Final reflections on honours year

So that is the project wrapped up as much as it can be for now!  Even though I only really had one semester to focus on the mindfulness app, I am happy with what I have achieved.  I'll admit there are more things I wanted to add in, such as GIF animations and other little interaction extras, but I feel that the essential things and information are there.  As apps go, I feel I have made a good go at creating something that feels and looks like an app.  Being a complete novice to app design and user interface at the start of the semester, I think I would be amazed to see what I achieved in 12 or so weeks in that regard.  Through making an app prototype I have learned about user interface design, user experience design, interaction design, advanced colour theory, web typography, semiotic theory, Gestalt theory, and may more which have helped me learn and grow my skills as a designer.  Even between 6 weeks ago and now I see a difference in the way I lay out pages and choose typefaces - I hope it is all for the better, as I have new knowledge to go on when making important design choices now.

I definitely did not expect to have made an app prototype for my final project but I am so happy to have done so.  I have never tried something like this before, and learned a lot about screen design/app design/interaction design.  I don't know what my style has developed massively over this semester, but over the year my vector illustration skills have markedly improved from the beginning of the year.   There's something exciting about having an interactive piece for the degree show too, for some reason I am just very pleased with this!

In relation to mindfulness, I hope that the app achieves what I aimed to do, which is to present mindfulness in a way that was removed from the hippy connotations, using information design to present the important and persuasive facts about how it can be a useful tool for everyone.  I definitely took inspiration from some of the mindfulness apps out there, but I like to think that my app has its own angle on educating users about mindfulness.

One area I would have like to be able to work on more was print design, as not having a huge amount in my portfolio has meant that I don't have as well rounded a skill set as I would like for the big bad job market I am about to launch into.  Ideally I wanted a cross platform campaign ready to hand in, but having taken on 3-4 extra-curricular activities there is only so far I was able to spread myself in terms of workload.   I will however get a brief foray into it for the degree show posters, so there's that!

Regarding the whole year, my project has shifted a lot.  I wish I had settled on this idea sooner, but perhaps if I hand't tried out all of these other ideas I might not have come to this one.  I cannot say that the research I did last semester helped me hugely with this project, but propaganda was something I was really interested in and still am, so I suppose if I hadn't tried it I would always have wondered "what if?".