Jakob Trollback Journal

Jakob Trollback came from humble beginnings of being a DJ and just designing stuff for fun. He recognized that eventually we all want to make some sort of difference. Thus began his actual career as a motion graphic designer. He compared starting out as a designer as learning to play the guitar. When learning how to play the guitar your inspiration comes from famous songs, and you better yourself by trying to copy these songs. With a designer it is the same way. Imitation isn't necessarily a bad thing, sooner or later one must break free and create for oneself. The main point here is that you need to BE INSPIRED. Inspiration comes from anything, especially iconic designs from the past. Creativity is everywhere and is everything, there is no lack of inspiration for a designer to find. Jakob Trollback also talked about different medias and how sometimes mixing medias is a great way to take the extra step and excel as a designer. Other times creativity and design isn't meant to be spread across different medias or contexts. Jakob Trollback talks and talks and talks, drawing examples from a wide variety of sources including music, current events, history, past designers, the human condition, love, and many other things. Trollback had quite a few good points. The thing that stuck with me the most is how he tells us to be inspired, tell stories, and let your imagination fill in the blanks. Good design is much of the time subtle.

The Incomplete Manifesto For Growth

I was thoroughly inspired by Bruce Mau's Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. I felt it was very insightful and it portrayed the Bruce Mau group as a very thoughtful, wise, and interesting group of designers/human beings. Bruce Mau Design is actually a multidisciplinary design firm that is made up of many graphic designers. This group "specializes in brands and environments," and also seem to do quite a bit of work in typography. The Incomplete Manifesto for Growth is just one of their design projects. My mantra for the day would be "Make Mistakes Faster." This mantra would have been a good thing to read earlier this morning before I seemingly wasted about seven hours slaving over pointless backgrounds and irrelevant design aspects. I feel this mantra is telling me to manage my time better, work faster, don't get caught up on the small stupid things in my designs, and get the mistakes out of the way. In doing these things, I may not waste full days anymore, and might reach the end goal quicker. I think that all designers can learn from Bruce Mau's Incomplete Manifesto for Growth.

Discovering Jessica Hische and Louise Fili

These two designers/ illustrators/ typographers were very inspirational with both their work and what they had to share. I was very interested by the decorative, fanciful, and aesthetic qualities of both of these ladies' design work. I especially was interested in Jessica's lecture. The main thing I took away from watching, reading, and reflecting on these two designers come in the form of the following design/life lessons. Both had a lot to offer, and I can definitely say I came away with some knowledge.

-Don’t give your clients working files if you don’t have to.

-It is good to create your own lettering. Not only for originality, but also because it's cheaper. Most importantly it adds value to the design.

-Lettering is specific for that specific design, whereas type applies to fonts that can be used again, and in different contexts. Creating type takes longer than just the lettering.

-How to draw chalk type: Draw with pencil, smudge it, take it into photoshop, invert colors.

-Like the guy who only draws chocolate, sometimes it is better to get really good at something you already know how to do rather than learn something (programs) that doesn’t really apply to what you want to do.

-Exposure: not worth it. Do free stuff for people that deserve it,  not for companies that don’t.

-Do stuff you love to do. Some clients will be less likable than others, and may ruin your design, gotta do the shitty stuff to get to the good stuff.