josten dooley

3 Things I wish I knew before becoming a Graphic Designer

Being a graphic designer is not something easy. I also am one of many that will continue on pursuing a career as well as improving my skills.

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Why your tools do not Matter

The Tools you have will not make you a better  artist or designer. If you are fortunate to have all of the tools you are blessed. I mean that because there are people who wish to have what you do. But let me not get off track.

The art of practicing daily until it becomes habitual is not easy. Because when you are a person who practice often it will show. For me I practice calligraphy daily and it shows. Recently I have gotten back into practicing designing more in depth.

Sketching is a very good thing to do frequently. Putting the pencil to paper will you to be not so dependent on fancy gadgets. I say that because it starts with the basics.

The basic tools and skills will help you start out. The thing that will help keep you going is your focus and commitment. Then after you’ve remained focus and committed over time you will eventually get better tools. The best thing is to not forget the basics matter more than the tools.

Free Christmas Greeting Card

Here you can download a free Christmas greeting card to print out and mail to your friends and family.

I have included instructions on how to go about doing that. You can also if you’d like to send the greeting card digitally.

This is my gift for you to enjoy and share.

Download here

Real Love for Your Craft

When you have real love for your craft it shows. You are able to continuously produce and you do not get tired of it. Because it will become more of who you are. When I first started writing calligraphy and designing it took awhile before it became a part of me fully. There are so many different aspects of it that I can go into detail about.

The opposite of having real love about something is knowing when you have lost the love for it. There is nothing that you should do to keep others happy. If you are not happy it is ok to move on to something else. The main thing is to not allow this to become a habit. Once you start something finish it.

Learning the mentality that you have developed when you have real love something is great. The love you are able to develop for a skill and etc is a wonderful feeling. Going all in on what you are loving is not describable at all. I mean it may be (at the time of writing Im not able to find the right words).

The phrase all money in is one that I learned from Nipsey hussle. To me it represents having Real love for something and not being afraid to go all in on yourself.

It can be done you just have to believe and not let fear hold you back.

Focused Practice vs Regular Practice

The art of Practicing is something that we all do in one way or another. The difference is in what type of practicing we do. There are people who devote hours to practicing their craft. When the main thing is to have focused practice.

I learned before that were times when I was practicing and not truly making much progress. From that I learned that I was not truly getting better. I was not seeing the amount of progress I’d like to have made. Because I was lost in the mind-frame of putting in the hours.

Then I learned the best thing is to practice when you are focused. Instead of devoting hours of distracted practice, there should be a set amount of time you dedicate each day. When I learned to do that has helped me tremendously.

By allowing it to become habitual and thinking of it as a routine that you enjoy. More of than a routine a habit that is beneficial to you. The daily grind of putting in the time to improve your craft takes patience. Because if you are not the type of person who is patient practicing daily may or may not be difficult.

What I am saying is that practicing is good. As long as you are 100% focused when you are working on your projects. If you are distracted when you are in the zone you will not be as productive.

Once you cut out all of the distractions you’d be able to accomplish more than you could before. I learned this makes a big difference whenever I am working on a project and or practicing I do not let myself get absorbed into social media. The mentality of thinking you will miss out on something. When you honestly will not miss out it will still be there.

Cut out your distractions when you are practicing and remain focused.

Staying Determined

Whatever you decide to do you have to stay determined. Determined that it will all work out in your favor. Determined that you will not give up and give it your all. Consistently failing and not having things work out in my favor helps me stay determined. From applying to jobs and not getting any calls back and going to interviews not moving on.

But I do not let the little setbacks hold me back. Neither should you let them hold you back and discourage you. I love the journey of getting to a place where you are achieving your set goals. The people who do not let you learn from your failures are not helping you.

The reason I say that the more you fail the more determined you become. Well for me that is how I have been able to develop the mental fortitude to withstand many things. Skateboarding provided me with the process of falling down and getting back up to accomplish my goal of landing the trick.

Being determined is good and can cause you to forget about yourself. By forgetting about yourself and taking care of yourself can do more harm than good. The harm of eating like crap (which is something I fall victim to) can show us how out of control we can get.

Staying determined while at the same time having discipline to take care of yourself. Getting lost in the process is so easy to do and having your focus become tunnel vision. I learned how scary tunnel vision is when we moved from NC to down here to South Florida. Because when I was driving I go tunnel vision and was slowly drifting off the road.

Lets get back on topic do your best to stay determined that what you are wanting to do you will keep going. You will keep at it until it works and also realize when the time to just stop makes sense. There comes a time when you will get bored with something and lose motivation. But you have to be honest with yourself and say “Am I wasting time and do I still have motivation to do it or not?”.

I love you

I love you and thank you for the support. Feel free to send this to someone who you want to remind that you love them.

How I learned to Flourishes with Calligraphy

Learning how to write calligraphy and apply flourishes was one of the hardest things to master. I will say I am still mastering it. Because flourishes are decorative elements to jazz up a piece. By Jazz up I making the piece look luxurious and elegant.

The way that I really improved my flourishing was by studying other work I came across. The act of studying and seeing what others have done helps a lot. Because learning from others you begin to develop a better eye for what works and what does not.

The video above goes into how I went about learning how to flourish and what I have done to improve and continuously improve.