Woke up today in pain. It’s getting harder to take falls and slams. Or it’s that I’m not that used to doing it anymore. Also, I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to design today/ write this blog.

I watched a video on design today which was good.

I have a phone call with an old roommate in like 20 minutes.

I landed a really cool trick that I never thought I’d ever land every. I even got it on tape :D

I need to really sit down and just work out my proposal for Adobe.

I’m kind of taking one of the kids from Harold Hunter underneath my wing. He grew up in foster care and I’m helping him apply for college since there’s a good chance that he could go for free. Hopefully. I’d love to see him succeed in some way.

Skateboarding is so much fun. I’ve met so many people in the past two days. I guess this year is starting off pretty well. But then again, I haven’t had to go to work in like a week.

Yesterday was a very strange start to 2019. I just felt very off for some odd reason. It took me half of the day to get myself motivated. Today, was almost the complete opposite. Woke up at 5am, went running at 6:30am, pumped my tires up, picked up my film.

Side tangent on the film. The film developed! The guy at the store was also super happy that it developed and the aesthetic came out super nice. Can’t wait to do something with it. I ended up sharing it with the woman I went on a date with. She said thanks. I told her she was cute. And that’s that hahahaha.

Anywho, picked up my film, went to the skatepark, got to skate a bunch, played 2 games of skate, networked a bit with another graphic designer, filmed and shot some photos, made a few new friends. Biked home, got food, designed this, finished my “hella” design, and now I’m just waiting to take a shower. I was supposed to shoot some photos of my other friend, but that didn’t work out. Fortunately, we rescheduled for this Saturday.

Oh, I also watched a lot of self development videos today. However, I really need to keep watching at least one video a day. I guess the habit that I built was that I am making something everyday and am practicing, but I still need to learn the rules a bit better. I found out that one of the classes that I bought is offering all of the other courses for free so I should probably jump on that.

I need to start working on the Adobe Creative Residency. I have all the resources I need, it’s just that I need to sit down and do that/ actually watch typography videos.

I’m also getting to the point where I’m like, dam, are personal projects even worth it? Is my newly changed website actually going to get me a job? Am I doing what I think I should be doing? To be honest, to answer that last one, I think I am. I think the question is am I doing all I can? That also goes into the question of the glorification of production and then I start to get anxiety and think that I’m not doing it right. It’s interesting, I was watching a video from The Futur with Aaron James Draplin who is supposed to be a celebrity designer. They asked him how he got his work. He said, he doesn’t know. He just knows how he got his work. From what I got from it, it's having a network, showing your work, and partially luck.

Consistency is king. I’ll need to keep sharing my work no matter what I feel inside. There’s a lot of anxiety inside to show my work. I fear criticism, but everything I’ve learned in the last month is the only thing keeping me going. I need to keep making shit because it only lasts for about a day. I’m not worth how I did last time. Some pieces of work mean more to different people.

The question becomes, how can I use my researcher side of me to create content that is valuable and educational to people? I could just create/ show my process in how I design? Do I need to keep sharing my most deepest thoughts. Seth Godin says to just be useful rather than to be authentic.

I think if I just keep this up for a year, we’ll see what happens.

New Years Resolutions

1. Shoot and develop a roll of film a week

2. create 2 zines every single week

3. watch a typoraphy/ skill video every single day

4. Design something. Anything every single day.

5. Do things that I don’t like to do. So a Yes Year.

Today, the first day of January 2019, started off rather strange. I came back from a New Year’s Party last night, went to sleep, and woke up very tired. We weren’t out that late. We came back at around 1:30am/ 2am and I woke up at 8am. But for some odd reason, everything just felt very off. It’s not the best thing especially when it’s the new year and your trying to have resolutions and things like that. However, like I said, my resolution started back in November. Dang, it’s almost been 2 months. I really need to actually start investing. However, I’ve been focused on looking for new gigs right now. I recently saw the sample application for the Adobe Creative Residency. It opens up on January 7th so I’m trying to figure out how to write a proposal and fortunately, I have a resource that I bought that will hopefully help me do so.

I really want this year to be the year that I actually become the person I didn’t think I wanted to become. What I mean by that is that I want to have some type of influence in this world because the fact that it’s 2019 and the fact that 19 years ago it was 2000 has a very shocking feel to me. I could literally wake up tomorrow and be like, dam I’m 40 years old and what have I done.

I don’t want to look back at life and say, I should have done this. I should have gone on dates more, I should have just talked to that person, I should have made more things, I should have…etc.

I’m not entirely sure what 2019 has in store, but for sure this year, I want to be a little bit more in control. But what that means doesn’t mean doing things comfortably, it means doing the things that I don’t like to do because I know that way is the path that will lead me to the most growth. It’s like the opposite of learning how to swim which is a gradual process. Literally, I’m trying to throw myself into the pool and just see what happens. It’s strange because a friend last night was talking to me about astrology and all that crap. So my signs are earth signs which basically means that I take comfort in routine. It’s gonna be hard this year to get myself out of that. However, I think that’s exactly what I want to do if I want to have the most growth. Maybe this year is supposed to be a yes year. Where I just say yes to everything? Not entirely sure if that’s the best idea? But maybe I should just do the things that I don’t want to do. I feel like that’s going to be a lot of nights out in manhattan. A lot of rides on the subway. A lot of acting in a way that I’m not used to doing. When I say that, I think that means being a bit more forward in the relationships that I develop with women that I go on dates with?

My roommate said to me last night as we were ubering back how dating is the best way to learn about yourself. It’s figuring out what you like, what you don’t like, and finding the right balance between people. It’s actually a nice learning experience especially since I went to an all guy school in high school. I guess I’m just a really late bloomer even though apparently a bunch of people in the past have flirted with me, but I’m never cognizant of it since I’m just so focused on myself.

Welp, the design below is just a quick preview of something I made today that I’ll put up tomorrow. VHS inspired and I’m happy with it.

In the past whenever someone would ask me what my resolutions were, I didn’t really have anything to say. However, I did commit to a project where I took a photo of myself every single day from Jan 2014 to Jan 2015. I think the reason why I did that was because I didn’t have pictures of myself because I never asked anyone to take photos of me. I never really feel that comfortable in photos, but lately, I’m feeling a lot more confident in who I am. I think it’s this design blog/ having to post and realizing that failure is inevitable, but should never be the end. Once that happens, it’s end game and I’ll be paralyzed.

2019, I think I’m going to try and just design something every single day. I think there will definitely be some misses because I might go on vacation or might not have internet service, but I just want to make something every single day. I want to produce 2 zines every single week. Post them up on Sunday and Wednesday. I want to shoot more film meaning I want to develop a roll of film a week. I don’t care if it costs me money, I just want to shoot more and keep producing. I don’t really have an end goal and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.

My goal has just been to produce to get out of the phase of not producing. I’m almost at 2 months of doing this. I’ll be at 2 months on the 11th. The longest I ever did this for was Jan 18 to May 22 and then I think some more after that. Progress is never linear.

In the past, I used to write letters to myself. I think I should break with tradition and not do that today, but rather just go straight into this new year and make it the year that I actually accomplish some things such as going on more dates, finding more gigs, shooting more photos, actually learning how to use my film camera, and so much more. For now, a design a day is the goal. Consistency is key.