ILP Participation- Lynda.com Tutorial

For my Individual Learning Project, I completed a Lynda.com tutorial on "Learning Infographic Design". The tutorial taught the basics of designing an infographic, including how to conduct research and planning before starting the infographic and how to create a "wireframe" as a base for it. I also learned how to create graphs in Adobe Illustrator and how to use universal symbols to communicate to a broad audience. The tutorial concluded with a discussion on how to share your infographic and how to market it to publications. It also described how to measure the success of the infographic, based on your goals of traffic success, social media shares, and backlinks from quality publications. The entire process was not as confusing as I thought it would be. I have never been very good at using technology, so I was apprehensive about the tutorial; however, I had nothing to worry about, because everything was explained in a manner that was straightforward and easy to understand. I spent a few hours every day working through the different sections, and it was worth every minute because my knowledge of infographics grew exponentially.

The following is a screenshot of my certificate of completion of the course:

And this is my daily activity log that I made when I was taking the course:

ILP #1 Activity Log

September 13^th, 2017- 1:00 pm-2:30pm- Today I began my Lynda.com tutorial on “Learning Infographic Design” in Adobe Illustrator. I covered the theory-based portion of the tutorial, including the introduction, the importance of visual communication and the different types, and the rules of design. I learned about the basic rules to help keep infographics streamlined and compelling to look at, and do this in the most efficient way possible. I also learned about how to use Adobe Illustrator, a program I have had no experience with,  including how to create a page and change its color. This section gave me the tools I need to prepare myself for the action based portion and things to keep in mind when creating an actual infographic.

September 21^st, 2017- 1:00 pm- 3:30 pm- Today I completed the activity based portion of the tutorial. This section including graph making in Illustrator and the steps to conducting accurate research prior to beginning the actual design of the infographic. It also included a section on how to edit a graphic without having to restart the project. I really enjoyed this session because it allowed me to put all the theory-based elements into practice. It was difficult at first, but after completing the first activity file, I began to understand how Illustrator worked and was able to put the information from my first section into practice.

September 23^rd, 2017- 1:00 pm- 2:00 pm- Today I completed my tutorial. In the final lessons, I learned how to market an infographic prior to and after its creation. I also learned how to measure the success of the visual communication of the graphic, by understanding traffic to the graphic, shares on social media, and the success of a few, quality backlinks. I have never heard of these prior to today, but this information is extremely helpful if I ever wanted to create a commission based infographic. Although, I plan on creating infographics solely for. my future class, this is valuable information to have if I ever wanted to share my works on a larger scale.