Joseph Churchwood kept his skill of hand drawn typography, highly polished as he worked at it for many hours, every day. For us, as students and budding designers, need to know how to keep our skills thoroughly polished if we want to keep up with the fast pace design world that is today.
I came across this article titled 7 Ways to Keep your Skills Polished. I think that this advice is relevant and has some good tips that could benefit all of us. A few of the points that especially stood out to me were
- To check out Adobe Design Center. This has many inspiring resources and interviews.
- Lynda.com Despite her voice getting rather annoying, we all know that Lynda definitely has some good things to say. She is a very useful source to help us become to efficient when using the Adobe programs.
- User groups. These are groups where you can connect with and learn tips from other designers around Auckland. Check out more info here.
- Keep up with industry news. This is a really important point! We need to be aware of what is happening in the design world, it changes so quickly. Attending conferences are a great way to keep up. I will be at a conference on Wednesday night, Sonya emailed it to us and suggested it. Check it out here and come along! Following industry leaders on twitter is also a great way to keep up with industry news.
- And lastly.. LOVE IT. No point waisting time doing things you don’t love. So jump right in and embrace design and all it has to offer, and I’m sure you will love it even more than you do now.
Date Found: 7 April
Designer: Tamara Nyholt
Resource: 7 Ways to Keep your Skills Polished
Very inspiring Libby Amelia. As with all of us (especially in the last few weeks) Whitecliffe is pretty much our lives. Its seems quite sad when all I talk to my friends and family about is uni and my projects but I think that investment of so much of our energy is what makes us better at our craft. I have noticed our design course involves alot more investment presonally and emotionally than alot of other degrees (my flatmate is second year buisness and it feels like she never leaves the house). I also remember Stan saying in one of his lectures the importance of "gaining cultural capital", which means involving ourselves in more cultural areas that just design to have a wider range of sources to gather possible inspiration (reading and music included) and who knows.. if we all learn an instrument we could make a cute class band :)
ReplyDeleteFROM AARON
I agree with what Aaron is saying about the importance of 'gaining cultural capital', i think that in order to be successful as designers in this day and age, we need to be aware of what's going on around us. I guess this is why we study such a wide range of cultural issues in our social sciences lectures.
ReplyDeleteI found an article called "What are the social and cultural functions of graphic design?"
The article talks about how graphic designers are the ones that control and amplify communication by broadcasting a message, so as designers we have a certain responsibility to know about the social and political issues that we are dealing with visually.
http://www.lievwilliamson.com/writing/functions_graphic_design.php
Comment by Laura Barge