I spoke to my brother yesterday [MykelI&D], he was looking for some help in finding brushes and patterns I’d used for some of my work. He said he’d seen some of the posters in my portfolio and wanted to lengthen his own design abilities into the realm of Photoshop.
I’m a creative bird, at heart, and am always looking for answers outside the box. I’ve found that’s what VA Design is all about. To create something new, stark, unique, original, ground breaking, etc etc. When I jumped into VA Design I was immediately lead into ‘the new black’ I suppose you could call it. Vector flourishes jumping out everywhere, gradient colours combined with vintage patterns below splodgy, dripping splatters. Vines, flowers, leaves, curling little threads of colour with calligraphic ends.
He told me he’d seen how popular this type of design is. And it is. It was. It’s been booming for the entire year I’ve been in VA Design so far. But I can see it chipping away.
I can’t explain it; I’ve always had an innate eye for what will be the next big thing. Design a jacket, a pair of pants, and four months later I would see it sitting in the stores. Listening to a particular artist, or a song, and following through to the CD to listen to one tune over and over and over and over and over. And then when the radio decides to play it over and over and over and over [approximately ever 30 minutes, though my own repetition had beat it by far], I already wish to hack at it with all my pens and pencils and kick my radio across the room.
I didn’t see the designs of vintage patterns, vectors, and flourishes. It isn’t possible with how new I was to the design world at the time. I’m still incredibly new, but I’m getting that feeling again. A change in the winds, a taste on my tongue. The old designs are leaving a funny copper taste at the back of my throat while the newer designs that you can see creeping into the mould taste sweet and draw my eye.
It reminds me of Tim Buckley, and his son the Great Jeff. Of Simon and Garfunkle. And most definitely Tom Waits. Bordering on classical punk perhaps, a sort of orchestrated stylized edge. It’s like someone’s taken all the previously useless brushes and coffee stains and watermarks and old, thin, wrinkled toilet paper and combined them. Sketched portraits, applying illustrated images in a jarred aspect that makes to stop and look.
Unlike its predecessor where the collage of clean vector cartoon images was thrown together you didn’t know where to look first, the images are empty. A void of space inside, and outside, but a very clear reflection of what/who it represents. Its animation would reminisce the viewer. A nostalgic memory with flickering frames, showing the image’s fragility.
Perhaps this isn’t the new black; but I can’t help feeling myself peel back the layer of antique wall paper patterns to a new, dustier appearance. I’ll be interested to see where the next corner of design takes us, at the very least.
It was times like yesterday I was grateful to have my brother so close, though we barely speak. I’d spent the entire week spinning out over what I should/should not be doing in the process of creating a business card.
Print is so new to me that I’m doing my best to get sucked into the vortex of bleeds, edges, paper, file types. I’ve only got to bleeds, so far. Pretty pathetic, but for me the concept of print is huge. Give me a web page any day, I’ll whip up some [head][body][Happy happy joy joy][/body][/head][/clarity].
Print? The Spinning Wheel of Death immediately emerges in my mind, and it stops there.
So in all my panic, thinking I would have to uproot myself from my beloved Photoshop and start attempting to use some sort of techniques in Illy and InDesign. Because business cards were only made in Illustrator or InDesign. And I had to do everything the designer way. I had to do things right.
And then I bought this book. And this book inspired me immensely with so many pretty colourful designs that were creative, unique, and otherwise all around special. They weren’t, though, all done in Illustrator. How do people get these images? I would do all this in Photoshop…
I am so adamant in my direct plough into my career that when I try so hard to see outside the box sometimes I do my best to see in it. But my brother assured me there is no reason why I couldn’t use Photoshop. It makes sense. For me it makes sense. So from the calming words of a fellow designer and big brother I finally slowed down and stopped freaking out that I was doing everything wrong. And in the end if I do end up doing everything wrong at least I did it myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy wayyyyyyyyyyy.
I wonder how many people get bogged down in ‘this is the way it has to be done’. Even though graphic design is all about understanding the curve of our own creativity and plotting it out. 70% [guess] of us all go to school for design which leads me to believe we all learn the same thing. What program to use what. Why we do it. What’s important.
Then there are those like myself who find our own way in the dark. And I think it’s important because we break the rules and we can start some groundbreaking stuff. It’s why I’m so grateful I’ve paved the path that I have up until this point. And will continue to. But this is not saying that those who attended school can’t. My theory is that simply building learning is structured and very valuable but when do people actually break out of it? When do they look down and realise they’re looking at their own feet?
I digress. I’m trying to make a point and I think I’m only making it worse for myself.
I do, still, desire so much to learn from someone though. It was speaking with my brother that it struck me like a very quick, unexpected punch how much I want to become a shadow for someone. A designer, specifically in print, so that I can simply watch them. Watch what they do. There must be opportunities to meet more designers out there but where? My communities are mostly based online and although it’s great I feel connected in the same instance I feel so disconnected. A lone designer traveller in the middle of the desert with a blackberry in her hand.
It’s all up to me in the end. I’m well aware of that. Elton John recently stated he wanted the internet killed [I believe due to his decrease in sales]. Kill the internet?? Are you serious?
And then it struck me how much of my survival is on the internet. It’s a frightening awareness. Makes me want to go out more, meet more designers. But, if you don’t attend school and you know one person who designs who is busy anyway, where do you reach out?
