Week 10 – Designer, Author, Maker

What a refreshing lecture – so honest and open about graphic designers and it’s nice to break away from feeling like we’re hemmed in to one specific role – that of a designer. We get so focussed on originality and creating something new and “wow” that we don’t take a step back. It’s reminiscent of the discussion in the last webinar where I just wrote in my note book “imposter syndrome” – finding out that we all felt the same, that at some point on this journey we all felt like we weren’t on the right track or felt like a fraud… it’s not a bad thing to admit that either and is good to discuss it.

I found it super interesting to think of authorship as not Graphic design – it’s not for a client or a specific audience, it’s for you. Similar to Module 1 and going into detail about our side hustles and the things we love doing.

For me, it’s photography, it’s plants, it’s baking bread, it’s photographing said bread or plants… it these things I love doing on the side and who’s to say this can’t become a part of my “design” identity? I’ve never really amalgamated my design work with my photography, and right now, I couldn’t tell you why not… Perhaps this is something I need to consider when thinking about my 10 ideas…

Craig’s questions also helped me focus my ideas:

Why am I doing this? – consider the context

Is it for a client? Audience? Me? – ownership

Is it worthwhile? – relevance to society, to me…?

It’s content focussed this week, and I think it’s so important to keep that in mind. In this course it’s so easy to go – what could I make look nice on InDesign or what could publication could I design? I think it needs to be stripped right back to purely content.

Take his project about the books within films, although they used design to link the books with the films, the place that he staerted was with his passion and love for the film industry and these mysterious books that completed changed the direction of a film. It’s got to be something that the designer is passionate about, something that is meaningful, worthy and fun!