autism stickers
autism posters
inch resting things
i was working on these posters in march of 2023 and that's when i started noticing this fuzzy spot in my vision, like a smudge on my glasses that wouldn't go away no matter how much i cleaned them. this got a bit worse over the next weeks.
my eyesight is so bad. i have rectangular lenses right now, and at their thinnest it's 1/4th an inch. at thickes (at edges) is 1/2inch. i think i'm at -20.5ish in my right eye and -22.5ish in my left. in the snellen chart (the one with the big e and other letters) i have to be standing with my feet agaisnt the wall of the poster to be able to see the e clearly without any corrective lenses.
when your eyes are nearsighted, it means that they are longer than they are tall. so because me and my mom are both so nearsighted, our eyes look kinda like footballs they are so long.
when the eyes get that long, it stretches the tissues and makes them thinner. and if your body decides to grow new viens in your eye, sometimes they can grow past the thin wall of the eye and into the retina. and then they can break and start filling your retina with blood! symptoms of this mimic wet macular degneration :)
amsler grid
so i had choroidal neovascularization in at least my left eye (growing new viens in the choroid, which is in between the retina and the sclera- the white part of the eye), and was bleeding onto my retina. great. you know how they stop the veins from bleeding? injecting an anti-inflamatory into my eyeball. mercifully i didn't have to watch the needle go into my eye but she went in there all right.
the 3 injections i had (most people need 5-7, but i am not most people), the needle didn't really hurt. it just made my eye sore for the next day. the first injection was so bad becuase my eye was so dry and the antiseptic kept burning so bad. nothing would make it stop. the next times i really goobered up my eye with eyedrops and it didn't sting.
but i was in the middle of working on these posters when the symptoms started. so it was quite hard to adjust to designing something when there was a big blurry hole in my vision.
after i got the first injection, things stared clearing up. but then as april approached and the date of this table that the student accessibiliy person was setting up and i was going to volunteer at,,,, i got covid. i was so excited!!! i designed the stickers, i designed the posters, i was excited to tell people about autism and neurodiversity!! and i couldn't do anything!!
there was also some drama about me going back to my dorm suite (this happened when we got a couple days off for "spring break" which was like 2 days) while i had covid but i definitley shouldn't have gone back to my dorm. but i wanted things to go back to normal so bad. it was a mess.
but the end result are these posters and these stickers and they r sexy.
case study from my portfolio
Project Overview
In March of 2023, [person's name], the assistant director of Student Accessibility Services at the [my school], asked me to help her design stickers for a table she was planning for April in [the school's] Campus Center (CC). This evolved into being tasks to create a set of informational posters as well.
Project Goal
I was tasked to design two stickers celebrating Autism Acceptance Month at [my school], to design and write copy for a set of four small informational posters about Autism to be hung around campus, and to design a large poster to promote the table and other information about autism acceptance month to be hung in the CC.
Personal Contributions
I completed the following key tasks:
- Designed sticker based on client idea: [person's name] wanted a design that included STEM elements, a brain, and some positive text about neurodiversity. I used Adobe Illustrator to combine visual elements together to create a scalable design.
- Wrote copy for posters: I used my existing knowledge about autism paired with research on how to communicate the basic ideas to a general audience to write copy for each poster. I worked on writing concisely and cutting out unnecessary bits to ensure that the poster had enough white space.
- Created visuals for posters: I used Illustrator to place the text I had written and design visuals used to communicate key ideas. I ensured that the posters where cohesive by using the same fonts, sizes, and colors.
- Reviewed design with marketing department: I sent my designs to a representative from the marketing department to get another set of eyes on the project, and to ensure that nothing went against the school’s branding. I also got confirmation that I could use the school’s name in a sticker design.
- Designed another sticker based on my idea: [person's name] requested that I design a sticker that said “[school] supports autism acceptance”, so I came up with variations on the rainbow infinity symbol to give variation from the other sticker which was square.
Project Results
The posters were hung up around campus, and the large poster was hung in the CC for the month of April. The folks at the marketing department loved the stickers, and [person's name] loved how enthusiastic I was about designing the posters and ensuring a good end result.