The Beginning

The future does scare me at times, I mean I have the guts and courage to climb the mountain but it's whether I'll actually be given that opportunity to that. That's what worries me the opportunity. I'm trying to change because I'm the type of person that with out me knowing I hate taking small steps, I just like doing that big leap. I don't know if it's because I like sports were if your about to run a track all your concentrating on is that finishing line. However sometimes in life you have to also put your focus on taking the steps to get to the finishing line. Taking the small steps. It was coursework that actually forced me to change my ways. Before when something goes wrong last minute, and you don't believe you have enough time to change it, I would sit there and stress about it. In some cases I could be stressing about it in the beginning, when your told the brief and you feel that the project is to big to handle. I had to teach myself how...

I'm not going to lie I don't really know what my style is yet. And to be honest I don't think it's a bad thing because I'm kind of like a baby been born into the Graphic Design world; if I had been designing for years and didn't know what my sense of style is then I'll be worried. But I'm still learning and experimenting, so to say what my style is already I feel would be restricting because I wouldn't explore new ideas. I want to keep my mind open you know and not be like a person that thinks they know everything to which they are less likely to learn. One thing I will say is ... I remember one of my tutors talking about in terms of advertising sometimes doing the cliché thing makes it easier for the viewers to feel your message. At that moment I know I could't do that. I always, no matter what the brief or assignment is, is create something new and unique. Yes as we all do look at existing ideas and use it as inspiration but I make my desi...

After listening To Pimp A Butterfly, I called my dad and told him to listen to it. Most people would think that's weird but to me he needs to hear it. I am so thankful for one thing my dad did that a lot of African British families do not do, is not just educate me about my culture but make me feel proud to be an African. The way the media, for instance charity adverts focus on the poor side of Africa gives you a bad prospective and like most African British young people only clam the British side or even try to be Caribbean. But he showed me movies like Roots, documentaries and books about what Africa is really about. One thing as young as I can remember that my dad used to do is play Reggae and Rap music in the car all the time. A about the age of 9 I know most of the lyrics to Bob Marley's album Confrontation and Survival. I asked one day "Daddy why do you play so much reggae, we're not Jamaican" and he said it doesn't matter he loves the way Reggae artis...

Kendrick Lamar, is all I can say.  To Pimp A Butterfly is his latest album and for my generation he is one of the best rappers. I repeat my generation not the 90's not in comparison to Tupac, Nas, Biggie, Dre Dre and so on.  His album left me happy and in tears; it was filled with so much emotion. Most rappers rap about drugs, girls and sex. But Kendrick is a conscious rapper like the legends above, he raps about American system not built in benefit to people of colour this can been seen in his song The Black The Berry, where he talks about the Travyon Martin case. And he said in his interview that to young people he the closet to a Reverend, because they he feels they don't believe in anything these days; which makes it easier for people to take you of track. He doesn't necessarily go to church which to be honest doesn't prove your Christian, it's more about how you treat and respect others. Anyway he wants to use his God given grift to educate his lis...

Well after the first semester people's true colours started to come through. This all started in January, the fake ' I'm nice and smily' to everyone dropped, like people acting a bit anti social around you. Your friend and another girl are having issues making it awkward for all of you to be in the same room etc etc. And you know the funny thing I liked it this way, because you can see people's true colours. You know who you can trust and which people just like chatting bs. You see some people are stupid and still like to be part of the gossiping lifestyle but to me once your heading to 20 and your in Uni; I rather focus on on enjoying myself, going out and having a good time. No matter how that person looks taking time out of your day to just talk about people number 1 makes you negative, number 2 negativity attract no one and to be honest you just attract people that will eventually start talking about you. But yeah staying in a only girls school for 7 years (I ...

In the beginning I loved my timetable even though it says I'm in till 4, you can actually leave at 12 if your tutor is done speaking to your class. Also I had 2 lectures a week and one hour each. But later on  when the coursework starts to build up, I started to hate it. This is because after January I had longer modules, so the majority of time your tutor doesn't set you anything but just to get on with your work; so we had to come in at 9:30 just to get registered. When you have gone out the day before and come back at 4am, it's not funny. Also I have to come into uni everyday, during this time I only had an 1 hour lecture on Friday. I thought why am I waking up so early to be registered then go back home to sleep. Even the people that commute from Birmingham I felt sorry for. Then again it was done so that if we don't sign the University register our tutor has proof that we're in. But yeah weirdly enough I actually want more lectures, I want to have a reason to...

