We started on topics such as rejection and judging one another. Two things that are arguably not good, they are part of life and something human beings are going to keep doing for a while.

In relation to things that are part of life, we talked about criticism. As the professor was talking about criticism; something came into to my mind. One thing that I’m sure we all noticed from observing other people and ourselves and this could be said about anything. Why is it that when we are being criticized for having an idea, different political ideology, design, artwork. We feel as though we are we are being attacked. Not only that, but our body reacts to it. I’ve noticed that when I’m being criticized for making a minor mistake on a design, part of my body winces at hearing a comment. It’s really interesting how our body can react in a negative and/or positive way when hearing certain words or sentences. On the other hand, for graphic designers, while it’s important to care about your work and have passion when creating something, we should never get emotionally attached to our work. While it’s easier said than done, it’s something we should strive to do because our emotions can get in way of thinking practically, and accept when someone points out correctly that our design needs to be improved.
Another topic we talked about is visibility. Visibility in terms of making ourselves more noticeable and what we can do to make it happen. While we didn’t go into detail, applying for design competitions is one of those methods. This is something that I’ve heard many times and it’s something I, unfortunately, have not been doing. Which is unfortunate because as someone who is goal orientated, I’m sure that I could even impress myself in terms of pushing myself to make something great.
We also discussed we should make our work less boring. Which made me wonder how could I make my work less boring? Looking throughout my work, I’ve noticed that I’ve been doing things with a minimalist style, and topic brought back a memory of a discussion I had with a former professor about my work and she told me; “You are not a dramatic graphic designer” and that stuck with me because the way I took that comment is that my work does not get a reaction out of people, which I think is not good. Which made me do some introspection and I asked myself many questions such as: “Am I executing minimalism correctly?” Should I go the other direction and try to put more maximalist design principles in my work?
Lastly, before the class was going to end we saw a Ted talk video on a graphic artist Marian Bantjes and she talks about being a commercial designer and being her own designer. One of the things she mentions is when doing she’s doing either she takes her time and her work comes out great when completed which made me entertain the idea that would our work be better if we spent more time on it? I ask thing because of my experience and I’m sure other graphic designers feel the same way as well but while we do want to impress the client with our work, we also want to get the task done because we have a deadline.
In the video, she mentions how she designs think that could inspire people and/or change the world. I think this a noble venture because throughout history graphic design has assisted with bringing economic, political, and social issues into the consciousness of people so that way the early steps of change can be taken into effect.