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How did you become a designer? – Random Question #2

Posted 29 Mar 2010 - 15 Gratefully received comments

Here’s another opportunity for you to have your say, with another one of my random questions.

The design industry, for better or worse, is unregulated. This means that to be a designer, on the most part, you don’t have to have any recognised qualifications.

For my part I knew that I wanted a creative job when I was still at school, despite this I didn’t actually take a graphics course at GSCE level, instead I took Food Technology as my alternative career path would have led me down the road to being a cook or chef, which is a bit of a trait in my family.

Instead I jumped in with both feet at college level and enrolled in a foundation graphic design course, eventually following it all through for the next 5 years that culminated in a degree.

The downside of a formal design education is that it doesn’t really give you a good enough grounding in the realties of working as a designer once you have left Uni.

The upside for me was that it gave me a framework to work within, which is something I found that I needed. My degree courses didn’t focus on how to be a designer it taught me how to think creatively and armed me with the potential skills that might net me my first job.

I know education isn’t for everyone and know plenty of creative designers that never needed that guiding hand. Most of those designers were just extremely talented others were exceptionally lucky.
I never felt that I had enough natural talent to be spotted, or enough luck to rely on it. So I opted for hard work and effort to make up the shortfall. In this way my design education put me on the correct road, and that work ethic has helped me along the way to where I am now.

I guess question is this:

How did you become a designer?

What was your way into the industry and would you have done it any differently?

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Why I decided to take a working holiday…

Posted 25 Mar 2010 - 2 Gratefully received comments

I’ve read plenty of articles on various blogs about the dangers of designers/freelancers burning themselves out. To be honest; I never really took a lot of it seriously.

There have been times in my career that I have felt a little less enthusiastic about what I’m doing. Or I’ve found it very difficult to muster up the motivation to get things done. But I never really imagine that I’ll ever have a complete meltdown where I need to get away from all forms of work.

Lately I have been struggling a little with my workload and balancing it all with the rest of my life. Tight deadlines, unexpected project extensions and revisions. You all know what it’s like when you feel like everything that could go wrong does go wrong, all at once.

Basically the last few months have been very hectic, and there is always a bit of a payoff to this. I wouldn’t say I’ve lost my edge, I just find myself procrastinating a lot more than usual. I still get the ideas, I still do the work to my usual high standards but I keep putting it off until the last minute.
My flat is as clean as it’s been since we moved in, I’ve discovered all those little addictive games that I thought I’d deleted from my hard-drive and I rediscovered my passion for cooking. I put all of these things down to putting off some of my design projects.

So I guess it’s a question of motivation.

In an attempt to battle this odd quirk of mine I decided to give myself a break. I can’t actually afford to take a complete holiday from everything, so I took a half measure.

For a week I scaled back the “design” element of my work. I didn’t grind everything to a complete halt, but I got away from the creative part of my job for as much time as I could sensibly manage without stretching deadlines or upsetting clients.

I didn’t walk away from it all though. I decided to take the week to sort out the administrative side of things, and get myself organised. In fact it turned into a bit of a business spring clean.

I updated all of my records and got my accounts in order, I performed all of my backups and updated all of my software and hardware. I even took some time out to reconnect with a few of my clients. I went to visit a few of the clients I’ve worked for recently, and a few that I haven’t just for a bit of a chat. Not directly chasing jobs just to check in and act as a bit of a reminder.
I’ve even scaled down my activity on twitter, which has been a bit of a wrench but I felt it was important. Apologies to anyone that might have missed my tweets (doubtful I know).

I also took some time to be a bit lazy. I played those computer games, got into a book I’ve been meaning to read for ages, and just spent time with my fiance.

Now I feel quite refreshed, through very little effort. The only thing I did was create a small pocket of time for myself where I could turn off the pressures of work.

I’m raring to go now and get stuck back into the projects I have in the works. I’m really looking forward to it all, in fact I have been for a few days, but I’ve managed to restrain myself.
I know exactly what I’ve got to do, how I want to do it and I’m in a position to achieve these goals knowing that my supporting equipment is in order.

