Note To Self: REVIEW YOUR FREAKING NOTES!!!

Day 20

Currently Reading:  Done reviewing Visual Communication and now reviewing my notes.

I was wondering why I was having such a hard time retaining the information I had.  Seriously, I would write down notes, read diligently and highlight and forget the information I had learned by next week.  I forgot the simple thing: READ YOUR NOTES EVERDAY. *headdesk* Honestly, it is so simple and easy and yet it didn't even occur to me.  So I'm reviewing my notes aka: chicken scratch and everything I read came back to me. I am reading things that I totally forgot that I actually learned. WTF?  So let this be a lesson to other self-teaching folks: Review Your Notes Everyday.

On the other hand, I forgot to actually log (or blog) my progress yesterday. So I'm going to do that here.  I finished reviewing what I learned so far from my visual communication book. I tired to self test, but that didn't go well. Stupid google docs!   I'm going to go back to Graphic Design Principals and do some stuff for the portfolio.

Lucky for me, I have my sister dropping by a lot so that is taking a lot of time off my hands to study while she watches the kids.

Contrast, Figure and Ground

Currently Reading: Chapter 19 and 20 of Language of Graphic Design

I never thought empty space was so friggin complicated. To be honest, a good bit of the chapter went over my head, although I got the gist of it. I tried studying for an hour, and my brain feels like it's going to explode.  I'm actually started taking notes today. And low and behold I'm getting more information (I learn by writing things down who knew) and I diffidently learned a lot more. The con to this is that I feel that my head is about to explode with too much information (and subsequently starring at a screen for a long time, it's a problem).  So I'm going back to doing a chapter a day, but now with notes.

I'm not done with the learning about Figure and Ground. As I mentioned before I already read up on the gestalt theory, but I need to really get handle positive and negative space, and active and passive space before I move on.

This last past week has been fraught with personal and family issues, so I was tempted to just skip, but I didn't want that little dialogue saying I dropped the ball.  So I sucked it up and studied.  I will be back tomorrow for some more reading on figure and ground and on the exciting subject of Frames.

The thing about this book, with all the photos of the projects of graphic designers really just pulls that wannabe designer in me. I want to create that, but I don't have the skills yet. *shakes fist up the air* So not easy.

FYI:  I need to actual buy school supplies for schoolish things. Just saying.

Supplemental Reading 

• Design Principles: Space And The Figure-Ground Relationship
• Positive and Negative Space
• How To Activate Space In A Design

Value, Tint, and Shade

Reading: Chapter 18 of Language of Graphic Design

Another short chapter, but today I really did need some supplmental items. I found a site that broke down all the color terms for me in more simplicitic terms.  Because the book I was reading was a bit more complicated than I needed and I still need to work on how to use a color wheel more effecitively and I decided to use google docs for my notes.   I really love color and I really want to learn how to use it effectively in visual commuication.

Although I'll wait to go further into that when I study color theory in more depth. I'm still not looking forward to the hellish adventure that is revising, but it is very much needed.

But it feels all so complicated at times, and I often feel that I'm out of depth. I also have to start studying more, but I want to gradually up the time so i won't be overwhelm with too much information. I want to be fully trained this time next year and I want to be a working graphic designer in two years. So we shall see how I meet that timeline.