Design Studio

Group 5: Design Studio

Group of five people, working as a design agency for other student groups.

Ida Mäkelä / 0408455407 / ida.makela@metropolia.fi

Hongyi Hu / 0449123976 / hongyi.hu@metropolia.fi

Qingyun Liu / 0449123478 / qingyun.liu@metropolia.fi

Zhengye Zhang / 0449209039 / 549551439@qq.com

Elena Escarpenter / 0449123975 / elena.escarpenter@gmail.com

Articles to read will be sent to us by teachers via email or in hidden Facebook group DIVI 2012. The links for articles are also here in the bottom of the page. Anything concerning us will be written in English in the Facebook group.

26.3.: For next Thursday 28.8.: read the articles, start on logo designs. Think who does what; do you all like logo design? Who would like to do star signs?

26.3.: I think everyone should make some kinda draft for all clients, and they can pick what ideas they like best. The student whose work gets picked will work it further, while receiving support from rest of our studio group. Workload will be split evenly among the group regardless of clients' picks.

26.3.: Esports client emailed and expressed curiosity in our previous design works. If you have something to show, please show them in the next Esports meeting.

Learning Journal 01

This is the first week for the project course. Since I am in the group Design Studio and other groups have not decided the accurate assignments for us yet, we have sufficient time to read the texts recommended by the teacher.

After reading these articles, I recognize that there are so many differences between print design and web site’s design.

 I aware that when we are doing the print design, there are many choices of the size, materials, color, image, text of the products for designer to choose. On the contrary, when we are working on the web site’s design, actually, there are not as many choices for designers as those of print design. This limitation and difference would be more challengeable for me because I used to do print design. Besides, those ideas of how to design web sites are quite different from the ways I am accustomed to. In print design, the dominant part might be one image, text, photo or illustration, however, during the web site, all those “pictures” are supposed to highlight and explain the text from which target customers are looking for the information they need. In that case, “words” seems to be more essential than “pictures”. So how to deal with the layout between texts and images appropriately is another urgent challenge for me.

 These are the questions I am thinking about this week. And during the following weeks, I hope I can learn more about the web site’s design.

 Qingyun Liu

24/03/2013

Learning journal 02

 At the beginning of this week, we still read some articles about the web site design. Compared with last time, this week's articles are more professional about the layout of the web site's design.

 Then we have been starting to work on the first drafts for each groups. According to the communication with every group, we know the companies for which those groups are working deeper and deeper. It is quite important for us when we try to design the logos, images and web sites' backgrounds for them.

 Besides, during the communications, those groups showed us a lot examples about the basic ideas about how they want us to work on the assignments. I think this is nice because we have more specific aims to design and it is also saving us a lot of time.

 Qingyun Liu

31/03/2013

Learning Journal 03

 This is the third week of the course -learning project. I really want to say that at first I was quite worried about whether I can follow the steps of other students and teachers , but till now, everything is going really well. I am already accustomed to the Design Studio group work and much more confident when I communicated with the memberships of other groups.

 Besides the team working part, comparing with the very beginning , now I have known more about the real web sites' design instead of the pure concepts from the articles.

 We talked about the drafts of the logos ,icons and APPs with the Riuku group and we also showed the first drafts about the layouts of the HBV's web site . After talking with the group members of HBV for a while , now we are trying to finish the layout drafts further of the HBV group because they need to meet their clients next Tuesday . Everything seems to be really urgent , but I really like the period of this kind of practice. It teaches me what a real designer need to do and think of during one designing work.

 Qingyun Liu

07/04/2013

Learning Journal 04

 After finishing the web site layout for HBV , this week I am focusing on the graphic design of head picture and profile for the group Kivistö SoMe strategy . Unlike other groups , this group did not give us many limitations except the colors .

 Besides , I have been reading the articles about the "Responsive Design". The three articles I have chosen respectively are " Responsive Web Design: What It Is and How To Use It" , " Responsive Web Design Techniques, Tools and Design Strategies" and " Progressive And Responsive Navigation". These articles make me realize that those daily designs , like the layouts for iPad , mobile phones or the computers, which I used to take them for granted , do not seem to be that easy and random. They come from strategic and elaborate mind. And I also get some basic ideas that "responsive designs" need to be flexible to accord with those successively  new coming up devices. In that case , for the sake of saving and attracting as many as customers , as designers we need to learn how to add the compatibility into our designs to face the challenges coming from those additional inventions.

 However, about the second article , It mentions many new tools and methods for responsively designing , which I never heard before . Therefore I feel confused about how exactly are these techniques supposed to be used ?  I think I am supposed to read more carefully about the details to figure out my problems.

 Till now , I am still working on the work for Kivistö SoMe strategy . Hopefully I can figure out all the details I am not sure about in the following courses.

 Qingyun Liu

14/04/2013

Learning journal 05

 On this Tuesday , we showed our works for the Kivistö group , and they are quite satisfied with what we have done for them.  Since I have not so many assignments to do temporarily,  I decide to work further on reading those articles about "responsive design".

 After talking with the teacher about my confusion of "what exactly is responsive design?" and she was really nice to explain that for me , I am much cleaner about the idea. This explanation is really helpful for me to understand those problems I was confused before while I was reading them again. And I treat "learning responsive design" more seriously because this is a really important field for me to handle if I want to be a graphic designer in the future.

 Qingyun Liu

 21/04/2013

Learning journal 06

 About this week, firstly, I changed a bit about the head pictures I have done for  Kivisto group. Then I started to do the work about my own profile website.

 Qingyun Liu

28/04/2013

Learning journal 06

 After getting knowing the time table about the presentation day, we know clearly what we need to do next.

 I  sent my favorite work which I did during the course to our design group manager for the presentation.

 Keep working on my own website.

Qingyun Liu

05/05/2013

 Learning journal 07

 This is the last week but two for the learning project 2course.

Keep working on the personal website.

 Qingyun Liu

 12/05/2013