friends and not my real friends. Which is exactly what I didn’t want to happen to me. But I left her for them all the time and now I regret it. and I wish I could have been more of a friend to her.

    A lot of people have bad experiences with friends. Sometimes friendships fade and some end on a bad note. But even after all this time since graduation we still managed to pick up where we left off in high school, without making it awkward, and got to hang out. I never appreciated our friendship until now. Hanging out with her today lifted my spirits and gave me the break I needed. She even went out of the way to come pick me up at my college, because she remembered the one time I told her that I didn’t like driving.

    So all I want to say is pick your friends right? Know who is your actual friends and do not try to please friends who aren’t worth your time. Choose friends that want to and choose to hang out with you. Don’t stress over people you are trying to please and see the friends that are right in front of you. I am so happy that I have such a great friend like her and I hope we can stay friends for a long time.

  • Designing an App!

    Designing an App!

    We just finished the first two weeks of classes. I am having a lot of fun in my classes this semester. There are many things I am going to learn and am looking forward to learning. One project we have started is creating an app. We are hardly done with the project but so far we have done a lot I have never done before.

    We are not going to code the app, but we are going to design it. So far, I have come up with a name for the app, the theme and color scheme it will have, decided what needs it will address, the target audience, and what functions it will provide. I have also created a survey to collect data for the app. The survey will help design the app for the target audience. Because they would be the ones who will interact with the app. Our next step in this assignment is combining our data from the survey into two to three different “User Personas” that describe the target audience.

    Some data from my “Organizational App Survey”

    It has been a blast so far creating this app. I hope I can learn from It and improve my skills. I have a little experience in designing websites, flyers, and things like that. But this is my first time designing an app. It is very similar to everything else thus far, but at the same time is very different. I have never taken this approach to designing something. It has always been what I thought would be the best design for the target audience or viewers. But this assignment went above and beyond to make an app that was tailored to actual people and their opinions. At the moment the app is not done, but I hope to use this experience to help me make other projects.

  • State Fair Fun!

    Summer was a blast, classes are just getting started, these are the the things I look forward to. But one thing I look forward to most is the State Fair. I love the State Fair it has and brings so many memories and I always enjoy all the sights, sounds, and tastes it brings. I have never failed to go to the State Fair ever since I moved to South Dakota when I was four. I enjoy everything there is about it and the best part is that it’s in my hometown of Huron, South Dakota.

    This year, I was able to go with one of my best friends from high school and one of my sisters. To get started we ate together at a couple of the many food stands. My friend had a big fair corn dog and my sister and I shared some Asian cuisine. After that, we went to get a funnel cake and cotton candy for dessert. After we finished the food we went to where all the rides were. I didn’t ride rides anymore ever since I started to get motion sickness when I went on certain rides. But my friend convinced me to try a couple that we thought wouldn’t be too bad. I am glad I did because I got to have so much fun with her. To end off the rides we went on the Ferris Wheel and took a picture from the top. We decided that would be a good place to stop for the night so we got some smoothies and ice cream for the road and walked to our cars together.

    A picture from the top of the Ferris Wheel

    The State Fair has always been fun to me and I am glad that I could enjoy it with the people I love and care about. I was glad I was about to hang out with my best friend and my sister before classes got too busy for me in this second year of college. I hope you enjoy the State Fair just as much as I do and if you have never been there. It may not be the biggest fair in South Dakota but it has a lot to offer that other fairs don’t have! So I hope you give it a try.

  • Second Year!

    I can’t believe I made it this far already. It seems like just yesterday, I graduated from high school, moved into my dorm, and started my first semester of college. I have learned and grown so much this past year. If you had asked me three years ago what I wanted to do with my life after I graduated high school, I would have said that I didn’t know and that I was still trying to figure it out. And to think that Now I’m in my second year of college already and I am on my way to graduate soon and that I will have to figure out what I want to do when I graduate college now. It’s crazy how fast time can pass.

    What do I want to do? That is the question. What do I want to do? There is so much I want to do. I don’t know if I want to code, work in design, or be a photographer. I don’t know how one goes about finding their “calling in life.” There is so much more to it than just picking. I want to enjoy it, I don’t want to tell myself I picked the wrong career path, and then have to go back to the drawing board of what I want to do. I want to find something I will enjoy and love doing every day, something I won’t get bored of, and something financially stable. And money is a whole ‘nother thing. Should you pick a job that pays better than something you will enjoy doing for the rest of your life?

    Question illustration. Free public domain CC0 image.

    I have learned many things during my time at Southeast Technical College. I have learned how to video edit, how to edit photos, how to create ads, how to properly design, learn more about coding, how to properly take pictures, and much much more. And this year I am going to learn more! There is so much compiled in two years and I will probably learn more along the way.

    I know I am probably stressing myself out over nothing, but the future can be scary. It’s unpredictable and mysterious and I know there will be many twists and turns along the way. But I also know there straight paths that I will follow and If one door closes another will open. All I can do now is do my best and not worry about the future because it’s in the future. I am going to choose to focus on the here and now. And that now is to get through my first semester of this new school year.

    So if you are also wondering what you should do and are worrying about the future or maybe aren’t happy with where you are now. See where your path in life takes you and trust that doors will always open. Always remember that change can be good!