If you’ve ever heard of busy work, then you know that busy work is what it is. It’s work that keeps you busy. But does it make you productive? Even though you’re working and you’re spending so much time on different tasks, are you actually accomplishing what you want to do? As I’ve found out, probably not because I’m not focused on what I should be doing because as I’ve heard from a teacher on skillshare, I don’t feel that I have the knowledge to do so. One way to combat that is education. It’s taken me a whole year to feel fired up about graphic design again. I really coasted this past year, but I focused on getting into the skateboard world which is actually a good thing because that is my people. However, I’m not going to get far by talent alone, I have to keep working at my craft. To do so, it means cutting out the busy work and doing the really hard tasks that I don’t want to do, but know that I should be doing.

For these designs, I copied the layout in the slide if you press the next button. Since the assignment is experimental, I interpreted that to mean that I could make a real layout or rather just copy someone else’s work to see how they did it. I went on behance and found underneath the typography section several layouts that I liked and replicated. Currently, I’m learning how to write case studies, but I’m still in the learning and research phase. I’ll be adding to these after I learn how to write these case studies properly. These will be my warm ups.

Week 7.2

Using all of the text provided, create a layout using an experimental constraint

If you’re following, I’m doing this project so that I can get better at graphic design and track my progress. I’ve been doing this now for 11 days I think and I’ve learned a lot in the last week just doing a lot of designs even if they may not be perfect. With 11 days down, that means 19 more to go which doesn’t seem that hard because the halfway mark is coming up. However, I’m trying to go past this. In the past, whenever I would reach a goal, I would stop and not worry. I think that was a very college type of mindset and now that I’m out and don’t want to mess around that much anymore, I’m thinking big picture. At some point, I’m going to have to work a 40 hour week so that I can sustain myself. Right now, I’m getting by pay check to pay check, but I need benefits because I’m going to be 26 in 2 years. Time is running out and at the same time it isn’t. I don’t want to be a 30 year old still trying to make it. At 30, I want to have already made it. The question does become, what am I trying to make? Recognition is usually the answer for me.

For these designs, the constraints were experimental

Copy of Week 7

Using all of the text provided, create a layout using an experimental constraint

Design 1

Not really experimental here. Most of these are really safe designs. Everything is kind of smushed in the corner and aligned as if everything is centered. It works as a design, but not very experimental.

Design 2

I think what’s going on right now is that I’m anticipating that I’m going to re do these designs later so I’m just redoing designs and thinking how they could look.

Design 3

One of the more experimental ones because I repeat DZN and have a white block of space in the middle to put the rest of the copy. It’s not the most interesting to look at though.

Design 4

This one builds off of Design 3. I tried just cutting DZN vertically and splitting it up. It’s kind of cool, but I’m not really feeling it exactly.

Design 5

Probably the most experimental that I got by adding the wave effect to this design and repeating The Features copy. There are some interesting shapes that come about from this, but not entirely sure if it works.

I like the ideas of holidays because it’s a time to stop doing what you’re doing and spend time with people. Despite the issues surrounding Thanksgiving because it leads to the genocide of Native folks here in the United States, I do appreciate the sentiment of taking time to be thankful. However, like I said in an earlier post, I’m trying to write down 3 things that I grateful for as soon as I wake up and when I go to bed. I’m trying to train my brain to seek positivity because by doing so, positivity does come back to me in some way or form. It may not be the biggest thing or the most significant, but even being able to breathe is something that is positive.

Today, I’m grateful for:

1. A place to go for the holiday

2. That I woke up

3. Water

Originally, I had a few other things on my list such as a pleasant message from an old friend on my phone, but it’s nice to just think of the really fundamental things as things to not be taken for granted.

In short, there’s always time to do what you want to do. It’s not about having the time to do it - it’s about making time for it. If that means waking up a bit earlier, then I’ll sacrifice some sleep. Like one of my favorite skateboarders said, I really want to leave a mark. I don’t want to go through life half ass.

For these designs, the constraints were experimental

Week 7

Using all of the text provided, create a layout using an experimental constraint

Design 1

For this one, I really wanted to just cut up DZN on the page. To do so, I converted DZN into an object and used the divide tool to cut it at a spot where you can still read what the letter is. Next, I just aligned the copy left to match up with the D which made this design pretty clean.

