Blog

How to work through depression periods as a graphic designer and calligrapher

Being depressed is a natural occurrence. When we experience depression we can feel as if the work that we are putting out is not as good as it can be. Another thing we can think that we will never get out of the rut that we are in. Well let me tell you depression is only a temporary setting.

When depression sets in it can utterly take away your desire to even pick up a pencil or anything of that nature. First you want to be honest with yourself and realize that you are depressed. This may seem a little strange but its part of the stage of being honest with yourself.

Then after you do that you want to understand why you are depressed. Ask yourself what did I do to become depressed? What could I do differently the next time?

After doing the little quick analysis do not hesitate move forward. By moving forward you will allow yourself to get started. You will get started with rekindling your fire. The fire that allowed you to be the person you were before depression paid you a visit.

Because we both know that you and me both know how the fire that was lit can be so strong. The effects of things not going your way is just a part of the process. Believe it or not if everything worked out the way it was supposed to life would be a lot different. The steps to get through depression are as follows

  1. Be honest with yourself
  2. Realize that you are depressed
  3. Ask yourself why am I depressed and what did I do to get in this state
  4. How could I avoid being depressed
  5. What are ways to avoid letting depression take such a strong hold over me

Depression is something that many creative people will experience. Whether you believe in your work 100% or not is determined by you. Everything that happens is based off of the actions you’ve made in cohesion with your thoughts behind those actions.

If you are taking action and doing what you know you should be doing instead of wasting time watching netflix or youtube videos on reddit you will lose. Because you should be creating to get out of the depressed state. Whenever I am feeling down and I pick up my pilot parallel pen I become a bit happier. The same also applies when I am designing a logo for a client.

Depression will Rob you of what you deserve do your best not to let it do so.

Being Creative helps free your mind

 

There are many things in my life that I had to learn to free my mind. Being a creative person we look at the world differently than others. We tend to see multiple opportunities and we can see beauty in the ugly. When you free your mind you will be more open to see things in a greater perspective.

I tend to want always have an open and free mind. Because if I was constantly focused on being like everyone else and not being a creative individual I would lose a part of who I am. Calligraphy is a skill that I tend to continue using and improving. Also never pre planning a piece.

The reason why I never pre plan a piece is because I want to force my mind to think free. You know its sort of like when you are trying to avoid repeating yourself over and over. Along the lines of the rinse and repeat scenario. Because when you try and start forcing work whether its calligraphy, graphic design, or whatever creative task it becomes difficult.

The way it becomes difficult is because of the lack of confidence you have in your ability to think. I want you to just relax and let it come naturally. Learn to take time to explore and free your mind. Whenever there is a situation that comes up look at it differently.

Instead of polluting your mind with what your family members, coworkers, significant others say do not let that control you mentally. Focusing on freeing your mind to be more in control of your creativity and life.

How broadcasting live on Meerkat has helped me as a graphic designer and calligrapher

If you are still knew and you have no idea what Meerkat is meerkat is a live streaming app. Meerkat is what periscopes competition is. The community on Meerkat is great and I love the interaction. At first I was a little nervous with my first stream.

Honestly I don’t even think it lasted for more than maybe 2 minutes because I was so nervous. I had the thought in the back of my mind of doing live streams of my calligraphy and graphic design work. Then one day I just said f it and went full force.

The first time I was a little overwhelmed. The reason being was because I did not even expect people to actually want to see me work. With all of the support I have received its allowed me to continue moving forward. At times before I would have thoughts of not really producing work of a higher quality.

But now Meerkat has allowed me to focus on setting a standard for myself.  One major thing is to not take myself so seriously. Then other things are trusting myself and being more comfortable with failing publicly. Being transparent with my work and process is how I come across.

When I do streams of my graphic design process I am a little nervous because what if I mess up. But I tend to let the accidents happen. Because I want them to reflect me and how I work.

Broadcasting live can be a terrifying thing for some to do. But you have to just do it and go for it. At first it will be scary. But you know what it will be something you will never experience.

When I first learned about meerkat I thought to myself you know what I may give it a try and see what happens. Then I have been enjoying the community more and more and becoming a part of it.

So before meerkat I was producing calligraphy work daily and no one would ever see me do it. The same thing applies for my graphic design work. Well now let me get into how its helped me as a designer/calligrapher

  1.  more confident
  2. I have more fun
  3. I enjoy the process more
  4. Pay attention to the details more
  5. welcome failure
  6. Keep going even if I fail
  7. Be open to criticism and welcome it
  8. Slow down and take your time

Well with all of this said if you ever want to see one of my meerkat streams you can follow me on Twitter or on

What calligraphy has taught me about graphic design

going

Calligraphy has taught me many things about graphic design. One major thing is has taught me was how to be more detail oriented. Sometimes being so focused on details can cause a person to lose sight of the overall project. Possibly even so to go even further with ideas and not reach a point of being satisfied.

