please give me an example of how graphic designers may use Algebra
Hi. Sorry; I missed your reply, yesterday. (So many spammers to deal with.)
I've typed up to 116 words-per-minute with 100% accuracy, so I hope you're up for some reading, 'cause words just flow from my keyboard, sometimes.
You need optimization skills, to determine which factors provide the most bang for the buck, on any given project. If a client wants some highly-specialized gold-foil inlay, on the side of their vehicle fleet everywhere that component of their logo appears, then the cost-per-square inch (to include transportation costs, as each vehicle must visit an out-of-state factory) of such logo components could drive nearly all the other factors in the project (i.e., it constrains your creativity). Clients want to hear options, when talking money. You can't prepare acceptable compromises, if you can't do the math.
On the other hand, maybe you're not your own boss. Maybe you take instruction from creative directors, legal departments, market researchers, copy editors, and account executives. Maybe you're given two quarts of jelly to fit in a one-quart jar, so to speak. You've got x words to fit into an annual report consisting of y charts and z pages. Legal requirements dictate chart size. Shipping constraints dictate an upper limit on z. Creative direction requires a particular choice of fonts (each of which carries a different words-per-column-inch rating), size of paragraph indentations (A), amount of extra space between lines (B), and inner-margin size with respect to wrap-around text (C).
You have permission to re-proportion any chart. This affects C and the total number of column inches of text.
So, the copy doesn't fit the design. You need to determine, for example, how every 1-em reduction in A and 10-pt reduction in B affects the required C, in order to fit x words on z pages because your design calls for tightly-wrapping text around graphic elements and charts. And you need to consider differences in words-per-column-inch ratings. One font may not need as much pt-reduction as another, to achieve aesthetic results, but on the other hand it doesn't fit as many words-per-inch as the font that naturally provides more space between lines. What values of your parameters and variables achieve the "happy middle" -- or should I say, "golden rectangle", lol -- for the chart proportions.
Oh, by the way, you now have piecewise functions to determine and use, for solving systems of equations, because the creative director just called to say that the client wants to change the color scheme, so z is now divided into two groups, such that all pages containing colors other than black need to be printed on the same sheet of paper (as only 8 pages per sheet are printed at the printshop chosen to do the color printing). So, you radically change your design OR calculate how to balance extra bindery costs involving two z values.
As a graphic designer, I worked with a lot of different chemicals and materials. Sometimes, mixing formulas from one manufacturer needed to be jived with instructions from another manufacturer. For example, if the residual pH of a particular fixing agent is stated by formula in terms of coverage area and percentage of coloring agent, you might need to know the coverage area for an actual pH value because your application involves choosing specific materials from another supplier in terms of acidity tolerance, and the choice of hue in your design affects the percentage stated in the given formula. The ability to rearrange formulas and find inverse relationships is very handy; it keeps you from wasting a bunch of money, while still creating the best stuff within budget constraints.
I also worked with a lot of machines which had built-in features not always up to the task, for leading-edge design. I can only imagine the sorts of desktop-publishing-type behemoths in use today. I had to tweak the machinery, once in awhile, to force or trick it into producing what I needed. Sometimes, I had to work with manufacturers' macro-programming languages. How are your programming skills? Algebraic thinking comes in very handy, when programming machines and understanding their features and limitations. Things like optics, colors, gradiations, halftones, shading, hues, shadowing, are all communicated by assigning values. Machines only understand numbers. Operators need to understand them, too.
As an aside, I wished I had known (back in the day) how to use polynomial algebra and calculus to determine exact areas of non-geometrical shapes. My example above, of gold on the sides of trucks, came from an actual experience of mine. My boss was "not happy" with my total-area miscalculation, during the bidding phase! I made up for it later, by writing a computer program to automate the insertion of character-kerning codes into text typewritten by copy secretaries, saving the phototypographers the need of doing it manually on every project. (The subsidiary gained almost $50,000 cost savings, the first year. Woo hoo! Algebra saves the day!)
I am homeschooled, so I suppose I could choose anything that is considered a math course.
Perhaps, you ought to contact some colleges of choice. What are their requirements? I don't know how college admissions treats home-schooled applicants.
Maybe, you have the freedom to design your own course. If so, you could incorporate psychology. You could study how to teach mathematics to non-mathematicians. Survey your peers. Find out what it is specifically, that confuses students about a particular math topic and how it was presented. That is, dig deep, to understand the complications involved in communicating math. Devise suggestions for better ways. It would be great math review for you, as you would need to understand the math concepts before trying to understand others' confusion, and the psychological component may keep you motivated. Otherwise, I would hope that any research paper into how mathematics is used in the world today, would suffice. I've seen a couple courses for non-math students which fulfilled final math-requirements for an associate degree. Those courses mostly dealt with applications and history of a small set of mathematical concepts.