Important Things

So I've just finished a sweet summer of placements galore and hanging out in London. Quick rundown:  8 weeks @ [re]design, 6 weeks @ This Is Real Art, and 2 weeks @ Hawaii design. Good times and i guess if i ever get my new website up they'll be some fruits of my labour on that: this doesn't feel like quite the right sort of place i guess- anywho thought I'd blog some things i think are important about my time: I want to be working in a studio not an office- possibly just a question of semantics and definition but i think the two tags have very definite and different personalities, office is sterile and less noisy or less discourse and computers and a lack of materials (or at least they ain't out and handy) and a studio is talky, maybe less organised but not necessarily and more in tune with design and experimentation and stuff. I guess you probably know what i mean and if you don't you probably work in an office.

I want to think do think do think do think do instead of think think think think do. I  over think things and it leads to bad places and confused outcomes or no/unresolved ones.

Polarity isn't that useful. I've noticed that i (and some of the people around me) define things in extremes. Things seem to be either really good or really bad, and this could be expressed as valid or invalid also. I'm starting to develop a thinking that suggests that exaggerating opinions in that way creates a false sense of authority or something. I think this can be applied to loads of things too- take my wanting to be or not be a graphic designer- this is not a situation (and I'm suggesting nothing is) where polarities like these can be used- it's not a yes or no question and there is a big slab of grey between the two- so much so, that you don't have to say yes or no, it can be a big maybe, or a bit, or something. Grey is good.

This quote came from "S Book 2" edited by Nick Long and comes from Non-Format.  "It's about keeping it simple. Using a spear rather than a net to get what you want, we hone one idea until it's really sharp and then make it consistent all the way through." Cheers guys.

Bibliothèque Interview

I managed to score an interview at Bibliothèque yesterday which was awesome. But the interview didn't go so well, the guy who was interviewing me was Mason Wells i think. This blog isn't any kind of get back at him, or argument or anything it's just supposed to help me clarify my thoughts- he gave me a lot to think about and i felt like it required or deserved some sort of response. He was this incredibly rigorous and pretty intense graphics guy and he wasn't really into some of the projects in my portfolio, mostly the goldsmiths stuff- he didn't like the lack of a clear logic and seemed to want everything to be graphics- i.e. he couldn't see why for a wayfinding project i hadn't designed a graphical system of signs. Which i guess is his thing but from my point of view Goldsmiths would have probably kicked my ass for designing 'just' a graphic system- it's just not quite what they're about. Another thing seemed to be the lack of application or clear problem solving nature of some of the projects which i would argue was partly to do with the briefs set. He pulled me up on some of my typography too which i hadn't even seen- he had a mad graphics eye- and i mentioned that it was hard to get better when i didn't really have that kind of tutoring- (i.e. please give me a placement and I'll learn!!!) but he suggested that maybe i might want to change courses- which seemed at the crux of the difference between his way of doing things and my portfolio- i like being at goldsmiths and i like doing loads of things which aren't graphics, as Victor Papanek points out- the best way to survive change and also be the most rounded designer you can is to  be a generalist. I'm not saying I'm a jack of all trades master of none but i think i might not be specialist enough for the Bibliothèque school of design.  The whole interview made me really be self critical and i think I've come up with some responses to Mason's criticism: my work needs to be more clear and logical- i realised that my projects get way too complicated and the ones which are the best i can describe fully and succinctly in a paragraph- i need to have more projects in this vain. I want to keep being a 'generalist' especially for now when I'm learning all the things that are going to keep me afloat for the next few years or so, but i do want to get better at typography and do more graphic design that's relevant and logical and ... I want to have better conclusions to my work- research is great but conclude it somehow- and if a project has an outcome go all the way with it- to work through a problem more thoroughly and to not have to finish half way because of time- work simpler and faster- get less concept heavy where i don't need to be and to know when to stop thinking, and i guess to know when to stop doing and take a look at how i might progress a project.

All in all it was a good experience and i don't think i embarrassed myself at all, and meeting with Mason and seeing how clear and passionate he was has made me want to work for them all the more. We'll see how the summer and next year turn out i guess.