I’ve always viewed really talented artists and the like, to be some of the most quirky, yet interesting individuals. Watching the Hillman Curtis artist series totally supports that very thought. Despite my Internet feed being slow as molasses and once the videos finally loaded, I really enjoyed learning about these designers; Who they were, what inspires them, and how they perfected their craft, all had me gluedto the screen.
One of my favorite videos was ‘Stephan Sagmeister 08’ because it was loaded with so many inspirational quotes. Some of my favorites are:
“Having guts always works out for me.”
“Worrying solves nothing.”
“It is very important to embrace failure and to do a lot of stuff — as much stuff as possible — with as little fear as possible. It’s much, much better to wind up with a lot of crap having tried it than to overthink in the beginning and not do it.”
These quotes are not just about being a design artist; these quotes can be applied to life in general. The graphic designer, Milton Glaser stated that art creates commonalities. Passing the gift of art prevents people from killing one another. Artists provide that gift. Art is an expression of life.
What I’ve learned from these artists is that art is also, an emotion. As a graphic designer you are expressing an emotion through your work and/or creating emotion through your audience. With that said, knowing myself (inside and out), my surroundings and tools allows me to get a better understanding and meaning behind my own work. And most importantly, its okay to make mistakes.
Mistakes are the best learning tools. In Mark Romanek’s video he stated that through his music videos, he creates fake moments that you want people to believe in. In putting the video together he creates every detail when it comes to location, actors, costumes, and props. He gives himself plenty to work with, because when it comes to editing a lot of it won’t get used. He states, “I plan my shots purposefully, very little.”
On the other hand, in knowing your work and your client, it is necessary to know every detail of your work from the beginning to the end. In the Daniel Libeskind video, as an architect it was imperative that he laid out every detail because his work relied on so many other stages.
In the episode of Paula Scher, one comment that she made that stood out to me was about her 1 second ‘aaah haaa’ moment. The moments relates to how you can create great work unexpectedly. Paula states, “One moment you figure it out and it’s the best thing you’ve ever did. It’s really exciting… As long as you feel that, you can do it.” I understood what she meant with that statement. When creating some of my projects and designs, it takes a lot of preparing and creating minor details. Then when you finally put all the pieces together and see the final result and it’s more than you could have imagined, makes all the time spent worth while. I hope my work continues to drive me, to get me to that feeling every time.