Workflow
What parts of your practice make you feel most engaged and creative?
I feel excited when I've printed my final project off and can see all my ideas come together in the final outcome. When I start to find my flow is when I'm starting one by one testing my thoughts and sketches out and checking whether they look the way I imagined. My momentum is less when some ideas don't work out and I have some sort of mind block about what to do next.
When do you ‘actually’ feel like you’re designing?
When I’m designing, I feel it most during the process of trying different layouts and finally finding the version I believe works best. After doing my research and sketching out ideas, bringing them to life on my laptop and not just having these thoughts in my head or on paper, is the moment when it feels like I’m actually designing. Switching from doing the research to finally being able to start constructing my ideas is when i switch from ‘doing tasks’ to ‘making decisions.’
What pain points do you identify in your own workflow?
When I'm researching is when I tend to lose focus and get stuck as it is difficult for me to keep the momentum going to keep finding more sources and information as it can get repetitive. I think its because I mainly like actually designing and learning by creating and experimenting, I'm just eager to get stuff started even though I know the research will help me achieve this and help me create stronger ideas.
What tasks or steps feel like obstacles to designing?
Firstly, my energy dips when researching becomes overwhelming. Also, when I have too many options and don't know which direction I should take. Another moment that slows me down is when I'm working on the same few ideas but they start to feel not quite right or even boring.
What tools, techniques, or strategies did you find in your research?
Some techniques I've used in the past is sketching some ideas down to try get a sense of what it might look like. This has helped but there is sometimes where even if I sketch out my ideas, it still might not look the way I want on a screen.
Making collages or mood boards have helped me in the past, it shows me a variety of sources or inspiration I could use. As well as also helping remind myself of the design ideas I've had which helps me not forget so i can experiment with them.
One link Graham introduced us to, to help organise our work better was Hazel. This app would help me organise my files better so its easier for me to find my work as that's what i struggle with sometimes.
How could these be integrated into your practice?
By sketching, it helps me draw all the ideas in my head quickly so i don't lose them. This applies to the mood boards as well, its a way of getting everything I want onto one page, meaning I don't need to try and find them all separately. This reduces my feelings of being overwhelmed and helps me have a clearer direction of where to start.
Article -How do emerging tools (including AI) challenge or change what it means to be a designer, and how might your workflow need to adapt?
Designers should keep hold of the creative ideas, if needing help with presentation or layout, ai could help. However, taking away creative ideas wont keep it unique and original. If something didn't make sense to you, you could use ai to explain it for you in a way you will understand.
In the article, Martin McAllister was mentioned and his 'dream careers job bot'.
Martins work shows how much ai has changed over the years as his is more of a dizzy look, however, now it has evolved a lot more and is more realistic.
"Access to disciplines previously requiring specialist training has been ripped open"- this implies that when creative tools become too easy to access, then it could potentially devalue expertise. This could make it harder for emerging professionals to be recognised in an already competitive industry due to being able to generate work quickly.
The article shows controversial opinions on ai, telling us that we wont all ever agree on whether it is bad or good for the design industry. It can bring pros like how it could expand our creative potential rather than flattening it. Jordon Bolton suggests this in his comic- https://www.itsnicethat.com/features/the-great-sameness-light-and-shade-digital-220925