Why should other people care about design if you the designer doesn’t?
Do you spend that extra half an hour in the studio or college, to maximise your potential, or do you skip off into the sunshine?
It is incredibly hard balancing lecturing, designing and life, but you know, I just manage to do it. I expect that any student wanting to pursue a career in design should treat the time they have in the upmost respect, using the studio, using my knowledge, using other students knowledge to help them develop as designers.
Design is a funny subject, the more insular you are the worse a designer you become. With no one to critique your work, to tell you how bad or how good a typeface is, or to tell you that red and blue spots are not the best idea for a corporate banking client - it makes you rely on your own judgement. Whilst we are all professional, we are also majorly modest in our own heads - most things we do are amazing, and it is just a blip that Pentagram haven’t been on the phone offering us a job! We need other creatives around us to drive our own imagination and designs forward.
I am just about to embark on a creative month working collaboratively with another graphic designer/lecturer to take up the 30 days of creativity challenge starting on 1st june.
This is a brilliant opportunity to work with someone that has very different, yet very similar design styles as I do myself. I am excited in the thought of learning new techniques and creating a dialogue between each others creative process.
We sat for a couple of hours last week talking about the design world and how we both find excellent creative opportunities in our jobs and how we can develop the learning our students partake in day to day. In fact she is going to come and talk to my students to discuss the trials and tribulations of freelance designing - i’m sure they will take a lot more notice of her stories than mine as sometimes it is very difficult for them to see me as a freelance designer too.
One thing I do know, is that today lots of students have really valued my opinion about their projects and have developed their concepts accordingly - the fact that students as young as 16 are willing to take constructive creative criticism and use it in a positive way shows me that I am doing something right!
