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Make Everyday

Make everyday means to make something everyday. I had recently began participating in this. The way that I am is by doing a calligraphy piece every single day and uploading it to my instagram and I also make sure to devote time to designing every single day.

Devoting at least 1 hour to calligraphy and 1 hour to designing and sometimes more then 1 for designing. This system has really moved me in a positive way. Another activity is devoting time to web design. I recently tried my hand at a web design and I ended up getting frustrated and felt completely lost. Since I have been improving my coding through code academy it was time to learn the visuals of web design.

But let me stay on topic. Making everyday will allow you to get through the phase of crappy work to good work. I for one look back on my early calligraphy pieces and have no idea what I was doing. Then learning the flourishes as well took a good amount of time.

So if you are at a point and you have no idea what to do or you feel as if your work is not as good as it should be pick up a pencil and start sketching. Who knows where it may lead you.

Don’t die wondering

If you are hesitant about doing anything in your life I recommend you to ask yourself what am I going to do if I don’t attempt such a thing. I learned that life really is short and we are not put here to stay. So therefore why settle for just doing what society expects us to or family.

This year has been moving pretty swiftly. I mean we are almost through January and what are you doing to make this year better then the next and or the previous year?

How to avoid being bored as a Designer

Boredom is a very hard thing for some to deal with. Doing a task over and over again seems as if we are on a treadmill. When you have the mentality of running in place not making progress it will become like weeds to a garden. You have to believe that you are making progress.

One thing is to keep track of your progress. Then you have to realize that the designers you look up to they have been doing things over and over. The same for Kobe Bryant being able to shoot a basketball so well. He has practiced daily and for hours.

This can be said for many successful and well known people. If you remember when you first started designing how the quality of your work is not as good as it is now. Because you applied yourself and kept going. If you are just starting out keep fighting through the stage of not producing good work.

Fighting through the boredom is very simple to do. There are many ways that I use to avoid getting bored with anything that I am interested in. You may be a web designer and you are getting bored with it. You may be a graphic designer and you are bored with graphic design.

Here are some ways that you can avoid getting bored while being a designer.

  1. How are you different know in your field compared to now?
  2. What can you do differently to rekindle the flame?
  3. Find a creative hobby that you are interested in and go do it
  4. Watch documentaries on your profession
  5. Learn the history of your profession. This is very recommended because you are able to learn from how others thought and created the industry in which you work.
  6. Remember to have fun
  7. Practice and do it regardless if you feel like it.
  8. Stop living based on your feelings

There ain’t no shortcuts, you gotta do the work.

 

James Victore telling the utmost truth. Because you cannot take any shortcuts to being a good designer. The path to being a good designer is to design daily. Design daily even when you do not feel like it. Because living according to how you feel is going to really limit your growth as a professional.

The way of living according to you how you feel will limit your growth is because while you don’t feel like doing something, there is someone else who is doing the work. They are working harder then you and they want it more then you.

Stop making excuses and do the work whether its turning out crappy or not.  Because eventually it will be better over time.

All Hustle No Luck

This should be the mentality you have with whatever it is that you want to do. Whether its finding a Job in the design industry or launching a product. The results may not be turning out how you expected but you cannot give up. Think of all of the time you have invested to get where you are currently.

If many of the well known people in any industry gave up we would not be talking about them. There are a variety of things you could to be keeping track of your process. Really you should be keeping a journal anyhow. The whole aspect of keeping a journal will let you know what is working and not working.

One major thing that helps me keep going is to set goals for the week. Then on sunday I go back and check my goals. The ones that I did meet I check them off. For the ones that I did not meet I make sure that I set them for the coming week and achieve them.

Steps to keep going

  1. Keep a Journal
  2. Set a schedule so you will not waste time
  3. Set weekly/daily goals
  4. Continually strive to improve.

Be Your favorite designer

Being your favorite designer is what you should strive to be. When you have a favorite designer you try to emulate them. In that way you tend to copy their style and various other things. I will be the first to admit that I used to have favorite designers. Instead of saying they are my favorite they are more so people whom I look to for inspiration.

When I look to them for inspiration I learn how they think and approach design. Then I apply those tactics to my own work. More so instead of looking at a piece of work and saying wow that is beautiful I wonder how they did it. I learned that you have to go to the core.

Being your favorite designer takes some time to get used to. Being a copycat is not going to help you win any award or get a freelance gig. Copying someone may last for a while and then it will eventually die out. A good example is when I heard Paula Scher talk about how the typographic poster designs for the public theater was copied and killed by New York it shocked me.

So inclusion do you best to apply what you’ve learned from other designers to your work. Don’t try to original just try to be good. Also believe that the work you do is good. Because whether you feel your work is of top quality or not always strive to continue to improve and be positively influenced.