It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be

Having already read Paul Arden's previous book, Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite I was intrigued to find out that he also had another book published in the same style and given how insightful it was, I knew this one would be equally as good. Having spent a lot of time on trains recently, I found I was reading a lot more so much so that I read this book twice over in one weekend (can you tell I liked it?) and I feel like a took a lot of useful advice from it.

"Don't seek praise, seek criticism"

Often when it comes to giving feedback for other people's work or asking others about my own work, people are likely to say nice things about it, which is good for me and my ego but it's doesn't help in terms of the development of my piece. So Paul suggests always instead asking questions to provide critique on your work; what's wrong with it? What could be better? This is very important for me as I usually don't ask enough questions during a crit session or don't ask the right ones leaving me with general feedback which doesn't always help developing my ideas.

"Don't be afraid of silly ideas"

As creatives we can often come to a sudden halt in our work flow, otherwise know as a creative block. At this moment in time, I feel like this is all too relevant but Paul suggests that the best way to unblock a mental block is to lose our inhibitions and stop worrying about always wanting to be right. Personally, I always worry too much about being right all the time with my work, whether visually or conceptually, to a point of where I become narrow minded and clueless. This ultimately drives me into a ditch of anxiety and worst all boringness as far as my work is concerned, I think sometimes I just need to let loose with my ideas.

"Don't give a speech, put on a show"

Another huge help for me being the terrified little mouse that I am when it comes to presenting, having never done much before in the past aside from last year's PPP presentation, I think my presentation skills and confidence are lacking. So Paul puts forward the idea that your lectures/presentation should be more than just talking, giving your advice etc. instead you should try painting a picture for the audience, as he puts it 'putting on a show'. I think this is something that I should take into account when it comes to presenting, even within the classroom and carrying on into the future at pitches etc. by creating a more visual presentation it will make for a much more interesting presentation and also something that will be remembered by those watching (fingers crossed).

"GET OUT OF ADVERTISING!"

A little over exaggerated I'll admit but this is for me, potentially one of the most important pieces of advice he gave through the course of his book. Although I don't always work on pieces related to advertising, I think that the advice applies to anyone within the the design field of work. By this he's referring to a lot of the inspiration that comes for new ideas for new ads come from advertising itself, be that old examples of it. instead Paul suggests getting out of the area you're working in and to take inspiration from elsewhere, unexpected sources, your environment, anything at all that surrounds you on your day to day life in the hope that it will spark new and original ideas for your work.

A Conversation With Brian Eno About Ambient Music

Ask anyone who knows of him and his work and they'll all tell you the same thing, he's an inspiration. He talks a lot of sense about things that matter but without coming across as your stereotypical arrogant artist, which is one reason why I look up to him. 

Pitchfork recently posted an article titled 'A Conversation With Brian Eno About Ambient Music' and after having a read I feel like a took a lot from it in terms of being an artist and how we should all approach our work. To me, he's someone that stands out because of how different he is to your typical producer because as Phillip, editor of the article, puts it "the 68-year-old has made an entire career out of turning convention on its head". In an industry saturated with people try and wanting to do the same thing, unconventional ways are exactly what makes you better than the others; taking risks, being different, being original. This is something that I think stands true within my field of design specifically, but design on the whole also because as Herman Melville puts it 'its better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation'. (which has also just become my new favourite quote).

Having been a producer of music for many years now, he's grown to work in a particular way when it comes to producing the music itself, like most people do within their field of work. But this one stood out to me as being particularly effective in theory, I mean if it works for him it's definitely something I should consider. In reference to his studio habits when producing his music he said:

"As a maker, you tend to do too much, because you’re there with all the tools and you keep putting things in. As a listener, you’re happy with quite a lot less."

This is something that really resonated with me because this stands true with all art forms. We have it in our head that we need to keep bashing something and putting everything we can into a piece, but yet the moment we step back and put ourselves into an observer's shoes, we soon realise that at times we're just overcomplicating it. I'm sure we can all relate to this in some way, me especially because often there has been times when I've been told to revert to an old idea in a critique session for example because of having gone too far with the idea and overcomplicating matters for no necessary reason.

To link in with this idea of stepping back from a piece, Eno talked about sitting back and listening to a work in progress piece and observing it to listen to what works and what doesn't work within it. Although not given as direct advice, I definitely took it as that. One bad habit I have is trying to go from start to finish, from sketches to final product with a brief far too quickly. This means I can miss out on ideas or other perspectives to take with it all because I didn't allow time to sit back and observe or give it time and come back at a later date to see what about it works and what doesn't.

