Author: skylarjohnston

Finals are almost here…..

As finals season approaches its important to remember a few things.

1. Be kind to yourself. This is a stressful time for most students and we need to make sure were kind to ourselves and remember how capable we are.
2. Give yourself a break. It is important when it becomes grind time and we are all inevitably drowning in schoolwork, to give ourselves time. Burnout is real and not giving yourself the space to decompress can be detrimental to your workflow and retention!
3. Drink water. Because hydrate or diedrate.
4. Dont be afraid to ask for help. At Sierra College we have many supportive professors and tutors that are only an email away! If you feel lost or stuck, please reach out and get some help!
5. Do your best! I know you will!

Good luck friends on the last few weeks of school and I wish y’all good times and good grades this semester.

Flexbox isn’t nearly as tricky as it appears to be!

With my design based brain, learning flexbox seemed so foreign and impossible. From the 85 class all the way to 86, every time there was a lecture or information on flexbox I shut down. Much of the steps you need to take to achieve flexbox seemed pointless which led me to accidentally skip many step and led to my flexbox never working the way I wanted it to. Previously, I always resorted to using the absolute and relative positioning to position my elements. This always caused problems when there were layout changes or browser size changes.

But after months and months of practice in flexbox, I feel like I finally understand it and realize how simple it truly is and that what I once thought was very difficult, is actually simpler than my own methods! So remember to stick with it! What you think may be ridiculous now, may be a really helpful tool later down the road regardless of the learning curves!

WARNING: DO NOT WORK AND SLEEP

This week I learned the importance of rest in relation to quality of work. With a long work week, I noticed my quality of work I turned in was getting worse and worse. This was because I forced myself to get it all done beofre I allowed myself to rest as a “reward”. But when I finally let myself rest after a days work before diving into hours of homework or midterms, my brain was more awake and my quality of work increased! I really think this impacted the outcome of my midterm site design this week. My working draft I had wasn’t great and definitely not challenging my design skills. Not until later in the week when I was able to catch up on rest did fresh ideas and enthuseasum start to flow!

Be kind to yourself and relax! You will get it done in due time!

All the knowledge I’ve gained in the past two weeks has been underwhelming yet humbling.

These past two weeks have reminded me of the gaps in my knowledge of web design and semantics. Most of the content in this class so far has been reviews of content I learned last semester in the AAD85 class. Even though I took this course only 4 months ago, it is amazing how much your brain tosses out when you’re not actively putting your skills to use. So more than anything, this class has humbled me and reminded me how important it is to continuously practice your skills in order to maintain the knowledge in these areas. Granted, there are much less learning curves when re-learning a topic, but still disappointing nonetheless. So even if you’re not using your semantics knowledge for a practical instance, refresh your skills and keep using them.

USE THEM OR LOSE THEM!

“Cheating” in the design world is OK and sometimes even encouraged.

Skylar Johnston, AAD86 FA23

One thing I have begun to learn more and more by talking to peers and mentors is that cheating is OK! Sometimes.

The biggest thing that is important to remember when learning a new (specifically technological) skill, is that it’s not going to be easy at first. As us designers and coders open up our world to new diverse technological tools, there are numerous learning curves we must face! When it comes to coding, memorization of semantics and syntax is important to code effectively and efficiently. Memorization does no happen without practice. And in the design world, memorizing which tools does what and keyboard shortcuts is one of the biggest learning curves there it to the program! (in my opinion). So now is when the cheating comes in, and by cheating I mean the good old internet. I think cheating is a pretty serious term for what I am talking about but its catchy. So what I’ve learned after taking the summer break and revisiting many programs that all contain their own selection of tools and rules, CHEAT! Go to google, watch some tutorials, learn some new skills. The internet is such a powerful tool and in the real world, we wont be limited to only the knowledge we have. So ack questions, be curious, and CHEAT!

It will make you a better designer.