Study Task 4// 20 Things I've learned about myself..

10 Things I have learned about myself personally since the beginning of the course:

'The home town...' (Notice the grey sky.)

• I have come to realise that I do enjoy doing computer-aided design, as much as I hate to admit it because I was always so sure that I was a 'hand-rendered' kind of designer.  I now enjoy different techniques and understand that some techniques work better for different things etc.
• After being at home for a week, back in Lockerbie, the most dull and grey place in britain, I have realised just how much I have come to love Leeds as a city.  But I really do miss the countryside... and the stars!
• I love living with friends and now find it strange to be by myself... (perhaps not a good thing).
• I'm sick to death of helvetica and that's why I'm now using 'Georgia' on my blog, it just flows nicer.
• I HAVE to start referencing things, I always completely, well and truly forget.
• I enjoy cooking, however only for myself, if someone else is going to eat it then that means it has to taste nice... which stresses me out.
• I'm quite a relaxed person but occasionally have erratic outbursts of stress, usually on a Thursday evening before the crits on Fridays.
• I really dislike public speaking and presenting work, however if I decide in my head prior to presentations what I want to say then usually it goes okay, so no more 'winging it' because you just look like a fool.
• I enjoy looking after myself and the freedom of being parent-free.
• Sometimes I find it hard to get motivated and the weather definitely has a great effect on my motivation.
• ++++ I'm really easily distracted, must charge ipod.

10 Things I have learned about myself as a Professional// Graphic Designer:

• I am no longer a technophobe and Illustrator is my new favourite tool in life :).
• I really appreciate none-serious fun and quirky Graphic Design, I think sometimes designers are too serious (obviously there are times when you have to be) and often a quote I heard somewhere comes to mind that 'artists take themselves too seriously.'

Gemma Correll 

http://youmightlikethis.com/2011/02/artist-interview-gemma-correll/

• I have learned a lot about typography, I used to shy away from it, being more of an image maker and tended to use 'hand-rendered' type.  However now I understand more about 'personalities' of typefaces and understand kerning, tracking, leading and a few other things.
• 'Thinking through a problem' spending time initially coming up with ideas and researching instead of just jumping to designing or wondering why an idea hasn't just 'come to me.'
• I would quite like to try designing a few magazine spreads as I haven't done that since school.  I also  really enjoy designing sets of things, for example the 100 things project was great because we had to have 10 graphic products therefore I felt I could make more sense of the products instead of designing one thing and imagining what the other things would look like.
• I'm constantly tuned in to the designs in the world around me and often stand and look at the bollards, with line-up posters on them that are dotted all over the city, for a little too long.  Line-up posters are something I'm really interested in as I absolutely adore music and would love to get into that line of work one day.
• I'm eager to learn new things and intend to spend much more time in the print studio this term.
• I'm generally a slow designer and seem to take life at a slower pace than the people around me, so the majority of the time I am not satisfied with my outcomes, I really need to quicken up.
• My designs have come a long way since the beginning.  At the start as I was getting to grips with new software, I really hated everything I was designing because I knew I could do better.  Recently I feel that my CAD work has improved greatly since the beginning and I know that it will improve leaps and yards or whatever that saying is.
• I don't like talking about my own practice and don't particularly enjoy reflecting on things, after reading through what I've just written above I have realised when talking about myself I tend to be quite sarcastic and I hope to get over this complex.