Brand yourself?

A fair amount of time has passed since I last posted. It’s fair to say a lot has changed but depending on how you look at it, some would say actually very little has. I’ve always talked about subjects in relation to experiences though recently I’ve been considering the bigger picture in terms of the person having these experiences.

I’m still at a point of uncertainty in terms of my career path but I’m slowly building more of an image of who I am – and what my brand is. I recently attended a branding workshop aimed at businesses, but the lessons and discussion led my thoughts to more how we brand ourselves as individuals.  I don’t mean the brand of a company or product an individual may have but the actual image and message we give as a person.  Do you call your professional image, your brand? I’m not referring to a logo or a way of writing your name in swirl arty writing but more the message you give to clients or future employees.  Do you have a consistent image? If you were to ask friends or colleagues to describe you in three words, would the same three words keep appearing? It’s something I feel people should consider when working in a professional capacity, though I imagine the bigger picture of personal brand is probably over looked.

Your personal brand is important –  it may change slightly over time, but if you can establish a personal brand which ever job role you may find yourself in, it can only make you a stronger individual. It creates a clear image and people can understand what you are about and how you will succeed in what you do. My brand? I’m still working on that, but it is coming together and I’m slowly beginning to understand the type of professional I am and where I plan on heading next.

Find, Filter and Focus: What is motivation?

Why you do things, what drives you to do things and what makes you want to do things repeatedly are all very much the same.  As a designer, you can have an instant idea that is then thought through and carried out and proven successful. You can also have instant outcomes that are more commonly known as accidental successes that work more on the fact they are a fluke rather than having any intellect behind them. Though behind all of these ideas, accidental or not there is the motivation to find or come across them in the first place.

Motivation. A subject that until the last few months I thought I knew the definition of. The definition is considered as “a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way” though I feel desire to do something should also come into the equation. We can and all have been motivated at some point – but the challenge really comes into play when this motivation has to last a lengthy period of time. This lengthy period of time will ultimately vary between people and some may consider weeks of time to be lengthy whereas other may consider months or years – it is something that is put into perspective when you consider the subject in which you need to be motivated. When you are considering the rest of your life – your job or you career, you are considering a particularly long period of time. Can you be motivated to design for this long period of time?  What pushes you to get up every day and design? To be creative, to be thinking of exciting things and pushing new boundaries every day can be exhausting unless you really have factors driving your passion.

I believe motivation has two fields that work in conjunction to it; the factors that work with it and the factors that work against it.  The factors that work with motivation can come in both physical and emotional forms – whether it be those around you that encourage you or the reward of the end result.  The far more difficult factors are those than can hinder your passion. Again, I believe they come in both physical and emotional forms – when the people around you have a negative approach to what you are doing, are derogatory towards your work and are unsupportive in your passion it can prove a struggle to find your motivation. Although it is usually said what knocks you down makes you stronger, when it is a constant factor around you it can be draining. When the reward seems unreachable it can be down heartening and de-motivating.

Whether you are in a creative field or not you will accept the notion that for every success there are multiple knock backs. At these times it is your motivation that keeps you going. It really is a test on your passion and self discipline when your motivation and reasons and desires are negatively challenged. How are you meant to cope with a difficult situation or set back when what drives you to keep going is also tested?

This is what starts to set designers apart – having the drive and determination to keep going even when the elements that inspire you to design are tested is a skill that sets people apart. The passion you have to design is there for a reason – some will say it is instilled in you and therefore you can be the only one to really let go of it.

Chip shops, law firms and passionate ambition

I’ve previously written about what I feel it will take for me to succeed, but it wasn’t until recently, when some said something to me that made me consider the even bigger picture. I’ve chosen to go down the avenue of internships and work experience to enhance my career prospects, though this isn’t to say someone who chooses who improve their credentials through further education or post graduate study won’t succeed too. It was during this conversation that I had the realisation that it was very naive of me to not be thinking about the even bigger picture.

Gaining experience or furthering credentials is the part that will help you achieve your dreams on paper. Although more than willing, I’ve never considered what it takes beyond that. If I didn’t consider the even bigger picture, it would be pretty shallow of me to assume experience is the only way to success. Reflecting on people I consider successful, there are definitely attributes they have in common beyond the paper credentials.  It’s the drive and ambition. I don’t think you can be truely successful unless you’ve got the passion.

The people I refer to are guaranteed to be up every morning when the hour hand is in the lower right quartile of the clock and not going to bed until its back in the upper right quartile.  They all found themselves doing mundane, ‘working in a chip shop’ jobs to support themselves, while going through unpaid internships or Masters/PhD studies. But all the while, it is the passion that keeps them going, the reward of the success. Although the success never happens all at once, the drip feed of passing an exam or receiving a glowing reference gives the little boosts of encouragement to keep going, to maintain the passion.

As recent graduates, we sometimes loose sight of the bigger picture.  Whether you are 23 and finding yourself hiding from freshers during fresher’s week as you begin your Masters, or fed up of making coffee and photocopying case notes in a law firm – think beyond the next 6 weeks, or even the next 6 months. Look at the bigger picture, and consider what you are doing now as a small part of achieving the dream. As long you've got a goal, you can't go wrong.

Ambiance and the Chair

For those that know me, will know I’ve got a secret love of chairs. (roll your eyes and laugh all you like. I can take it. ) During my first two years of my degree it was all about the chairs. I was designing them, writing about them and reading about them. The science behind a structure that held a weight and then the design that has been applied to make the practicalities exciting is something rather fascinating. Towards the end of my degree my work took less of a seated approach and more towards other design, but the consideration of the body was still there.

