Hi,
My name is Sanika Mehta. In September 2016, I started off as an incoming undeclared freshman at the Parsons School of Design, not knowing anything about design school and how things worked around here. The only thing I knew was that I wanted to be in the design field. Throughout my adolescence, art became a very important part of my life because I got to practice it inside and outside of school, which allowed me to build my interest and express myself through my artwork. In high school, I took relevant courses like AP Art in order to help me build my skills in different areas and understand the craft better. Through my first-year courses at Parsons, I’ve learned so much about design and the process of researching and crafting projects in order to solve a problem or visually communicate a message or story that it has really intrigued me into pursuing it as a career. Between September and today, I have learned and experienced about so many different fields within the design world in these couple of months that I was honestly confused what to major in. However, I finally decided to pursue a BFA in Communication Design because I want to help solve problems and communicate important messages through my design whether that be through logos, web design, or marketing/advertising.
Throughout my first-year courses, I have changed a lot between my first and second semester classes because each semester I have learned something different that has changed me as a designer. For example, in my first semester projects, I did more hands-on work where I experimented with different materials and explored with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. However, this semester I focused more on writing and the importance of explaining my projects thoroughly through my words. I enjoyed this semester because I improved on my writing skills a lot, but I had more freedom last semester because I was doing more creative projects whereas this semester, I didn’t get to do that many physical projects. Also, I used a lot of the skills that I adapted in my first semester in my second semester because those skills that I learned were so useful that I tried to incorporate those skills in my projects this year as much as I could like Illustrator and Photoshop. This semester, in terms of learning new programs, I learned using Premiere and Indesign, which was interesting but I don’t think I can use these programs as often as the other ones. In both semester, I learned very useful skills that I will use throughout my life and I was happy that I didn’t learned similar skills in both semesters. I learned more studio making skills in my first semester like experimenting with different materials and learning programs, but in my second semester I improved in my writing and research skills.
The two highlights of my first year were making my wood chair in my Space/Materiality class and having a professor that teaches you the Adobe programs excessively and a professor that barely teaches it and exploring it on your own. The last one was a highlight because I have never experience that before in my student career because I have never been put in that kind of position where I have had to learn a huge new program by myself.
The chair project was one of my best highlights of my freshman year because I never thought I would be able to make something like this in my whole life. Making this chair was an endless process, but it was worth it at the end because I learned so many things. For example, about wood- the different types, how to cut wood, the different types of wood joints, how to screw two pieces of wood together, and the different tools that existed. The most important thing I learned from this project was that creating a physical project like this is a process and there are various steps within creating it that need to be done before making the final outcome. One can’t just go straight to creating the final outcome. For this chair I had to do a lot of research on the shapes, the type of wood I would use, measure how large this chair would be life-size, etc.
Abstract Seating Device:
For this project, I had to create a seating device out of wood. First, I researched about different communal interactions, different types of seating devices, and polyhedrons in order to start the project off. In that time, I built four different polyhedrons and did a mini wood joinery assignment, which helped me sketch out 6-10 poly-inspired seating device designs. Eventually, I picked out 2 drawings that I liked and made Bristol models out of those. Then, I picked one of those and starting creating a life-size model of it with tap, on the wall. Once I figured out the life-sized measurements, I scaled it down and started creating my chipboard model. Having exact measurements on the chipboard and drawing were very important because those were the measurements that I was going to use to make my final wood model with. Finally, I measured out how much wood I needed, cut them into the different pieces, and screw them together to built my wood model.I wanted my chair to feel discomfort and comfort and describe the feeling out being on “the edge of your seats.” In life, you need to be ready to move and with the chair that I created I don’t think a person can sit on it for more than 5 minutes and I think that is good because you should never be so comfortable in a place that you want to stay there forever. You need to move on.
The second highlight of my freshman year was learning how to use the Adobe Suite programs like Illustrator,Photoshop, Indesign, Premiere because I never knew how to use these programs, so learning the different types of things you can use it for and how to use for my projects this year was really interesting. However, I have had two different kinds of experiences with learning how to use these programs because in my first semester, I had a professor that really taught Illustrator and Photoshop and showed me the different things you can do with it. However, in my second semester my professor wasn’t the same way while learning Premiere and Indesign. The professor would gave us the basic instructions of the program, but then left it up to us to figure it out on our own and watch tutorials if you needed to figure out how to do something specifically. That was a very challenging process for me because I had to create a whole project on both those programs, but I didn’t know how to “use” them in a way where I could create a project on. Therefore, during the process of both projects I was exploring and playing with the program and trying to think of an idea for my project. Eventually, I figured out the programs and the final outcomes were great, but it wasn’t the same experience as my first semester. However, I did figure out that exploring a program on your own actually makes you learn more about it because you are in the trial and error process, so whatever mistake I made while learning the programs, I actually learned a new feature that can be done for any of my future projects.
In conclusion, freshman year was a huge learning experience in many different ways and I hope that continues for my next three years. I have learned so many principles related to design that I never even knew existed and now I can use those while studying for Communication Design. I have learned a lot from my professors and classmates that I will definitely continue to use for the rest of my life. I’m really excited to start my classes related to Communication Design because after learning how to use Adobe suite, I’m really intrigued in learning how to code in order to create web designs, logos, and branding campaigns. Also, I hope next year I continue to create projects like I did this year, but in terms of Communication Design.
ere I have had to learn a huge new program by myself.
The chair project was one of my best highlights of my freshman year because I never thought I would be able to make something like this in my whole life. Making this chair was an endless process, but it was worth it at the end because I learned so many things. For example, about wood- the different types, how to cut wood, the different types of wood joints, how to screw two pieces of wood together, and the different tools that existed. The most important thing I learned from this project was that cr
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g and crafting projects in order to solve a problem or visually communicate a message or story that it has really intrigued me into pursuing it as a career. Between September and today, I hav
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