Why not give yourself a business stocktake, and more importantly give yourself a break. Not only will you benefit personally; it could benefit you professionally in the long run.

How do you relive the pressures of work, and what are the signs you look out for that tell you that you need to take a step back?

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My Life as a Cartoon #23

Posted 22 Mar 2010 - One gratefully received comment

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Design Project – Attitude Organics

Posted 18 Mar 2010 - 3 Gratefully received comments

Time to share another recent piece of work I completed.

Client: Attitude Organics
Company Overview: Attitude Organics is a new company that sells fresh produce from a farm shop on their estate and online via their website.
Project Brief: I was asked to design a promotional flyer complimented and built upon the look and feel of their existing website. The brief was eventually expanded to include a recipe card.

Flyer

I decided to structure the layout like a community notice-board. I used scraps of paper, post-its and Polaroid frames as a background for the content and pictures to work within.
The scrapbook expanded the branding that tries to project a natural, friendly persona.

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Creative Quotations #2

Posted 15 Mar 2010 - 2 Gratefully received comments

Here’s another installment of quotations I’ve stumbled across. The last lot I published seemed to get a good reaction, so I hope these ones will be just as inspirational. A lot of these quotes are about life in general but I think they apply to designers, creative thinkers and business people alike.

Money can’t buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery. – Spike Milligan

Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century. - Dame Edna Everage

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. - Mahatma Gandhi

He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner. – Benjamin Franklin

There is far more opportunity than there is ability. - Thomas Alva Edison

Self delusion is pulling in your stomach when you step on the scales. - Paul Sweeney

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else. - Judy Garland

If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. - Red Adair

The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you. - Wolfdyke B.B. King

Underpromise, overdeliver. - Tom Peters

Mistakes are the portals of discovery. - James Joyce

Nothing will work unless you do. - Maya Angelou

No legacy is so rich as honesty. - William Shakespeare

Successful people do the things that failures never get around to doing. - Unknown

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. - Alan Kay

The question should be, is it worth trying to do, not can it be done. - Allard Lowenstein

Youth is a circumstance you can’t do anything about. The trick is to grow up without getting old. - Frank Lloyd Wright

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become. - Kurt Vonnegut

First, get the facts, then you can distort them at your leisure. - Mark Twain

Live each day as if it were the last day of your life, because so far it is. - Unknown

What you are will show in what you do. - Thomas A. Edison

The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up …and doesn’t stop until you get into the office. - Robert Frost

Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together. - Carl Zwanzig

Your work should be a challenge, not a chore, a blessing, not a bore. - Hal Stewins

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. - Abraham Lincoln

If you found a little glimpse of wisdom in any of these quotes, why not try a little experiment. Choose your favourite and put it on display where you work, this might mean a scribbled post-it, a printed sheet of A4 taped to the wall, whatever. As long as it’s somewhere where you can see it when you look around. You might just get a little kick out of it when you re-read it. It might also give you a little something to think about when you are stuck, think of it as a little oil to grease the cogs of thought in your head.

Let me know which quotes are your favourite and feel free post a few of your own.

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Form Vs Function

Posted 11 Mar 2010 - 3 Gratefully received comments

This is one of the ongoing debates in graphic design, the reason it keeps rolling along is because there isn’t a definitive answer. It’s up to each of us to form an individual opinion according to the work that we produce.

The whole point of this blog is for me to voice my opinion so here we go!
I first started thinking about this debate when I wrote a short article about functional design a while back. I used road signs as an example of function over form. They are not the most attractive of things, but the whole reason for their existence is to impart information, clearly and without embellishment. In this task they are a huge design success.

I find that this question of aesthetics and application is a perpetual balancing act. Every project is different in it’s aims and how it needs to be perceived by it’s target audience. The factors within the brief need to be considered then it’s part of the designers job to alter their approach according to what a piece of work needs to achieve.

I’ve commented before that design at it’s core is all about communication, so in my opinion function is always the most important thing. A message needs to be delivered, that is the first aim in most design projects, then this is usually tempered by how the message is sent, and ‘dressed up’.

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My Life as a Cartoon #22

Posted 08 Mar 2010 - One gratefully received comment

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