January 28 & 30

Activities

The beginning of the concept development class on Monday, January 28, we had to do a group activity which had to sit in order based on our first name from letter A to Z. That was similar to our group activity that we had done before that we had to sit in order of our birthday. I like the group activities because we all helping each other to solve the problem. After solving that problem, we checked to see that we were right or wrong. Fortunately, we were in order. After that, we were separated to four groups to show and talk about our homework. The homework was to find ten different images that could change the meaning and mood of a word or phrase. Then we chose the best of each group. The word or phrases and the images were showed and read to others. That was a very good and interesting exercise to know people’s ideas and creativities. We also made new thoughts for each of words. This sharing thoughts and ideas and communicating with each other help us to improve our skills better.  After that we showed two TED show where a designer and writer talked about their fear based on their career and their creative process. I found some similar experiences and habits between me and them. I notice that people who chose their career in any field have some kind of fear towards future. I had the similar fear and experiences when I wanted to choose graphic design as my major. I heard many negative and sad comments about finding a job and making good money. However, by listen to Elizabeth Gilbert's who is a successful writer, I realized that I can be like her and I better not to listen and pay attention to those negative thoughts.

On Wednesday, January 30, class was separated to two groups and we had to share our or others experience of fear and reaction to our education and career choices and our creative process. We started sharing our experiences and creative process to each other and that was really lovely to know that other people had the same or similar fear and worriers that I had, but we all got the solution and look forward to the future. Most of us experienced the negative and hopeless thoughts and comments from people around us even from our parents. Furthermore, we had some similarities and differences in our creative process. For example, some of us liked to listen to the music while doing a project and some liked to be in relaxing place and not be distracted by anything. This was a really good exercise because we found out that we are not alone, and the fear that we had for job position appearance in other people too. Also, we got to know each other personality, thoughts, and habits better. After that group exercise we watched two TED shows by John Maeda and Tim Brown. I liked the John Maeda better. I think because of the way that he talked and communicates. He kept my attention all the time. I really liked the creativity that he made and design pattern with Cheetos and French fries. I learned that I can make and design something with really simple things.

 

Fear and the Creative Process

Have you experienced your own or other people's fear-based reactions to your creative education and career choices?

How have you successfully overcome these reactions?

What is your concept of your creative process?

How do you approach creating, making?

 

Fear and the Creative Process

            Yes, I have experienced my own fear in my education and career life. Since I was a child, I have loved to draw and paint specially the cartoon characters. After graduated from the high school, I decided to major animation or graphic design in the college. However, people around me gave the fear that I couldn’t find a job, and there would be no money in those carriers. They suggested me to study nursing or accounting, but I didn’t like those majors. On the other hand, I was worried about my future; I didn’t want to be unemployed after all of those hard times learning animation or graphic design. After passing those hard days, finally, I decided to go and talk to those people who are designers or studying graphic design. I also talked to my concealers, teachers and family members. Then I decided to study a carrier that I love because I can improve myself, and I can be a successful person in that carrier than others. My family also helped me to make this decision. I prefer to make less money, but have the carrier that I can have fun with it.

            When I designing, drawing or painting I something like to be in a relax and peaceful place where no one can interrupt or distract me. I like to take as much time that I need to make my projects look perfect. I sometimes listen to classic music while I drawing or painting, but most of the time I like that my mind be focused on my projects. My creative process works like this. First, I read the instructions of my projects few times to understand what they need. Then, I started thinking and making many different ideas and sketching them on the piece of paper. I usually think about my projects at night while I go to bed because I don’t get distract by anything. After making some ideas, I show them to my friend who are also studying graphic design and my family to let them look at them and tell me what they thing. When I choose my final idea, I put it on the computer and started to develop it. Not every time my final design looks like my sketches that I made at first because sometimes the position, color and concept of my elements don’t work when I put them together and I have to make a big changes to make a successful design. Also, sometimes I get totally different ideas while playing with my design elements on the computer. Therefore, my sketches are just starting point.

Visualization

Visualization was our topic of concept Development class on Wednesday, January 23, 2013. Before we get in to that subject, our professor Jimmy Moss started to talk about the design process. It was very helpful because I learned that as a designer I should know and pay attention to my clients’ needs and the more important to my audience interests. Furthermore, I have to know what my objectives are and what my out comes will be. The most important thing in design is to know who your audiences are because the produce will be sells to the audience. Sometimes happened that our clients what us to do or use something that might not be attractive to the audiences. Therefore, it is our responsibility to let our clients know that their ideas won’t work to the audience. Designers’ goal is to get their audience attention and attract them. Designers should not think about what they like or want.

After that, we did a practice of the Visualization, so the professor Jimmy told a story to the class and asked us to draw the end of the story. When all of us finished our drawing we went around looking at other’s drawings. That was very interesting that each person has its own imagination and thoughts. We couldn’t find drawings that are similar to each other. That practice tells that even though the subject and theme was same story, the drawings were totally different from each other. For example, some pictures were funny, scary, normal, or imaginary. That explained that ideas, opinions, imagination and creation of each person are different from others.

At the end of the class, we were separated to the four groups and we asked to read our word and phrases that we had written at the weekend for our magazine picture. Then, we had to choose the best one from each group, and after that, all class got together and the professor Moss read the four best choses. While the professor was reading them, our moods changed differently. That was interesting that the same picture with different words and phrases could change the mood and felling of the audiences.

