Learner Reviews & Feedback for Introduction to Imagemaking by California Institute of the Arts

Very good course with fun and challenging assignments. My only criticism of this series of courses (the graphic design specialization) is the grading process and lack of instructor interaction. While the peer grading is setup so that it's not too difficult to receive a decent grade if you do the work, there is virtually no instructor feedback on assignments, which is a bit dissapointing. I realize this may be due to the huge number of students, but usually when I pay for a class, interaction and feedback from the instructor is part of the package. Perhaps if you did that, though, then the tuition cost would be much higher.

This course was very good. I could tell the instructor didn't want to limit the student too much, but I'm afraid it made her directions a little too vague. For instance there weren't any clear examples of work for students to see, she would often opt for wordy explanations instead of examples. I get it, you don't want students to just copy work, but it was pretty hard sometimes to really grasp what the expectations were for some of these assignments, I can't imagine what it would have been like to someone for whom English is a second language. All in all, it was a fun course with a fair amount of useful work.

I think this was the most challenging course in the series so far! While I thoroughly enjoyed this course, I do have a feedback for students reviewing. Some students just offer a word or two saying, I liked it, or well done etc. Even though the criteria for reviewing is very clearly laid out, they do not put in the required effort to offer constructive feedback, which I find is disappointing. This does not help us know where the scope for improvement lies. I just wish that everyone gave proper feedback and suggestions by clearly answering the questions mentioned in the criteria for review.

The course was great in terms of imparting the skills to create a range of representation, and composition strategies for spread. The course is helpful for students who would create layouts of books with illustrations, brochures, or other marketing communications, etc. However, I think we needed more practice as the last two weeks had only one assignment per week. I would have loved two more things - in general, a bit longer videos on the theory and explaining more of it, and review of some examples for week 3.

I love taking courses by the California Institute of the Arts. With that being said this course wasn't the best. It seemed there was not enough information provided. The assignments were too simple. It also seemed like this very material was covered in an earlier course. At least it was available for everyone, not just those that paid. The critiques are the most important part and it was still provided for this course. For that reason alone I raised my review from 2 stars to 4.

Introduction to image making is a well designed short term course for those looking to explore new visual ways of story telling within the graphic design framework. The peer graded community help push the students to deliver within deadlines and think critically when looking at their work collectively and reinforce progress. Course syllabus, resources and tools were very useful not only for course completion but for further study. Recommend!

There is a lot of great information. The instructions in some of the assignments are not the clearest. I didn't have a flowing learning experience. There is too much information and sources. It got me a bit out of it instead of focused. I can see it working not online because there is truly great information presented. I think some adjustment should be done for a better user experience.

Introduction to Imagemaking by the California Institute of Arts is an easy, accessible course online. Of course, it is a build-on to all the skills and vocabulary learnt from the last two courses. From this, the assignments are quite fair and understandable and are build-ups to eventually make a short pictorial narrative at the end.

A well-structured and inspiring course that broadened my perspectives on imagemaking. Although it's clear that imagemaking is definitely an open-ended process, I felt there could've been more examples of digital imagemaking techniques and compositions to give a more comprehensive template for creative thought. Recommended!

I really enjoyed the course and doing all the assignments, I could clearly see the potential of my creativity and my style. I thought some of the videos were a little difficult to sit through, maybe the voice was too calm/soft and got sleepy? But the material was great, it was a lot of fun and learned a lot.

The perspective to observe things out of traditional ways was very interesting. The reviews of peer-graded assignments were too long though. Answering a lot of review questions was boring and I kinda lost my interest to "observe" the things knowing that I have to answer particular questions on it later.

The section on compositional hierarchy is a bit confusing. I still don't think I understand the difference between scale, space, and figure/ground. At least, scale and space are not used the same here as in other parts of the graphic design curriculum, and that is very confusing.

Many things studied on this course are subjective and the connotations depend on every viewer of each image of course. In any case the course and the study of images composition helped me broaden my knowledge on how to modify a page and its design to give the viewer a message.

I really enjoyed this course and it was one of the most helpful along with the Typography course, but it felt a little impersonal and short on information when I compare this one to the previous ones. I would love to look at more examples of imagemaking and uses of hierarchy.

Much of the course seemed to cover what was previously discussed. About the only thing this course did for me was to introduce me to In Design. The teacher was OK, but she seemed to lack enthusiasm, particularly when she was demonstrating the book-binding.

Very challenging and very rewarding to learn to "see" an object, to start owning it and to realize a booklet out of it. It was hard work and lots of trials and errors, but I really enjoyed it, and I'm sure that I've learnt a lot for my next projects.

I felt this was a very challenging and stimulating course. It relies like many great courses in this series on peer reviews. I think the course is designed extremely well, I just wish there was more interaction/feedback from the teaching staff.

Gail Swanlund is awesome. Her voice is amazing and fun to listen to. She explains things in a very creative way. So far, this has been my favorite among the Graphic Design Specialization courses. Still have two more courses to go yet!

ESTUVO SUPER BUENO. PARA MI SOLO FALTÓ QUE EXISTIERA UNA INSTANCIA DE EVALUACIÓN/COMENTARIOS POR PARTE DE LOS DOCENTES.

IT WAS GREAT. THE ONLY THING I MISSED WAS THE CHANCE TO BE EVALUATED OR TO RECEIVE COMMENTS BY THE TEACHERS.

Course could do with a bit more content and putting some more theory behind the examples, explaining better different currents and schools of thought. It also had too much overlap with the first course in the specialization

This course has really guided me through making my own images. I can now research any subject and abstract images from a lot of different techniques. It has also made me realize my strengths are the areas for improvement.

I enjoyed the course, but I really think the assignments need better instructions. I relied on the discussion forums to get a better understanding of what was expected. Week 3 especially needs more/better instructions.

Good assignments. Really learned something from this course. However, I found the requirement of some assignments might be a bit misleading and I often see other students work not following requirements.

The voice and lecture is quite sleepy, I had to take extra coffee for the course. And the assignment is still confusing. But in overall, the content and the knowledge has provided me a lot. Thank you!

I really like the course, I learn a lot of things

I think that some instructios for the assigments are not fully explained

and also I think the voice of the theacher in the videos is low monotonous