My Personal design

This is a essay i had to write for a school assignment, written at 1 in the morning over two nights after several coffees, it revealed some interesting facts about what design means to me.

Design to me has become the key deciding factor to every element of life, from the clothes we wear to the words we speak, the choices we make in our everyday life, no matter how large of small, be it choice of bread or choice of car, it all conveys a message to others about who we are and what we do.

As the child of an actor and an artist, it should come as no surprise that from an early age is was a very creative child, showing less interest in socializing with other children and more in working on artistic projects of my own devise.

Though not aware of it at the time my design career started at an early age, as I designed menus for make believe cafes, invites for birthday parties and intricate pulley systems and trap doors in an attempt to improve efficiency around the house.
Though my designs were not always successful, I always had a very clear image of what I wanted to create

Its wasn’t until after high school, and several years of retail work that started to see past my design skills as more then just a hobby to fill my free time, and rather as a path to a meaningful and respected career, that would allow me to use the passion I had always had, as a way of making a living in life.

It was at this point that my whole perspective of the world started to change, and I began to see that not only had my whole life been leading towards design, but my future lay heavily amongst it too.

My perception of the world around me began to change as every angle, colour and word began to take on new meaning, as I started to read into the hidden language behind each and every design, what it was trying to say to the world, the feeling it was creating, and the effect it had on the people who viewed it.

It was this power to shape human emotion on such a subconscious level that drew me into the world of design, the idea that as the designer we have the power to create a piece of imagery, an object, a sound or even a whole city block, that would effect people on such a large scale, to make them feel a certain way, to shape their perception of a certain product or brand.

As I became more aware of these things I started to look at design on a personal level, the image I portrayed to others and therefore the messages I was communicating, and as I started to get deeper into it, I began to develop myself as a brand, an image that conveyed the message I wanted others to know about me, about my values and about what I stood for.

I approached getting dressed in the morning the same way I would designing a logo, my speech became the body text, my artworks the visuals and the products I used, an advertisement for the ideals I stand for.

As a designer it is my aim to create a piece of imagery that not only fulfills the desired vision a client wishes to convey, but at the same time reflects my own image, and design style, once again communicating the vision and ideals of my own personal brand.

I am driven by the fast pace of our society, one that embraces the styles of the past, while constantly looking for new ones.
It is in this environment that I hope to flourish, to develop a style that is more then just one style, one that evolves with discovery, knowledge and interaction, just as I do in my own life.

Most people would say that my personal style is constantly changing, that I am always updating myself in some sort of way, just to keep things interesting, and though some of these changes may sometimes seem a bit strange to some, it is the passion and confidence behind them which gives them legitimacy.

My willingness to try out new things means that I am always one step ahead of the crowd in terms of thinking, thought development and creative ideas, though with so many thought processes and ideas going on, I can sometimes neglect certain aspects or brush over necessary tasks, in an attempt to reach a finished product sooner.

I feel that while the creative aspects of design have always come quite naturally to me, it is other side of design, involving what most would consider quite tedious practices that still elude me.

Things like market research, testing and proposing of ideas to potential clients are aspects that still do not fully register to me as essential parts of the design process, however I am still aware that in the bigger picture of design, all aspects are just as important as each
other.

I understand that while in a future situation these tasks could be divided amongst a whole group of people, the more knowledgeable I become of the process, the better I will become at controlling and utilizing it to its full potential in order to create a premium finished product.

My personal belief on design is that the world has changed a lot in the past few decades, the pace of the world rapidly increasing everyday, and so the same techniques used several years ago are not as successful with today’s modern audiences.
Attention spans have become shorter, consumers have become smarter and more aware, and the average person has become desensitized to that which would have shocked a previous generation.

It is because of these changes that new forms of advertising have evolved; smarter advertising that catches the viewer’s attention with something quick and profound, then leaves them just as fast, causing them to seek out further information.

It is called viral marketing and can be applied to all sorts of mediums, in most cases being quite cost effective to produce, allowing for greater coverage, quicker turn around times and a larger saturation of the market.

Many larger companies have begun to use it as an alternate form of advertising to their mainstream approach in an attempt to cover all demographics, but it works just as well as a primary advertising tool in itself.

It often uses recognizable iconography from street art, pop culture and common everyday objects to disguise the design as something else, once again not thrusting it in the path of the consumer, whose world is already filled with “in your face advertising” but rather leaving it for them to find and create their own interest.

This sort of advertising is essential when appealing to an educated market such as today’s youth, as it doesn’t force a view upon them, it doesn’t assume ignorance and it creates an entertaining device, that will further spread via word of mouth and other new technologies like the internet ( youtube, facebook, myspace and blogs ) and mobile phones.

All this leads back to the idea of a developed personal brand, a singular image that communicates a message, from the works I create, to how they are produced and finally how they are to be received by the viewer, who ever they may be.

Everything is an element of my own personal design, developed over many years, and continuing to develop over time.
Taking its inspiration from past and present in order to create a familiar brand, whilst throwing in something outrages to keep the people coming back for more.

All that I represent and all that I stand for is proudly displayed for the entire world to see in my own personal brand.