Given my recent thoughts of spatial design, I’ve began to realise how important seating can be when in context. Previously I have only really considered seating as an isolated object of design but when considering the space in which it stands opens up an entire can of new worms. The arrangement of chairs can create an intimate or inviting space, the type of chair can indicate the formality of a situation or in some cases the informality.

When it comes to the events, I’ve never really stopped to consider the fact the guests can spend the majority of their evening in a chair. In terms of time, it can be a place where someone would spend a considerable amount of their time, yet some times the seating is not necessarily considered beyond colour.

The layout of seating in an event is important too. I found myself organising an event in a long rectangular room, which posed difficulty when locating the dance floor where ultimately speeches would take place and a band was to peform. As it transpired the only layout that was truly realistic was having 300 people either side and the stage in the centre. As a result other factors then had to be introduced to recreate the involvement and intimate feeling that would have come naturally in a room with more centralised the seating.

From this I can definitely conclude, that (I hope) there will be a lot more ‘chair chat’ in my future than I initally realised – in a way the seating could make or break the ambiance of an event. The science of seating is a complete subject on its own - when your next at an event, consider how the seating is playing a part in your experience.

Ps: For those that read this far – Thanks. One day, when I have more than the space of a blog post I’ll try and explain my love of seating.

Playing with Space

In 6 months time I need to hit the real world running – And I need to know what I want to do and why I want to do it. I’m always going to be creative, that is a given. I came out of uni wanting to do creative events, which is still the path that I am aiming for. Though it is only recently that I have really found more clarity and reasoning behind this choice. If someone was going to ask me why I wanted to do creative events, the answer of I like events and I like being creative would just not cut it.  I’ve recently realised I enjoy designing not just events but with space. Designing within a space. I see it almost like a 3D brief. Here is a space, this what we want the outcome to achieve, this is a space we want people to enjoy, make it happen. PostEvents certainly lend itself to a job that involves space manipulation, designing to a brief, to enhance visual and human interaction. This is the challenge I want. I know I could be happy designing for any space, whether it be a ballroom, a sports hall, or a living room.

The idea of re-creating the space into a clients visions, or to create a certain atmosphere within a space is positively exciting. There are so many ways it can be done! I like a challenge. The constant challenge of creating something new and something that makes people go wow.

The dream would have to be to own my own company that offers an expertise in spatial design. From temporary event design to permanent architectural design to the space people have around them at home and work. Although I’m now getting ahead of myself, my big dreams most definitely fuel the first leg of the race.

The £11,000 Pen. No mistake on the zeros.

We have all been window shopping or flicked through magazines and gawped at the price tag of an item and added it to the never granted wish list. I’m sure we’ve all heard a man say ‘those shoes are how much? I’ll make you a pair for that’ too. Although as a designer, I appreciate the value and possibly have a greater understanding of the cost of design pieces than the average person, I couldn’t believe it when I found myself reading a mini catalogue that arrived in my subscription of a well known interior design magazine advertising a pen at the mere cost of £11,000. Eleven Thousand British Pounds. I couldn’t believe it. I’d consider paying 11,000 Japanese Yen for pen but £11,000!? It got me thinking as to what factors are considered when pricing an object.  Obviously materials, time taken, machinery used, packaging, advertising, transport and shipping are included but unless this pen was made from the rarest of materials, and is shipped first class on a private jet I have to question where the value comes from.

Can value come in a less physical form? Can the concepts or meaning of a piece give it value? I think the answer is yes.  I mean people pay millions for paintings don’t they?  Though the majority of the cost comes from the reputation when it comes to famous artists, which was not the case for the pen in question.  The sentimental value could add to it – but that comes from the buyer. Something that it determined after the price is decided.

I will never understand the thought process behind buying £11,000 pen. I can understand people putting personal value on an item but I’d love to understand how some can justify the £11,000 pen in the first place.

Designer Fuel

There are many people out there who design. Some design successfully and some who design, well, not so successfully.  Some designers are recognised for the hard work behind their designs and some are not. But behind all the designers there has to be a fuel that keeps them going.

For someone who isn’t a designer, who has never been through the motions of starting from scratch and producing something successful, or endured the numerous hurdles that present themselves in the design process may find it difficult to understand what can fuel this enjoyable yet at times tedious process. Why, if it is so difficult do we keep wanting to do it again, or carry on, or make something better? What fuels this? I imagine this is unique for everyone, though the one constant element between all of us is the ideas behind the process. We all have ideas. I believe this is a fundamental part of the design process.   I believe this may raise the eyebrows and roll the eyes of the cynics among us, followed by the thoughts of ‘of course there cannot be a design process without the ideas’, and yes I realise that. I’m more referring to what makes one idea stand out more than others.

In an individual mind, what fuels one idea over the other? What makes you carry one idea forward and leaving the others behind? Is it the visions of a beautifully athestic outcome or possibly that the idea is a solution to one of life’s unsolved problems? I’d like to think that people design simply for the sheer enjoyment but anyone who makes this claim will have an underlying reason for the simple fact that design requires passion.  Designing for the sake of designing does not involve passion and therefore would be unsuccessful and unrewarding. And somewhat pointless. (Thinking practically of course)  For the designers out there, what fuels your creativity? What elements are behind the success of your fuel?