Self-Analysis Project
Below I list my influences and goals as a designer, as well as my strengths and weaknesses. I hope that this can help you understand more about my work and why I do what I do!
Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
— Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle
My Influences
My Faith
By far my biggest influence is my faith. I was raised in a Christian home and I've gone to different church events my entire life. My faith is the reason that I am still alive today. It is the reason that I breathe one more breath and the reason I keep pushing forward. My art is greatly influenced by my faith. I love to write songs and poems that point to God and what He's done for me and what He can do for others. I strive to create things that glorify Him in some way because He tells me to.
1 Corinthians 10:31 -
"So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."
Even in my schoolwork and my projects that don't have to do with my faith, I strive to be kind and show the love that I have received to others. By all means I don't try and shove what I believe down other people's throats, but I do strive to have good character in all that I do.
Arts Promote
Another influence of mine is an Instagram account called Arts Promote. This Instagram account is really inspiring to me because they promote and put a spotlight on many different kinds of creativity. They show things like painting canvases, painting walls, digital art, physical art like sculpting and carving, and even makeup art. The wide variety of creativity inspires me because it reminds me that there are so many ways to think outside the box and be creative. There are so many ways to try to create something new and interesting. Art and creativity comes in so many ways and this account is a great example of that.
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Want to check out Arts Promote? Here's a link to their Instagram!
Sketch Art
If a style of art could inspire me, it would be the sketch style and scribble style. I love looking at sketch style art and I love creating it. The sketch style shows that every line does not have to be perfect for a piece to be good. I feel like when we are creating, whether that be digitally or physically, we can be overcome by the need to be perfect. In reality, we don't have to be perfect for something to be good. Sure we should strive as designers for our work to be good, but it does not have to live up to the standard of perfection we have in our heads because oftentimes, that standard is unattainable. This is why I love and am inspired by the more sketchy, rustic style of artwork and design. It's not perfect, but that's what makes it beautiful.
"tick, tick... BOOM!"
A movie that I am very inspired by in my work as a designer is "tick, tick... BOOM!" which is a movie based on the life of Jonathan Larson. The movie portrays Larson's hard work and motivation to write a musical for Broadway that people would love. He strives and strives and ends up failing, but he learned that it's the hard work you put in that matters. That's the thing that inspires me. It shows me that I can work as hard as I want, but if I don't enjoy the process, it means nothing. Also, the thematic elements of the movie and the cuts between scenes is genius and I strive to be that creative in my video editing.
"Just One"
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There's a quote from a movie that has greatly influenced the way I create and the way I think about what I do. It's a quote from a movie called "I Still Believe". Basically, a woman named Melissa Camp was dying and she said that if even just one person was changed because of her story, it was all worth it. This quotes inspires me to create what I believe in. To create things that might inspire somebody else, and to use my story and the things that I've been through to reach the heart of somebody else is my goal. If I can inspire, strengthen, assist, or even challenge somebody through something that I create, it was worth it.
Here's the link to the part of the scene where her husband talks about the quote:
Although some of these influences might not seem like they have anything to do with digital design, they all impact who I am as a person, which directly affects my work in digital design.
My Goals
Although I'm not totally sure what area of the design industry I would like to be in, I think that I could see myself as some sort of graphic designer, animator, or someone working in motion graphics. I think it would be super cool especially to work as an animator because it combines my love for drawing with my love for creativity and making something that you can be proud to show others.
In the future and even as I continue school, I would like to be able to sell some of my designs and be able to take commissions for different design techniques. However, currently I am working towards making better advertisements for my church.
Stengths + Weaknesses
My strengths as a designer are that I am an extremely hard worker, I have a creative mind that loves to think outside the box, and I love cool color combinations. I put my best into every single project I do, and you can always expect something that took time and effort to make. I have always been more of a creative thinker and I love to come up with new ideas and things to try. A good color combo can knock someone's socks off. I love playing around with colors to see what is visually pleasing.
My weaknesses as a designer are that I am an extreme perfectionist, I procrastinate, and I am known to get creative block often. Although my perfectionism helps me produce great work, it's a tough thing to sustain and sometimes I get too focused on making everything perfect. Procrastination is one of my biggest weaknesses, no doubt. It always bites me in the butt. Every designer and artist gets creative block. It's normal. My problem is that when I get it, I have to take time to find the right environment for my brain to flourish again.
I feel like my portfolio sort of matches what I want to do in my career because it shows my physical artistic side with my drawings and paintings as well as my love for video editing.
I think that I might need to bulk up the graphic design elements in my portfolio because I don't have a ton of them.
I will work to enhance my portfolio by creating more awesome things that require different elements of design rather than just sticking only to my style.
If I were to work on a personal passion, I think that it would be a poem book. I've always loved writing poems and I think it would be so cool to publish a book full of meaningful beautiful poems.
Old Projects
I really enjoyed going back through some of my old projects to find some for this project. All of the projects below are ones that I am very proud of and ones that I am very pleased by the outcome. Enjoy!
Character Animation
In taking an animation class, we were tasked with creating a character and these were the original sketches and concept ideas that I came up with before working on the full animation.
Final Character Animation
Here was the final product of my character animation, and although it's pretty goofy and rough, I think it turned out pretty well considering it was my very first attempt at hand animation. I would definitely do things differently if I tried again and make it higher quality, but I think that it's still cool as is.
The Big Clue
After completing my original character animation, I wanted to try again and I knew that I needed to create a promotional video for a personal event. I decided to try and animate it, and I think that it came out pretty well! I liked trying to get everything look the way I wanted it even if it's pretty simple.
Logo Project
When I took Photoshop I was tasked with making a logo to attach to all of my future projects. This was the logo I created, and I am proud of it because it is simple and sleek, yet still shows some personality.
Podcast Cover
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I was tasked with making a podcast cover based off of the logo that I created. I'm proud of how it turned out because it's sleek and clean while also adding in elements of the original logo.
Realism Drawing
This was my first ever attempt at realistic drawing techniques and it took me around 8 hours to do. I'm really really proud of the outcome and it was the drawing that started my interest with realism drawing.
Power Stance
I originally started painting this just for fun and I wasn't trying to make it super good, but as I got started I realized that I wanted to try and make it really intricate. I am super proud of the result because I don't think that I would have thought that I was capable of painting something similar to this.
Music Video
This was one of the first video projects I worked on, and I think it came out pretty well. The video was edited in Premiere Pro and the audio was edited in Audition.
Here's the link to a video that summarizes all of this in under 5 minutes! Enjoy!
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