Coursework sometimes can be a funny thing, I love it especially compared to exams, because I love analysing and I believe it allows you to be more creative. However when you've been doing the wrong thing for at least 2 weeks, it's a pain. With my Integrated Design module it says only use HTML, and using a Mac which uses TextEdit to write HTML there was a problem. TextEdit uses HTML 5 which is CSS, something I thought we were not allowed to use. So I was using HTML 4 codes which the majority do not work on TextEdit. So I stayed till 3 am in the morning during Easter holiday doing this. Then it came to me one day where I said to myself this is not working I can't use this ! I told my one of my team members who said yeah you can use CSS. So I spent the last 3 days, till my group met up, changing the codes for everything. The good thing is that CSS makes is easier and even though I wasted a lot of time at least I know now.  Looking back on this incident, I realis...

So next year I plan to move out of my student accommodation and live in a house with 4 girls, 2 that I'm good friends with now and the other 2 I'm getting to know. OMG, in the beginning it wasn't easy because I was getting told by old cousins that by January you need to start getting a house sorted but I was like but how do I know who to live with. I've only known these people for 4 months, I have had that experience of people changing and showing their true colours. But I had know choose or I end up leaving with people I don't know, which is ok because your getting to know new people. But I'm already having the issue of one flatmate being lazy and dirty that he enjoys looking at his oil stain on the stove. How can I remind you to clean your mess are not grown. Anyway, so living with knew people wasn't and option for me. So I looked at the people I talked to. Sometimes yeah you can be friends with someone but to live with them, nah that will be a problem...

Typograpghy was the second module, I thought ooooo, this is going to be interesting something completely out of my comfort zone. When I heard we will have to produce a font I was like "ooo yes " by hand "ahhh ok" based on real life sketch "ermm why and how please", ahhaa my mode changed. Not in a bad ahhh I'm going to fail I don't want to do this but an oh this is going to be challenging kind of way.      We where told different criteria which the sketch of the person in front of us had to be of, for instance only using straight line, geometric shapes, make the person look strong and even with your eyes closed. Obviously that came out a mess, I'm not going to lie I opened my eyes a few times aha. I choose the use of geometric shapes because I actually loved how I used shapes to created a person, because it's not natural but understandable. So we had to kind of set our self a brief saying what we can and can't do. So mind was...

My first module was Visual Communication. When I got told that every week we will be given a brief which must completed within a week, I was scared. Let me not say I take a long time to design or thing of a concept, but more on the fact that I too much time trying to think of the concept which goes me little time to actually produce it. So this module helped me to be confident in the ideas have. You know have that rough idea first and while your produce it you will explore new ways to improve it rather than trying to think of the perfect finished idea all at once. This did come through my feedback because my tutor told me that I didn't display a range of ideas, to which I asked you would like to see the ones that don't look good. He said yes what ever comes to your mind draw it because that's how you have a range of material to choose from rather than restricting yourself. Let's go back for a second This is were looking at the past comes into play, because I did...

I realised one thing I don't do a lot of reflecting, in terms of my progress and seeing how feedback aswell experiences has effected my work. I've learnt that it's good to because you can more confidence in your ability because you appreciate how far you have come. And to be able to take criticism and feedback means your willing to improve you craft as a designer. So the next few posts will be based on that. Just looking at the beginning of the year till now and even before University.

Coming back to London I went to the cinema with my friend, I don't just love watching movies. But I'm into it in the sense of looking at how the music and soundtrack creates a certain feel, my favourite music composer is Hans Zimmer. He  composed the soundtracks of  The Lion King ,  Pirates of the Caribbean , Inception, 12 Years and Slave, Man of Steel and  The Dark Knight Trilogy  (to name a few). His music makes you believe you are a superhero or wanting you to be a lion. Also looking at how the wardrobe style is used to fit the character, in this movie the use of suits (buff suits) to create the prestige, upper class British feel. This is a spy movie but it was different because the spy association  started came about due to the owners of a upper class suit tailor shop Kingsman.  This relates to graphics design At this point I realised how I analyse movies is how a graphic designers works. This is because a graphic designer creat...

