How To Rediscover Your Creativity- Lauren Baker

Today I spent the day at How The Light Gets In festival. HowTheLightGetsIn Festival is the world's largest philosophy and music festival, hosted by the Institute of Art and Ideas. It aims "to get philosophy out of the academy and into people's lives" by bringing together philosophers, writers, academics, comedians and musicians for a festival of debate, talks, music, workshops, and late night parties. 

Taking part in festivals and events like this is very relevant and helpful towards my design practice, in terms of keeping myself inspired and learning more about certain topics that intrigue me that I don't yet have much knowledge on.

Whilst at my trip to How The Light Gets In Festival one of the talks/workshops that I signed up to was 'How To Rediscover Your Creativity' by Lauren Baker.

Throughout the talk, Lauren gave a little background to herself where she mentions that she only discovered that her true calling in life was to be an artist 8 years ago (in her mid twenties) and that it's never too late to change your career. She also mentioned that everyone has creativity in them, it just needs to be found. Furthermore, she also made us take part in small tasks such as drawing without looking at the page, writing down our creative triggers and our creative fears, which was all really fun.

I thought this talk was helpful to an extent, however I feel that it was more relevant towards non-creatives that are trying to bring out their creative side and possibly change their career to something art based or people that generally want to learn more about being an artist. 

She mentioned that when hitting a creative block, you should look for your creative triggers which could include thinking about things that you used to enjoy in childhood and growing up, I thought this point was helpful and I will consider it in the future. I also found that taking time to think about things I enjoy in general without thinking about design outcomes for it was a lot more calming and successful than starting off with thinking about how I could translate it into design.

Christoph Niemann: How to Overcome the 3 Fears Every Creative Faces

Today I watched a talk in which Christoph Niemann discusses the 3 fears that every creative faces and how to overcome them. The talk was great and really relatable as a designer as I feel that it is important to recognise the fears that we have as creatives, but what we can do to overcome them instead of getting into a hole/creative blocks. Whilst watching the talk, I made notes on points which  I found important and useful towards me as a designer.

Christoph mentions that when he first started out as a designer, he mostly he worked in editorial and his deadlines were very short which he didn’t enjoy, but recently he’s done more self generated project- he thought this would be easier but it wasn’t. 90% of the time he sat at his desk feeling sorry for himself. This lead to him discussing the topic of fears that we face as creatives:

The 3 Fears of being a creative:

• I’m not good enough
• My work is irrelevant and soon I’ll be broke
• Im out of ideas

These are legitimate fears to have as a creative.

He mentions when you look at old work from 2 years ago and think to yourself ‘oh my god how did they let me get away with that’, I can relate to this as sometimes I find myself looking back at something I did this time last year and think the same, but I think this is a good thing as it shows that you’ve grown and improved as a designer since then.

He also mentions that when you look at other peoples work you wonder whether you can be as good as them, but I think this is also good as it gives you something to aspire to, it keeps you motivated to want to get better and better, I don’t think comparison is a bad thing personally- its part of the creative process, as long as you're not trying to be someone else.

The fact that people always judge you by your best work- you feel like you have to keep up with that and repeat the process…this is how you run out of ideas

Another point which was discussed throughout the talk that stuck with me was that if you want to, you can walk away from any job. “Knowing that you’re not forced to do anything is good because it frees you up to do much better work”.

Further notes:

• When you’re creating work, it's good to be nice to yourself but every once in a while you become your harshest critic - you have to do this, as yourself ‘does this work?’ 

• Social media is designed to mess with our insecurities, it's a bit of an ego boost but is it real? Don’t confuse it with real value. 

• Don’t make yourself dependant on your art work

• Don’t be afraid to take creative leaps! Make yourself do things that intimidate you, this is how you don’t run out of ideas. 

• The 20% rule: spend 20% of your time everyday to do something that you are passionate about- doesn’t have to be related to what you’re doing at that current time. everything has an influence on your practice

Examples of Christoph's work that I enjoyed:

Cohorted- Summer Placement Update

Today I received the news that I was successful at the interview for a summer placement working in the Graphic Design team at Cohorted. I am really happy about this as I feel that this will be a great experience and will help my design practice develop as well as looking good on my portfolio.

I also have a huge interest in beauty and skincare which is what the brand Cohorted focus on, particularly the packaging of the beauty boxes, promoting and advertising products and  design for screen elements for their social media. Since I already have an interest in all of this, this placement is really suitable for me in general and as a designer.

It also means that when applying for Graphic Design jobs after graduating, I will have experience of working in a Graphic Design team/studio as this is a requirement for a lot of Graphic Design graduate jobs.

I am extremely excited to start as I have always imagined myself to be in a Graphic design team in the future rather than just freelance. I would enjoy working within a team as it is a lot more fun, upbeat and I feel that I would learn a lot more than if I just worked for myself freelancing. Working in a design team means that I would constantly be inspired and active as it means that ideas can be shared and collaboration plays a huge part in this.

After this email, Anthony rung me and discussed the arrangements for the placement. The placement would start in the second week of June and would be two days a week (Thursday and Friday) from 10am till 6pm.

He also informed me that I will need to fill in some forms before starting the placement- the first form being the placement agreement and the second for staff details.

Summer Placement Interview

Today I had my interview for the Graphic Design placement over summer working for the brand Cohorted, overall I felt that the interview went really well and I felt that what job consists of would be extremely suited towards me as a designer and beneficial towards my design practice. The interviewer (Anthony) was one of the managers from the design team for the brand, I felt that what he had to say was really interesting and I learnt a lot more about what the job would include after speaking to him, he went over what I would be doing and general information about the brand.

What the job would include, what I could be designing and general information about the brand and design team:

• The job would involve branding and advertising for the beauty box sneak peaks that promote across the weeks, design for the email elements that they send out to subscribers. It could also include design for the packaging of the products and beauty boxes.
• The design for screen elements include animation design as well.
• They provide templates for everything which you apply the designs to for the specific products or promotions.
• Specific design may be needed for the different subscribers and certain products so creating different design for all of that according to the audience and purpose
• Brands come to them (as they are the UK's number 1 beauty box providers), so whatever is designed also needs to take into consideration what the brand is and the specific products as well as the Cohorted brand image- the brands that come to them include Fenty, Lancôme, Tom Ford, Urban Decay, Benefit etc, also worked with Penguin Books recently. 
• Regular meetings with the different teams to gain feedback, so the design team could have a meeting with the marketing or management team where they go over everything and give feedback on what needs changing etc so it’s very collaborative and interactive within the different teams, back and forth before getting to the final design.
• The job starts off less deadline based- it’s more learning and designing for what is currently being worked on at the time and working alongside what is being created and advertised

Anthony also mentioned that they sometimes provide the opportunity for people that have done a placement to work for them after graduating if they were good at and suited to the job. He also mentioned to not be someone that fades into the background, ask for feedback and be eager the learn and talk to him and the rest of the team whilst designing- really engage and involve myself in everything as much as I can. 

Furthermore, the placement is unpaid and would be up to 2-3 days a week (around 16 hours) and would last a few months.