What I Have Learnt About Myself

Professionally

1) I can be lazy. In terms of design process. I have a tendency to take easy routes to the final design now and again, especially if I feel pressed for time. This is something I am ashamed about because I want nothing more than to be motivated for everything that I do. 

2) I have found a love for simple swiss-style typography. This is something I never really understood growing up but I have become more appreciative of this already. I supose this came through a combination of learning about modernism and applying this to my practice.

3) I have began to view Graphic Design as the thinking man's/ woman's creative pursuit. I have grown a lot of respect for the ability of graphic designers to become experts in something new with every brief, and to use intelligent methods to communicate their ideas effectively.

4) I have also learnt that I am pretty good at drawing up layouts for magazine and newspapers. I think that I use the space fairly well and have got to a stage where I know the rules and can start to break them.

5) I have learnt that I can never be 100% happy with any single design. There is always something to improve, things to add and things to take away. No design is perfect.

6) I don't like collaboration but I know it results in better design. Collaboration projects so far have been fairly non-stressfull but seeing someone take your designs away to change them is always going to be difficult to accept, however I fully understand that this is necessary now to achieve the best final product.

7) A Computer is a tool. I've found that a pen and paper should be used to design, then a computer can be used to realise it. Computers can limit me with boundaries or open up a whole world of possibility but it still cant express ideas in a quickfire manner.

8) Listening to others is the most important thing to do. I suffer from a very short attention span so this has been a difficulty in my life, professional and personal. The feedback I have received from my friends and peers has been really rewarding, I know I can learn from them because they will all be important designers in the future.

9) Following on from this point I have learnt to appreciate the people around me in the studio. It is an incredibly rewarding environment to be in when everybody has similar interests and, at the end of the day, goals.

10) I have found a passion for unofficial games and movie design. This is mostly in the form of cult-film poster design by professionals who have fallen in love with a genre or particular individual film. This is something I became interested in when Drive came out.


Personally
1) The internet is my best friend and my worst enemy. I could be searching for something important, stumble into you tube and be distracted for hours.

2) I cant stop gaming. I thought gaming is something that I would grow out of, but as I got older games became focused at an older audience and also became very mainstream. As the most valuable entertainment sector today I would definitely be excited to get into the industry as a graphic designer.


3) I enjoy being busy. At times I become used to spending evenings working and have started to find hard work rewarding, if its got anything to do with college or not. I have taken up roles that are outside college to keep myself busy including writing for Daily Gaming Network with Abbas.

4) Hypocritically, I also enjoy taking time off way too much, I guess I still haven't found a good balance. At the moment I feel like I'm either working all the time or doing nothing at all. On a positive (or negative) side when im not working I feel incredibly guilty, but have a lot of fun anyway.

5) I have a very easy life. This isn't new to me but from experience, as much as I complain, I know that I live in a safe place and my 'work' is something I love. What I have discovered this year is how lucky I am to have found something that I enjoy, and can hopefully make a living off.


6) I can be tragically unorganised, I lose things, forget things, If I write something down I sometimes forget where I wrote it or lose the paper I wrote it on. This isn't all the time but I affects me in many different situations. But there is hope! I've been actively exploring new ways to deal with the problem instead of passively ignoring them until they take over.

7) I have become more independent this year. Everybody says "I have become more independent" but I realised when my parents asked if I had looked at any houses yet and I realised I hadn't told them but I'd already got one two weeks before. I've also started cooking healthy meals this year, and generally looking after myself.  

8) I have realised that Graphic design is everywhere. I knew this before but the more I study it the more I realise that graphic design in some ways dictates nearly everything we do today as a civilisation; in terms of gathering information,you cant do it without some sort of graphical interface, and without information, what the hell would we do??

9) I have decided that (for now) making money is important. Money is more important that loosely argued ideals about 'not being a sell out'. At the end of the day I want to get paid and enjoy doing it. Saying that there are obviously organisations I would still not work for if the opportunity arose in the future; multinationals or governments with poor ethical standards, racist, sexist, homophobic or religious organisations etc.

10) Following on from this I suppose this year has been a year were I have become more involved with the issues of morality in my own time. If I have any free time at the moment but im stuck indoors I've started researching lots about religion and politics, or more specifically dirty religion and politics and the detrimental effects of media outlets that let those associated voice their opinions. I suppose this does link in with graphic design because at the end of the day we are communicators and while spoken work has some impact on a few people its people like us that can really spread information to the masses.