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ROSS =
A photographer, who is looking at sleek and neutral ways of showing his work. He came to me with an idea of a website which was grayish and had quite a pale look. I think that there is a massive difference between something looking clean, and pale. Sometimes it means that you need to do more work as there is less things speaking about you, so picking typography and composition is important. I designed for Ross website which is here, and now we are going to be looking at a logo which I made as really draft one so it needs more work to be done on it.
MY BENEFITS =1. I looked at my own website with more criticism, and the whole changing attitude came from that job.2. I sorted some of Flash problems which were bugging me before.3. I managed to talk him into doing more serious work on his logo and general branding. Which shows that my communication skills are getting better.4. It showed me that I work best once in charge of the design and project, not once I make other designs, animations work.
5. It gave me an idea that I prefer to work without the middle man.
6. It put me on a track of working on my animations again. Except
all that I will have January rent paid which I am happy about. :)
DESIGN AGENTS> I am not so sure, now once I gave it a thought that I have a great agents on my side. Expect that I do not owe a magic key to the door of any illustrator agents, I owe a couple of rotten keys to the rotten recruitment agencies, who make my creative life slightly bizarre. Being treated as a generic Mac operator is inhuman and takes most precious designer's features away. I also have a style to my work which is unique, and find that this makes getting me work more difficult. I realized that agents which I dealt with so far are working like a factory and that makes 'having a style' an absolute nightmare. So being me is an obstacle for a design company?
DO YOU DESIGN PLACES, AD AGENCIES, CHARITIES OF ALL SORTS LIKE TO BE TREATED AS MULES? EVERYBODY HAS A STYLE AND CREATIVE WORK SHOULD BE ABOUT USING IT NOT DISMISSING.
Unglue from your schematic thinking that you can request a skill without connection to a human being as that is not even a dream, but a freelance nightmare, with people who don't care!
ERGO: I am ungluing from relying on my agents. Last couple of months have shown me that they are not much use to me and that my way in design, and probably in life takes it's own turns. I decided to move on and accept that I will probably never be a designer who can act as the generic one and fill space in the office. NOW I NEED TO CREATE A NETWORK OF PEOPLE WHO WOULD LIKE TO WORK WITH WHO I AM.
WEBSITE> OK thinking about my website took me a bit of time. What is extremely helpful is that I met new people this year and was able to confront their reactions to what I wanted to present myself like. As I listed my concerns in another post, I concentrate on sharing my solutions. HomePage> will carry a statement, emphasizing the strengths coming from being able to combine different medias, which I am quite good at. HomePage/Illustration>
HomePage/Animation>
HomePage/Branding> will all be sections of my portfolio which will be directly accessible from homepage. All of them will have two additionals. 1. What does it/illustration/animation/branding means for me. 2. What does it/illustration/animation/branding might do for you.
In a section of animation I will also add achievements as I guess that will be a good way of stressing my history in that field. HomePage/Current Projects> will link to my blogs, but also will hold an information on what is my current project about. HomePage/Contact> will give my contact information. HomePage/Clients> will list clients I had already worked for.
General feel from HomePage is going to be more neutral, more focus, and once you open a section of your area of interests that will then be more specific.
I want to put all my design work in branding, including branding animation in that section and chuck away at least half of my current folio. I DON'T WANT TO BE A PRISONER OF MY PAST CLIENTS.
redesign my website.
It has gone off track and I didn't have enough time to focus on it before.
I like singe bits of it but overall I think:
1. It is
too much of everything. 2. It gets
repetitive and
distracting. 3. Overall my work can be shown in a better way.what do I want to keep?1. Handmade quirky feel. 2. Humor.3. Surprise.
what I want this site to do for me. 1. Show strong design skills. 2. Stress my multidisciplinary feature. 3. Strongly define the differences between my illustrations/design/animation. 4. Have links to my blogs, and a short information about me. 5. And above all bring me an interesting work. i am looking at: www.arcadefire.com for creativity and fun, bad for being slow. www.sanna-annukka.com for simplicity and practical approach.
