Sometimes I check my own blog to see if there is a new post

Hi guys,
So... We just finished our first "real" des com assignment and I must say I enjoyed it. This is the first time I have done a des com project that I totally understood the motivations behind. It wasent a load of superfluous fluff, it was "this is what you will be expected to do at a real job...do it".

That said I did struggle with it a little... Let me explain in a roundabout sort of way.

When I learned how to 3d model I basically went through a pdf tutorial for about 200-300 hours. It took me a whole semester at Wisconsin, but at the end I felt quite proficient and now feel that I am at a level where I can make just about anything I want. Doing that tutorial taught me 2 valuable things about 3d modeling. 1: it got me to think about objects in the right frame of mind to model them, i.e. where are the contour lines? is the object symmetrical? should I sweep this surface or loft it? 2: it taught me all the tools that I needed to know to operate the program.
with that knowledge I now can use the program to explore concepts and not get boged down in the details of how to create my idea.
To put it simply I learned how to use the tool and then got creative with it.

With illustrator and photoshop things are much more open ended...I often ask a person "how should I do this?" and they will just say "play around with it"... and then I feel like Im lost in the tall reeds without a clue what I am doing.

Sometimes I wish we just had a pdf to follow. step by step, and the at the end you can tell whether you did things correctly because there is something your are trying to copy. In that way we could just focus on learning the tools, before we start using them to design.

All that to say I enjoyed the first project but was a little overwhelend trying to navigate illustrator and create a pleasing design.