From reading my last reflection post to my first, the biggest learning outcome I’ve gained is my personal comfort in my design skills. I came into this class not knowing Photoshop or InDesign, and came out being confident in using basic tools, which is surprising to me as I never thought I would get here. I can pick up on what the basic tools and beginning steps are needed to design projects in both applications. Along with that, I know how to utilize contrast in colors and text to make a graphic stand out. In the beginning, I didn’t know that I would be able to pay such close attention to detail but I believe I turned a corner when we designing the first draft of the letterhead/business card assignment. After reading feedback on my work, I realized I needed to take a step back and analyze the readability and qualities that would make my work eye-catching.
I would say that I am most proud of my work for the social media assignments. Canva is the tool that I am most comfortable with because it gives me a little head start on the creativity department. I really enjoyed working on this assignment because of the cool and bold graphics I was thinking up in my head, and it turned out being the easiest for me. Looking back at these, I remember I spent a significant amount of time perfecting the graphics because I knew the result could be awesome. Through this assignment, I learned that you have to be passionate about what you’re creating in order to come out with something great.
On the other hand, I mentioned earlier that I turned a corner with the letterhead/business card assignment. I definitely think I could have come up with something more creative and bold. I’m not a fan of how I placed the logo because it looks like it doesn’t belong in the image. I think I was discouraged because of my lack of design skills with InDesign, causing me to settle on what I came up with. 
This semester, I grew as a public relations practitioner because I realized how important design is. You can reach a target audience or create a positive/innovative brand as a PR practitioner. Uniformity and bold designs are what gets a company ahead of their competitors and as a PR practitioner, you could be the one in charge of communicating this. Knowing design elements and how to design can help PR people communicate with design teams to get the result you or your company wants. I’ve also learned at positive branding can be reached through the right designs, which is something that most PR would want to strive for. Positive branding makes me associate bold graphics and eye-catching text in design projects. Before, I never knew that letterheads and newsletters were part of public relations. I knew about the other assignments because of what I had studied in class, but those two design features make me think they were just related to business. Through the assignments in this class, I now realize how important it is to utilize design.
