Intro

Hello everyone and welcome to my Graphic Design III blog!

First a little bit about myself for those who do not know me. I grew up in New Hampshire and went to college at the University of Rochester and graduated with a BA in biology. Afterwards, I worked in a lab as a lab tech at UIUC and discovered that I did not want to do research as a career. During my time at the lab, I did some schematic illustrations for the researchers and discovered that I enjoyed doing them, so I enrolled in the graphic design program at Parkland and couldn't be happier that I did. For once in my life I have a direction that I want to go in instead of wandering about, and it makes life a lot easier knowing what you want to do. 

My creative process is pretty much what we have learned in class, first researching and talking to the client, incubate, sketch, and start executing a few of the better ideas. Finding inspiration can be hard sometimes, depending on the project. Even though the internet is a quick and easy resource, I find that sometimes the results are pretty much the same style or flavor. I've actually started an inspiration box (which is still the box that my monitor came in) where I just put a variety of things that I find with good designs that I like to refer back to. 

Coming up with a novel idea is probably the hardest thing to do, I always think, what hasn't been designed already? The best thing I can think of that helps with generating new ideas is to experience as many things as possible, whether it's traveling or finding a new hobby. When you start experiencing new things, then you start thinking in new ways. 

I believe that being creative is very important to our culture, because it's how we come up with new ideas, new ways of thinking, and new solutions that helps man kind move forward, whether it's in art or sciences. Creativity in graphic design is essential because the purpose of graphic design is to communicate information in an engaging way so that it's memorable for the person looking at it. Without it, then your message just becomes a blur in today's fast paced society. 

This is a holiday card I designed intended for Parkland in Illustration last semester. I when trying to come up with what to do for it, I distinctly remember thinking that if a snake had the mental capacity to build a snowman (cue Frozen song), wouldn't it build one in its own image? It would obviously make a snow-snake and not a snowman...yeah, sometimes I think about these things too much.