When I was offered critiques, I learned that making pictures bigger gives the audience something to focus on while also focusing on the big words. By hearing my pictures were too small I made the pictures bigger so the audience can really see them. I changed the positioning of everything, and added a new border around my pictures that was still flowers like my original slide. People said they liked “family” in the middle, so I kept that and put my two cities on the top and bottom of that. The arrows show that family is represented through those two places.

I actually thought that my other slide was good, I put a lot of thought into it, and was very proud of it. Then I realized that some things didn’t make sense, like having the cat and basketball made it look bad. So I took them out and made everything simpler. I also asked my friends and teachers about what they thought and kept asking for advice so that really helped me.

Even though I changed the slide I still have most of the same design elements, like symmetry, texture, color, sizing, contrast, framing, and repetition. These design elements make the slide have more thought and care. Overall I think my slide is more presentable looks simpler but in a good way.

I learned from my critiques that I needed to pick a lighter font for my words and to make my words bolder. Also that I need to add another thing onto my slide so that it doesn’t look so dry. So I chose to add a bitmoji of my dog and I to go with my central idea of my dog (family). I learned that short sentences or a low amount of words will make it easier for a person to read your slide and that light eye catching words attract more eyes than dark colored words and everyone loves dogs so the picture of the dog and bitmoji will draw more eyes.

Link I used this document to learn about the color I should use for my text.

Another link I used this link to show me that shape is a major key which is why everything on my slide is big or bolded.

I learned new things and new ideas that could help me and my slide that I hadn’t thought of before. I learned that I had a lot of blank spaces and I could use those blank spaces to my advantage. I also learned that I should probably add color to my background because it was a little boring and tepid. In all, the critiques were constructive and all useful. I kept basing my slide off of the one idea of always keeping everything simple and I might’ve went a little overboard.

I made my slide dramatically different as in terms of displacing the words, the images to cover blank spaces. I took advantage of all of the blank spaces I had. I also made my background a light faded blue color to contrast the black letters. I had to pick a new earth image because in order to change the background color, the earth had to have the blank space around it. I had to make sure the picture was also legal to use.  The faded blue isn’t very loud, it’s calming in a way, so the letters and image aren’t disrupted. I enlarged the words and the picture. I also slanted the writing, made sure they were all at 341 degrees or else it would’ve looked wonky and tilted unevenly. I placed it exactly 341 degrees because I had positioned it in many different angles, some were nice but I ultimately decided on 341.

The research definitely helped with my slide and my talking parts of the project. I researched other sites and youtube videos about how to make things pop. Most of them all had the same suggestions, and critiques. I really enjoyed looking into Project Zen, when explaining the simplicity of the IKEA signs. Even just learning new vocab words such as contrast. There were many things that I knew of but didn't know the official title for it. It helped a lot, I had less repetition of words. I also learned new techniques that I maybe wouldn’t know or use in my slide. I used the different rules from presentation zen, and the other websites.

More than anything, I think I got inspired when I saw my other classmate’s slides. I saw all the different techniques they had used to make their own slide. When I originally made my slide, I think apart of me wanted to keep it as simple and easy as possible, everything was an average scale of things.  When I received my critiques, I decided to go out of my comfort zone with dilating everything bigger.  

When I presented my slide to my peers, I gained critique about the font, the placement of the words, and the background. I was told that the font of the words didn’t really describe me, since it was really basic. The background had seemed boring, and the placement of the words could’ve been better. I learned that what they were saying was true, and maybe I didn’t step back and look at it long enough.

After I looked at the background, I thought that it should stay the way it was. According to the sources, empty spaces and bright colors are the best way to go. The black background would draw your eyes towards that colors, and the hues worked well with each other, so I didn’t change anything about that. The font to me was boring, so I played around with different types ones until I settled on Lobster, a thick and cursive font. I changed “photography” into photographer and “art” into artist. I put those two words below the side pictures, and I put my name at the top middle, since this slide is about me.

The research helped me realize what good points I would’ve missed if I didn’t read them. It helped me learn new words for when I had to write my script, and it made everything more cohesive. Before I read the info on how to make a good slide, I was going to put words that described me everywhere, but I learned that big and simple is better, since the slides are supposed to provide more of a visual rather than text. Some of the sources that I used were Presentation Zen, Slide Design for Developers, and Elements of Design Defined for the slide itself, and I used my phone for the pictures.