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Week 3 Assessment – Design and Social Media

Learning Objectives Covered

• LO 04.01 – Compose digital content to communicate an idea and make a statement
• LO 04.02 – Design graphics to support current graphic design discipline trends related to social media

Career Relevancy

In this assessment, we will enter the world of social media and create images that appropriately convey a variety of moods. This is relevant to your career as a professional graphic designer because social media is increasingly a space that is looking for professional graphic designers to create imagery for corporate advertising.

Background

In the past, graphic design was concerned mostly with print production and the distribution of advertising and visual messages via printed material. Increasingly, graphic design is entering into the digital realm and designers are responsible for creating visual communication using screen-based platforms and creating designs meant for distribution on the Internet.

In addition, with the coming of social media, the Internet has transformed into an interactive, participatory marketplace. Companies must create a social media marketing strategy in order to remain relevant. A large part of any social media marketing strategy are graphics and visuals. Graphic designers, with their ability to use visuals to capture emotion and communicate ideas, play a large role in creating these graphics and visuals. Indeed, current trends in the graphic design discipline require at least a basic understanding of social media marketing and communication.

When designing for social media advertising you still need to keep in mind the principles and elements of design. However, you will most likely be designing in a much smaller space or canvas size which means you need to be particularly careful to include only the most necessary items.

The following three tips are vital to keep in mind when designing for social media to help you streamline your design:

1. Engage emotion first
2. Devote more space to images than to text
3. Simple is better

All tips again point to the idea that when designing for social media advertising, it is vital to consider how emotions might be conveyed through a composition. Sometimes as a designer, you are able to find the perfect image to capture what you would like. At other times, you must use your skills to creatively composite an image together for maximum impact. Either way, always consider clear communication first and foremost so when someone is scrolling or browsing, the ad instantly jumps out and connects with them.

Prompt

In this assessment you will create three social media posts, one for each of the clients below. These posts will consist of an image you create on your own and a message given to you below from each client. Note: Your ad ONLY needs to include the message:

1. Client 1: Fitness Club
   Message: Find your Superpower; Join Today for $5; Limited Time Only
2. Client 2: Budget Travel Website
   Message: Dream with your eyes wide open.
3. Client 3: Grocery Delivery Service
   Message: Delicious Delivered Daily; Start your free trial today!

Each file should be 1200 x 628 pixels and be created as an artboard in Photoshop. You can use free stock imagery as your base. Here are two great potential sites for you to use: Pexels.com (Links to an external site.) and Unsplash.com (Links to an external site.). Work within Photoshop to both alter the photo in some way so it best captures the message being communicated and add the type to the image in a way that reinforces the message. Remember to keep the design principles in mind as you are working to ensure adequate contrast and readability.

Assignment Instructions:

• Use Photoshop to complete this assessment
• Remember to consider readability in your usage of text and ensure adequate contrast
• Each image should be 1200 pixels x 628 pixels
• Create one Photoshop file with three artboards total (Note: you will create three posts total)
• Your instructor will share potential stock photo sites in the live session in addition to the ones listed above or feel free to use your own imagery

Submission Requirements:

• Save your file as a PDF for submission
• Save your file as DES109_Assessment3_FirstLast

Best Practices: Always keep all of your native and working files you used to create a project. You will need these when you reach your Portfolio or Capstone course. Continue with this best practice because a client may want to reprint and make changes on an existing project at a later time.

Task Benchmark Examples

The files below are PDFs showing A-level work by fellow students. The examples are provided to illustrate the quality of work needed to get an A on this task. Copying from the samples is considered cheating. Use the examples to inform your plan to create your own work.