EDGE
Project Description
Project Completion Report
Newsletter
Lauren Erickson
Professional Website
Abstract
I have created a website that showcases my work and projects that will help me in my future career. This includes work such as events I have helped plan, press releases I have written, and advertisements I have made. In order to present my best self, as well as improve, I have also revised past work to ensure it is the best quality. I have received feedback from my professors and others on my work and my overall website. I also continued to create new work to practice my design skills using Photoshop and InDesign. I used Wix as a resource to make my website, but designed it personally to accommodate my needs. This website is a digital portfolio and resume showing potential employers who I am and what I can do.
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Goal
For my EDGE project, I created and designed a professional website that showcases my work.
I started this project by designing a basic design and layout of a website using Wix. I had a home page, designs page, writings page, resume page, about page, and contact page. I started gathering designs from past assignments in school, as well as designs I had made for clients. I updated these designs based on previous feedback. Over the course of the project, the final designs I chose to showcase changed a few times. I had to decide which were my best work, and showcase those designs. I updated my resume several times throughout the project, after changing jobs, as well as receiving feedback for improvement. I wrote a short description on the about me page that I had to update as my life plans changed a bit throughout the project. I improved my written content by using feedback from an SUU professor. I searched through all of my past projects to find more of my best written work to showcase. This project took place over a long period of time. Meanwhile, I was creating more designs, writing more content, and completing more projects. The designs, writings, and projects that I felt were most noteworthy, I also added to my website.
Throughout the project the details of the website design constantly changed to make sure each page was cohesive with the overall website, and the design was exactly how I wanted it. I added a page, projects, so that I could include projects that I wanted to showcase, but that did not fit within the design or writing category. I received feedback from a graduate with design experience, and a few others, on my overall site. I fine-tuned my site based on this helpful feedback. This lead to my completed website with my designs, writings, projects, and resume.
Project Outcomes
This project has helped me professionally because it has sharpened my design skills, my writing skills, and helped me to improve my work. This project has also allowed me to see my professional strengths that I can later provide for a company in my future career.
This project helped me improve many skills, including design and writing. I reviewed past designs and writings and edited based on feedback I received. I also worked on new designs and writings which further progressed these skills. My improvement is evident through my screenshots taken throughout the process. This shows my improvement on my work, as well as on the website itself. This project also allowed me to see my strengths in a new light. These include my design, writing, and projects, but also how I can work hard, receive and improve with feedback, work with others on projects, and overcome obstacles. This is evident through the countless hours put into this project, the amount of work that was done, and the final product.
One outcome that I didn’t anticipate was learning to persevere despite the challenges that I faced. When I started this project, I was told I could graduate in the spring of 2018, and I planned on this. However, during that spring semester I found out that some credit requirements had been overlooked and I needed to complete another semester. Because I had more time to complete my EDGE project, I postponed the final course. I also made the decision to study abroad during the fall of 2018. These big changes sometimes made it difficult to complete my project in the same way I had originally planned. During the summer of 2018, I continued to work on my project, but it was difficult because I was working full-time, and preparing for my study abroad. I also didn’t have access to the same resources, such as the adobe programs. I pushed through these challenges and continued to work hard on my project. I was able to persevere and finish my project during my study abroad.
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Deliverables
Now that this project is complete, I have a published website to use professionally. I documented my process by taking screenshots of my progress on my website and screenshots of my progress on my work presented on the website.
The deliverables presented here are two-fold. First, there are screenshots taken throughout the entire process of my project. There are screenshots of the website itself, as well as content that was put on the website. The timeline of these screenshots spans over about a year. They are presented chronologically so the progression of the website can be seen. You can click on the screenshot to see it larger, as well as the time of when it was taken. There are so many changes I had to make that I hadn’t previously realized, making the initial design different from the final product. When you scroll through the screenshots you can see the evolution and development of my site over time.
Originally I was going to use a specific program that would take timed screenshots that would turn into a time lapse of the project. I decided not to use this program to repeatedly take screenshots of the process, because I would have to download the program each time I was using a different computer to work on my site. It was more simple and practical to simply take the screenshots myself and collect them in order. I was also going to have pictures taken of me working on my project, meeting with professors, etc. This did not end up being relevant because I was often communicating digitally for feedback, and was often alone simply working on my computer.
The second deliverable is the final website itself. This is a fully functioning website that I designed completely, using Wix. All the content on the site is my own, or a group effort of which I took part. There are seven main pages of the site: home, projects, design, writing, resume, about, and contact. The projects, and writing pages have several subpages, as well as drop-down menus for quick access.
Web link to screenshots
https://laurenivy77.wixsite.com/edgedeliverable
Web link to final website
The following are documents that explain a project I completed for my university. At Southern Utah University, every student completes an EDGE project. EDGE stands for education designed to give experience. For my EDGE project, I created this website. As you can see, this site contains some of my best designs, writings, and projects that I have worked on. It also includes home, about, resume, and contact pages. As part of this project, I edited my past work, created new work, and wrote descriptions of my work. I received feedback from many different sources and used it to polish my work and site. I designed the site myself, and it went through many revisions before the final product was complete.
Reflection
Lauren Erickson
Mt. Pleasant, UT
Communication
Creative Engagement
Professional Website
My EDGE project was to create a website that showcased my work and projects that would help me in my future career. This included everything from events that I have helped plan, press releases I have written and business cards I have designed. I split my work into three categories, design, writing, and projects. I also included pages for my resume, contact, and about me. This was the basic structure of my site.
