Lizzie Wa Design

Lecture

From this weeks lecture it seems that most of the designers interviewed are doing what they want in their practise, so didn’t feel the need to be doing much else. I think the variety that comes with working in a design studio is enough to keep people busy and engaged. However, the idea of a side project, a bit of time when you can do something just for you, is something that they all seem to agree is important. 

It seems that most designers get into design because they love the creativity, playfulness and freedom of it. They get to do this with commercial work, but always with the constraints of making what the client wants. A side project allows you to make something exactly the way you like it, be as creative and bold as you like without worrying what anyone else will think. They allow you to learn and develop new skills. 

Reading

Brian Eno’s uses oblique strategies cards to help him beat creative block. Each card makes you think about things a bit differently. I think this is a really great idea for getting outside of your own head, it also make you think about things from other people perspectives making your design more inclusive and empathetic. 

“Under pressure you forget all your best ideas”

Brian Eno (BBC Click 2017)

He believes that panic and stress take you out of the moment and stop you observing what’s going on around you. Being present makes you more creative and makes it easier to enter a state of flow and be even more creative. 

He also believes that community and collaboration are an important part of creativity and the generation of great new ideas. He says that everyone has their own unique talents and intelligence, but only when these talents are bought together are great ideas created. (Brian Eno 2017) This idea really resonates with me as I think working with others is a great way to get around skill gaps, and create work that is better and further reaching. 

The school of life then talked about the importance of being vulnerable. I think this idea is very relevant to design. When you let yourself be vulnerable, you try new things, and open yourself up to the possibility of failure, but also of creating something completely different and brilliant. 

Everyone has vulnerable and weird things about themselves, opening up and being vulnerable with others is how you build friendships and relationships. (The School of Life 2017) This can be used in design as well, if you are open and vulnerable while designing you are likely to make more empathetic design that attracts other peoples unconscious thoughts as they will identify parts of their vulnerable self with the design. 

This idea reminded me of an advert id seen on It’s Nice That. Catherine Prowse created a moving animation for Childline to show how no-one is normal and being open and vulnerable shows each other that we are all weird together. 

I also liked the idea of the school of life’s “keep going’ video. I always want to be good at something straight away and become discouraged when I’m not. Giving into the process and learning to get better at something over time is important. 

“Work without hope or despair”

(The School of Life 2015)) 

Workshop Challenge 

Skills I Have	Skills I Need
Social media design	Animation
Digital illustration	Drawing
Noticing the small things	Being mindful/ doing nothing
Photography	Following a process
Empathy	Typography
Passion	Confidence
Colour	Simplicity
Teamwork	Blank space
	Packaging
	Hands on print methods
	Lots more!

In light of the research this week and my list of skills and weaknesses I realised that I definitely need something that help me to stay calm, take a step back, follow a process and be confident in my outcomes. 

I started thinking about what process models works for me at the moment. How do I work and how do I come up with ideas each week. Since we looked closely at way of thinking in week Five, I’ve been using creativity to spark off more creativity and ideas, but letting my ideas take some kind of form by purely playing around with them. I have also been trying to find stillness more and simply let ideas flow to me, slowing everything down and simply imagining things in my head. 

These two ways of thinking fit well with my natural process of working which has been to write down ideas and look for links between them, start drawing and scribbling around those ideas, take photos and then look for the unseen within them and while taking them, before starting to progress my ideas further on the computer. 

To help me think about and show my process of working by using a medium I feel comfortable with my skills in, I took still photos of my process model. I then combined these photos into a stop motion kind of video. 

I like the jumpy animated look this gave, it heightened the idea that I often jump around from idea to idea and struggle to focus on one thing at a time. The video however didn’t feel like it had enough to it. I wanted to move away from showing the viewer something to making my output more representational. 

Something I want to improve is sticking to a process and not trying to jump straight to the end of a project. Therefore I decided to organise my process model into a list of tasks to give me a structure to stick to when making this and future designs. 

1- Write down words and initial ideas that are my first response the the project. 

2- Think about the words I’ve written and look for links between them and what more they tell me about the project.

3- Draw/ Photograph the words I’ve written. Let myself draw or photograph whatever I feel like without reason and follow tangents if they appear. 

4- Research around the ideas that have been created so far and see which bits to bring forwards in the process.  

5- Develop my ideas further by getting onto the computer and trying out some designs, again letting myself be drawn in certain directions.

6- Look for feedback from others and get their opinions/thoughts/feelings from my designs so far. 

7- Refine these ideas into a finished project. 

I started this process and quickly became drawn to the idea of the balance between jumping or diving into ideas and being calm, taking a step back and giving myself space to think. I started drawing and came to two quite nice shapes. One of a figure sitting and another of a figure diving. I refined these to be made up of simple and similar shapes and lines so they worked well alongside each other. 

I could almost see the figure jumping up and diving into position.

