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Nathaniel Stevens
Small Talks I attended all Small Talks lectures from this series and found a lot of what the past students were doing really interesting, whether it’s in their practice or in their philosophy towards design and their relationship with it. One of my favourite talks was with Stacey Olika, I think she had some great perspectives on networking and how to use design to help further understanding, especially with her work with the Bristol Museum. There were 2 main points that I took from her presentation, the first was a quote that way given to her which states “Finding your why is the equivalent to finding your creative voice”, she explained that this is different for everyone and if you find something that you care about then every thing else will fall into place. This really resonated with me as it takes design back to its core, rather than focussing on the end product, the minutia, which is something I tend to focus on a lot but if you don’t have a strong ‘why’ then these details don’t really matter. The foundation is key and there are lots of things that I am passionate about so should use those as my why when creating work in the future. The second point she made that really stuck with me was the idea that it is ok to move forwards and backwards with you progression. Not everything that you do has to be better than the last thing that you did. I put a lot of pressure on myself to be always striving to get better and feel disheartened if I’m not constantly pushing forward. It was nice to hear a
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professional say that progression is not always linear and it’s ok to fluctuate. Stacey’s talk was great for the philosophical side of design and professional practice in general. In Jamie Burns’ workshop I really liked looking at his technical process especially when it came to building the website for Creamer & Co. I thought it was great to see his progression with the concepts through to finished pages. I also liked his way of using design and art as a way to assess children’s needs etc, I have worked a lot with special needs young people in previous jobs, using arts and music as a way of generating engagement, so I found his hospital installation really interesting. Finally I liked the philosophy he put forward that you should be able to explain any design idea in 1 sentence or draw it with a simple diagram. Another moment I found interesting in these talks was the way Yee Poon would tailor her work that she uploads to her social media in response to who has started following her or engaging with her posts. She would create or post content aimed at people that she would like to work with as a way of almost baiting them into asking her to work with them, this worked especially well with a chicken shop in London. All the talks were very interesting and offered a good range of advice and insight into different areas of the industry which I really value as someone coming into design from working as a part time designer.
