I was very fortunate to recieve an email on new years day from a very inspirational designer , who gave me some advice on how to navigate the world of graphic design from a very personal level. And I think the only way to do justice to recieving advice, is to really self reflect and act on it !
I’d sent quite a personal email explaining my concerns about finding a niche and worries about feeling a bit directionless since graduating from university. And he came back with a very thought provoking insight which has taken me back to square one, and i mean that in a good way.
He said –
“Everything is about what you want out of this. What kind of work you’re looking to make, what kind of work you’re making now, where you’re at and where you want to be, etc. Everything is circumstantial.”
So what do I want to make?
I want to make fun and silly projects which i think play with the mundane.
I also want to make film and videos, which tell fascinating stories or that are unique creations.
I’d love to start doing commercial book jackets and blog post articles, perhaps some magazine covers.
What am i making now?
I have made videos for frothers magazine, and fun little side projects, but a lot of my time these days goes on web design and development.
How am i going to get there?
Well, I don’t want to give up my successes in web design & development with my design agency. But i think i need to keep that stuff a bit to the side of the more arts based stuff in which I’m doing.
Perhaps I need to seperate my website into chunks abit more. Have a section for blog posts, a section for video making and keep doing the frothers magazine stuff on the side. Allocate a few hours a week on certain days which I purely dedicate to these tasks without putting too much pressure on myself. But also hold myslef accountable. be that posting one thing on instagram a week or one blog post.
So here it is: What do I want out of this ?
I want to make creative work which is funny and playful, and makes fun of things which are seen as boring.
And I want to be in a position by the end of this year where I have created
- One Blog Commisioned Photo
- One Scultpture
- One Wall Mural
- One New Film
- One Book Jacket
- Collaborate with one person who shares the same vision as me and with different skillsets.
This would be a huge step in the right direction !
I’m just going to share the last bit of advice I recieved from this designer, as a form of motivation.
“The vulnerability will never, ever stop. You’ll always be afraid, you only get better at overcoming the fear. If you want to make personal work, you really have to jump in the pool and test it all like an anthropologist. Make work, share it, see what resonates with people and what doesn’t, see what resonates with you and what doesn’t, and find the middle ground between the two–—and then keep making and sharing. Exercise the muscle.“