Design 2

I tried to do something similar like the last Design by cutting the D and placing ZN inside of it. This could work for a logo, but I think this is still rudimentary at best. I tried to play around with doubles of “Features” and align everything on an access with this one. Not the strongest, but an interesting pathway to look into for me.

Design 3

For this one, I wanted to just focus on making one element really big and have everything else be really small in comparison. I think this would work if the magazine was just called D. Maybe next time what I can do is repeat the mast head as a smaller size and just have the D be that big. The ZN feels a bit misplaced unfortunately.

Design 4

Again, I just wanted the DZN to be the largest element on the page so that the eye goes directly to it. Pretty simple design, but I think what needs some fine tuning is the placement of the copy. I tried to align it logically with DZN. I think I did pretty well this time around, but definitely something to revisit.

Design 5

For this one, I wanted to use the Golden ratio to make this design. I think this would work if there were pictures in the places where there are blank squares. I based the layout off of the size of DZN. I think making DZN a bit smaller would help this design. The eye does go directly to DZN, but to make it a bit more interesting would be making it smaller.

I had a great conversation with a friend over some noodles in chinatown today. In short, the conversation topic was about not censoring oneself or constraining oneself to the needs of other people and instead just doing what feels right. Like Frank Ocean’s mom said, “Be Yourself and know that is good enough.”

When I moved to NYC, I moved during my 20s and said to myself that I want my 20s to be selfish. The past 17 years of formal education was the culmination in a collegiate degree in order to fulfill my late mother’s dream for me to attend college. The past 17 years has been focused on fulfilling the village’s dream of raising the child. In short, community focused, not individual. I want my 20s to be a time when I focus on myself and give myself whatever I want because I hate to say it, I don’t want my kids to be my fulfillment. The goal is by the time I have kids (which is a whole other topic because I’m not the one who will be pregnant) is to have my goals fulfilled.

Now what does it mean to be selfish. My definition of selfish is doing anything that I want that doesn’t hurt other people. Yeah, love and relationships will always be a question, but hey, I have an emotional support dog (for at least the rest of her lifetime T-T). At this moment, I think of bell hooks and say, when you can be with yourself and are at peace, then you can be with others without feeling like you’re using them as an escape from your needs and desires. Not to say that hanging with people is bad, but rather, focusing on what I want now means sacrifice. My priorities of sharpening my crafts does come at a cost of not seeing friends, skateboarding, and working out, but I have to be confident that it will be worth it in the end.

For these designs, the constraints were add rules (lines) and shapes

Week 6

Using all of the text provided, create a layout using rules (lines) and shapes

Design 1

Didn’t really do much here except add the small square from the golden ratio. To be honest, I know I’m getting lazy with doing these designs so I’m just copying the same layout and posting it up. When I do this again, I’m going to have to start it from the end and then go to the start so that I get better focus on this.

Design 2

I’ve worked with circles a lot this year because when I first moved to NYC, I was really into circles and how they don’t naturally occur in nature which makes them an interesting shape to use because they single out what you want to be seen. Kind of just reminds me of a cow. Again, I’m not entirely sure if this design is working, but it looks like it would work in the “wild” or real world.

Design 3

I used different parts of the golden ratio in order to create this design. I’ve made similar designs to this one in the past. If you look on Behance for Profound Aesthetic by Bradley Afroilan, I rebranded the brand Profound aesthetic just as a challenge to myself.

Design 4

Very similar to the last one, but what’s special about this one to me is that I made like 3 other designs using the same layout as Design 3. However, the issue was the how I was going to put “Features” on the page. At first it was all the way at the top and the middle of the page, but that felt off. However, when I moved it to the bottom to align with “In this issue,” it came together for me.

Design 5

Again, I took this design from Week 2 designs because I wanted to do more rules rather than just shapes. I’m still trying to figure out shapes and rules, especially rules. For some odd reason, I can’t get out of just copying even though copying is perfectly fine right now. It’s about tasting the original a bunch of times in order to know what works and then eventually being able to move away from it and experiment.