I recently had braids, but if you have braids you know that you should only keep them in for 2 months max, lool mines been in for 3 months. And yes I've been washing it so it was clean before you pull that face. But yeah I only trust a few people with my hair because being black and having African hair it's is easily damaged. So it's the trips to London that I depend on. But anyway I took my Burgundy braids out, I now have my own hair, no it's not weave, it's my own hair. But the thing is, again with African hair it's easily gets damaged means I have to spend a lot time caring for it. It takes an hour to blow dry my hair *crys*. Let alone there's a certain technic to get it to flow, specific brushes blaahhh. Yeah it's long but I don't mind, the effort you put in is the effort you get out = in hair language your will have nice, long and lushes hair girl.

I went to Scotland for the Easter holidays to see my family, which we see every 2-4 years because they live so far. Also because I think that my parents take their time to book a ticket because there's a lot of us. Yes I bought the ticket by myself with my own working money, it was not cheap either. But Scotland was lovely, like a breath of fresh hair which I needed. Riding through Edinburgh, inhaling the clean air passing through grass in the fields. Something I don't normally see coming from London, if I was riding a bike I just go past buildings ahhaa.  It was also good to see my little cousins teaching me Greek because I'm a language freak aha and their half Greek, and they have a Scottish accent which still makes me laugh because I'm not used to it. But I love their accent, which they were teaching me. Yeah cleared my head. Oh yeah when we climbed up a mountain, something I would never do but I thought why not I'm here. So when we where at the top an...

Ahhh I'm feeling the pressure but as someone who loves coursework and has done for quiet a while I've learnt that staying calm is the key. This is because if you stress and tell yourself that you're not going to finish everything (even if that's true) your not helping yourself. You'll spend hours sitting there staring at the pressure. The best thing to do is break what you have left to do down into smaller parts so it makes it easier for you to look and think that it is doable. And to breathe !!! It's better to get what you can, done than to sit there worrying and giving in something that isn't your best. It's better to say I did it with "sweat, blood and tears".

HTML is really becoming a pain, but I've learnt that sometimes you need to design or change your design to be more simple so that it's easy to create. That sometimes it's not all about the appearance but the functionality of it. Trust me studying Product Design functionality is something I'm aware of, however it's different because that's based on 3D objects, you know looking at the mechanisms, joints and so on. But I need to focus on the functionality of the website first, then make it look and feel how I want it to.

A few days ago I was feeling demotivated about my last module,  because of my best friend call HTML. It can be difficult because sometimes the codes don't do what you want it to do OR  you think you've written it correctly  OR  you just can't find the code to do what it is you want and then you have to change EVERYTHING. For the 4th time. Also because my deadline is getting closer the pressure was getting to the point where I felt like giving up. It's not like I've left it to the last minute, I've been working on it everyday during the Easter holiday, even my coach journeys (where you normally sleep). So I felt like what else can I really do. Then I looked up some motivational quotes and videos, then realised there's nothing else I can do but to keep going. You know, not just working late into the night but waking up early too. I just pray my hard work comes through.

I have to use html to create a website for my festival. The easy bit is to design the website. In this design I was giving a more up beat, party feel by using a picture of the crowd as part of the background; which would be a slider. And a countdown to create excitement for the festival. I used twitter quotes to make it more interactive. While this design I was focusing more on the feel of house and electric music. Looking at the music websites with the same genre they used simple colours such as black and white. And instead of the usual navigation banner where you click the name, I decided to use a triangle, something linked to the hipster theme. Then the sunset at the bottom to not lose that beach festival feel. But then having to use tags and codes to create this is difficult, a lot of writing then checking the website to see if it actually produces something, then writing checking the website to see if it actually produces something and repeat . But I'm getting th...