By now, you’ve submitted two drafts of your business card and letterhead and gone through a round of feedback. If you are tracking on time with this project, you’re probably in the final stages. Your design has been backed up by research so you have a clear revision, you’ve implemented feedback, and are now putting the finishing touches on whatever is left. Your goal this week is to keep on keepin on.

Note: If you attend a physical class, this will simply be done in class.

As the final piece of this project, I want you to essentially pitch your final design to the class as if you are pitching it to the company. This video can be no longer than three minutes in length. I want you to focus on two specific questions in your video: 1.) How did your research affect your design process? 2.) How have different design principles affected your design (contrast, repetition, proximity, and alignment)?

If you have no video background, fear not. The easiest way to complete this project would be to record directly to YouTube. I’ve included a short tutorial below.

1. Sign in to YouTube and click the Upload button in the upper right hand corner. 

2. Under “Create Videos” click “Webcam capture”

3. Click “Start Recording”

4. Check the “Allow” radio box.

5. Once you have finished recording, click Publish (note it either has to be published as PUBLIC or UNLISTED. You cannot publish it as private or only you will have access to watching it!)

6. Click the arrow button to go back to your “Video Manager.”

7. Click “Edit” on your latest video. 

8. Copy the link to your video to your clipboard.

9. Paste that link into a new blog post. WordPress automatically recognizes it is a YouTube video and will populate your post with an embedded video player.

10. Tag your post “Design Pitch”

This week’s reflection post will be slightly different. Rather than reflecting on the week’s work. I want you to reflect on the whole process of your first design project. You accomplished a lot! As mentioned above, you’ve researched a company or organization that you chose, revised drafts, received feedback, and pitched the design to the potential client through a 3 minute pitch video on YouTube. Not bad, eh? I’ve included below the usual questions for reflection posts as well as some supplemental questions that you are more than welcome to answer:

1. What were you asked to do?

2. How did you respond to what you were asked to do?

3. How did react to what you actually did?

4. Now go one level deeper: Why do you think your reaction was what it was?

Supplemental questions:

• Any long term goals for this design? Do you have any interest in actually pitching this to the organization?
• Do you or do you not feel yourself becoming more confident with the tools you are being asked to used?
• Is there anything you would do differently if you were to start over?
• Do you have any recommendations for future students doing this project?

Tag your blog post “Reflection.”

The quiz is due, Wednesday, February 25, 2015.

The submission needs to be turned in by Wednesday, February 25, 2015. You will need to turn in exported PDFs of both documents. If you don’t remember how to export to a PDF, please re-watch the attached Lynda.com videos.