The concept of this blog is to speak to other creatives as a massive collaborative project. This gives me the opportunity to speak to people that inspire me and my classmates. I have currently set up the blog and have interviewed six people which are all LCA students. I am hoping to complete more interviews with other creatives but it is a back and forth conversational process so it has been taking a while to gather and organise interviews with people. It has given me a larger insight into the graphic design degree and creatives opinions and ideas.
My concept for my self branding is to create a blog called "Tea and Talks" simply because I like tea and chatting with people. I thought that the concept could introduce me to creatives and be able to speak with them over a cup of tea or online to show engagement with other creatives. This is going to be a large collaborative project. I want to include creatives I like such as Sophie Corrigan and reach out to people that inspired me to chose Graphic Design as a degree. However, I also want to include students from LCA because I consider them to be creatives as well and it will demonstrate the collaborative aspect. I feel like opinions of current students and alumni is valuable because LCA is such as reputable institution. I want to gain an insight as to why people choose to come to this university and where they want to go next. This gives potential to look inside the mind of an LCA student and if anyone shares the same views as you then you could get in contact with them and maybe collab with them. I wanted this to be a demonstration of me reaching out to creative people and gaining advice and information on my practise. I will design a header and logo for "tea and talks" whilst trying to maintain frequent interviews and chats with a variety people from creatives, artists, students to bloggers and independent shop owners as these are all things that interest me within the industry and hopefully I will learn a lot through speaking to other creatives.
On monday after mono printing Mick from the foundation LCA building told us Uni of Leeds had bought his exhibition we thought it would be a good idea to look at it. I feel like it was useful for OUGD404 because it showed that a publication/book didn't have to be filled with a lot of text. It could just be a collection of printed pages to create a book. I feel like it was good to see some work from an LCA staff member too because the lecturers and tutors all have their own projects of practise outside of university which is inspiring to see.
On monday, we went in and did some mono printing. I had never done this before so it was nice being taught by one of my peers step by step how to do the process. I feel like this technique could be really helpful for the second studio brief in OUGD406. I liked the paler ones more than the darker ones because I feel they would make a nice background image or I might overlay them so that it could create a textured background.
Carrie started the talk with a social experiment asking for a volunteer from the audience. For a while nobody had participated. Then someone did eventually in which she gave them £20 then told them to sit back down. She then asked the audience why didn't they volunteer. It might be one of three reasons:
It starts up in your mind. As soon as she asked the question, the audiences mindset adapts and contemplates either one of those reasons why they didn't.
"What is going on your head has such a huge impact on the actions you take and the decisions you make."
"People miss out on opportunities on all of the time because of what's going on in there head, they're making bad decisions on bad thoughts in their mind."
She was running this business but she was miserable, lonely, isolated and lost. Questions like "what is the point of all of this?" circulated in her mind with negative thoughts. She was questioning everything. Becoming more and more self defeatist. She tried to escape and have an epiphany but came back without it. She was suffocated by her problems. Two problems, she wanted to be successful.
She realised the reason she felt off track from being this motivated, entrepreneurial person is because she was never on track.
"Your destiny is the determined by the choices you make, choose now and choose well."
"I was waking up every single day and focusing on my problems."
If she wanted to achieve incredible things then she had to get her mindset on that level. She had to program her mind to make it happen and for success.
What I took from this:
It is easy to fall into a negative mindset if you are not doing something you are truly invested in. Be clear on your goals, set high goals for yourself. If you can get your mind to get certain you can make something happen then somehow you can figure out a way. "Living an incredible life is no accident." You have to know what type of person you want to become so you have to act accordingly. I'm going to try set clearer goals for myself and change my mindset from being "I can't do this" to "I can do this." I need to start looking for the positives and being optimistic instead of thinking about what I can't do. I need to envision what I want no matter how unobtainable it may seem and find a way of making it happen.
Today I listened to a Ted Talk by Scott Geller he had three questions to recognise whether you are competent to be self motivated:
1. Can you do it? - Self efficacy do you believe you can do it, do you have the time knowledge and training?
2. Will it work? - Response efficacy believing behaviour will be the ultimate outcome. Education.
The difference between training and education is school. Training is industry level. You do the behaviour and you get feedback.
