Lecture – Your Future

Yesterday I went to a lecture ‘Your Future’. I think this topic is concerned by all students who are going to graduate. So I went to it. We had a short presentation, then we were separated into several groups and finally we made a feedback.

In my group, many of us talked about money and practice. And we also talked about what we wanted to do in our future. I am from different society in our group. I mean it is different between China and European countries. So I listened to others and tried to understand the situation of them. Also, it is not totally different between us. In China, I also need to balance money and practice. Some challenges we are going to face are the same. Here, I just want to say something different in China.

Designers do not have as much freedom as here. Sometimes designers need to do works whose ideas are totally from clients. For example, some clients will say they want what images in the works and the color may be decided by them. The worst thing is some clients will not respect designers. These situations are not special in China, they are normal things. Also, the trend of advertising in Chinese market is not very nice now. There are some fixed models in advertisement design and most of clients like these models. You can earn money using these models to do works, but it will not creative. The area of design in China does not develop well.

In future, I will go back to China to have a job, because I need to feed myself. I know I need to prepare myself to work in China. However, I have my plan. In China, I need some experience of working as a designer. I need to face to clients and satisfy them. Maybe I will work in a design company for two years, then I will have my own studio. At the beginning, I will be chose by clients, but when I have my own studio, I will choose my clients. I know it is hard to do this, but I will work hard for this.

Group Critique with Professor Paul Coldwell

It is a discussion with Professor Paul Coldwell. We showed our recent works and gave a short presentation to explain our ideas. It was a nice experience. We got many different comments about our works.

I got an idea that how to make my 'book' better. Also, I knew some artists from Professor Paul Coldwell, which could expand horizons. These comments were about the idea smoking and space. To the idea smoking and time, I should do more research of it and develop it.

Visual Language with Sam Winston

This is the second time we discuss works with Sam Winston. His belief is useful. We asked questions about what different between our works in MA course and works we may do for companies in the future. Why we want to study the MA course. These questions are all relating to our future. Maybe we should make self-position. Is it time for us to think about what we want to do in the future or which work we want to do? Anyway, I think this is a process of our study. Although we do some works for companies in the future which maybe not what we want, we are still studying. Works we do in our MA course are what we want to do. This is also a part of study.

This discussion is also giving me some inspiration about my new idea which is about tube map and network of human beings. I got some comments about this work, though I had not decided what I would make. I really like this discussion. It is helpful.

Finally, Sam gave us a document about Oblique Strategy. It is interesting. It is a good way to do some works.