Marketing/Design

So as a graphic designer, I know that a huge part of what we do is marketing. We market our ideas through the visuals we create and every aspect of what we do is important to trying to get the consumer to understand what we are trying to say. Furthermore, it is a very relevant conversation that both the marketing and graphic design 'world' need to be having together.

Just as we are becoming globalized, our professions are becoming more interconnected and I believe we have to be more aware and knowledgeable of our surroundings. Yes, this has always been a part of both the marketing and design profession, or at least it should be. But as my professor, Meredith Davis, mentioned in her lecture, "graphic design has a limited history of concern for the cognitive behavior of audiences in terms of research and theoretical perspectives." In the past, many designs were about making things to be beautiful, with less thought of how people receive and process information. However, today we can no longer assume that our audience understands what we are trying to convey. Our designs have to have more substance, more background research, in order to relate and portray our ideas to our target market. There are different learning styles, personality types, and demographics in general that are relative to the design process. This of course is a conversation that has been discussed, but I think more and more the context in which our designs and marketing are placed is becoming more important.

Context defines form and thus in order to create an appropriate form we have to understand its context. And again, because we are a more globalized society, our context is constantly growing, changing and adapting.

It's been a while....

So it has been an embarrassingly long time since I have 'blogged'...so long that I continued to avoid blogging so I could ignore the length of time that has passed. But here I am, deciding that my thoughts are again worthy for the public eye as I apparently have had few for the past five months.

My life in a nutshell up to now.
3 of my friends have gotten engaged (one of which I am a bridesmaid in)
I spent 1 week in Montecristi, Dominican Republic working with Orphanage Outreach
I have taken up spinning class and attempt to go 3x a week
I have 1 l semester left at NC State (the real world is getting too close)
I have moved into a new apartment in Raleigh, NC
It has been exactly 1 year since I studied abroad
I got 1 black cat named Bailey

That about sums it up. My life now consists of trying not to think too much or too hard about the fact that I will need to be getting a job soon. As well as trying to keep up my grades as I take a semester of 18 credit hours, work part time, continue my college activities and try to have a fun time on the side. Hopefully, it won't be another 5 months before I write again...but for now its off to class.