3. Is it worth it? This is the motivation question.
If you say yes to those three questions you feel competent to doing worth while work then you feel self motivated. Give feedback and recognition, make people feel self motivated. Show them they are competent.
"Be success seekers instead of failure avoiders."
"I know your motivated but you're not happy." You find that your classmates are in a mindset of you're required to go to class it is not seen as an opportunity to learn. "You get up to an alarm clock not because it's an opportunity clock." I find this attitude in a lot of people and some days I feel like this. In a "I only need to pass" and "I only need 40%" mindset and it's quite unhealthy. I genuinely really enjoy my degree but sometimes it is hard to stay self motivated which is why it is important to surround yourself with people that are motivated.
Independent or interdependent - we are taught to be dependent then independent to assert teenage independence then we get stuck in a "I'll do it myself, I don't need you" we need to move from this independent culture to "I need you and becoming interdependent." Show a people they are competent and that it is a community, teach each other to be self motivated.
Wael Ghonim wanted to create political change in the country - "it felt like I wasn't alone."
"Internet changed my life forever."
Wael Ghonim debates an issue personal to him and gives an anecdote on when he started to create change but then decided to "stay silent" for two years and contemplate why it happened because his page became social media that amplified "hate speech, rumours and toxic."
Polarisation is primarily driven by our human behaviour however, social media shapes this behaviour and magnifies it's impact. Say you want to say something that is not based on a fact.. these are all natural human impulses due to technology this impulse is only one click away. 5 Challenges of Social Media he discusses:
1. We don't know how to believe in rumours.
2. We create our own ecochambers - mute, unfollow and block anyone that is not in our social chamber. "Only communicate with people we agree with."
3. Online discussions quickly decent into angry mobs - forget that these people are real.
4. It became really hard to change our opinions because of the speed of social media we are forced to jump into conclusions and write 140 character views on serious world topics.
5. Today our social media posts over discussions, vote casting over engagements, shallow comments over deep conversations. We are here to talk over each other instead of with each other. "We need to figure out how social media can be part of the solution instead of the problem."
He made a contemplation of "what if we put more focus on quality?" Give incentive to engage in conversations instead of giving them content and opinions all the time.
What I took away from this talk:
Is that a lot of what is published on social media at the moment is very easily misconstrued because people are rash to create conclusions and opinions on topics they may have not thought about in depth. As character limits and immediate reactions to online content have a connotation of being instant the necessity to reply quickly and abruptly will always be there. This makes people question later on what they had said in their live feed or become regretful if hate follows their quick comment. Even if there was no intention to hurt someone elses views the way it can be perceived and misinterpreted will always be a factor because you can't always get exactly what the person publishing it is saying. For example, if 50 people read a book or watch a film each of those people will interpret it differently. Just as we as design students all interpret a brief differently. I feel like this talk will make me more conscious of the quality of my work and making explanations more objective instead of subjective.
I listened to a talk by Jessica Hische and she speaks about intersection of arts and technology through web typography. What I gained from this talk is that you cannot expect good work if you are not willing to put the effort in to create it. I don't know that much about technology design which she mentions at the beginning of this talk and how if you were to take some time and learn the coding and css then you can give that part to a person and make it easier for them to make exactly what you want. If you're not willing to put the time in to learn and expand knowledge about the practise than you're never going to achieve great work. I found this very applicable to how I was at the beginning of the year. I didn't really know how to use the software or even how to use a mac before coming to uni so I've slowly been learning as the first year has progressed on. I know that if I want to make nice things then I have to learn the processes. I'm also trying really hard not to procrastinate with my work because art stuff is a passion, it has to be. If there's not enthusiasm especially at degree level there is no point. I'm going to keep practising with the software and different design techniques and hopefully I will improve.
"If you have a thing that you want to do don't be lazy and just wait because it will take me three weeks to learn it just grab the reins and fucking do it."
