This week I was asked to complete the final drafts for the organization’s business card and letterhead. I was super excited to finish my work after doing the peer reviews and seeing how far my classmates had gotten on these assignments. Taking their reviews into consideration, I wanted to make my stuff more readable with the fonts and colors, while staying true to the simple theme that I wanted. I got suggestions to go bolder with the theme, but I wanted this redesign to represent simplicity. I also received feedback that I should include pictures of makeup to my business card but I thought it would get too busy and seem a little redundant since most people recognize that Maybelline is a makeup brand, and the person distributing these cards will most likely be giving them out to people in the same industry. In response to what I actually did, I was quite satisfied. I was able to pull off all the design elements that I wanted. Incorporating the logo was more difficult than I thought because I had initially messed around with the opacity but when I would export it, the logo would disappear. I ended up leaving the logo in a plain white box which I think helps draw attention to it and adds to the professionalism of it. I was happy about the color and font changes because it is easy to read and fun. Adding the image to the background in the front of the card is something that I was also proud of. After comparing my draft to my final work, I am SIGNIFICANTLY more pleased because it has the exact image that I was wanting for this project. My initial draft was a little lackluster but I believe my final design gave me what I wanted as a designer. I think my reaction was this way because I felt a little defeated after seeing everyone else’s work and I knew I could do better. So to see that I actually accomplished what I wanted, made me enjoy my final product that much more.
Overall, I am feeling more comfortable using Photoshop tools but I am still getting caught up in the lines that outline the boundaries. Turning the lines on and off helps but I forget which lines are for text boxes, logos, shapes, and initial boundaries. I think this is just something to get used to when using Photoshop. If I were to start over, I would probably spend less time trying to find the right fonts and more time focusing on the actual design such as logo and text placement.
