Maria Marroquin, executive director of the Day Worker Center, is an incredible person and was a wonderful subject for the profile project. She came to this country from Mexico in 1997, and began at the Day Worker Center as a laborer. She eventually became a volunteer, manager, and then director, and has done so with grace, charm, and heart. My commerical pulls my anecdotal lead from my article and illustrates the researchable issue along with Maria's character.

All in all, the profile unit was challenging technologically and emotionally. I came in with minimal knowledge about Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, and Illustrator, and I also began the interview process without having any idea what it is like living as an undocumented immigrant. My eyes were opened to many realities during this process, and I am very thankful for the experiences that allowed for that.

 

The Magazine portion of the Profile project was the product that was the culmination of all of our work. It took our written element, design skills, and Adobe Application knowledge and melded everything together to capture our subject. We used InDesign to put together our magazines, and InDesign is the one application that I have experience in, from working as an editor on the Oracle, so using it wasn’t too tricky for me. The most difficult part, rather, was having a solid creative vision for the magazine that fulfilled the requirements of the project.

With my minimal Photoshop and Illustrator experience, I created design elements, like the coffee cup, which represents the visual metaphor of the essay. I used different fonts, colors, and photos to encapsulate the character of my subject. I separated the elements of the magazine pages with different borders, shapes, and overlay objects.

Throughout the creation of the magazine, I pushed myself in different ways: from using the pen tool on Illustrator to figuring out how to make text go on a curved path. I learned a lot about how to manipulate text and images, and how to create a cohesive, appealing final product. I also learned that, like with writing, each decision one makes about design elements has purpose. Color themes are not random; they are used to show who a person is and even sometimes what they do. Fonts can also show a lot about character. I had never had to make decisions like this before coming to Freestlye, but I now understand a lot more about how an artistic process works.

For the presentation part of the project, we combined our content with our design skills. Using Google Presentations, students edited photos, picked text, and used our three main colors to create an informative presentation on our subject and on what we learned throughout the process. As a first year senior, I faced many challenges when it came to using the technology, but I also learned a lot about photography and design. I was also exposed to Maria's world, which is much different than my own, and I explored my researchable issue, immigration reform.