Sunday 19 February 2012

10 Things I Have Learnt About Myself Professionally.

1. I have learnt that I can pick up new software quite quickly. For example when I started using Illustrator I thought I would never get the hang of it, but now I can successfully navigate my way around to create things and am improving with each brief we get.
2. The amount of work I have produced has also surprised me and I'm finding that which each project I am doing more.
3. I have found that I really enjoy working with and creating type. Through school, without realising, I used to always doodle by writing things in different ways, which has probably led me to my interests today.
4. Working with a group of people with the same level of interest as you is also beneficial as up until now the people I was with maybe didn't have the same level of passion or drive.
5. I have learnt a lot more about the history of Art and Design which I didn't think I would find interesting, but now I have discovered it I think it is really beneficial when it comes to my work.
6. I have noticed that I lean towards a more hand rendered style of design, I would like to continue to develop this as well as experimenting with other options.
7. Crits are something that I have grown to like more and even though at times I still find them daunting I can also see the purpose of them as they have really benefitted me so far.
8. I have found that I can work well within a group and individually and that both has different pros and cons. For example in a group there are a lot more ideas and different ranges of skills, but choosing from the ideas and agreeing can be difficult, as well as time management across everyone. Whereas on your own it's easier to know what needs to be done and organise it, but idea generation and development is often harder because there is less chance to bounce off of people.
9.Evaluating my work through annotation, personal crits and final evaluations has been helpful and has really made me think about what I'm doing and what can be improved.
10. Through the course so far I have noticed that I need to get used to writing down more of the ideas I have and not being afraid to show things that have gone wrong. As a perfectionist I don't like this but I know it is something I need to work on.

10 Things I Have Learnt About Myself Personally.

1. From starting the course I have found that I am more comfortable talking in front of groups of people than I though I was. I always considered myself shy in these kind of circumstances and even though I still get nervous I think I come across confident to the people I am speaking too.
2. I am a lot better at arriving to things on time than I was before. I thought this would be something that I would struggle with, but I have got through the time so far without being late.
3. I have also found that I can look after myself in terms of living away from home, I have learnt to cook which is something I thought I'd never do and I doubt my family thought I would either!
4. I think I could improve at prioritising things to do and getting them done straight away as although I do finish things on time it would be better if more of them weren't so last minute.
5. At the start of this course I though I would miss woking in a sketchbook and even though it is something I enjoy doing I understand now how time consuming it was compared to blogging. Not having to print out imagery, handwrite titles and annotation, consider layout on the page and finally sticking everything down gives me more opportunity to focus deeper on the research and work itself.
6. I think I successfully balance work and social life as I like going out with my friends but I also know when not to in order to complete a set task of work to a good enough standard.
7. I am better at budgeting money than I thought I would be, I know how much to roughly spend on food and other aspects in order to get through the week. I have also managed to save too which is something I never really did before and also to understand better the value of money.
8. Initially I thought that maybe being on such a full time course could have its disadvantages, but I've found that I enjoy being in 4-5 days a week and I'm pretty sure that if I wasn't I would end being really bored and looking for more things to do.
9. One thing I've decided that I would like to find time for is to join some kind of sport or more likely dance club as it's something that I really miss doing weekly.
10. Since moving to uni I've found that I'm still a really untidy person, it's something that I wish I could change, so I'm going to try harder in future to not let the mess get so out of hand. (my room on a good day!)