Confession

One thing I can say about this year is with out a doubt I have learnt a lot. If you asked me to create something on photoshop, indesign or illustrator this time last year I’m not sure if I’d even have been able to open up the software. I came on to this course with a fine art background, with the hope of utilising the skills I already had in to something more business orientated with the hope of may be one day finding a job. A tall ask I know.

I can’t lie and say I think I’ve found my footing in the creative world, or that I think I’ve found a subject I’m hugely passionate about. I constantly struggle with the idea of my future and where I want to be, what I want to do and even who I want to be. I thought coming to London might start to sort some of these things out in my head, instead I just feel like, and pardon the cliché, a needle in a haystack. Being part of UAL means I’m constantly surrounded by amazingly creative and interesting people, we can feed of each other and inspire one another, and I definitely am inspired by what is constantly around me within LCC. However when I look around I also see people that are more talented and more suited than I am.

Looking at the GDF from the first term I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. My design, content and ideas was all in all pretty poor. I’d never had to fit to this way of thinking before, having to think about the client, audience and message. It’s all in the title, Graphics for communication, but it had just never really occurred to me before. I was all about making pretty pictures and paintings. I still definitely hold true to my main focus being about the visual aesthetics. I want people to look at my work and enjoy it for its visual qualities, I’ve never been much about portraying a message. I think this is also definitely reflected in the two GDA projects. I’m not that great at sticking to a brief…and I know this is a big graphic design no no, and something I definitely need to work on. I think I just hate working within constraints, I have an idea in my head that I need to reach the utmost of my creativity, and when given colours and fonts to use I seem to rebel against it, resulting in only hurting myself. A kind of cutting of my nose to spite my face.

For example, for my second GDA project I’d been set the simple brief of coming up with some ‘Keeping in Touch’ postcards for Uscreates, a social awareness company. They kindly supplied us with their colours, fonts and logos, and I kindly decided to ignore this invaluable resource. Instead I came up with a set of 8 fold out postcards, the fold out revealing a collage relating to different events throughout the year, for example breast cancer awareness month, however little did they know that on opening this postcard they’d be bombarded with a selection of somewhat hallucinogenic images, not something that really fits with the companies design ethos. Having said that I was pleased with my postcards and I would happily show them to people and incorporate them in my portfolio of work, which I think is definitely important. I want to succeed on this course and finish with a solid degree but I also want to come out with work I’m proud of and work that is reflective of how I envision myself as a designer.

I know that I’ve begun this evaluation with a pronounced air of cynicism and that is because I have struggled this year, but I wouldn’t change anything. I do genuinely feel like I’ve learnt an invaluable amount and the struggle has taught me a lot about myself. I do tend to stumble at the never ending hurdles that come my way but somehow I’ve managed to make it to the last week without giving up, and I have no intention of giving up. I will persevere! I love being part of LCC, and I also really enjoy the classes and projects, I really like the idea of being a designer, I‘m just not wholly convinced its for me, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I want to continue to learn and progress because I know everything I’ve learnt and will continue to learn will be of huge importance in whatever creative field I end up in.
Being on this course has opened my eyes to
the vast resources and inspirations there are for creative desingers. I never looked at blogs before this year and now I’m constantly scrolling through the never ending posts that make up tumblr, Blogger, etc. The internet and blogs as a medium Is so important and having been made aware of it I can now learn and progress so much quicker and easier. For example with websites such as www.ffffound.com, www.thewhatwherewhen.org, www.itsnicethat.com. As well as the huge amount of galleries there are in London, The Tate, National Portrait Gallery, V&A, White Cube, KK Outlet, etc. They all now frequent my weekly routine which is a lot more than can be said for when I started the course.

Confession cont.

There have been lots of successes on this course, I’m proud of my 100 collages (and looking forward to hopefully displaying them). I’m proud that I’ve managed to become vaguely literate with the software. I’m proud that I can now make a book! If last year you’d have told me I’d be making a book I would have told you that that was impossible, the idea would have been too momentous to me. I think as a result of this year I have a lot more faith in my abilities because I have managed to push against the bad and finish the year with work I’m happy to post on a blog and link my friends to as well as put in to a portfolio and send to companies. I want to continue to grow and learn it may just not be with the same outcome as others on the course. But that’s ok.
　
(I’ll just add, my computer died today taking with it all my work from this year, maybe if i'd written this a day earlier it may have had a slightly brighter outset. Who knows.)

patterns.

There's a gap i need to sort out in 2 of the joins but other than that its pretty much finished. Thinking of having it as a pull out. And maybe recycling it for the dust jacket.. 

framing.

looking at different ways of cropping some photos i took, for Rachel Ortas' framing workshop.

Quite like this. Maybe nice on off white paper.

Mr Jones.

I stumbled across this cool little watch shop under the oxo tower with ben and james the other day. They had some really nice looking watches, none of them that great to tell the time on, but honestly that doesn't phase me too much. Perhaps a little shallow, but I think you'll agree with me when you see this little gem of a watch.

yeah.

I'm gonna buy it for my brother for his birthday. And then steal it. 

portfolio.