Thursday, September 4, 2014

Re: Experimentation & Process

Last semester, I found myself trying to conform to what I thought my design was supposed to look like. I became increasingly frustrated, being nothing but displeased with my work. I am glad that Jen decided to post on process, because this has been a ridiculous struggle for me and for the first time in years, I started doubted myself as a designer. I was failing at step one.

Over the summer, I spent a lot of time going back to my work from Community College. The one thing I noticed I stopped doing was storyboarding and sketches. We spent a lot of time doing mood boards last semester and my classmates were producing some damn beautiful brainstorming ideas. Guess what? I suck at mood boards. My downfall is trying to be good at everything and I’m just not. Mood boards just aren’t for me. But storyboarding and sketches are.

We used to keep Sketchbooks for every class in my Community College and everyone…EVERYONE… hated them. The dreaded sketchbooks. By semester’s end, our sketchbooks had to be completely filled from front to back with sketches, inspirations, comps, etc. My teachers would be thrilled to know that I went out and purchased a sketchbook for every class this year.  Pen and paper is my new best friend. It’s back to the basics for me and I am okay with that.

Side note:
The problem of being stuck (possibly in love) with one idea has been coming up a lot the past couple of days. A couple of things that I just heard (one only yesterday) kind of struck me.

1. Throw in a wild card – forming an idea or using an element that is the opposite of the current direction you are headed.
2. Within one minute, write down ten ideas. Discard them—they are probably the most common and obvious solution.

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