Bowery Mural

Phase 77 - Designs on Life

Wednesday 22 September 2010

I go through phases in life.  With everything; music, hobbies, routines everything.  An example of this behaviour is music.  If I buy a CD (rare occurrence these days) I tend to play it every day for months and then not for ages, anyone else do that?  Anyway something that i've always had an interest in is art, design, architecture, buildings, great photos and all that gubbins.  I even still have some drawings from when I was an imaginative and creative 8 year old designing the interiors of caravans.  Yes caravans!  I used to love drawing where i'd put the tables and sofas and built in shelving units and stuff...

For a few years i've been wanting to learn new things.  Perhaps even do a degree which I could maybe do at work but to be honest there isn't really a subject that is taught at my University that interests me a great deal.  Apart from where I work (of course!) and I couldn't do that because heck I produce all the exam papers, I log essays and i don't think it would be allowed.  There's Business Management and all that but... blah nah not for me. No my interests still lay (although they've been dormant for a hundred years) but they still lay in design...art... So i made a  decision.

I got myself an ILA account from the Scottish Government and booked myself onto an Intro to Graphic Design course at Glasgow Metropolitan College.  Woopee!!  I go on Tuesday evenings and have just had my third week.  The first week I was a bit nervous as there was so much to take in and i thought oh no i'm never gonna have enough ideas for this but three weeks in and i'm finding my creative mojo.  Don't get me wrong this is just an intro course and it's probably missing out a lot of things but we are bumbling along and were set the brief of designing a poster for an fictional exhibition called Adventures in Typography. Having read some really brilliant documents that Mr Seamus Murphy off of Twitter sent me (thank you!!) I was ready for this brief.

I done three quick sketches of my layout and where i thought things should be and set about creating it on Adobe Illustrator on a shiny new iMac (a fantastic piece of software and an excellent bit of kit).  My first attempt I wasn't happy with. The tutor has shown us a few tools to use in Illustrator and I tried to work these into my work. He came around and i wasn't happy with it.  His comments were "restrained" and I knew it was.  It was also a description of me that night.  It was good but i need to have more fun with it he said.  And so that's what i did.  I set about with this idea in  my head and got it down before i forgot.  I was inspired in a way by my funky coloured scarf i had on that night ad my purple Converse.  The class ended and i couldn't wait to come back the next week to get it finished.



As I headed to class last night I was eager to finish my design and maybe even start a third one then decide which one I'd submit. I added more detail and completed my poster. This time when he came around his words were "excellent", "you've got the idea of what the brief should be and where it's going", "gold star".  I was chuffed.  I explained what my ideas were and how i wanted to interpret them and he said it was spot on. FTW!!!

Next week we get to print off our designs and have a critique session by the whole class. Can't wait for that. I'll show it off, see what you think.
I'm loving this phase of my life. I don't know where it will lead but i think i'll have some fun while I'm doing it.

Ange x

1 comment:

  1. Yay!! Isn't it great when you have a creative outlet and you're finally able to tune into it?!

    Very inspiring post. Hope the course carries on just as well! :) And can't wait to see your work xxx

    ReplyDelete

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