Photo by Jené Stephaniuk on Unsplash

My creative journey often embraces chaos. Ideas ebb and flow unpredictably, and I find myself obsessing over details, sometimes discarding hours of work on a whim. It’s an odd yet familiar way of working, though rarely efficient. However, over the past seven weeks, my exploration of design thinking has helped me to make some progress. Here’s what I’ve learned:

This journey has revolved around the central idea of making designs that strike a balance between comprehension and visual appeal. We’ve covered topics from typography to color theory, from image selection to grid layouts, each serving as essential components in successful designs.

One of my biggest takeaways is the importance of tying design decisions to the message you’re trying to get across. I’ve realized that by first figuring out what I’m trying to communicate, the following choices in visual elements come naturally.

This isn’t to say that design thinking is a linear process. In fact, it doesn’t work that way for most people. Also, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t frantically delete almost every first draft project I made for this course. The point is that understanding the basics – message, type, color, image, layout, and composition – can help soften the edges of that path.

Now, I have a portfolio of my strongest work from this course, a testament to the expertise of an amazing teacher and Ms. Cath Caldwell (whose book, Graphic Design for Everyone, I will appreciate forever).

Putting those pieces together, I was reminded of the beauty in owning your process. The whole point of a portfolio is to showcase your talent and versatility, but more importantly the progress of your creative journey. I can confidently say that I’ve evolved not just in my skills, but also in how I choose to go about using them.

You can check out my portfolio here. I hope it shows as much growth as I feel now when I sit down to make a graphic for social media or a t-shirt design for an event. I’ll probably always be a little jealous of the designers who just “get it,” but I’m also thankful that my chaos allows me to be me.