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Today my class and I went out to volunteer for Rake the Town. It’s what it sounds like, raking the town. But I believe we were raking the lawns of the elderly to help them.

I’m gonna be honest, it was a very fun time. Working together with my class on something as we joked around and laughed. It felt nice.

What didn’t feel nice was my apple maps which was trying to make me drive across traffic that was going both ways and barely any space for me to drive through. But still, raking was fun and I made memories. I know these memories will fleet away as my time here at STC withers away daily. You see these people everyday but once graduation hits you might never see them again. But isn’t that just life?

Huh. It already has been 8 weeks of blogging and it just felt like yesterday I just started my 2nd year here at Southeast Tech. Time sure does fly.

Today we started working on packaging and I don’t know why but I felt so inspired today. Something snapped inside of me and I got many ideas for the packaging assignment. Although the one I really want to do is to do a makeup brand packaging. I remember I use to make labels for my sister’s slimes and pretend they’re makeup products. Perhaps that’s why I’m so excited. I cannot wait to see what the end results look like.

I rewatched a Studio Ghibli movie recently and been feeling inspired by the art style crafted by Hayao Miyazaki. His art style is breathtaking and has such a whimsical feeling to it. Ghibli uses palettes that balance out the muted and vibrant tones beautifully. I feel inspired to draw inspiration from his movies into my designs and personal projects. His movies like My Neighbor Totoro and Howl’s Moving Castle. Have such beautifully drawn backgrounds that captures the beauty of the world. I hope I can do his style justice by pulling inspiration into my own designs.

Today I had the sudden realization of how good I gotten in Graphic Design. I looked back upon the designs I created from first year and said to myself. I really made that? It looked much different from my current work. It was of lower quality because I didn’t learn everything yet. I have learned a lot from my first year and my designs are much better than before. It shows I have made progress in my life. Which is good, though I am not letting it go to my head. As you are never done learning, my designs will always continue to be better than before. It’s a continuous evolution.

I am a Vietnamese American. Like most people who are dual nationalities. I sometimes struggle with the problem of whether I’m Vietnamese enough or American enough. But I will never be enough because I am both Vietnamese and American which is beautiful.

I hope I can mix my cultures together in my work. I hope I can meld my cultures together to create something, like fusion food. Pull aspects from both cultures. That’s something I’m intending to do with the art submission for the magazine @ southeast tech. Not the one I’m making but the one for the school. I intend on creating something that melds my experience as an Asian American.

On Monday, my class went to Panther Premier Print Solutions during our Layout class. Traffic was okay I got stuck behind a truck going 20 in a 45. But the field trip was a nice change of pace. Stuck behind a macbook all day, staring at a screen and your design for hours. It gets boring and the field trip helps to break you away from monotony of life.

We arrived and it was a nice field trip. I learned information from the pros in the industry. More hands on compared to the AAF day. Their information was about the personal side of the industry like mental health, getting hired and tips. While this trip focused on the technical side of the industry with tips like use 100% black and tips about printing. Overall a good field trip, they even gave us coasters!

Honestly, a role model I look up to is the same person from my interview. Which is Rachel Anders from Krave Branding. She is a graduate of Southeast Tech, and I look up to her. You may ask why?

It’s because she reminds me of myself. I see myself in here, which is kinda reassuring you now? I had some doubts that I wouldn’t make it, but seeing her progress in the industry is inspiring. It was a good idea to interview her honestly. 10/10 would do again.

Today I attended the AAF Student day with my friends at the country club. It was a nice switch up to my normal days at Southeast Tech. Nice to get some new perspectives to learn from. We met many different people from many sectors of the design/marketing field. I learned a lot from them.

I learned to advocate for myself, I learned that it’s okay to not know everything and that you can ask for help from others. You are a fresh out of college student, you aren’t going to know everything about the field right away. There will be people to help you on your journey.

Overall, it was a good thing to go to this event. Wonder if there’s more events like this.

Another week has passed, seems like the days are going by so fast. I bet you I’m going to think time has passed by fast in May when I graduate. I’ll be looking back on these blogs one day and think about the past, and about my past self. People are constantly evolving, and I can’t wait to see who I’ll be when I graduate.​

Moving on from that, this week I did an interview with Rachel Anders from Krave Branding. She was wonderful to interview and my first step in the door for the magazine project. The magazine project is fun to do. This is because I get to make everything inside of the magazine, so it helps me to show off and improve all of my skills.​

During this week I worked on some ads for the magazine and I’m going to say it’s a big improvement compared to my ads from 1st year. It just shows I’m improving. Which is good. ​Below is an example of one of my ads I’m working on.

Sometimes I like scrolling through DaFont and looking at the fonts for fun. Cause scrolling through them gives me ideas. Such as if I scroll through a section I like to imagine where would that font look the best in?

Personally my favorite font style is Sans Serif. They look really elegant and versatile to me. My personal favorites from the Sans Serif is LEMON MILK and Caviar Dreams.

They look very versatile in style. I can imagine many designs that would work well with them. Another style I love is in the Sans Serif family on Dafont. It’s where the font kinda mimics the style of calligraphy where you go thick down one way. For example Awendela Beloved.

It just pleases my eyes, though probably would not be good for logotype due to the thin parts of the letters.