MS Word and making Memos

I grew up on a PC and have used Microsoft Word all of my life. Therefore, when I found we had a whole section on MS Word and creating a Memo for it, I was quite pleased.

I was very creative as a child and always was trying to design something on my computer. I'd make greeting cards, brochures, posters, resumes- anything. And typically, I'd only have MS Word to make these on. I was already very familiar with how to make something creative and visually interesting on Word. I had added pictures and shapes to projects numbers of times.

Due to this, although I had never written a Memo before, I was fairly comfortable with the project. I feel that once you get used to how Word works it is incredibly simple to create what ever you want on it. Unfortunately, I was out the first day to work on the Memo assignment and so I never got a color print request out on time. Because of this my project will be given a rather poor grade I'm sure, however it should be easy to re-do and print in a color copy. I'm confident in my abilities in Word and am sure it will turn out fine.

I'm not sure if I can actually see myself needing to make Memos in the future, but I'm positive that it is an ideal skill to have.

Design Principles and the Williams book

Overall, I find the design principles easy to understand and to do. I have always enjoyed making and designing things however, so I may be more comfortable with them than most.

The design principles defined in the Williams book seemed common knowledge to me. Well, perhaps not common knowledge, but things that one typically did anyway when designing something without even noticing. Whenever I have created a poster or something, I've always used the elements of repetition, alignment, proximity and contrast. I just designed following the four basic principles naturally.

I definitely believe that the design principles will help me layout attractive pieces, as they always have in the past. I don't believe it hinders my creative abilities at all. Instead it challenges you to be creative within a set of smart guidelines that will help vastly improve what you are creating.