In my initial exposure to the SCCA I learned that there was 2 programs, I was very unsure of which program I should join. I ended up going for the Graphic Design program due to it aligning better to my future goals. But I still have that interest in the Visual Media program. I decided I would make a friend in the VME program that could tell me all about their experience and I could become that person for them as well.
During my first week I realized it would be difficult to since Visual Media is usually in the studio and the programs are divided from Monday-Thursday. On the first Friday class I met my friend Brooklyn in my AR module. We talked about each other’s experience in our first week and realized we were both on the same boat about being interested in both programs. She quickly became my VME friend and over the course of the quarter we have both learned so much about each other’s programs. Just as I had wished for!
The first thing I learned is that VME is more than just taking photographs. I never knew how much work goes into taking one photograph. I am used to just using a camera on automatic and then going in and editing it with the simple tools that the general public knows. Brooklyn taught me that there are ways to capture a moment the way you want to with setting your camera and tweaking things such as exposure and saturation before even snapping the photo.
I learned that VME students are usually very helpful when it comes to getting a different perspective. When I ask my fellow design peers for advice on a project I get a very different response. Us design folk are usually jaded by our experience and what we have all collectively learned that we forget about other points of view. VME students are very helpful because they question aspects of your design that your Graphic design peers would understand perfectly because we all learned from the same professors. It helps with getting that outside perspective and learning how some things can be lost in translation to non graphic designers.
Recently I met another friend from VME. We have a group project for out Interactive Design module and we had to sketch out wireframes for an app. At the end of the activity we showed each other our wireframes and realized we had very similar sketches. This was interesting to me because I expected a very different outcome from their sketch. Overall I learned that both VME and GD students are learning how to communicate visually and at the end of the day we both have the same basic understanding of visual communication. My biggest takeaway had been knowing that in the real world both programs work together. I f you are designing for a product you will need a VME professional to shoot the product. You will both benefit from learning about each other’s process early on in order to create something in a much more efficient and harmonious way!