VisComII: Final Portfolio

The things I chose for my final portfolio in VisCom were:
1) Rock Climbing (campus poster) -even though it was done more in the beginning of the semester, it was one of the last poster's we re-designed and I was starting to show improvement. Time approx. 1 hour.
2) Professional Photograph Magazine Ad Layout- The approx. time for this was about 2-3 hours for this particular piece. This layout was stronger than the other spread. The spread needed more attention grab, the ad does that and is still simplistic.
3) October Magazine Layout (Using own Photography)-Time for this project was between 4-5 hours. I liked being able to shoot your own photography, this way you can capture exactly want you want/need, as oppose to looking for bad images on the internet. I feel this layout is when things were starting to click for me.
4) Rapala 2-Page Magazine Ad-Things were continuing to click for me and getting easier as we had done a lot of spreads at this point. Time was beween 3-4 hours.
5) Society of Illustrators Direct Mailer- This project slowly came along for me I like how it turned out, after coming up with the theme of 'smell the opportunity.' Overall time about 7 hours.
6) Red Barn Campaign- I spent 6+ hours on this entire campaign project. I feel the pamphlet was my strongest piece, it finally came along structurly.
7) Joe 6-pack- By this project it was easier to come up with a concept. From rev 1 this project didn't change much structurally, the only things that changed were the fonts and labels. I really liked this project, being able to design something that was of what we liked (design wise) and could help when designing another self promotion piece. Total time for this project was 10+ hours.
8) Audio Book on CD- Even though we had much less time to work on this project I am happy with how it turned out. I was stuck as to how to design the inside and something really clicked on this project and came up with the idea of the picket fence instead of the suggested paintbrush for the cd holder. Time was about 6+ hours.
I feel I definately improved a lot throughout the semester. I'm getting more of a grasp on things and it got easier towards the end to come up with a concept on each project, it's like something clicked for me right at the end, but better late than never right?