I was making dinner today and I was thinking about how much has happened in the last couple of weeks with this new habit of making something every single day and being a bit more focused on investing. It’s not exactly the investing that I want to be doing which is speculative investing, it’s more of the focus of education on myself right now. I was thinking about how 2 years ago I was really sad, heartbroken, and was about to start my final semester in college. I look at myself now and I compare myself and I don’t really recognize that person 2 years ago. It kind of helps that I have long hair and that I live in a different city, but jeez, I’m really happy with how different I am from 2 years ago. However, I say this every day, it’s hard to stay motivated. It’s almost as if I need someone to say something to me/ watch a motivational video to keep me going. I almost didn’t want to design, but fortunately, I just force myself to do so.

I bring up my past right now because I’ve gone on several dates within the last few weeks. 2 years ago, I was just completely heartbroken and was on a path to learn to love and appreciate myself. I think I’m finally at that stage and I don’t get really bogged down on getting rejected not because I don’t want to feel the pain, but because I’m also learning how to date. To put it more clearly, I know that there are plenty of people who do want to date me. Like I said in the past it’s important to learn to fail early and to fail soon so that I can learn to be successful. The point is to keep going, be consistent, and don’t worry about the small things. Mistakes happen. Life’s messy. Just keep going.

I’ve said this before. Staying motivated is really hard especially as an introvert because I don’t hang out with a lot of people. That’s just how most designers are I guess. However, it’s nice to have the internet where people want to motivate you and help you be successful everyday. One of those people that I listen to is Darren Hardy and today’s message really helped kick me back into gear again which is great.

his message was about focusing on the present rather than the past. Stop looking into the rear view mirror or else you’re going to crash. When I combine this message with Chris Do’s message about critique which is when you release work into the world, you detach yourself from it and it no longer belongs to you. A mistake online doesn’t really make the biggest mark (unless your Trump :/)

Anywho, today was an interesting one because I made another skateboard zine. This time, with a lot of video in it which we’ll see how it does because people don’t usually like watching videos. However, when you make it integral into a story, I would hope that it would be important. However, if it doesn’t do well with respect to feedback and discovery, I can always try again.

Like when I started this blog, I’m learning how to fail sooner so that I can get to success quicker. I entered some work into an open call and did not get accepted. I kind of knew that I wasn’t going to get accepted, but hey, I made calculated risk and failed by only losing $35. It’s not that much. However, I decided to ask for feedback from them so that I could grow. I even said that I insisted on it since I don’t work with other “artists.” I say “artists” in quotation marks because I actually don’t really like the idea of art as much whereas I like design more. Art is subjective and meant to be interpreted. Design is objective and meant to be understood. I like design because you get to tell a story in minimal words for maximum impact.

As well, the washer and dryer in my place are broken. I’m a little mad because my clothes are still pretty wet and I’m hanging most of my t shirts from my doors and hangers, but it’s not too bad. I mean, it’s first world problem.

Below for this design, I decided to do a simple design where I cropped a part of the image as the focus and took another part of the same image and used it as the background. It’s nice to know that the same image always goes with itself/ compliments itself. By making these zines, I’m also learning how to write very succinctly which is exactly what I want to do. This does remind me that I haven’t read a book in a minute. Other news, I finished my economics class and got a 97 in it hahaha. But that doesn’t mean anything until I actually use it on the stock market.

Not really sure what to say, but I’m grateful for friends who are always down to have a good time, who love to cook, and just love to talk about anything. I guess those are the three things I’m grateful for besides the subway running super quick and that I’m getting to do some more design work tonight. A lot of good things happened today from playing Super Smash Bros, talking about relationships with friends, eating food, and chilling out.

Like when I started this blog, I’m not entirely sure if I’m getting better, but I’m making designs that I haven’t done before/ seen before or have seen subconsciously and are just doing them now. So I think I’m getting better, but I still think I need some more formal training in some way or form. I’ve been learning about kerning and tracking lately. Tracking is the overall spacing of a paragraph and kerning is the spacing between 2 characters. I’ve learned how to manipulate these characteristics in a paragraph so that I can eliminate things like “orphans” and “widows.”

Kind of funny when I type that out.

Eliminating orphans and widows are necessary for type to be good.

It’s that time of the year again. Consumerism is in the air.

I was riding my bike today to drop off and pick up some film I shot and I got another flat tire. I think there is something wrong with my tire. The inner tube was new so there’s gotta be something poking through the tire or I just put the tube in wrong which made it pop which sucks. But hey, lessons are gonna cost something right?

However, I was able to develop my film in one day which was sick. I was really stoked on how these photos came out. Like I said in a past post, I’m trying to invest more in film and just keep shooting and making things. I really don’t know how long I’m going to keep making something, but it’s been a good habit that I’ve picked up. It sucks though because I still want to get better at skateboarding, but I know that it’s going to be rather difficult because I need to start making a little more money. However, that means I won’t have as much time. It’s kind of hard to think about especially since Mac Miller’s Come back to Earth just popped up on Spotify and that song kind of hit off a small bout of depression back in September/ October.

I just switched the song to Klink by Smino since it’s more upbeat/ hip hop/ lo fi, it’s a lot better for concentrating for me right now.

Back to the topic. I know that I can still progress with respect to skateboarding and I have. I learned a new trick on Saturday which was a FS Disaster 180 revert out. Pretty proud about that. However, the things that I like to do such as jumping down shit, I kind of lost because I haven’t been skating that type of stuff in a while. I’m trying to stay with the Woodward Vibes that I had back in August where I was able to just jump down shit whenever, but because it’s cold, I’m scared to slam because I can get the air knocked out of me pretty easily/ it just hurts to slam in the cold. I also just need to get some new shoes for skating since I have a hole in them.

It’s funny how when I bring something up in this blog post, I start to try to open up a new tab in google chrome. Kind of like a Squirrel right now.

Anywho, I got to practice some more typography today, got my film, and watched a few more videos about typograpy. I learned about kerning and tracking which is good for when I’m making designs.