Purpose and Instructions

Your final project, the Design Log Journal, is a weekly journal where the emphasis is on visual design and display. It is intended to be a personal learning tool. You will use it to track your learning journey and it is where you will record your thoughts and ideas. It is also a place to record your visual perceptions and insights, and express your creativity. Your project has no structural constraints. It should be free flowing and be an individual reflection of your creativity. There is no true right or wrong here. The topics should follow the structure of the course, but the content, reflection and creativity are individual to you and so may vary.

Consider your Design Log Journal as a personal course companion - it's a place to reflect and document not only your learning, but also your cumulative knowledge of design and display over time. For this reason, it is critical to add to your log each week and to include it as part of your daily thinking - similar to a diary. Think of it also as an idea book - a place to add diagrams and images and where you can make comments on ideas or re-design.

The final result will likely include written, visual and web resources. Notes detailing your exploration of all the topics covered in the course should be included in your Journal - be sure and tell why the contribution was valuable to you. Use the Design Log Journal topic in the Discussion Board to ask any questions you may have about the journal. The Design Log Journal represents 60% of your overall grade.

Use the Design Log Journal to document design ideas, visual content and web resources that relate to visual design and the display of information. It is a place to make notes related to basic design principles or elements, sites that you like, and to record other visual principles that you have encountered. Be sure to provide a rationale for your assessments. You can use examples from magazines, flyers and web pages, or simply take a copy of the design and paste it into the design log and then reflect on it. You may want to use a picture program like Paint or Photoshop to illustrate your ideas. Another approach is to type notes, or attach files or links of articles or websites that have inspired you. Please feel free to use your own personal discoveries as examples. The point here is to observe and understand. All entries in your journal should be dated.

Here are some things to consider as you reflect:

• Analysis: Your ability to understand the audience for which a site was designed. In this context take into consideration the purpose for a site and how its visual design components, including such elements as content, graphics and extended multimedia complement the purpose.
• Perceptions: Record your initial perceptions of existing designs and note how these may have changed with your new acquired knowledge. Put yourself in the mind frame of the end user.
• Readings: Add personal comments about the readings and include notes describing any extra research you do. How have your findings helped you, inspired you, surprised you?
• Learning: Describe what you have learned about the design process (any or all components).

And finally, you may want to describe useful online discussions and/or informal chats you have with others, even when these take place outside the parameters of the course.