#timedesigned

[vrgatoreflection]

Time Designed - 10/12 Update

This was a very unusual project. By the time it started we had been given a week to catch up, and it had been all good and fun - I was in fact able to catch up quite a lot with the other pending projects - and now had another project to tackle. I got excited while watching the launch presentation because the concept seemed very interesting and I liked the references Jaygo showed us. I like seeing internet culture in the briefs because it’s something I feel close with.

But once I learned about I what we were actually supposed to do - the video with the letters - I suddenly wasn’t as interested anymore. That’s because the presentation had given me a lot of inspiration to create something out of my own interpretation of concept of Time Designed. I wanted to make a more personal outcome; it seems I’ve been lacking one of those throughout this semester and I miss having briefs with a little more room for interpretation.

But when it came the time to actually produce my outcomes, I conformed quickly. I really wanted to finish this project as soon as possible once I realised, I could finish it fast and not let it drag through another week or more. Although the software was very confusing, I found the whole premise easy enough to execute. I ended up choosing the letters H and O, because when I first thought of this combination, I thought it would be pretty hard to combine, but after seeing some examples I realised it was actually very interesting thinking about how such different letterforms could interact.

I looked into some fonts in which the letterforms would fit nicely into each other, and realised the san serif ones would probably work best. At first, I had thought about making something minimalistic, because that’s how I usually work with type, but considering the black background, I decided to slap into some colour to make the videos pop. I should have put more thought into the designs that I chose, because in the end they were very easy and quick to make, and although this isn’t necessarily bad, that’s never how I like to handle my assignments.

However, finishing this project quickly on the spot was a very smart move. Maybe the outcome isn’t as good as it could be, but spending less time on it allowed me to focus on other tasks that had just as much importance. Thinking of that, decided that if I get any spare time at all before the hand-in date, which is in 8 days, I will go back to take a closer look into this project.

[vrgatoreflection]

24/11

Today I finally managed to organize myself in the way I've been meaning to for almost a month now. The semester started off really confusing to me; I was beginning my bachelor's degree in a zoom class, and that was just no good. Returning to school, even a few days a week was really helpful in terms of motivation, but I must admit that social contact after 8 months of isolation was just as distracting as it was good for my mental health.

These two months that went by after class started were hazy and weird in a lot of ways. I was very confused as to how I should be organizing myself, because there were things I learned in Foundation that I just couldn't apply to this new project structure, such as the way I used to use my project book. It was very effective for week-based projects, but for ongoing ones it simply doesn’t work, because one project does not end before the next one starts.

I admit I delayed (a lot) actually reaching out for help. I do have a bit of a perfect student syndrome after getting two Distinctions, so I thought I could figure everything out on my own, regardless of how confused and lost I was really feeling. But in the end, I only performed well in my other courses because I was constantly asking for help and tips and whatnot, so I reached out to Roger from Academic Support. It felt weird talking to him because I wasn't exactly sure of what I was supposed to say other than '' I feel completely lost'', but he gave some nice insight about making little project books out of loose sheets and getting on with reflection.

That freaked me out completely because I was one month and a half into the course and had completely forgotten about reflection!! I hadn’t written a single word, and it's not that I didn't know I had to do it, the tutors just never mentioned anything about it so I kind of just allowed myself to neglect it for a long, long time. Even after realising this I'm only now, 20 days later, actually sitting down to write a decent entry that hopefully will accommodate everything I left unsaid for two months.

Even after my talk with Roger I still couldn't bring myself to get organized, because the haziness had transformed into anxiety, so much that in the last day of the Luxury Goods week I had a meltdown in the toilet in the middle of class. But I never did give up. I spent the whole week after that having only started organizing loose sheets to become my project books and doing a little planning, but I realise now I did my best, considering my mental health wasn't in its prime at the time.

My last resort after I had figured things out mentally was talking to someone I had a lot more intimacy than my new tutors or even Roger, Carlos. He had helped me a great deal in Foundation, especially in Part 3 when I had a big meltdown, so I reached out and we had a chat. To be honest, there wasn't much he could say that would come as a big revelation, because I had a very clear notion of just what I had to do, but he gave me great suggestions. I told him how great Foundation methods of research and reflection had worked for me, and he said I could still basically work as I was used to, just in different platforms other than padlet.

I was very aware of this already but hearing him saying it made me feel strangely reassured. I still wasn't calm and was very fixated in my anxiety, but it seemed now that I had known what to do all along (which is true, at least in part). So today I stayed home and took advantage of the one to one tutorials, meaning I had a lot more time than I usually do on Tuesdays or any other day. I had planned to attend a one to one with Jaygo about the software for this project (Time Design) because I had some trouble combining video and audio at the workshop yesterday, but my internet wasn't working so I focused on catching up.

It started off slow. I tried printing some posters from Type and Language to trace their grids but my printer was being stubborn so that delayed me until after lunch when it finally decided to print the sheets. I was procrastinating this grid exercise because I thought it would be a bore, but I actually really enjoyed analysing the posters and trying to think like the designer to kind of "discover “the grid within the poster. After that I felt compelled to continue.

I initially planned on doing some more practical work on the projects and leave research for later on once I had advanced more on the outcomes, but my iPad was charging so I ruled out projects 3 and 5. Projects 2, 4 and 7 I need to do in school. My laptop doesn't support the software, and I will also need the print studio. Projects 1 and 6 were the only ones I could technically work on today, but I was feeling more introspective so I just went for research instead.

I first organized all the references I had collected alone for each project and put them on Miro, and only then I organized all references from the briefs and selected the ones that would actually make it to a more thorough research. I do this by typing each artist into google and taking a look at their work. If I think it would be of relevance to my project (and the criteria changes for every one) for any reason, then I go into more depth. I am really proud of myself for tackling the tasks that felt most daunting: research and (especially) reflection. Once I was tired of research, I thought about calling it a day. But I was still in a workflow that was very difficult to get in and decided not to waste such potential, then I gathered all my courage and started writing this. I'm very proud of how everything turned out today.