8 - 22 November 2021
Reflection on how I've been documenting and communicating my work currently and how I will approach it moving forward in the master.
I've always had problems documenting my process in the past. I generally used to jump from an idea in my head to drawing it directly on a digital program. Or for instance when designing clothing I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the fact of taking pictures of the process. I've come to realise that it's a very powerful tool that makes our work more accessible and understandable to others. Moreover, documentation has been helping me understand better my own process as a designer.
I've also had a hard time facing the reflections moments. I've never liked to write much and always found difficulties expressing myself with words rather than visuals. I also think that the language barrier was pulling me backwards a lot. Nevertheless, I've found that I can identify and materialise ideas better when I try to explain them with words. Due to this new way of documenting I understood that writing would also help me on my personal growth, so I decided to start an introspective exercise, morning pages. Every morning before checking my phone I write 3 pages in a notebook. This is actually helping me a lot to break down my barriers with writing and to unlock my subconscious in order to get to know me better and how to perform as a 1PP designer. It is also a great tool to help yourself set goals.
I've been a bit chaotic with my documentation. I've been taking pictures and videos of processes; and also handwriting notes in different note books and digital notes on different devices and platforms. Actually thanks to the website I've been able to collect all these resources and make more sense out of it. I've also been using social media to keep a closer approach to reality, by means of exposing myself to the public and being open to receive feedback and create new connections. Writing in a notebook is more personal for me but at the same time requires more time. During the living with your own ideas experiment I started to record voice notes. I became aware that sitting on a bench to write notes dragged me out of the moment and by sending myself audio messages I was able to stay more present of my surroundings and my thoughts about it.
I want to approach my documentation from a more personal and emotional approach. I will probably keep using the same tools but I will focus more on voice memos, handwriting and maybe try to get back to sketching. I was also thinking of doing a fast clay sculpture everyday or every-two days because I really enjoy working with clay and I miss it. I feel like it is a very gratifying process for me. And I could discover new ideas by doing it as a challenge. In general, tangible things are more attractive to me, but I'm always scared to make them. So with this challenge I will maybe persuade those fears. I have also started to hack my mobile's cam with a polygonal crystal to recreate a bee's eye, in order to have a more collaborative perspective with others, bees and insects in this case. Editing is also a big important part to communicate the process and reach our audiences better. It's important to be selective with what we show and how we show it. I would also like to use my skills on video editing and motion graphics to create videos, even though it can take a lot of time. So I might need to find a balance between the final communication video and the raw content.
At first my idea was about using a polygonal crystal to create a Bee eye effect, to put myself in the perspective of another living being and see how people would react to it.
But the idea evolved into something much more personal.
These visual distortions were an expression of my inner thoughts. Sometimes I feel like I need to be paying attention to too many things at the same time. There is a lot of information coming from different fronts, sides,...and it can be a bit overwhelming for me, creating a distorted image in my head.
I feel like I can have a chaos of ideas and thoughts that it’s hard to make sense of. I wanted to express how my anxiety looks in my head, when I try to focus on one thing but I keep having more thoughts invading my head. When you try to search into that chaos and look at it with perspective you could find constructive possibilities. I had decided to let myself flow within the chaos, observing that it can be transformed into beautiful dreamy distorted images. Finding the connection between all these ideas is my main goal. Turning them into impactful solution driven projects is my dream. It’s time to make sense out of this mental chaos by making it tangible.