What are we looking for, describes who we are. Things which we intuitively know are important for us. Why do we collect things, and why are we driven to certain objects? I don't know. But collections become very important part of our lives and are a bit, like an extract of who we are. My collection is a unique set of things which are important for me, I come back to them once in trouble, making choices, or simply when I need inspiration. The collection is a crossover of my inner self and the outside world.
I collect quotes, and strongly believe that two people wouldn't underline the same worlds in the same book. I never collect a quote given by somebody else. That is because my collection is my voice and my journey, throughout my unique life. I treat it very personally.
There is a lot of books which you can buy out there, full of sentences drawn out of books, interviews and so on. They are empty to me. Unless a quote is an extract of something bigger, it is only a sentence without a history and unique meaning. That doesn't mean that those sentences are less rich, but I guess that a very important part of them has been taken away. That is a process of collecting them, which is never finished...Funny thing is that back home my Mom took over and continues writing my book of quotes in the same pad I used. So it has another life and a chapter to it. In London, I have a smaller version of it, which constantly grows and feeds my imagination.
Above all the quotes are also a collection of people, the authors which I appreciate and respect. Gathering their point of view, is stimulating and gives me the background I want to grow on. So I write mine history in quotes and that becomes my creative root.
1. Research Process> THIS PART OF A PROJECT WAS A WAY OF DEFYING WHICH RESEARCH METHODS ARE BEST FOR ME. I WAS SURPRISED HOW HELPFUL MINE CONTACTS WERE. I ALSO REALIZED THAT THE RESEARCH PROCESS FOR ME WAS HAPPENING FROM OUTSIDE TO INSIDE. IT WAS A BIT LIKE LOOKING FOR MYSELF IN A PROJECT, WHICH AT FIRST SEEMED TO ME QUITE FAR AWAY.I have learned to>
TRUST MY RESEARCH PROCESS AS IT WILL LEAD ME TO UNIQUE SOLUTIONS. 2. Idea>
WAS PROMPTED BY ONE OF MY BLOG COMMENTS. I FELT RELIEVED ONCE I FOUND THE NEW INVENTION ROOT ALSO BECAUSE IT GAVE ME AN INFORMAL TOOL FOR COMMUNICATION WITH MY AUDIENCE. 3. Execution>
ONCE MORE IT ENHANCED THE IMPORTANCE OF HAND MADE DRAWINGS, AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE AUDIENCE. 4. Feedback and testing>
FEEDBACK WAS AN IMPORTANT LESSON FROM ME. BY SHARING MY DRAWINGS ONCE WORK IN PROGRESS, I REALIZED THAT: 4.1> IT MAKE ME MORE SYSTEMATIC, AS I WAS POSTING STUFF ON MY BLOG PRETTY MUCH EVERYDAY. 4.2> LOOKING AT THE CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK WAS EXTREMELY USEFUL. 5. Improvements>5.1>
SHARING WORK IN PROGRESS IS A GOOD THING, GOOD FEEDBACK MEANS YOU ARE ON THE RIGHT TRACK, BAD FEEDBACK MEANS YOU ARE NOT. MAKE SHARING A HABIT. 5.2>
DO NOT SETTLE ONCE THE FEEDBACK IS GOOD, TRY TO SEE IF YOU CAN IMPROVE ON A GOOD SOLUTION MAKING IT BETTER, TILL YOU HEAR A CLICK IN YOUR HEAD. 5.3>
TRUST YOUR RESEARCH SKILLS, AS THEY ARE NOT AS BAD AS I THOUGHT.5.4>
IT'S EASIER TO COME BY SOLUTIONS ONCE THE DRAWING IS IN PROGRESS SO DO NOT PUT IT OFF TILL THE RESEARCH PROCESS IS ENDING. TILL THEN DRAW WHATEVER.5.5>
ENJOY YOUR LIFE AS FOCUSING ONLY ON THE PROJECT MAKES YOUR APPROACH NOT RICH ENOUGH.
