Patrick Newman

I honestly don’t know what you wonder about me. I like to imagine it’s something good, like “Wow, why is he such a cool guy” or “Where’d he get those cool glasses” but I feel like you have a pretty good read on me. As far as what I think about myself, critically, I have a hard time being creative, and its generally something I only get in waves and have to latch onto and do a bunch of work at once. Without that, my work becomes dull, and though it may have good functional qualities, it lacks anything to differentiate it. I feel like all I can do for that is continue learning about different types of design and style and try to see the logical parts of where they connect and how I can add them to my process.

Earlier this semester, I argued that I didn’t think an amount of hours matters as much as the quality of those hours. Since then, I feel like I have put a good amount of insightful hours into my work for this class. Those hours were put to good use, learning new methods of animating different things and growing my technical knowledge of data animation.

I don’t think my definition of sophisticated work has changed, but now I have a greater respect for the knowledge behind data animation and infographics. I think sophisticated work is either work that makes you double take and think deeper about something or work that is so well done that it just seems natural. I think the most sophisticated element of my work so far is my instagram polaroid photo floating down the screen, even though that’s not quite natural yet.

This class so far has most related to our data visualization project in lab 2. In that project we were able to learn about how to convey information to a viewer in a quick and efficient way. In this class, we’ve been able to combine that information with the ability to animate, better preparing us for the multimedia-centric future.

I think more than anything else I wish I had known more of the possibilities with aftereffects before starting the project, about halfway through after better understanding the program, I realized a bunch of design things I would’ve liked to do instead, but by that point it was too late, which has left me working with a project that, even though I think the animation is alright, is ugly. As is, I don’t really know what else it is I need to know.

I would put this as one of the more valuable projects I have done. I think the important projects are the first time you learn to do things. When I was in high school, two of these projects were the first website I made, which was for my dad’s university page, and designing my personal logo. My logo was the first time I had worked with negative space inside of shape creating new forms, gestalt. This style that is still frequent in my work. Designing my dad’s website, I was able to learn the basics of HTML and CSS coding. I would put our project as the second most valuable between these projects, as my logo helped me learned a major element of design, while web design tools are becoming more and more simple to use, making my coding obsolete. This project is better preparing me for a world increasingly focused on multimedia design.

I would argue that I am 70% responsible for my own growth, while professors are 20% of it, and peers are 10% at this point. Professors can give you the information about something, but really it is up to me to figure out how to make that information work for me. My peers help to to an extent, but I have to take their critiques with a grain of salt, a they are (mostly) operating on the same level of myself. I think I’ve accepted at this point that I need to rely on myself for figuring out what I can do better, I just need to work on that skill.

My first formal creative experience was probably my first design class in ninth grade. I don’t know how I can track my accumulated hours from the past, but I know there’s a lot there. As for this class and the future, I think that it will go well, as I’ve freed up more of my own time so I can put more effort into focusing on design. I don’t love my creativity, but see it as a tool. Too much or too little creativity can push you over the lines of what works in design, so I see it as a balance that must be kept. As far as 10,000 hours goes, I think mastery is arbitrary. Giving some concept like this creates an idea that time alone makes someone good at something, but what if the person has spent 10,000 making art that looks bad. 10,000 hours will either make you a master, or reinforce countless bad habits.

This was the first real week of thumbnails for the book. This was the week in which I realized I may not yet have the skills to pull off my concept. I realized that it’s a lot harder than I expected to show what I meant to show for for this book.

This was the week where we found typefaces and had our first round of images for our books. I enjoyed this because I love browsing through font websites and seeing all my different options. I decided to use a font I already had downloaded on my computer, Built Titling. This is a great font with a very thin weight and I’ve been using it since high school.

This was the first week of sequence. In my storyboard book I tried to show how I was going to emotion through the use of color and emphasis. I had a really hard time explaining what I wanted to do.

This week we worked on hybrid collages.  It made sense that I liked this one better than the total analog, but less than the total digital. For this I decided to print out my images and cut them together in an analog way.  I had a hard time doing this for the same reason I have issues with other physical art. My hands are super shaky and I have issues trying to precisely cut/ draw things.

This was the week of digital collages. I really enjoyed this project because I got to expand my Photoshop skills. This whole process for me was just me using different tools and features and deciding what I thought looked cool or not. I also started using images and scans in ways I hadn’t before, which is something I still incorporate into my work.

My next few posts are all old ones because I’m dumb but this was the week of analog collages. As I created these, I remember getting super frustrated trying to find things I could use for this. The things I did find I always felt pretty gross grabbing because it was all pretty dirty. To be entirely honest, this was probably my least favorite thing we did in class. I had a really hard time trying to combine my things into attractive pieces.

This weekend I finished the art for my project. After finally coming up with a solid plan for my book, I made a bunch of different levels of abstract art and will be using them to show sequence. After my drawing class tomorrow I’m going to get my inkjet prototype done in the fine arts building, because I didn’t have a chance to print over the weekend.