She sacraficed her youth. I sacrafice my questions. I owe her that much. My mother was nineteen when she had me. She gave up her youth to raise me as a single mother. I have always wondered who my father is, I dont even know his name. I do however know that he hurt my mother, and it hurts her to reflect on what happened, so out of respect for her I will never ask about him, or about what really happened.
Failure. The idea behind the lantern was good. The execution wasn’t. I will learn from this mistake. Embrace this faiilure.
Deconstructed. I find I learn best through a process of reverse engineering. Make it. Break it apart. Put it back together Differently. Rinse. Repeat.
Author equals authority when graphic designers learn to be more than just designers. When we become the creators of our own ideas rather than those of others. Graphic design is not an end all be all, it is a tool. Normally, a graphic designer would get a project from a client and visualize it for them. We have the opportunity to breach this by becoming the author of our own visualizations. To design around our own voices, to take control. We can educate ourselves to be well rounded, to be an artist, designer, and writer. The more fields you can educate yourself in, the more versatile you can become, the more you can develop said voice. This disrupts the hierarchy of the designers role in society. Perhaps society will frown upon this rebellion, we could fail. Yet, I feel it is our generations job to take these risks to try to contribute to graphic design’s evolution. To try to save us from stagnation, we need to consistently shake things up and break the patterns graphic design has created for us. This is the only way to discover anything new.
Self expression for me is integral to graphic designers, in order to develop ourselves as authors. I was told once that I was more of an artist than a graphic designer, because my pieces aren’t practical to marketable design work. Yet, it was those pieces that I truly felt passion and obsession. Who’s to say that graphic designers aren’t artists as well. There is a balance in the complex system that the two have intertwining into, we just need to find it. This too helps to develop our “voices” as designer/ authors. To do this we must explore the “murky territory between design and art” that Michael Rock refers to. As students, we have the perfect opportunity to do this, and the academic setting is our sanctuary. The challenge for us is to integrate this balance into the world of design outside of our safety zone.
Together our artistic self expression and our ability to balance being designers, as well as authors and artists has created the opportunity for us to become creators. These fields help us to develop our proverbial voices and figure out exactly what it is we are trying to say. Being creators, we develop our own authority because we are able to express our discoveries and ideals. Abandon fear Authority has a certain confidence and statement involved,and helps to create change. I believe that a lot of what creates the idea of authority is shear confidence in the discoveries you have created, holding onto our passions and obsessions. I question my future often. What happens after I graduate from my sheltered college life? This place is sacred to me, because I know it is a place where I have the rare opportunity to truly experiment and evolve as a designer. What I have learned here is not typically conventional, I can breach the 2-Dimensional barrier that most design students are trained to stay within. Sure, I can make a logo or a brochure, but I feel that it is futile. Logo’s and brochures won’t change the world. Now, I am not saying that I myself am single-handedly trying to reinvent graphic design, but I do feel that it is my generations job to continue its evolution, and I would like to take part in that. In the past year I have found that there are a lot of people that believe I will be a failure as a designer unless I adhere to design practices that are marketable today. That future clientele would not have any use for the type of design I do. That the work I do is inspirational, but not applicable to a career in design. Yet, I feel that if I settle into a career where I consistently do futile design in order to appease clients, I will have failed myself. At what point to I let go of my passion and settle? I guess I could find a middle point, a safe place to do both, but then I would always wonder what I could have done if I had fully dedicated myself to what I have started here as an undergrad. To be honest, I am not sure exactly what I have started here, I just know that it exists inside of me, a fire, and I’ll be damned if I let somebody put it out.
I believe in chaos.
Mimic. That is what designers do. They take the things that inspire them, and they find a way to mimic that inspiration and implement it in their design work. All design inspires us. We are theives. Taking ideas and manipulating them into a means that supports our need, hopefully in a unique manner. I am not saying designers just rip each other off. It creates evolution. We use the design around us to grow and expand. Even horrible design is inspirational. More-so than simply a lesson in what no to do. Its a challange. How can I make this work? Then we experiment. Every designer is different. Give 100 different designers a project with five pages of strict guidelines and I guarentee they will all be different. Everybody finds their own loopholes. Grey areas. We all process information differently. So the end result always has part of ourselves in it. I personally like to make things with my hands. Its not that I have a problem with computers. I use them all the time. I would be lost without mine. I just feel like we are too dependent on them now. The computer is an amazing tool, but thats all it is to me, a tool. It shouldnt be my only means of creating design. There is a balance, and someday I will find it. The perfect blend of synthetic and organic design. This book is my journey thus far.
CUT IT OUT
You can control what is masked by painting developer onto an undeveloped photograph.
BEYOND THE
NAKED EYE