Graphic Design: Year 1

These page features my work during my first year as a graphic designer. By this point, I was stil learning the basic features of Adobe illustrator, and the fundamentals of design were completely foreign to me. However, it is still important to acknowledge our beginnings in the spirit of progress, even if the work does not yet feature my strengths as a designer.

Negative Space Otter

The spirit animal project featured a silhouette of my freshman-year self with an otter cut out in the center. This project was not only an introduction to Adobe Illustrator but the principles of design. The use of negative space may be haphazard, but this can be chalked up to a lack of experience. This project successfully gave me a strong foundation for the hundreds of projects to come within the next few years of my career.

"Nfinity" Shoes Advertisement

I was a cheerleader for most of high school, so naturally, when prompted to design an advertisement for a product I chose my very own cheer shoes. The red white and blue striped background represents the Patriotic roots of the shoe company, and I included some silhouettes of me putting the shoes to good use. This project broadened my knowledge in composition, which is evident with the trio of silhouettes. Although there is still much improvement to be made, this is yet again an extremely foundational project during my introduction to design.

Color Shop Color Theory

The final and strongest project from my first year designing is my "Color Shop" Project. Using color harmonics, I involved my previous knowledge of negative space and composition to create mandalas. This is when I really began to experiment with abstract thinking and visualization in my designs, which is a skill I use to this day.