Week Eight - Skills and Making
Personal reflection on skills development and new process model outcome.
Relections on the lecture
Finding the gaps. This week’s lecture is a series of talking heads case studies, asking a variety of practitioners the following questions:
What would you like to be doing that you are not doing in your work?
How important are side projects and are you currently working on any?
Simon Manchipp
Simon Manchipp talked about how he was already satisfied with the work he is doing and he enjoys going to work. The variety of challenges that come with running an agency are always keeping him fulfilled and interested. Especially the projects where he says he has to change his mindset and the way he thinks. He does mention that he was to ever do anything else he would want it to be transformative. So something that offers unique perspective and ideas on a particular issue.
Talking about the second question (side projects) Simon discussed how he has had side hustles in the past while working for other people and that they can be very valuable. However, now he is running SomeOne (his own agency) all his energy and time goes into that so he currently doesn’t have any side hustles going on. The different avenues and products he’s able to pursue under the SomeOne umbrella gives him enough freedom and scope to discover things outside of just ‘being a service.’
Sam Winston
Sam Winston also echoed that he loves what he is doing and finds it very hard to imagine not doing what he does. He always interested in culture and having a part to play in that sector that he could never seem himself leaving that.
Sam talks about how he thinks he’s made a full career from side projects. However he touches on how side hustles should be something completely different from what you normally do. He talks about there being a danger of losing focus and everything becoming work.
Regular Practice: Tom Finn & Kristofer Soelling
Tom Finn and Kristoffer Soelling note that it’s difficult for them to contemplate their lives outside of what they’re currently doing, and they’re able to apply all their external passions and interests to their graphic design practice.
Kristoffer said he was interested in the importance of ‘authorship,’ as a side project. Having a passion that is separate from your work life, something that is 100% yours and encapsulates your own personal identity. But they do feel that they get to do that in their day to day work anyway. They talk about how they have a sub folder full of ideas for side projects but I’d hard to carve out the time to focus on them.
Sarah Boris
Sam Winston
Sarah Boris
Sarah Boris was probably the only person who actually answered the question. She talked about how she would love to be doing more interior design; rugs, tableware. Sarah also spoke about potentially collaborating with product designers, touching on how you can learn a lot from collaborating with people who have a completely different background.
Sarah also noted that her side hustles quickly become a ‘to-do list,’ and she often sits with the ideas for a few years and if she still values one then she will start working on it. But they are highly important in defining yourself as a designer, and differentiating you from others in the same field.
Intro Design: Julian House & Adrian Talbot
Julian House and Adrian Talbot also echo what’s been said above and enjoy what they do and feel most fulfilled by their design work. However they do both have similar views on ‘getting outdoors more.’
Julian notes how his side project work in music also opens up new avenues to them, in terms of using different techniques and disciplines to create new visual assets around a release. Adrian talks about his journey with typography and how it’s allowed him to learn a new craft and he designs new fonts everytime he gets the inspiration.
My thoughts
All the practitioners spoke about how they couldn’t really see themselves doing anything else as they all enjoy and feel fulfilled by the work they are doing in the graphic design and creative industry. This is something that really excites me as someone who is still working on getting into this industry and getting to work on projects like this full time. I currently work as a decontamination operator in a dental practice and all graphic design and creative work is done as a side hustle. I do some work for the practice such as newsletters and other bits however, just like Sam Winston touched upon, I need to make sure that these side projects don’t just turn into work. So guess currently my side projects are anything I am creating for this course, yes I am slightly restricted by the briefs but they are a lot more open ended than work for clients.
Brief 3: Message Delivered
The third brief requires us to: Explore and document a geographical area within your local environment and find ways to express its character.
Create a message in response to what makes this particular area unique. The format for this outcome is entirely up to you. It might be a piece of information design, a short film, a booklet for visitors or a piece of advertising.
Initial ideas
The geographical location I have chosen is the racecourse in Warwick (highlighted on the map), as it’s not far from my house. This is one of my favourite areas of Warwick as it’s really open and spacious, it’s a really nice place to walk and clear my mind. The area is made up of the racecourse itself and also a golf course, the walk around the whole thing usually takes me about half an hour. This should give me plenty of things to document.
For the final outcome it might be quite fun to create either a poster advertising race days, a booklet for visitors listing all the events or a series of postcards.
Documentation
Below are some photographs I have taken on my first visit, just walking around the whole loop. These were taken on my iphone.
Next steps
For my next visit of the racecourse I decided I wanted to go back and take some photos on my film camera. I had a few shots left on my roll of film so I thought it was a perfect opportunity to take some photos for this brief. I am aiming to go in the afternoon/early evening where the light from the sun was going to be really nice. The photos above are quite gloomy and cloudy so I think it will be good to get some when the sun is out, especially because this is when it looks most beautiful.