Inspiration Gathering Workshop

It is important to get inspiration from everything around you and not just other designs and trends. We were asked what inspires us from a range of subjects, here are my responses and those of the rest of the class:

Designers/ artists:

• Sagmeister & Walsh
• Smiling Wolf
• Build
• Black&Ginger
• Banksy

 

Music:

• Jamie XX
• Kaytranada
• Goldlink
• Kanye West
• Frank Ocean
• Lianne La Havas
• Sampha
• Tom Misch
• The Internet
• Corinne Bailey Rae
• Gorillaz

Poet:

• T.S Eliot
• W.B Yeats

Architecture:

• Liver Buildings
• Albert Dock
• The Shard
• Broadcasting Tower

Book:

Others:

• Nature
• Science
• Philosophy
• Films
• My peers

Brand Nu Talk

Today we had a talk from the author of Brand Nu - Radim Malinic, we all got a free copy of his wonderful book of ideas and heard about his life, how he got to where he is now and the what inspires/ motivates him to create his work.

He said he is greatly inspired by colour as it expresses so many things such as:

• meaning
• feeling
• perception
• understanding
• it is subjective

He is also inspired by his experiences:

• life
• food
• travel
• product design
• technology
• surfing

As well as information:

• science
• biology
• neuroscience
• psychology
• physics
• anthropology
• economics

I agree with these inspirations and understand where he is coming from and really like taking colours seen in nature and incorporating them into my design. Knowing things is a big part of design and everything you do must have context - there is no good something looking good without it having meaning and being backed up by information and research. A lot of my experiences also shape the way in which I design  as well as things I am interested in such as:

• travel
• music
• films
• documentaries
• nature
• animals
• food
• makeup
• colour palettes
• philosophy
• books
• architecture
• models/ fashion
• photography

Workshop - Identity Task

Todays session was focusing on ourselves, how other people see us and how we want other people to see us. We wrote our name on a sheet of paper that was passed around, each person had to add a quality or whatever came into their head when they thought of us. The result was a list of things that people think about you:

• Relaxed
• Small
• Funny
• Creative
• Chatty
• Good listener

From here I am going to start thinking about how I want people to think about me as this will be essential for my self branding. I would like people to see me as:

• Serious/professional when appropriate
• Creative
• Approachable
• Good at planning and time management
• A 'doer'
• Fun to work with
• Helpful

All of these characteristics must be shown through my self branding which will include things such as a logo, business cards, instagram, tumblr and other promotional materials. I will achieve this through experimentation with typography, illustrations and colour palettes

Workshop - Time management

In this session we discussed our wants and needs and whether we are able to fit them into our lives. The bare essentials needs like eating, sleeping, bathing, brushing teeth, washing hair, doing the washing, lists of work to do for uni etc. Then considering basic wants like going to the gym, having a relaxing weekend, buy more makeup and then more deep and meaningful wants such as wanting to be proud of my work, getting a job for an inhouse design team for a retailing company and wanting to make my family proud. 

Here are the first lists I created:

We then wrote out the next week starting from 7am and until 12am with a schedule including all of the needs. After completing this we were able to see what time we had left to do things we actually wanted to do, but after hearing about our tutors wants and needs I realised going to the gym and seeing friends are a need rather than a must to be healthy. I also realised I should be adding things on to make myself a better person such as speak to new people whenever I can, make people smile and help others when I can.

I stuck up the schedule on the wall and I'm going to do my best to stick to it, I will review how well this went at the end of next week. 

My revised lists are:

Wants

• Feel proud of my creative work
• Get another tattoo
• Make my family proud
• Go interrailing around Europe
• Get a job inhouse design team for a company such as ASOS, M&S or Missguided

Needs

• Go to the gym more often
• Eat healthier
• Do all of my uni work on time
• Keep in touch with old friends
• Sleep, shower, wash, eat 

'Dream big, do great work and live a great life'