This class has helped me especially with the idea of showing and telling. In my Architecture major, there is a much larger emphasis on the showing aspect of communication. Whether it is by explaining your ideas through physical modeling, digital modeling, or drawing, telling isn’t put to use nearly as much beyond a short statement about an idea. With most of us, faculty and students alike, being pretty visual people, I think the longer writing assessments get unintentionally pushed aside. That is what I have taken most from this class and I believe I have gotten better at throughout the semester is using detailed language to analyze and explain my and other’s ideas.

Looking back on what I have done throughout the semester, I've seen a lot of progression in my analysis writing skills and specifically in using detailed language to explain my ideas. I went back and took a look at my first analysis paper done on a Wired Magazine timeline and it was interesting to see the progression from the beginning of the semester to the end. At the time I was very new to the certain style of analytic writing that we had been asked to do and it didn't help that the ideas proposed by Scott McCloud were also very new concepts. I largely noticed that my original paper did not include any acknowledgment of word-picture relationships, something that seemed to be very important in an info-graphic like the one I was analyzing. Aside from discussing the word-picture relationships, I touched on the idea of closure and tried to elaborate on other elements of the paper that seemed to be lacking. Like I have said before and will continually say, it is a constant process for me to learn to explain myself fully using detailed and highly specific language.
 

​I chose to revise the video remix assignment in an attempt to further explain my process and the reasons that I made the design decisions I did in the creation of the video. I was torn whether to edit the video itself or to just justify what I had done and chose to do the latter. I stand by what I have made in this assignment and throughout the semester at this moment. But who knows, changes might come in the future. However, I think there is value in the design process and respecting the decisions that are made in the initial submittal to accurately represent where you were as a designer at that point in time and to stand by  those intentional decisions.

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Next to the video remix assignment, the photo essay was without a doubt one of my favorite assignments outside of my major. It allowed me the opportunity to explore photography further, something that I enjoy on its own, and be able to not only take pictures but to have something like a narrative to put those pictures toward.
 

During my junior year of schooling, I was selected as a finalist for a design award. It is an award that is given yearly to a third year student in the North Dakota State architecture program. Eleven of us were asked to gather together a portfolio and send it to the award sponsor, a Minnesota firm by the name of BWBR, and from there five of us were selected to travel down to their office in St. Paul and further present our work to a group of judges. For myself, it was an honor to even be considered and an incredible learning experience. The requirement of having to give a fifteen minute oral presentation based on my work gave me the opportunity to take a step back, in the middle of my schooling, and look at how far I have come both personally and academically. I was able to go back and closely examine all my prior work and look at it not only in a strictly architectural manner but to also analyze where my inspiration comes from and thought process takes me. The major thing I took away in those respects was that I like to design based on one central and often simple idea. My process always seems to start with a very elementary idea, for example: the relationship between my roommates and I, and our neighbors. And everything I do afterward is an attempt to communicate that idea in the simplest yet most articulate way possible.

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This is what caused me to struggle in deciding whether to put more text with the images in the photo essay or not. With my initial turn in, and the lack of text accompanying the images, it wasn’t a lack of time or effort, I didn’t feel as though I could offer the images any more strength by adding text to them. After your feedback however, I was forced to look at my project from a different perspective. I realized that the relationship I was suggesting that we had with our neighbors was not represented in the images. This was not a result in my mind of the images that incorrectly capturing the feeling that I was trying to create but rather an inaccurate representation of the relationship itself in the introductory text.
 

As a designer, anyone who creates anything for someone else, we sometimes get lost in what we are trying to do and forget how what we are doing is going to be perceived by others. It makes me realize that if you want to create something that is as effective as it can be, all the details have to match up; all the text needs to go with the images. For example, if something is explained in the text and the images happen to say otherwise, your whole project tends to lose credibility in all elements. Not that it can’t be effective all together, it just has a more difficult time convincing someone else of your argument. My explanation of our relationship in the original photo essay paints a picture of the two sides of the driveway coming together and working on projects together or hanging out in each other’s home, when in fact that is quite far from reality. The images do a better job of correctly interpreting the reality of the relationship than the text does, so I simply changed the introductory text to further explain that.
 

I made the decision once again to leave out text describing each picture because I want the viewer to see what they see in each image and not what I tell them to see. I want them to see the difference in spaces, the difference in emotion, and the difference in activity as expressed through the images. Maybe they don’t see it like I do but I don’t doubt that they will see something. That being said, I believe the new introductory paragraphs set up the story better and answer questions that needed to be answered. I believe it also acknowledges that some questions still remain unanswered and verify that it was an intentional decision on my part to let that happen.
This brings me back to my struggle to showing and telling. I have a hard time stomaching the idea that I should add text to something. I have this idea, whether it’s from myself or from my schooling I don’t know, that if you need a paragraph to explain your graphics than they aren’t as effective as they can be. However, this class has begun to open me up to the notion that text is an okay thing and has introduced me to the analytic side of formal writing.
 

In conclusion, this semester has been a great experience and offered plenty of room for growth in my writing as it relates to my profession. The two strengths that I see in myself as I look back on this reflection as well as the rest of the work for this class, I notice that I have confidence in my ability to create something that has several elements relating back to a single, central idea. The second thing that I notice is my ability to make amends with the flaws that others see in my work, and turn that criticism into something that benefits myself and hopefully improves the work that I do. One thing that I notice I need to work on is figure out how to most effectively introduce an idea, problem, or solution through either text or graphic and verify with the other. Another thing I need to work on my analytical writing in general. It all comes with practice and most of all, paying attention to detail in all of the work that I do.