All in all, a very interesting article with the man himself giving out advice I'm sure we could all do with from time to time.
Link to article: http://pitchfork.com/features/interview/10023-a-conversation-with-brian-eno-about-ambient-music/?mbid=social_facebook

Footprint Talk @ LCA

Footprint are a ecological printing company based in Leeds that have a huge focus on being as environmentally friendly as possible. They are a workers cooperative that means the business is owned by the workers which makes it almost like a tight nit community where they can control what they print, their wages etc. creating equality between them. A couple of ways that they keep things simple and ecological is by using only recycled stock and also sustainable inks and by only distributing within the UK they are keeping their carbon footprint to a minimum.

It's interesting to see a company that focuses so much on their ethics and environmental footprint, especially as they're in an industry where this is key considering how much paper printing companies use on a daily basis.

The work they choose to do for clients is entirely chosen by them, if they feel it's an unethical topic, e.g. homophobic, racist etc. they'll refuse their work so it's nice to see a company with a set of values that they stick by. Something else they do is tour around the UK to print festivals and with them they take their printing equipment so that they can collate work from lots of different people and print it all within a magazine which they refer to as a 'zine in a day'.

Nest Launch @ Colours May Vary

Tuesday was the launch of the bi-annual Nest magazine, the university magazine that aims to publicise the amazing work of students on all the courses.

It was nice to chat to a couple of people, Erin (Editor-in-Chief) in particular, because we discussed her ideas for the magazine and how she went about curating it all. We also talked about ideas for the next upcoming magazine and about potentially having a mini magazine released every couple of months in between the big nest launches just to keep the ball rolling and to cut up the big 6 month or so gap between each edition. Something I'm wanting to do is to submit and hopefully have my work put within the next edition, as a way of publicising my work which is something I definitely don't do enough of.

The main theme of this edition was Focus, and for me was the most interesting and eye catching one yet. Wrapped around the magazine was a translucent and embossed partial dust jacket that brought the whole aesthetic together, already bringing through the theme of focusing.

Within the magazine itself was a wide range of work, including a couple of bits of photography and textiles that I particularly liked.

One neat feature within the magazine was the text, using a very pale blue throughout meant that you had to really focus and concentrate to be able to read it.

Not to forget the 'Focus' text on the bottom right hand corner of every page, the further you flick through the pages the clearer the text becomes; a cool little feature.

YCN Talk @ LCA

YCN visited out studio this morning to discuss themselves and to give us more of an insight into what they do and who they are. This was especially useful considering that I think me along with others only knew of YCN through their Student Awards which some of us chose to take on this year. They describe themselves as a curated creative network that do a range of things such as work alongside big brands but also source talent to help work with these brands and other clients that may need a specific kind of designer(s). Something I thought was useful that they do is hold events on things that interest us all, that being things such as how to be a confident speaker, as I think at this stage something I struggle with is speaking in front of lots of people.

Something I mentioned before was the YCN Student Awards which in some ways is similar to D&AD's student awards except with different clients which is useful because especially during the Responsive Module of this year, it gives us more of a range of briefs to choose from. Aside from giving an overview of the awards and what they typically expect from it, they showed examples of some work from previous years. But what I found helpful was that they pointed out things that aren't typically on the brief but that can be a nice addition to the work submitted. This was giving context to the work itself, one person who won in a previous year gave his design decisions for why he chose an American accent for the people within an animation even though it was a purely British company. Thinking outside the box and creating work that the individual feels is appropriate to the brief is something they suggested also, rather than sticking so strictly to the brief, having their work in extra and possibly more appropriate formats was also advised.

Aside from the content of the presentation, the way the presentation was structured itself and the way the speaker approached it was something I picked up on as being something I should incorporate into my talks and get into the habit of doing. The slides contained little to no information meaning it was purely visual, keeping me engaged whilst he spoke along side it. Also the slides gave a sneak peak as to what he was going to discuss which was helpful. I think my confidence in speaking is something I definitely need to improve on, considering that they way he spoke was confident and clear, I feel this definitely helped me to stay engaged with what he was saying.

Build Talk @ LCA

Build are a well renowned design studio currently based in Leeds and lucky for us Micheal from the studio came in to give a talk about all things design.

