Wednesday

Sometimes, I Just Don't Get It.

I need this because right now, I feel so unenthused it's crippling.

We had a lovely woman (I forget her name) from a big agency for media related employment (I have forgotten it's name also) come in to give a lecture and unknowingly to me, review our portfolios. I didn't have one. I didn't mind too much because I'm not particularly proud of ninety-percent of the work that I've done or made, and the things that I do have a show-off proclamation for are nothing to do with anything.

I made it clear straight away that I don't want to work for big companies that she starrily-eyed talked about (circa Orange, HSBC and alike). Being the last person she had to talk to, without a portfolio, and with coffee and friends waiting for her afterwards, I'm positive that she wanted to wrap up our conversation on my opening sentence. I didn't mind this. In fact I would have ushered her on as my confusion and self-debate isn't something that anyone, let alone a travelling lecturer, can solve other than myself.

For quite a while before that, in the light of my recent work efforts being very minimal (brutally honest and quite possibly negatively so, but I need to be true here), I've been trying to figure out what it is that I want from all of this and why.

I know that foremost I want to be happy, and for me personally, happiness comes from producing work that I can be proud of. Making a logo based around concepts of semiotics that I quite possibly don't even fully comprehend (but my future degree will enevitably allow the suits to anchor such bullshit into 'fact') seems completely void of achievement. To gain vast sums of money for handing over the rights to a single megabyte file of possibly one-hundred nodes seems so unfulfilling it's actually quite pathetic. The fact is that it's all so opinion-based yet because we're 'trained' in it, it gives companies more leverage to shove money at it. Realistically, everything is promotion and if a company, say the 2012 olympics, wants to spend a huge amount of money on a logo, even if the result is good or bad it will enevitably get people talking about the size of the olympics penis. Isn't that what they want? i.e.
"That logo is shit and they spent so much on it" or "I think it stands out and is a good investment". Both of these statements elevate the olympics. The former says the logo isn't good enough for the olympics, and the second says that the large sum is justified because it's the olympics. Either way, it's a lot of money for a fucking picture.

I'm lost because I don't know why I feel so against it. Is this generation consumerism talking and the prospect of intangibility giving my current somethings less worth because it is all so abstract? For example, my one bonified passion within graphic design: typography. I love it and I don't need to explore why I love it, because it's just there and seems like it always has been. Even though I feel at my current standpoint that I cannot create the wonders that I so avidly get excited about (my this is why I like it so much? i.e. because I can't do it?) I still know I love the geometrics of it, the mathmatical precision, the geeky-cult status of the typography world and the intelligence. But if I were to be asked if realistically, one sans-serif typeface to another would really make that much difference in the eyes of the everyday consumer, would I argue its cause? I think it's quite possible that I wouldn't.

And so it is here that I stay split. Do I work a job for a media-based company whos content I don't care about (let's say I work for a newspaper magazine supplement) but practices hold my fascination enough for the wage to seem justifiable and then practice my own wares in my 'own time'. Or, do I completely disregard the concept of dividing my time up into 'wage-time' and 'my-time' and have a job that fulfills me in both interest and application with a most-likely suffocation on money? i.e. to make what I want and sell them on my own grounds?

I've had a smile-inspiring dream to have my own 'shop' even if isn't a physical building as such. To create something bizarre like printed pillowcases one week then release a typeface the next and a story-book a few months after seems incredible to me. To have such variance in what I create must make everyone swoon with enjoyment? But I also realise this is a dream, because it isn't written with bills, taxes and sometimes it's written without even paying customers. It just isn't realistic. I know how I work also, and I cannot syphon my interest in a project. If I get excited or creative I have to do it until I burn out else I will end up (like where I am now) resenting finishing things because they're just holding me back from making another idea that's floated into my head.

To elaborate what Matt just said to me, graphic design can be a snobbish elitist high-end competitive world, or a world where design gets churned out on a non-thinking template based status on principles of either fashion or simple functionality (sorry if that's not quite what you meant Matt). He also said that maybe there is a need to find an inbetween where we can push boundaries but also have a little security. I don't know if I care for security. Give me a mortgage and a perspective where my bank account doesn't get filled by a student loan and I'm sure that will change, but right now I just want to figure out what I need to be happy and how to get there, or at least lay the path to lead the way.

Maybe I just need to swear lots. Maybe I just need to say that graphic design is all bullshit and apologise later when I need a wage. Maybe I just need to stop thinking and get on with things.

I do know that either way, I'm lost and can't find my anchor point within this storm. Even more worringly, I'm slowly resigning to the prospect of peace that comes with drowning.