My style: simplistic, yet creative. Why? Well thats kind of a long story. In 2007 I took a graphic arts and photography course for my final two years of high school. I quickly discovered here I had a nack for graphic design. Being a year 11 student I managed to win a competition among all year 11 and year 12 students after only designing for a few weeks. From there my artwork was showcased at the University of the Sunshine Coast. It was on the night of the exhibition I decided I wanted to pursue graphic design once I graduated high school. Yet I didnt want to be a typical arty farty designer. I wanted to create design that wouldnt go out of fashion and I wanted my designs to be timeless. I was never interested in crazy photo shopped pictures made in 100 layers or 3D art of some magical city. Thats not me. My simplistic style where did that evolve from? At the age of 16 I was an Australian and New Zealand champion in the sport of lifesaving. Being that this sport is highly demanding having to training somewhat 30 hours a week and still find the time to study I had to quickly find a way to make ends meet, get my assignments in on time and still have the time to train. Hard ask, but I did it. In my sport you are constantly taught from a young age Do not over train, Take rest when you body is asking for it, but know the difference between lazy and tired - there is a fine line This advice also worked well for me in the classroom too. I wasnt your typical student. I never listened to my teacher I never read my text book I was more interested in facebook and finding decent waves. I hated study. It wasnt until I took a course in Typography that I really discovered I liked beautiful simplistic shapes, strong vibrant colors and design that doesnt have too much detail. As I had limited time compared to other students when working on assignments I had to work out a way that I could be a very good designer but it a shorter amount of time, yet still pass and being a high achiever I wanted nothing less than a HD or a DN. Thats where my motto DO LESS. DO IT BETTER. came from. I spent many hours researching my favorite designers seeing what they had done and creating my own spin/twist on their work and in no time I had created a style of my own. Because at the end of the day there are millions of fantastic designers out there so why not look to what they have done as your inspiration, as you know it works! Dont recreate the wheel every TIME! Steven Jobs before his passing stated A good designer will create, but a great designer will copy (went something along those lines) Theres only so much that can be done out there. But theres millions of possibilities in transforming design into your own. Im not saying I copy, because I dont everything I do is 100% my own work and ideas. What Im saying is my designs are like baking a cake. You take the flour, the sugar and the cocoa powder, ingredients which are all from someone else. you mix it up, but instead of using all the ingredients in the recipe you add your own. So essentially you are taking the core and adding the extras to create something brillant. Just like an olympic athlete, there would be hundreds of sprinters out there who train just as hard as Usain Bolt, but its the extra 1%s (extra push ups, stretching a little more, take a session off to fully recover -where his opponent wont) he does each day to make himself that much bettter. Anyway before long I was completing my assignments 1-2 days or even the morning of deadlines and still achieving VERY very good marks. Risky yes. But Im telling you now my strategy of how I learnt to design has never failed any of my clients and I now have 3-5 years industry experience under my belt and to this date I have never EVER missed a deadline. Find something that works for you. Become excellent at it and before you know it, you too will find your self saying DO LESS. DO IT BETTER!
Posted on: Wed, 05 Feb 2014 07:54:09 +0000