Yeisi Veronica

Lesson task 1.1 What kind of graphic designer do I want to be?

Lesson task 1.2 Great design is serious

The task was to listen to a TED talk: Paula Scher: Great design is serious (not solemn)

She, Paula, talks about how it is the underqualified people who bring in new trends and interesting designs since they don´t hold themselves to the same standard as someone who is qualified and educated about something. It is the underqualified or new people that do the serious design, but if it hits off and becomes popular the design becomes solemn. It no longer becomes just fun, there is a standard that needs to be held, expectations.

I write fanfiction in my spare time as a hobby. I come up with an idea or get heavily inspired by somebody else, and my mind goes off into goofy ideas and dumb plot plans. I noticed firsthand how my writing becomes more serious and more planned the more “famous” it becomes. The more readers I get the more I want to make sure that each of my chapters is up to the standard I have for the story. I feel that I have to make sure that it screams “me” when I write.

I feel like I have to keep up the quality and while writing is still a hobby, it almost becomes a job if I don´t take breaks. The serious/not-serious fanfiction writing becomes solemn when readers keep asking about updates and the future of the fics. It becomes hard to know when to continue and when to stop. One of my fanfics that was supposed to be simple and fun has become a character study, adventure romance, with two sequels planned, just because people began liking it.

Keep Paula Scher’s talk in mind when thinking of ideas:

• Embrace play and the unexpected.
• Don’t repeat the same recipe for success.
• Don’t be afraid of taking on something a little beyond your abilities.
• Don’t be scared of being a fool.
• Experiment!

I really resonated with her second point since it can be what makes or ruins your joy of working.

Lesson task 1.3

This task was to refine one of the sketches provided below into a vector graphic.

I chose the camping raw sketch and simplified it, removing any unnecessary parts. Except for the tree branches, I liked that detail.

Lesson task 1.4

The lesson went into how to present your work and how to handle feedback, especially if it is bad feedback. I have had this pain before. A few years ago (when I was studying Media and Communication in high school) I played an online game about wolves. You could create your own profile picture and sometimes have other players do it for you with commissions. I was one of those artist players and offered to take in commission for low prices in the game currency (mushrooms and apples I think?)

I once really hit a wall on how to draw a wolf jumping in a sea of peaches with the wolf in a front-facing profile. It was a pain to create since I only had photoshop at that time, and I was an Amature. Eventually, I gave them my artwork after a few hours and the client didn´t like it (I don´t blame them, I knew it wasn´t the best out there). It was a little painful though since I had spent 8 hours or so making it.

However, I learned something important that day, always check up with the client on every large step of the design process. If I had shown them the sketch and not only communicated with them when it was done, I could have avoided: The disappointment of my client, the disappointment of my effort is in vain, and the loss of in-game money (since I didn´t charge unless the client was satisfied).

The lesson also talked about social media image sizes. It is a common problem I run across, heck, I also run into the issue of knowing the size I want things printed. However, Von Glitschka on LinkedIn Learning came up with the tip of using the square format, and I will take that to heart.

The Lesson Task is to explain some of my experiences with feedback and how I have uncovered parts of myself. As you have read, I have experience with getting feedback even before I began studying Graphic Design.

Any type of design or creative product can and will get feedback if you show it off. Even silence is feedback.

In my course assignment and sometimes lesson tasks, I have gotten feedback from my mother. She is very creative and has sewn her own clothes before, resewn clothes she owns, painted artworks, and illustrated a lot. It gives her a different type of insight than I have on things and it sometimes is very helpful to have her look at things I am working on.

I sometimes see things too much from the standpoint of a graphic designer. She sees it from the viewpoint of a different type of artist. She sometimes comes with feedback that would be hard, impossible, or a bad idea to do, but sometimes she sees things I don´t, or she brings me back into the real world and out of the Graphic Design- Fantasy World I can be in. She is a fresh set of eyes and just talking to her and bouncing off my ideas with her feedback helps.

I don´t try to interpret the feedback my way because it is not about my view on something, but the other person who will not be as biased to my design as I am.

A thing I need to work on is my pride. I can sometimes be a bit too stubborn to ask for help, or to accept when I am not made for a certain type of design or work. I sometimes feel confused or have no idea what I am doing, like with my previous period exam about LGBTQ+ awareness, 50% of my time was spent on figuring out where I wanted it all to go. Having someone give feedback (especially when I don´t ask for it) is one of the best ways for me to improve my work, but also to stand my ground.

Sometimes the feedback I get isn´t always a good idea. Or it is just given by someone with no sense of style, or from someone who doesn´t realize the scale the product will be in. Example: “No, the text is not too small, it will be on a billboard.” Standing my ground happens about every other assignment when it comes to feedback, sometimes because the other person might not have the knowledge or context I do, or because I have a deep belief in the thing I had created.

I feel like I have grown from the feedback I get. I get new eyes not affected by the Design-Zombie mind and are fresh and with their own opinion, knowledge, and experience.