Ruined

In many ways, I feel like school is ruining me. It's a good kind of ruin I suppose which I'm sure is an oxymoron. I feel like everything I look at must be judged by my critical eye now. For instance, a high school friend started her own blog. As I read her first post I couldn't help but notice her busy, distracting color scheme. Also, it didn't help any that her grammar was atrocious. The fact that these have spell check must not have dawned on her yet..

Another example is any store I go into. I find myself looking at the floor to avoid having to see all the package designs. My mind is overstimulated by all the ugly right in your face. I can't go down the aisle that contains laundry/cleaning supplies. All those tide bottles with the swirl makes me disgusted. That swirl design should be swirling down the toilet. What is more painful is that I use tide. So I have no choice but to consistently subject myself to that evil swirl. Granted I could switch brands, but I need a "free of everything but the basic soap" and even then once I find a soap that doesn't make my clothes or skin itchy I stick to it. So the evil swirl prevails...

In the end, all the exposure to designs both good and bad will surely help me as a graphic designer. However, I still have those moments when gouging out my eyeballs seems easiest.. (just kidding)

Art Student?!

Being an art student entails far more effort than people understand. Most kids go off to college and write a million papers and cram for a bunch of written exams. I go to college and have to go out and draw for two hours straight or I have to make a CD case (that includes the front/back cover, inside booklet and CD label) and on top of that there are some written papers and research. Then forget some standard exam. I have a project due that we work on for three weeks straight, to the point where I don't want to look at or think about it but it's worth half or more of my grade so I have to stomach it. In addition to our projects, we sometimes also get to take a test full of artsy vocab words or a bunch of buildings and we have to find their perspective (that one was big fun..) Like most college kids, we also have to work in addition to school. That means for about 90% of my homework there isn't any possibility that I can cram in some study or homework time into a break or lull at work. I can sit at work during a downtime and think and stress about all the things I need to do for school; none of which can happen without a drafting table to draw building scales or a computer with CS4 design software on it. Exceptions of course are drawing thumbnails, those can always happen on a napkin during lunch at work. However, most of our brainstorming happens in class and even if we do have thumbnails due outside of class that's not always helpful. Sure I got my thumbnails done, but now I know what I am going to do for my project and I have to wait so many hours to start. This jacks with my creative process, although that could just be a personal opinion more than a problem every art student has. Not that I am trying to demean other areas of study that people go into. I'm just tired of the stereotype that because we are art students our life is all Bob Ross happy trees and such. Granted there are times in class when I spend more time on FB than InDesign, but it isn't for lack of work rather than a need to stop staring at the Applebee's menu redesign I'm working on right around lunchtime.