I therefore decided to draw just that. Creating a design that saw the figure stand up and then dive,  giving each stage a title that linked to my design process model. I felt like the simplicity of the figure really represented the gaps in my knowledge. Being reasonably new to graphic design I still feel as if there is a lot I don’t know and a long way for me to go before my stick figure becomes a refined and beautiful person. 

Wanting to instil a little life into my figure but still not lose the rudimentary style it was in, I created a little flick book animation of it moving through the process. 

I felt pretty happy with the process and liked the basic idea of the figure but felt like my design lacked finesse and was a bit too illustrative. My designs so far have often being quite literal representations so I am trying to push myself to create something that is more representative of my ideas.

Moving the two digital version of the figure around, I found they stacked up nicely. I repeated this stacking until I had a repeating pattern and then filled it with some soft and calming colours. I wanted to get into the idea of stress and overthinking holding you back and damaging creativity. I have a tendency to doubt my ideas, worry too much and not feel a confidence in my work so I wanted the colours to provide a calming, confident reminder that I was worthy to do this. 

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The pile of figures stacked on tops of each other highlighted the need for others in design, looking for support in studios, on video calls and with friends and family is something that I think is very important to keeping design collaborative and growing. As Brian Eno says, everyone has their own set of talents, but genius is generated by community and cooperation. This point really resonated with me as I think working alone as this course is can be hard and cause me to worry and overthink, so I am always showing my design ideas to others when I need another opinion or a fresh perspective and it always works to reignite my enthusiasm, ground me again or offer fresh ideas.  

I removed a few of the ovals from the design to show my current skill gaps. This made the design look a little unstable, but not noticeable from a distance due to the amount. I think this shows that through collaboration and sharing of ideas skill gaps can be easily traversed and removed. 

The design also seems to be growing up and to the right to show how with each attempt and idea and even failure, my skill level will be growing and my ideas progressing. So even if it feels like I have a long way to go now, the only way to get there is to stick at it, just as in the School of Life ‘keep Going’ video. 

To push this idea even further and to try out a skill I feel I am lacking in, I decided to try and make a 3D packaging design. I chose a tea bag packet as I think a cup of tea is the perfect design break. When everything is getting too noisy and stressful, taking a step back and having a mindful cup of tea can help to put things in perspective, de stress and let new ideas start to flow. I also love the idea of tea bag tags having little obscure messages on them, so while you’re drinking your tea you’re also imagining a weird little situation, and exercising your creativity muscle without even realising. 

Reflection

This week proved to be very interesting. It bought up links of not putting yourself under pressure, doing what makes you happy just for you, not giving up and being confident in your ideas. It also really highlighted to me the importance of using a process model while designing something. With design being such a free and creative thing in some ways, Ive often jumped into it with this idea in mind. However, the last few weeks ahem made me realise the importance of creating a working process, practising different ways of thinking, seeing and generating ideas. Just because something is creative doesn’t mean you can’t learn and practice it to become better at the act of being creative. This week has also made me see how this process doesn’t have to be something I am great at right now. Getting better at sticking to a process model, and the process model that works best for me, is something that will evolve and grow as my skills do and over time with practise.

The workshop challenge this week pushed me into an uncomfortable place of facing up to the skills I am lacking and pushing myself to do some things I’ve not before. I am happy that I pushed myself to develop my design into packaging as this pushed me out of my comfort zone and taught me some new skills. If I had more time I would have liked to physically print my design onto some packaging as I think seeing the product in real life gives you a much better idea of if the design works or not. I think my design shows some of the skills I have which are using illustrator, colour, empathy, passion, teamwork 

I think the skill to be confident and calm in my work, follow a process and let myself me bold in my creativity is the most important skill to master. All technical skills I think can easily be learnt at some point, but if I can master the confidence and calm of creating I think thats the best place to start. 

“Everything seems impossible until its done”

Nelson Mandela

References

BBC CLICK. 2017. “Brian Eno: How To Beat Creative Block – BBC Click.” http://www.youtube.com [online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tURRSJ-q4bg [accessed 14 Nov 2020].

BREWER, Jenny. 2020. “How Catherine Prowse’s Beautiful, Home-Made Stop Motion Ad for Childline Shows Nobody Is Normal.” http://www.itsnicethat.com [online]. Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/news/catherine-prowse-the-gate-childline-nobody-is-normal-advertising-091120 [accessed 14 Nov 2020].

BRIAN ENO. 2017. “Brian Eno On Creative Potential.” YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13FHJH19_e4 [accessed 14 Nov 2020].

THE SCHOOL OF LIFE. 2015. “Keep Going.” YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1H92b_uLdU [accessed 12 Nov 2020].

THE SCHOOL OF LIFE. 2017. “The Importance of Vulnerability.” YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJsJ96yyVk8 [accessed 14 Nov 2020].

WIKIPEDIA. 2020. “Oblique Strategies.” Wikipedia [online]. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies [accessed 14 Nov 2020].

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