INTRODUCTORY QUESTIONS
H E L E N X I U
- Helen Xiu
Double majoring in Communication Design and English Literature
Junior
- I am primarily an Illustrator with some experience in Graphic Design. I am a huge proponent of learning new skills to expand my practice, and Interaction Foundations provides the perfect opportunity to cultivate what I believe are some of the most important skills for a contemporary designer to have.
- I tried my hand at a computer science course in highschool (learning Java) and found myself floundering quite a bit. Outside of that one course, I have had very limited experience with coding but am very interested in giving HTML and CSS a shot.
- I'm very excited to learn how to build and manage my own websitw without relying on a stock template.
- I expect designing for a screen requires designers to think past the boundaries of static imagery. Rather than using only visual cues to communicate with a viewer, screens allow for high degrees of interactivity and a demand for a smooth user experience.
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Mailchimp exemplifies effective design with its simple yet compelling visual language. The textual and visual elements provide a unique contrast between the static and dynamic while the bright, poppy yellow background and pared down black text generate a similar interest through contrast.
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Darksky provides a clean, comprehensive and easily understandable weather radar. Darksky communicates effectively by way of its relatively simple structure and informational diagrams. Furthermore, Darksky utilizes hierarchy to highlight immediately relevant information.
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Behance neatly tackles the problem of organizing and displaying a high volume of detailed images. As a platform to display and discover quality art, Behance's use of large, tiled images with minimal space between them allows for a quick, yet sleek and uncluttered way to browse works.