One of the modules I need to complete this semester is Personal Development Planning (5). Though I actually am aware what I’d like to do as a designer in my future and to which part of the design industry I’d like to get in, I found the personal development planning helpful.
The overall idea is to think on the future career path, make decisions what is the most interesting part of the industry I’d like to specialize in, do the research on that particular subject and base the other course design / research projects around it.
It may sound easy, but it took quite lot of time with pencil and my notebooks / sketchbooks making notes and considering my future career paths, skills I will need to build up, knowledge and experience I will need to gain. I did lots of mind mapping, wrote tons of notes… It wasn’t easy, but I have to say even the process itself helped me to realize what I want to learn more about.
I decided to go to the “roots” of design and thus the subject of my choice is balanced mixture user experience and interaction design, followed by visual communication theory.
I believe many designers forget that design isn’t just about aesthetics (though it’s very important), but about how things are operated, how they work, how they bear the message from the sender to the receiver… In today’s web design I can see tons of fancy graphics without purpose and sense, with no creative idea.
I have to admit I was tempted to do a bit more research in advertising (because I really love the research + creative process) and typography (because I love type and I think it’s really great craft) as well, but than I realized that I can’t concentrate on everything. But my love for type and advertising goes on.
So I’m going for User Experience Design & Interaction Design in the Graphic Design in Context module. Please stay tuned, hopefully I’ll update you with some interesting stuff soon.
Digg This
Delicious