Not knowing much about Build prior to the talk it was interesting to see how the studio came about. But before Build Micheal had already been in the industry for years and he began by speaking about what influenced him the most during his early years of design. Apparently the old album covers for the likes of Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath were a big part of his influences but more so the typefaces used and I feel that's still somewhat of a big influence within his current works.

After years of working for others him and his wife set up the studio, Build. He spoke about the struggles of having your own studio and also how they moved around London quite a bit, despite the fact that he isn't a huge fan of the city at all.

The talk as a whole was pretty interesting and I think I took a lot of what he said into account, two things especially. Those being to take interest in other things outside of the world of design and to bring that into your design work, such as how had a interest for album and vinyl covers and this is what inspired some of his work. Also he suggested to observe more whilst outside, often we're on our phones or just don't make a conscious effort to look up and around but especially pieces of architecture can go a miss all because we're not paying attention. The other point he made was in reference to working as a designer in the earlier stages of your career, he advised working for and with others in studios etc. before going off onto doing starting your own studio.

"Make your mistakes on someone else's time."

HORT & Rapha Talk @ Bakken & Bæck

Free beer and tacos? Count me in!

A couple of months back Bakken & Bæck, a design studio in Oslo, had an open house night with two guest design speakers; Eike König of Hort & Luke Scheybeler of Rapha. Having heard of both HORT & Rapha before but never actually knowing much about either of them I figured this talk would be perfect to give me an insight into building up both a design studio and a clothing company.

HORT is a Berlin-based design studio that has been around for more than two decades, and Eike gave a great talk on a lot of the work they've done and the trials and tribulations of working with big companies such as Nike.

Their work came across as playful but not childish, they produce very strong work especially the work they've done for Nike. Turns out they've been working with Nike for many years now and they've so much work for them that they made a Tumblr page just to display everything that didn't always get used.

Aside from that is was very inspiring to listen to a professional who's had a range of different clients but most importantly has been in the industry for over 20 years and has a lot of knowledge to share with us.

The second guest speaker Luke Scheybeler, co-founder of Rapha and fellow northener. Rapha is considered, by most, to be the world's nicest cycling brand. As Rapha's former creative director, Luke was responsible for a large part designing the branding, graphics and website. He spoke a lot about the origins of Rapha and how they came to be, taking a look back at the old cycling gear worn by cyclists they soon realised there was a real market for a high end designer wear. This was where they stepped in, realising how over complicated the cycling clothes were at the time they decided it was time for a huge change and simplification of the style and materials used.

Old style cycling clothing

They took certain aspects of the old style and adopted it into a new minimalist style, one which stood out in the world of cycling gear.

I also managed to catch up with Luke later after the talk to chat about Rapha in more detail. Even after a couple of drinks this was very much nerve-racking for me, but I some how mustered up the confidence to go over and speak to him. Soon after establishing that we were both from a similar town back home, I asked him about how Rapha came about. I was surprised to find out that in actual fact cycling wasn't a big interest for him, co-founding a brand of any kind generally you'd assume that both people have a real interest or passion for it. But it seemed to be more down to the fact that there was a market for what they wanted to produce at the time, which I guess was partly down to having an eye for it but also a little bit of luck to jump into the industry at the right time. Either way safe to say that Rapha revolutionised the way cycling clothing was designed.

S.O.D (Social Oriented Design)

Whilst away in Oslo I had the opportunity to become part of a group called S.O.D, it's a group that designs for social oriented issues and exhibits it all wherever they are able to. The group was set up a couple of years ago by Yann the graphic design tutor at Westerdals, he figured that social issues are something that affects us all and is something that needs to be addressed more and what better way to do so than through the use of design. Although the group began small, they're always expanding hence how I was able to become a part of it.

"Based on the fact that I truly believe that most of our daily related problems are due to stress, lack of interest regarding the others and selfishness I decided to see what we, graphic designers and creative people in general, could do to light up people's everyday.

Our goal is to find effective and cost free solutions to solve social related problems (these problems can be big or small)" - Yann

In recent years they've been able to exhibit their work both local and worldwide with exhibitions at Grafill in Oslo but also a place over in New York.

S.O.D at Grafill

Each year they aim to address and express, through design, a social issue that some of us or maybe all of us. Their most recent issue was loneliness which I believe is definitely an issue in our "connected" society.

