I feel like the most missed potential project out of the 7 weeks is definitely the bill redesign. I was so caught up in making it look more aesthetically pleasing and accurate that I missed a few points of the actual design and the purpose of the design. I could've added more symbolism and graphics in the backdrop to put a bit of emphasis on the indigenous tribes or added more indigenous tribal patterns.

After the feedback on our project pitch 1, we decided to deviate from the topic and chose to work on another one, it was more streamlined and easier to do while being very connected locally. We were also told how our original topic didn't truly have a "minority" group, so we chose this new topic with that in mind. Making the mood board reminded me of a junior high PBL class where we had to design infrastructure that was inclusive, we also had to make mood boards for our furniture and it was equally as difficult. I also feel like there was an increased emphasis on design in this class, and it reminded me of art class in Junior high, I needed to do many sketches before deciding on a logo and this made me realize that I can enjoy art without being particularly good at drawing.

However, I feel like I'm a lot more knowledgable on topics than before, I know what to search to find resources and can think of topics that are locally and globally connected to us unlike my very broad topics that couldn't warrant a lot of change with my actions. I can also see myself having better time management and especially knowing how to work with many teammates that have different strengths.

Although, I still need to work on knowing whats something i want to include because i like the idea of it, and whats something I want to include because it fits in the project. If i can not differentiate between these ideas, the project can very easily fall apart from bad management and unfitting choices. I should question myself when I tell my team a suggestion if this change would make our project better, and if it wouldn't then I should keep it to myself or ask my teammates for a second opinion.

Our driving question is "how can we use graphic design to promote less casual ableism in language?" And we focus on trying to speak up about people (especially taiwanese/chinese speaking individuals) using slangs or words with ableist meanings behind them and foster a more inclusive and respectful community in Taiwan.

These ableist slangs can hurt the people who suffer from the disabilities (mostly learning disabilities) which can cause stereotypes and hurt their opportunities further, this issue is very local because Taiwan's norms and social stigmas actively contribute to this issue which is why many insults derive from these groups and its very common to hear it everyday.

Generally, my ideas and opinions on graphic design have not changed much, rather I learned how much you can do with Canva and other free graphic design apps, this has expanded my understanding of graphic design and more knowledge about design (like the elements of design is a new thing i learnt). I learned that texture can add so much to a design its unreal, the original bill redesign had a very basic diamond repeating texture in the background, but after doing some research on what bill manufacturers use for the texture on them, i tried to recreate that in Canva and was very pleased with the difference in look.

One part of the magazine I worked on a lot was the page layouts. I realized that many pages were difficult to read because of spacing, formatting, layering or text/font issues, so I took some time to reorganize each page to a more pleasing and balanced layout, making sure that there weren't any unnatural cuts to the next line or odd placement.

One specific feedback I received was to make some of the content writing less opinionated (ex. "suffered" instead of "affected" when talking about disabilities), it was all small changes in the most part but after comparing the before and after, I can confidently say that making those revisions were worth it and helped me understand how subtle ableism can really be.

Having to structure the email draft to reach out to our community partner connected to my Chinese class where we had to reach out to somebody with our future desired career, we had to do the same thing with learning how to professionally format an email and be respectful when asking interview questions. That taught me a lot about how to email an institution in an acceptable manner during PBL.

Before, I used to not reach out when I felt like something was wrong or unjust (whether a real problem or in a more personal misunderstanding), but now I can communicate better with my peers and my teachers to discuss a problem I have even if its about not receiving feedback that I should've gotten earlier.

I became more involved in the project voluntarily, at the start of the semester I was hesitant to try to do work outside of what my role was in the team, but near the end I started to help out with every part of the project, including tangible design which I usually do not interact with.

One thing I still need to improve in PBL in the future is my time management, as I often leave things to the last day to do even if its a big part of my grade. I'll try to set more timers and remind myself constantly that I can do other things after I'm done with whichever project I would be procrastinating.

The thing that surprised me most during our research was how many insults in Taiwanese or mandarin are ableist or misogynistic, and yet still used a lot in common speak. An assumption I had before I did research was that the normalization of ableist language was only predominantly in the english speaking community, but after I was informed by my teammates and after searching online, I found out I was very far off. I realized that a lot of people do know how these ableist terms may affect the people they're joking about or be offensive, but they choose to ignore it because its too rooted in their vocabulary. But overall, I learned a lot about the different ways people can support social justice and how important community action and self responsibility is to solving systematic issues like ableism in general.

One of my big realizations while redesigning the pages in our magazine was that I can just mess around with shapes and whatever weird ideas I have and it may actually end up looking cool, I felt a lot more confident trying my ideas out and I gradually subconsciously learned more about graphic design than I thought I would. I'd say adding texture and utilizing space well was really helpful, like if I felt like something was missing but adding more flowers would make it too cluttered, I would play around with halftones and rearranging the photos with the text. We wanted to address how down-syndrome is one of the most joked about disorders recently in Taiwan (because of a certain slang) in a subtle way in our magazine without making it the full focus, so we used a lot of flower imagery because we wanted to express certain feelings with flowers, like how forget-me-nots can represent equality and kindness. While lilies of the valley can symbolize hope and peace. I'm most proud of the design choice to have flowers be a reoccuring theme, it fits so well into our project mostly wanting to spread kindness and also makes for great tangible designs.