Yesterday was a very strange start to 2019. I just felt very off for some odd reason. It took me half of the day to get myself motivated. Today, was almost the complete opposite. Woke up at 5am, went running at 6:30am, pumped my tires up, picked up my film.
Side tangent on the film. The film developed! The guy at the store was also super happy that it developed and the aesthetic came out super nice. Can’t wait to do something with it. I ended up sharing it with the woman I went on a date with. She said thanks. I told her she was cute. And that’s that hahahaha.
Anywho, picked up my film, went to the skatepark, got to skate a bunch, played 2 games of skate, networked a bit with another graphic designer, filmed and shot some photos, made a few new friends. Biked home, got food, designed this, finished my “hella” design, and now I’m just waiting to take a shower. I was supposed to shoot some photos of my other friend, but that didn’t work out. Fortunately, we rescheduled for this Saturday.
Oh, I also watched a lot of self development videos today. However, I really need to keep watching at least one video a day. I guess the habit that I built was that I am making something everyday and am practicing, but I still need to learn the rules a bit better. I found out that one of the classes that I bought is offering all of the other courses for free so I should probably jump on that.
I need to start working on the Adobe Creative Residency. I have all the resources I need, it’s just that I need to sit down and do that/ actually watch typography videos.
I’m also getting to the point where I’m like, dam, are personal projects even worth it? Is my newly changed website actually going to get me a job? Am I doing what I think I should be doing? To be honest, to answer that last one, I think I am. I think the question is am I doing all I can? That also goes into the question of the glorification of production and then I start to get anxiety and think that I’m not doing it right. It’s interesting, I was watching a video from The Futur with Aaron James Draplin who is supposed to be a celebrity designer. They asked him how he got his work. He said, he doesn’t know. He just knows how he got his work. From what I got from it, it's having a network, showing your work, and partially luck.
Consistency is king. I’ll need to keep sharing my work no matter what I feel inside. There’s a lot of anxiety inside to show my work. I fear criticism, but everything I’ve learned in the last month is the only thing keeping me going. I need to keep making shit because it only lasts for about a day. I’m not worth how I did last time. Some pieces of work mean more to different people.
The question becomes, how can I use my researcher side of me to create content that is valuable and educational to people? I could just create/ show my process in how I design? Do I need to keep sharing my most deepest thoughts. Seth Godin says to just be useful rather than to be authentic.
I think if I just keep this up for a year, we’ll see what happens.
New Years Resolutions
Shoot and develop a roll of film a week
create 2 zines every single week
watch a typoraphy/ skill video every single day
Design something. Anything every single day.
Do things that I don’t like to do. So a Yes Year.