ACQUIRING COMPENTENCIES
Personas
A persona is a fictional person created by designers based on the targeted audience. To acquire this competency I first learned that research must be conducted on the targeted audience so an accurate persona may be created. Followed by what traits to look for to include in the fictitious persona such as goals, frustrations, motivations, demographics, personality, and a basic biography. Knowing how to create a fictional persona will be important in my professional career because it helps to prevent designing for myself and not the client. In order to design I need to know who I am designing for.
Meeting Client's Needs
Meeting a client's needs is to deliver a product that is going to assist in fixing the problem the company is having. There will be times that the answer will not be what the client was thinking and may be out of a comfort zone. To acquire this competency I had to realize that being a designer is not just doing what a customer asks you to do but to do what the customer needs. That sometimes going outside of the box may make the client nervous but is what is needed to thrive. This expertise will be important because I will need to explain the design process and explain the benefit of changes that may seem a bit extreme to the client at that point in time.
Time Management
Time management is a process to organize a person’s time between different activities. This is a continuous process that can always have room for improvement. Time management will be an extremely important skill in my professional career to ensure that projects are completed on time and in a timely manner. Creating a schedule is helpful to stay on track, even if there are times when activities need to be moved to a different time slot.
Visual Hierarchy
Visual hierarchy is the placement of elements and information in a design so that it is understandable. To learn this competency took practice and learning the principles of design. When designing visual hierarchy is everything. If a person has a hard time understanding the information I am trying to get across that person will most likely move on to the next page, ad, or website.
Font Families
Font families are fonts that share design features in a specific typeface. It became clear that when working in design that trying to stick with a specific font family makes for a cleaner design. Knowing how to utilize font families and decide which fonts will work well together will be very beneficial in my future career.
Defining Client Needs
Defining clients needs is a necessity if a designer wants to be successful. It is about putting the time into researching the client, the customer, and the competition to learn the who, what, when, and how. This competency was learned by doing research on topics that were new to me and then being able to explain that topic so others can understand. This skill will be important in my professional career since the job is all about the client and figuring out the problem to get to a solution.
Sonic Branding
Sonic branding is when a business utilizes sound to make an emotional connection with the audience. It took listening to commercials on both the radio and television to see how hearing certain sounds will bring back memories or at minimum remember the brand. Knowing what type of sound goes with the brand to get the right reaction from the audience is critical. Sonic branding will be important in my career because learning how combining the right sound with a brand’s identity can create an emotional link between the brand and the customer can be a game changer in advertisement.
Copywriting
Copywriting is writing an advertisement for print or digital. The length of the writing should be short and to the point but memorable. It took practice and feedback to acquire this competency. Being able to write an ad for a client is part of what being a designer is all about. It is this advertisement that is going to be bring the targeted audience in and keep the client happy and having the knowledge to do that will be beneficial in my professional career.
Brand Voice
Copywriting is writing an advertisement for print or digital. The length of the writing should be short and to the point but memorable. It took practice and feedback to acquire this competency. Being able to write an ad for a client is part of what being a designer is all about. It is this advertisement that is going to be bring the targeted audience in and keep the client happy and having the knowledge to do that will be beneficial in my professional career.
Elements of Visual Design
The elements of visual design are the basic elements (lines, shapes, color, texture, value, volume and space) that are combined to create a design. It has taken research and practice with working with the basic elements to acquire competency, but this is an ever learning topic. This skill will be important in my professional career because it is the basis for any created design.
Expressive Typography
Expressive typography is when type is used as a visual communication, such as having the word bounce look like it is bouncing. To acquire this competency I learned what not to do as in the example to the right. The words being used should be more legible to get the point across. This can be important to my career if I have a client wanting to get a point across quickly in very few words.
Writing for Radio
Writing for radio is creating an audio ad that will engage the audience. To acquire this competency I both wrote and recorded advertisements during the program and was given valuable feedback on how to speak to an audience. This will be important to my professional career because writing for a radio ad goes along with creating an advertisement for any media..