Xander Bautista
Introduction
My name is Xander Bautista. I'm a student of St. Joan of Arc's Catholic High School, Barrie, ON, attending Mr. Johnson's Grade 12 Media Arts Class. Through this website, I wanted to showcase a few of my skills by displaying past works. I find designing and assembling visual materials fulfilling, including the problem-solving hardships that come with it. I strive to be a professional graphic designer one day and will rigorously educate myself more to create amazing visuals that can someday be viewed worldwide.
Personal Reflection
Prior to when I started my Grade 12 Media Arts course, I was only familiar with and proficient in Adobe Photoshop. As a new designer, the number of software available really overwhelmed me at first and I thought that I’ll never grow as an artist since there were so many concepts and theories which I was afraid to touch. However, I was encouraged to explore beyond this very adversity to further my horizons upon entering this course. Fortunately, I was introduced to so many new things, some of which passed my radar the last time I took this Media Arts course in Grades 11 and 10.
Throughout this course, I was able to familiarize myself with the extensive library of Adobe programs, especially Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Illustrator. With Adobe Premiere Pro, I learned a minimal understanding of how VFX and SFX were applied. It was evident how it really emphasizes emotive implications on films. Then, the variety of options and compositions you can achieve through Adobe Illustrator showed me how much I was restricting myself by sticking to Adobe Photoshop. For instance, Illustrator can create scalable vector graphics and includes tools that can achieve unique effects. I was even introduced to mockups, which were very helpful in visualizing my designs. With this new profound understanding of graphic design and video editing, there were certain projects I took a liking to. One project that particularly stuck with me was the Superpower Short Film since I never explored this area of video editing. I can confidently say that this project has improved my literacy for filmmaking.
On the contrary, I did face setbacks during the course that limited my growth and my potential. Particularly, all of the projects I’ve done were individual work. I wasn’t able to acquire any cooperation skills that I could have acquired by participating in group projects which were disappointing. So, if I were to take this course again, I’d definitely love to have met new people and request to collaborate on projects. This also builds a strong sense of community amongst the diverse artists in the world by being able to bounce off other people’s ideas.