In order to present my best self, I polished my past work to try and get it to its best quality, and had to choose the best work to present. Throughout the process, I continued to create projects and designs for clients as well as courses I was in, and included them in my site. I used feedback from several different sources to improve my work and my overall website. I used Wix as a resource to create my website, but the design was entirely my own. The final product is a professional website with my digital portfolio and resume showing potential employers who I am and what I can do.
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The inspiration for my project came from what I had learned in a few of my communication classes. The importance of a portfolio is often stressed, and as an assignment for several of these classes I had to create one from the work I had done in the class. This made it so I had several old portfolios that weren’t complete. I wanted to do something that would truly help me in my future career, so I thought creating a comprehensive portfolio would be beneficial. I also enjoy designing websites, and thought this would be a great opportunity to enhance that skill.
One outcome that I didn’t anticipate was learning to persevere despite the challenges that I faced. When I started this project, I was told I could graduate in the spring of 2018, and I planned on this. However, during that spring semester I found out that some credit requirements had been overlooked and I needed to complete another semester. Because I had more time to complete my EDGE project, I postponed the final course. I also made the decision to study abroad during the fall of 2018. These big changes sometimes made it difficult to complete my project in the same way I had originally planned.
During the summer of 2018, I continued to work on my project, but it was difficult because I was working full-time, and preparing for my study abroad. I also didn’t have access to the same resources, such as the adobe programs. I pushed through these challenges and continued to work hard on my project. I was able to persevere and finish my project during my study abroad. I had to adapt to several challenges while working on my EDGE project, but I definitely grew from that experience.
This website is also beneficial to future employers and clients. When employers are searching for the right candidate they only need to go to one place to evaluate me as an option. Instead of having to look at several different documents, they can choose what they want to see, in order to make their decision. This is also helpful for clients who want me to do some work for them. They can look at what I have done and my abilities and make their decision from there. Future employers and clients have easy access for evaluation.
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This project has allowed me to better acknowledge my professional strengths that I can provide to a company in my future career. I have learned so much from this project about working hard and overcoming obstacles along the way. It is rewarding to have completed a project that will be so beneficial to me.
LinkedIn Profile link
The inspiration for my project came from what I had learned in a few of my communication classes. The importance of a portfolio is often stressed, and as an assignment for several of these classes I had to create one from the work I had done in the class. This made it so I had several old portfolios that weren’t complete. I wanted to do something that would truly help me in my future career, so I thought creating a comprehensive portfolio would be beneficial. I also enjoy designing websites, and thought this would be a great opportunity to enhance that skill. I decided to create a website that showcased my work.
My goal for my EDGE project was to create and design a professional website that showcases my work, as well as revise my work. I was able to achieve my goal and now I have a website that I can use for my future career.
I started this project by designing a basic design and layout of a website using Wix. I had a home page, designs page, writings page, resume page, about page, and contact page. I started gathering designs from past assignments in school, as well as designs I had made for clients. I updated these designs based on previous feedback. Over the course of the project, the final designs I chose to showcase changed a few times. I had to decide which were my best work, and showcase those designs. I updated my resume several times throughout the project, after changing jobs, as well as receiving feedback for improvement. I wrote a short description on the about me page that I had to update as my life plans changed a bit throughout the project. I improved my written content by using feedback from an SUU professor. I searched through all of my past projects to find more of my best written work to showcase. This project took place over a long period of time. Meanwhile, I was creating more designs, writing more content, and completing more projects. The designs, writings, and projects that I felt were most noteworthy, I also added to my website.
Throughout the project the details of the website design constantly changed to make sure each page was cohesive with the overall website, and the design was exactly how I wanted it. I added a page, projects, so that I could include projects that I wanted to showcase, but that did not fit within the design or writing category. I received feedback from a graduate with design experience, and a few others, on my overall site. I fine-tuned my site based on this helpful feedback. This lead to my completed website with my designs, writings, projects, and resume.
There were several outcomes of this project that I saw come to pass. It helped me professionally because my writing and design skills were sharpened through the process. I was also able to learn how to better revise and utilize feedback. This project has also allowed me to see my professional strengths that I can later provide for a company in my future career. One outcome I didn’t anticipate was learning to be patient and persevere despite challenges that I faced. My main outcome was that I finished my website.
The primary skills that I used for this project were in writing and design. I had to design the website itself, as well as revise design work to put on the site. I also revised writings, and wrote descriptions of projects, as well as other things throughout my website. I think that I improved in these skills as I used them throughout my project, and because of my project.
I think that SUU decided to put an experiential learning requirement in place so that students could think about education in a different way. Experiential learning is centered around learning from an experience, but not only in retrospect. It is about planning what you are going to learn and gain from an experience or project before it takes place.
EDGE stands for education designed to give experience. The EDGE project is about giving students an opportunity to have a fully recorded project completed when they graduate. This will give students an edge on other recent graduates when applying for jobs.
This project has allowed me to better acknowledge my professional strengths that I can provide to a company in my future career. I have learned so much from this project about working hard and overcoming obstacles along the way. From the time that I started this project, my future plans have changed several times due to external factors. It is rewarding to have completed a project that will be so beneficial to me. One of the things that went well for my project was the website design. I enjoyed designing the elements of my website and figuring out the best way to arrange everything that I needed in the right way. The time schedule was an element of my project that wasn’t executed as I had originally planned. I had certain goals to accomplish by due dates, but then a lot of my life plans changed. After that, I worked on my project intermittently over a longer period of time. I was surprised by the amount of time that the project took, especially the website design. I didn’t just design the layout once and put in my work. I had to revise my site over and over while I edited my work. I learned that the process doesn’t always go as planned. Sometimes you have to adapt as you delve into the project and encounter obstacles. This project makes me excited to continue to create work and get better. I have learned more about website design and am interested in further exploring it. This project makes me eager to sharpen all of my skills even more.