its raining outside of my window. its 1:43 pm here, and its dark in my room, the shades are pulled down and i'm going off of the sparse light from my LCD monitor. last night was a pretty good work night, almost a return to form. i wouldn't say it was my first true night of serious long hours, but more like a hint that i'm getting back into the kind of lifestyle that my body and soul crave.
two weeks ago i made up a chart detailing how i would want to spend every hour of my week (y'know, shit like: day job, eat, sleep, chores, fun, design work, etc). i showed it to The Pants and he said, you only have 45 hours listed for work (he was kind of shocked and surprised by it, maybe he thought i was gonna start taking care of myself more) and then i pointed out to him that the 45 hours was work on my design business and client website, with an additional 21 hours counting for my day job, bringing us to a grand total of 66 hours/week.
i'd work more if i could get around eating and sleeping. i will definitely work more when the passion and adrenalin kick in. right now i'm planning and setting up strategies and operational systems so that when i do seriously hit the work, it will be with the relentless force of a hurricane. i am calling my new business Creative Juggernaut because that is how i have always described myself. i am just an artist who decided a very long time ago that life was for living and that i could have anything i want from the world if i just earn it.
thats why i'm not good at taking hand-outs. sometimes, i just don't want anything if i didn't have to bleed for it. when i see the sign i painted for my scooter store client last year i feel this incredible sense of pride that i haven't felt for a single sign i've made since working part-time at Instant Sign Center. the scooter store sign was something that came from me. i created it. i painted a 32 square foot sign in three different colors of flames with a brush that was no bigger than my thumb. it took me fifity hours over the course of three weeks.
i went to a Graphic Artists Guild portfolio review/meet & greet a few weeks ago. only one persons portfolio stood up to mine and he is twice my age, and i will be outdoing him artistically, possibly by the end of the year. i looked at the work of a couple of people who had just graduated from college with design degrees (i'm a self-taught drop-out) and holy shit was their work poor. they were friendly and meant well, but there is no furnace burning in their guts. they have fun "playing with digital illustration." so many of the people who looked at my portfolio were visibly taken back and overwhelmingly complementary. this shouldn't be the case. i am only 23 and most of the work in it is over 2 years old.
i wake up every day because i know i will get to draw comics soon. how can anyone fuck with that mindset? how many people have lost girlfriends because they knew deep down that i would never feel for them what i feel for my work? how many other designers have turned down sex in favor of working longer? i am not playing, i am not becoming a designer because mommy and daddy thought it would be my best bet to make a career as an artist. i am a graphic designer because i have a burning desire to communicate and because i have the talent and drive to turn ideas into charged forms of expression. i have a very strong intuition and a delicate sensitivity to truly understand what is being communicated, all of my work is guided by purpose and function. there is no time for mixing "pretty" colors.
my competition are figuring out how to make the most out of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, they are not learning an art, they are learning how to operate computer programs. Meanwhile i am here (completely comfortable in these programs) worshipping at the altar of the out-of-print typographers who's talent and skill obliterate my greatest aspirations.
i'd imagine being a serious graphic designer is comparable to being a serious musician, someone who loves to play, someone who will play all day, just to put the hands and soul through the motions and keep them in touch. someone who may never make it big, but will probably tour for thirty years or so, playing bars and vfw halls, completely satisfied with the applause from a couple of folks who really get it. i'd imagine this kind of musician gets so tired of seeing mtv bands and watching bar band fucks and talentless hacks who just picked up a guitar hoping they could one day get their dick sucked by some fangirl groupie type. (well, its kinda like that, except, as far as i know, no matter how good you get as a designer, there is never any congratulatory head involved).
i wish i knew more designers that were like me. i only really know one other one whose work i really admire and whose attitude (which is more important) i respect. if you are a graphic designer in 2004 you should be walking around in a constant state of pissed-off. if you are not, if you are just having fun with it, playing with shapes and creating some masturbatory piece of self-expression that doesn't properly communicate the client's need to its target audience, then you are doing your job wrong and i will be outdoing you shortly.
not that anyone will notice.