Wednesday, January17, 2013

Imaginer

“Imaginer” was the subject of the concept development class on Wednesday, January17, 2013. Every person explained the “imaginer” word differently. First, when our teacher Jimmy Moss wrote that word on the backboard, I was thinking about Disney and I said “be creative”. I think that Disney’s workers should be very creative and imaginative. I always look forward to be one of them. “Imaginative” in design field is one of the important skills that each designer should have to be able to create new things.

After talking about imaginer we watched TED show where a designer; Stefan, was talking about how he crated new things and solved a problem by taking a year time off. I think that is a good idea to give ourselves free time to think and create new things. Some designers have creativity and imagination, but they are too busy with other things like their regular life, so they cannot use their imagination and creativity and develop their ideas. Therefore, giving ourselves free time is the best solution to this problem. We should focus on design and looking a solution to the problem and not think and worry about other things.

The last thing that we had done was to make a phrase for two magazine photos that we had brought in class. We had to use words that could change the meaning, mood and emotion of the pictures. We came up with many different phrases which some was funny and some was serious. Although not all the word was perfect for those pictures and they didn’t relate to the subject, I was very surprised that we came up with so many phrases for those pictures. At first, I thought that we would find just few words, but that practice helped me to understand that there were many words that can be related to those pictures. I came up that idea that designers should think more and more even though they find a solution; they have to think to find the other ones because the first think that come to their mind is not the perfect one. They have to think more and find other ideas and as they make ideas they will see that their solutions get better and better.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Group work

My concept development class; on Monday, January 14, 2013, started with a team work activity.  We did three team works that day to practice our participation and make a solution for problems that our teacher; jimmy gave them to us to solve. Frist, we were asked to seat in order based on our birthdays date from January to the December. We had to be careful with the days of each month; days had to be in order too. We solved that problem very fast. First, we told our birthday’s mouth to each other. Then, if we had students that were born in the same mouth, we arranged them based on their days. After finishing that teamwork, we were asked to tell ours birthday in order to make sure that we do not have any errors.

 Second, we were asked to arrange all students’ comic pictures that we had been asked to do at home as homework from best to worse. That problem was really hard to solve because one person advised a solution and we started to do but it did not work. Then we worked on other student suggestion, but it didn’t work again and so on. We had to solve the problem in 20 minutes which made us so nerves. Finally we arranged all the pictures, but I don’t think so it was a fair judgment because we had a few minutes left that we finally got a solution. I think that as a teamwork we did very well because we all participated, gave suggestions, and listen to each other. Our work was like a designer’s job; they always talk to each other and explained their problems. They should know how listen and help each other in many different situations. On the other hand, our judgment was usually based on our personal loves. For example, if we liked that picture we pushed it forward and if not we pushed it down. The judgment should be based on many other logical facts rather than love and like. We had to look very closely and take more times for each picture and found out if that person had all designs’ elements, and did he or she used them very well or not. We also should pay attention to the texts that some pictures had and see if those texts or pictures made any sense or not.

The last activity was “making a story”. We were divided to four groups and each group had to make a story and use some objects that they had in that stories. Each group made a very interesting story with some simple objects. In that activity, all students of each group should be creative and make a story that interested others. That activity showed that not only the teamwork was important, but also creativity.

 

 

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Visual Literacy

            The subject of the Wednesday, January 9, 2013 of my concept development class was “visual Literacy”, which means describes what we see instead of making thoughts or prediction about it. We started the class by looking at pictures and describing them like a reporter who is on the phone. After describing the pictures just by saying what we saw, our teacher; jimmy, explained that each of these pictures contains many words. One picture can have no text, but saying thousands of thousand words. This practice explained that a design of a logo or advertising should have lot meaning and the designer should be able to explain the meninges to his or her clients.

            The next thing that we did at class was try to draw some pictures which told stories about us inside four frames. Those practices was like a comic book where there is few or no word in there, but each frame of the comic book means something and by putting all frames together we come up with a story. Furthermore, the designer’s job is similar to the comic book even it is harder because he or she has to make perfect logos and advertisement that contain all the information and stories of the companies. A logo that contains lot information like a perfect photo is an attractive and ideal logo.

Monday, January 7, 2013

First day of the Class

On Monday, January 7, 2013, was my first class meeting of the concept development class; art 220, at Cal State LA. This class meeting was totally different from my other classes that I have had. We started the class by playing a game. Each student had to stand and introduce him or herself and stated three things about him or herself; one of those three had to be a lie and the other students had to think and say which one was the lie based on their logic or guess. This game was a good practice for me to develop and explore some of my skills like thought, logic and risk.

One of the outcomes of this game was that I understand that not always logic is right, and sometimes, I have to rely on my thought and presumption. Also, I found out that it is not a right thing to judge a person just based on their looks, clothes and behavior. For example, sometimes people make wrong thoughts about others just by looking at them, but later, when they get friend and communicate with each other, they find out things that are totally opposite of what they have thought about that person.

The other positive outcome of that game was to trust our self and take a risk. For example, some people’s lie was very hard to find, so we had to take the risk and choose one of them. As a human, in our life we sometimes get in to the situations that we have to take the risk and make a choice. In these situations we have to listen to our inside and hearts. In my life, it has happened that I have been in the situation that I thought that I couldn’t handle it based on my logic, but inside myself somebody says that I can do it. Therefore, I have to trust myself and take the risk.

My first day of the class could be ridicules for some people or useful for others. For me, this game was as useful as a lesson of a book. It challenged my logic, believes and risk, and help me to know where and how to use my skills. The logic is not always right and we have to sometimes listen to our inside’s voice and take the risk.