Medium Specificity

 

Artistic Statement: 

    My medium of choice is Canva. I have never used Canva before until I took this class. This was my first time experimenting with the media. My art piece was all about exploring the media using all of the tools and resources it has to offer. I wanted to see what I was capable of producing but also know what I could use the tool for in future practice. 

    One of the affordances with using Canva is the ability to create flyers, videos, presentations, social media posts, resumes, wallpapers, thumbnails, collages, and so much more. Your options for documenting and designing are almost endless. Another one is the ability to use stock photos for free without having to subscribe to an account for stock photos. One major one is the ability to create clean, professional designs for those that struggle with designing. 

    A limitation with using Canva is you are limited with the resources and graphics that you can use. Not only that but you're also limited to basic designs because the high-quality ones you have to pay and upgrade to pro in order to use those. There are also a few copyright restrictions with the stock photos depending on how you use them but for a teacher, this shouldn't be too much of a problem, thankfully.

    My process of designing my piece actually didn't take as long as I thought it would. Originally, I could not come up with an idea. I had a hard time grasping what was being asked of us for this assignment. I told myself that maybe I'm thinking too much into this. I started with picking a text (or medium) that I was unfamiliar with. Canva is one that I heard about but didn't know how to use so this was perfect for me to get the opportunity to explore without the pressure of creating some sort of masterpiece. I started by going through each of the tabs and selecting one feature from each tab. From there, I selected different effects from each tab to play with my multitude of options in creating a piece that was uniquely mine but also appealing for a message I wanted to convey. Exploring the literacies and tools of Canva helped me to specifically see that this medium could be used for projects, advertisements, and social connections purposes. I wanted my end piece to appear messy on purpose because I want to show the vast amounts of options available using this medium.

    I think it's useful for teachers to know how to use the Canva software themselves to better help the students in their exploration of media choices. Teachers should know that this tool should be something for themselves or their students to use when they need to create a document. Most schools have Microsoft Office apps like Word which allows you the ability to do a lot of similar things like Canva. The only thing I find better about Canva is their amazing suggestions and templates to help you get started. This may be helpful for a student who struggles with design or creativity to get a starting point.