***
due to popular demand...
alright...
due to a polite inquiry from alkaholic23 i uploaded some of the signage work i did for the scooter store last summer that i was bitching about in the above entry.
goto my pics, under the katt's portfolio section.
i hope ya dig it.
two weeks ago i made up a chart detailing how i would want to spend every hour of my week (y'know, shit like: day job, eat, sleep, chores, fun, design work, etc). i showed it to The Pants and he said, you only have 45 hours listed for work (he was kind of shocked and surprised by it, maybe he thought i was gonna start taking care of myself more) and then i pointed out to him that the 45 hours was work on my design business and client website, with an additional 21 hours counting for my day job, bringing us to a grand total of 66 hours/week.
i'd work more if i could get around eating and sleeping. i will definitely work more when the passion and adrenalin kick in. right now i'm planning and setting up strategies and operational systems so that when i do seriously hit the work, it will be with the relentless force of a hurricane. i am calling my new business Creative Juggernaut because that is how i have always described myself. i am just an artist who decided a very long time ago that life was for living and that i could have anything i want from the world if i just earn it.
thats why i'm not good at taking hand-outs. sometimes, i just don't want anything if i didn't have to bleed for it. when i see the sign i painted for my scooter store client last year i feel this incredible sense of pride that i haven't felt for a single sign i've made since working part-time at Instant Sign Center. the scooter store sign was something that came from me. i created it. i painted a 32 square foot sign in three different colors of flames with a brush that was no bigger than my thumb. it took me fifity hours over the course of three weeks.
i went to a Graphic Artists Guild portfolio review/meet & greet a few weeks ago. only one persons portfolio stood up to mine and he is twice my age, and i will be outdoing him artistically, possibly by the end of the year. i looked at the work of a couple of people who had just graduated from college with design degrees (i'm a self-taught drop-out) and holy shit was their work poor. they were friendly and meant well, but there is no furnace burning in their guts. they have fun "playing with digital illustration." so many of the people who looked at my portfolio were visibly taken back and overwhelmingly complementary. this shouldn't be the case. i am only 23 and most of the work in it is over 2 years old.
i wake up every day because i know i will get to draw comics soon. how can anyone fuck with that mindset? how many people have lost girlfriends because they knew deep down that i would never feel for them what i feel for my work? how many other designers have turned down sex in favor of working longer? i am not playing, i am not becoming a designer because mommy and daddy thought it would be my best bet to make a career as an artist. i am a graphic designer because i have a burning desire to communicate and because i have the talent and drive to turn ideas into charged forms of expression. i have a very strong intuition and a delicate sensitivity to truly understand what is being communicated, all of my work is guided by purpose and function. there is no time for mixing "pretty" colors.
my competition are figuring out how to make the most out of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, they are not learning an art, they are learning how to operate computer programs. Meanwhile i am here (completely comfortable in these programs) worshipping at the altar of the out-of-print typographers who's talent and skill obliterate my greatest aspirations.
i'd imagine being a serious graphic designer is comparable to being a serious musician, someone who loves to play, someone who will play all day, just to put the hands and soul through the motions and keep them in touch. someone who may never make it big, but will probably tour for thirty years or so, playing bars and vfw halls, completely satisfied with the applause from a couple of folks who really get it. i'd imagine this kind of musician gets so tired of seeing mtv bands and watching bar band fucks and talentless hacks who just picked up a guitar hoping they could one day get their dick sucked by some fangirl groupie type. (well, its kinda like that, except, as far as i know, no matter how good you get as a designer, there is never any congratulatory head involved).
i wish i knew more designers that were like me. i only really know one other one whose work i really admire and whose attitude (which is more important) i respect. if you are a graphic designer in 2004 you should be walking around in a constant state of pissed-off. if you are not, if you are just having fun with it, playing with shapes and creating some masturbatory piece of self-expression that doesn't properly communicate the client's need to its target audience, then you are doing your job wrong and i will be outdoing you shortly.
not that anyone will notice.
***
due to popular demand...
alright...
due to a polite inquiry from alkaholic23 i uploaded some of the signage work i did for the scooter store last summer that i was bitching about in the above entry.
goto my pics, under the katt's portfolio section.
i hope ya dig it.
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Blargh.