Calligraphy has also taught me the importance of not being satisfied with just putting out any quality work. Because I want my name to be attached to work that is of good quality and not crap. But when I first started doing calligraphy and posting them on my instagram I did not take this into consideration.

Putting out a piece of calligraphy work everyday was kind of difficult at first. But as time progressed it became easier. The discipline that calligraphy takes is not very easy to grasp immediately. The patience it takes to be a creative individual and to trust yourself I use it in my graphic design jobs.

1. calligraphy taught me that patience is key

Having patience to believe that what you are working on is going to turn out how you can envision.

2.  Trusting yourself

Being able to believe in what you are doing. If what you are creating you do not believe in it then it will be hard to continue progressing.

3. Fail until you get it right

The amount of times I have failed with something so simple as a letter taught me to not give up. Then to keep going no matter what.

4.  Continue to learn how to improve

Continuing to learn is the secret to many things in life. With calligraphy I have to constantly seek out knew styles, history, tools to use and etc. Then focus on developing new styles with my brush pen lettering.

 

So this is a few things that calligraphy has taught me and how to use them in my graphic design work.  There are many things that you can take from your hobbies and use them in your profession. The good thing about the skills you acquire in whatever it is you do you can combine them and use them effectively.

Before there was Photoshop

 

This really opened my eyes up about how fortunate we are now to have photshop. Sheesh the process is crazy long and I could only imagine how many people would not call themselves graphic designers if they had to learn these skills.

Why showing up as a Graphic Designer actually works

 

You may have heard this saying before just show up. Well let me tell you it is working out for me. I have been posting daily to my instagram for over a year and I am almost at year 2. The many days that I felt like quitting has been more than I can count.

But you know what I stuck with it and I am going strong. The effects of it have been working out pretty well. I was able to be contacted based off of the work that I have been posting to do work for a client. Then the other day I was contacted to collaborate with someone.

Mind you this is based off of the lessons I learned from seanwes. A quote from seanwes when he said show up everyday for 2 years. I took that to heart and I said to myself I am going to do what he said and see what happens. Plus I am enjoying the Journey to get to where I envision myself to be.

Many people will not devote themselves to do such a task. We will get bored with something so fast and then move onto someone else and rinse and repeat. We’ll when you curate what you share you will attract the type of clients you want.

If you have an instagram or twitter and you post whatever you are not directly creating the impression of what you are interested in. You may just have an account to post whatever you want. If you look into my instagram you can see that I was not sure of how to use it correctly.

But overtime you tend to see how I shifted my focus and started showing up everyday. Lets be honest many of you are probably lazy. You probably just go to your day job and do your job and go home and are happy with that. Well there’s nothing wrong with any of that. I want to say all of this because if you are wanting to pursue something you have to put in the work and show up.

Even on the day’s you don’t feel like doing anything you have to put in the work. You have to set goals and take action. Because you have dreams but without goals they will just remain dreams. Plus think of how happy you would be if you started staying with something until it worked for you?

Stop giving up and stop giving excuses

Why as a graphic designer you should focus on the Quanity and the Quality

Being a creative individual you may have heard the saying focus on the quality not the quantity. Well focusing on the quantity it only allows you to go so far. Because when you are putting out more quantity you will eventually develop better quality.

Think of a person you know who when they first started their work was terrible. Now after them working hard and constantly putting out work they have improved. A good example is to look deep into my feed on instagram when I started taking calligraphy seriously.

You can see the progression from terrible to ok and now from ok to mediocre. I for one do not like to feel as if I have ever reached my plateu I want to continually keep improving. The same thing should be for you. You have to want to improve more than anything. If you are not wanting to improve your work will continue to be the same. As well as your life will continue to be the same.

Now If you are an individual who wants to improve then you have to put your head down and get to work. By get to work you have to get creating. Many people fall into the trap of “hows it going to make me money?” This is a repeated phrase from people focusing on the wrong thing. I am not saying money is a bad thing.

Just that with more experience you can increase price and quality. Do you think many companies who put out products who are terrible that if they did not put the products that were crap they would not have improved the quality.

But you have to be willing to experiment and fail. This is a process that is continuous throughout your whole life. Not giving up when you feel its not worth it anymore takes will and believing in yourself and your work.

Putting out a lot of work will allow you to improve the quality of your work. So you have to put your head down and get to work creating. If you are just sitting around waiting for inspiration it will not come to you. When you are working consistently and frequently you will put out a great quantity of work and therefore your skills will improve. But you should continually focus on improving your work when you are creating.