I had recently met with my client to go over the promotional video, and I was glad to hear that they were happy with the direction that I was headed. After giving me a fair share of revisions, I left the meeting happy and ready to get back into the video. My other client on the other hand I was struggling to get to. We were working on the next seminar and the client had a very specific want for the outcome of the deliverables. I’ll confess that this made me slightly disgruntled. I enjoy working with my clients and I’m certainly not trying to raise a fuss, but after the client sent me the revisions for the flyer/poster I didn’t have that same joy to revise as I did for the promotional video with my other clients. So thankfully, I turned to my design team members for help on how to approach the edits that my client requested. They suggested that I take reference photos of what the client wanted and then work off that. After I did that and brought it into illustrator I started feeling better about the look of the flyer. After I sent the draft to my client, they enjoyed the new direction that I had taken the flyer as well. So I definitely owe my design team members a drink for their input.

I had taken a minor break from my promotional video clients to work on that flyer that needed to be out before the workshop the very next week. Thankfully that case was closed last week. I had also gotten another tight deadline gig to make some minor edits for a poster that one of my design team peers created. Just a simple update of information. When I had gotten back to my AfterEffects project file, I had realized how much of a mess I made with the project. There were layers EVERYWHERE. And being the neat freak I was I thought I had to sort it out somehow. I want to also add that I hadn’t had any real experience with Aftereffects. I had watched a Skillshare tutorial and that was great. I really learned a lot of stuff from that. But I really learned a lot of tips and tricks from my Motion Graphics class. Considering that Professor Larkins was also a professional in the field he showed us how to do different techniques that I hadn’t learned from my Skillshare tutorial. So guess what I did? I started the project over! At first, I thought I was the craziest kid in the world, but I realized that it wasn’t as bad. It was like restarting an illustration. Your hands and your mind remember what you did so I didn’t spend as much time pedaling back to where I was. I even had the chance to change the color palate to something that I think looks better than my original pitch. I’m almost complete with the first draft and I’m preparing to show it to the clients next week for feedback. Hopefully they like it as much as I do.

If you’ve been gobbling up these journal entries like a very bad book, then you might recall that I was starting to lose some steam. I think the steam really went out when I got a creative assignment in my class. I was burnt toast. I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do for that assignment. And I secretly, didn’t want to do anything. Thankfully it was the weekend. And even though I worked on Saturday, I spent Sunday getting some rest. I don’t think my creative mojo is back yet but hopefully I won’t crash harder than I have already. We are only nearly halfway through the semester.

The work at the office was in full steam now. I was a chugging train stopping from station to station and dropping off deliverables like there was no tomorrow. Slightly dramatic but that was what it felt like during that week. I had just met with a client I worked with last semester and needed to create three types of deliverable: flyers, posters, and an electronic PDF. One of the workshops was coming up too soon so unfortunately, I only created the flyers for that workshop. The client and I went through a good chain of emails going over tweaks and edits to improve the flyer to what they wanted. I had never really traded feedback as much before. Which was refreshing in a way; It felt like class. However, eventually I started to feel the coal in my train start fuming in the engine. I don’t recall having a proper day off that week.

On the bright side though, I had also met with the client for the promotional video. I had shown them two potential ideas I had for the video and they chose the one I secretly wanted them to pick. So I’m very excited about working on that. Especially considering I’m currently setting my goals for a career in video production and motion graphics. I really felt like I was in my element.