With myself
Hello chums. It’s been a long while!
Can we have a discussion about the nature of ideas? You see, I feel like I have been having less recently and am finding those few small ones much more difficult to come by. What is impressing me now is the thought that I could do everything I do without attachment to an edifice. By edifice I may mean ‘trend’, ‘fad’, ‘emotion’. But what is important is that an idea can exist most importantly for itself, and to convey a meaning, and that everything else may come along second. I am trying to un-fuzz my thinking, I am trying to think beyond myself.
I am thinking about the entry that won the Brit Insurance Design awards last night which happened to be a folding plug designed by Min-Kyu Choi who happened to be a recent graduate from the RCA. It’s a pretty good idea for those of you who live in the UK and have seen the size of our plugs. They are massive. But what was really great, what got me more excited was seeing how you can have more than one on one socket, and how compact that still was. I thought ‘hey, that’s nice.’
So that was a good idea. Then I found this website: (me) which belongs to with associates which is not the best looking site in all creation but looks pretty clean and clear and clicked on some of their work. I liked this site for its mottled background which I found to be subtle and clever. Then there’s this one which promotes collaboration and while some stuff is ‘hey, ok, yeah sure’ some of it is good and the idea even better. And at this point I’m getting a good impression of the bubbling-under of talent and creativity in the world. There was this site too which I liked for the typography and the google map which is just smart and obvious. Like, why make your own map?
Then I kept looking and began getting frustrated with how brilliant everything was. Like, who gave these people such clarity to build such sweet-looking things? How is it all so spot-on? Which breaks a cardinal rule of mine which is ‘don’t get overwhelmed by other people’s awesomeness, you’re awesome too’ but is currently running up against my current less-assured thinking which is ‘i don’t feel so awesome’.
So then I think some extra, and think maybe I should carry a sketchbook around with me more.
U P D A T E : 10 minutes later