Umer Ahmed's piece on loneliness

The meetings for the group are generally every few months so luckily I had the chance to be a part of one whilst in Oslo. There was roughly 15 people there on the night and we sat and discussed potential topics on which we could create work around for the next exhibition hoping to be held during the summer. A few topics included that of: 

Fear of the Unknown
"Fear of the unknown and a generally small amount of knowledge is common in today’s society, and often the very reason people choose to avoid (and hate on) others with different backgrounds, beliefs, cultures, sexualities, etc. Those who feel the need to shout the loudest are often the most ignorant (and maybe afraid ones), and they try to compensate using BIG WORDS." - Fredrik

Dehumanized
"According to many studies Economical Materialism is associated with anxiety, depression and broken relationships. In hope for better self-esteem people tend to fill the emptiness with possessions, likes and jealousy. I tend to investigate further why we get sucked into this void that is Economical Materialism, how it affects us psychologically (self-esteem) and how brands brainwash us through marketing and visual communication." - Umer

The Human Standards Manual

"We want to look into the expectations society puts on the individual: from the obvious pressures like body image, to the more bizarre specific issues like what kind of job you have. The goal is to shine a light on how these expectations affect us, and how absurd it is that we are so hung up on them. We were originally thinking about making a book and a website, but we realise this might be too big of a task for the amount of time we have. We might start off making the website, then begin creating a book afterwards if we have time for it. Maybe even make another product entirely." - Nico & Ben

These are only a few of many ideas that have been shared at the moment, but soon we aim to narrow it down to one and expand from there, creating pieces of work that best represents our views on the topic and how we could shed light on something so important.

Hey! Design Talk @ Belgrave

Booze, pizza and comfy sofas? Sounds like a perfect combination to me and what better way to spend it than listening to a mixture three designers and developers. All of which seemed to have a positive outlook on their careers regardless of how crap it may be from time to time and all of which seemed to have something valuable to share with us.

Stefan was first up although he seemed very nervous he soon got comfortable and began sharing his experience so far as a front end developer. Much rather than following the usual trend of going to university and then into the industry he jumped straight into an apprenticeship at Sky. He spoke a lot about going against the grain and how that can be challenging especially for someone at the time of starting was only 18. Joining the industry at such a young age can be difficult, staying up till 2 or 3 in the morning simply just to get up to scratch with learning the programming languages only for them to change a couple months later. With being a front end developer the languages always change and so having to adapt constantly even whilst you're still learning appeared to be the main issue he spoke of. I think the most valuable thing he spoke about was how learning new things and not always succeeding can knock your confidence and I think this applies to anyone of any job. So it's good to keep in mind that you just have to push through it and hearing this from someone of the same age who has experienced more of the industry than me, is something I will definitely take on board especially considering university can have it's challenges all the same as a job.

The second person to talk was Emily, her presentation was a lot about our habits as designers and developers be that good or bad ones and overcoming the anxieties that come with it. Habits are something that we all have and I think that the one that we all have in common is thinking that we're not good enough or that we're bad at what we do. Anxieties I think are very common amongst design students because it's hard to stay consistent with our workflow and quality of work, hitting creative walls can especially knock our confidence on some days forcing into a spiral of thinking we aren't good enough. Emily spoke also about a good habit to get into is thinking like a child, like a beginner because that way you always approach everything with a pair of fresh eyes and open mind. I think this is especially helpful for designers often we can become narrow minded after working on a piece of work for so long and so speaking with others and in a way resetting yourself can be helpful in approaching your work in a new way. She also mentions that we should always be seeking to burst out of your comfort zone and aiming to stay inspired all year round!

The third and final design talk was by Chris who's main theme for his talk was about designing your own career. He talked step by step on how we should aim to create our own futures, so that we can become the the designer we want to be. His presentation was a series of bits of advice, a couple of those being:

Design is iterative
Have a vision
Think critically
Think laterally
Design is a process

Baring these in mind when designing I think is important because often as Emily previously mentioned, we can get into bad habits, ones that can often trump our creative process. But as Chris emphasised during the talk, design is a process, as is your career. Going from junior designer to senior is more than just a matter of time, it's everything you learn and experience on the way that forms the designer that you will become.

These talks I feel gave me a boost of confidence in life, but also especially when it comes to designing. With Stefan talking about going against the grain is challenging but rewarding. Emily discussing we need to push through our anxieties and get into good habits and finally Chris discussing how our careers are a big process and that we should be constantly striving to improve ourselves any which way we can and to form a career that we want.