I especially felt that struggle to find my voice in the beginning of my GSU design classes. However, I believe that my aesthetic has carried over from fashion design and my background in visual merchandising: clean, bold color, simple layout, with attention to the details.
My strengths are:
- A unique, outside the box perspective.
- I embrace color.
- I am not overly attached to my projects, so I can easily "kill my darlings".
- I'm willing to experiment.
- I have a good handle on type.
- When I have a clear focus, I am golden. My art teacher once told me that I have "moments of brilliance."
- I usually have confidence when I present or talk about my pieces.
My weaknesses:
- Late inspiration/epiphanies can make me rush to complete the project.
- When I have a creative block, I shut down.
- I have diagnosed ADD (and I've never been on medication for it).
- Time management - I always think I can accomplish more than I actually should.
- I'm willing to experiment
- I'm a sucker for the color teal.
Here are some pieces that I feel are my strongest:
1. Personal Logo. I initially did all 100 sketch variations of my initials, and this one appeared somewhere in the 50s. It's clean and simple, and one that is totally obvious once you see it, but not obvious in the finding for it. I think it works best with the color.
2. Book Cover Redesign for Fight Club. I think that I will always love this one. It's not an obvious solution, yet when you read the book you come back to understand the (spoiler alert) duel nature of the narrator and the love story was presented to the reader from the get go.
3. Anatomy of Typography. This is a prime example of how I was midway through a project and decided the solution was not working. I literally got up from my computer over to the table and started sketching new designs. Snape was nervous. In the end, it all worked out. I liked the idea that the beginning letter could start breaking apart and other letter combing to represent the original. When you get to the final phase, it is abstract and yet you can still see the original. Snape said that he never saw the assignment solved this way. I take it as a compliment.
4. Pop Culture: ModCloth Catalog. This project pushed me and I am really proud of it. I had to figure out how to use a light-box, style someone, direct a model, set up scenes, and take a lot of photographs. I will revisit it and do something further with the back page; I think that it's a missed opportunity that I did not realize while making it.
5. Collateral: Beltline Poster. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with this one. I also made it more complicated by creating six mini design projects into the overall big one. I spent a lot of time on this one, especially on the back and the map. I wanted the front to look like paper cut outs, and the first version had that but failed. This is the revised version. I spent a lot of time playing with shadow so that it had a paper illustration feel, but didn't look flat.
