Learning Journal

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been working on our Midterm project, which is a design project using software like Figma. I chose to do Figma because I want to become more comfortable with the program, and there are more tutorials available on the web for this software than others. I also figured that having Figma experience + projects will look good on my resume for future work. I’d like to do more work in Figma and really get a handle on the animations so that I can create moving prototypes.

I can’t express enough how much I liked working on this project. I just love working with design software and have so much fun learning new ones. I’ve only worked with Figma once, and it was just while watching a tutorial last semester so I didn’t do very much with it. Being able to get into the grit of the design is partly why I enjoy working with design software. I love tweaking the minute details of a design and getting the alignment just right, choosing the perfect font type and colors to give the right vibe, and adding shadows and borders on an image only to delete it because it’s not quite right. I love that process, and it’s something I really enjoy doing.

I am a tad bit concerned for the final project, however. I know that we can use this design for our final or come up with something entirely new. But, after putting in so much time into these designs, I don’t see why I’d choose to do something else—except that I may be making the coding of this site a bigger challenge than I’m ready for. I can see 100 different places where Flexbox and Grid could be used, and I would bet $100 that we have to create our final project using Flexbox or Grid, and maybe Float if we only use it once. I’m still feeling a little shaky about Flexbox and Grid and the final will really be the ultimate test, especially give how long my site project is. I may need to cut some of the site out and shorten it, so I don’t run out of time creating it. I’m looking forward to the challenge!

Lastly, we have been working on responsive design. Given that I’ve only seen it in the lectures and done the assignments along with the tutorial, I feel like I understand it fairly well. It seems easy enough, anyway. Placing the code that you want changed inside of the media query makes sense. And having limits on how small or large the browser can be seems sensible. I can’t see any issues learning about it so far, and I’m hoping this is one of those things that just clicked with me 🙂 We’ll find out!

I really like like flexbox, it sometimes feels like a game or a riddle.

At first when using flexbox, it was kinda difficult.

Something I have learned recently was grids.

The past few weeks, we’ve been working with layouts. Specifically touching on Flexbox, Gridding, and other techniques/tools. Here’s how that’s been going.

Hello, everyone!
Over the last few weeks, the class has moved faster. At first, tackling the flexbox assignments felt overwhelming. I struggled frequently, and I often found myself frustrated by being unable to grasp the concepts fully. The grids added another layer of complexity, with so much information that I was drowning in the details.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve really dug into layout techniques like flexbox, grid, float, and positioning. The one I struggled with the most was positioning. It doesn’t inherently make sense like the others do, so I will need more practice with that one before it really sticks. The other three I actually started to enjoy working with toward the end of the two weeks.

Flexbox was hard at first, and it remains challenging, but it’s starting to click. It really started to click once we started working with grid. I’m not exactly sure why, but it could be that I’d had a week prior to do some challenges and it was just more practice. Or maybe the combination of adding flexbox and grid during one of the challenges helped me understand where I could use different layout techniques. Either way, it’s starting to make sense. At first, I really struggled during the challenges, so to help me I played the Flexbox Froggy game and that helped me figure out which flexbox rules to use when I was stuck.

I feel like I understood grid right away, though it gets tricky. During the challenges, the last one was really tough and I was able to figure out part of the solution. I needed to peak to the other slide to get some help, but I was okay with that because I was able to make sense of the solutions. Once I saw the solution, it was more of an ah-ha! moment rather than a huh? moment.

We started our Midterm projects this week as well. I chose #5, which was a spa website. It’s perfect because I’ve been so stressed out in my life the last few months, all I’ve been dreaming of is going to a spa and getting the whole treatment. So creating this website is really fun for me and I’m daydreaming a bit while doing it. I spent all of this past weekend working on it and I enjoyed it so much. I love playing with design software and Figma is really easy to use. I could literally just do that all day long.

These past few weeks were extremely hectic in my personal life, and very challenging in school. I’m proud of myself for keeping up the way that I have and am happy that I’m doing pretty well in the class!

I once heard learning described as “you learn in layers.” That definitely applies to learning web design.