The Start of a New Chapter

I really hope that nobody has been holding their breath since the announcement of my site redesign last June. Though it took me an excruciatingly long time to complete, I’m happy to say that the delay was not the result of procrastination or laziness. It was merely due to the fact that I could not find satisfaction within any designs I was coming up with.

As any creative professional knows; you are your hardest client. Your critique is more brutally honest than anyones. This is partially because you know yourself best, and you know your capabilities as a creative individual. On top of this, you are most likely up to date on the trends, successes and failures of your specific industry. It’s your personal job to create a final piece that not only represents you fully, but has conceptual purpose as well as appropriate function. Though this may not cross all platforms of creative professions, I think it’s any easy argument to say that representing yourself within your trade is no easy feat.

In total, I ended up creating roughly 5 – 6 designs for this site. Some were elaborate and made it all the way to the presentation of peers for review, while others never made it out from between the covers of my sketchbook. However, each and everyone consisted of a handful of elements that reflected me as a designer in some way or another, but for whatever reason never hit home.

Then came that one fateful day that I decided I would sit down and “design” with no purpose intended. I wasn’t making a website (or so I thought), I wasn’t manipulating photos for a print piece, and I wasn’t playing around with typography for any intentional reason. I was simply designing for the fun of it. It wasn’t until I had this mentality that I was finally able to settle on something I actually liked and could turn into a working website. Ironically, this style of design is very foreign to me. I’m usually a sucker for simplicity and white space. On an equally odd level, I’m normally very obedient to following a design process and having a purpose behind every element on screen. The only explanation I could come up with is that I was becoming burnt out and hung up on the idea of aesthetically satisfying every design temptation that came to mind. So I’ve found that no matter how solid your process is, if you’ve lost the core reason for why you’re a creative professional then you’re probably just spinning your tires.

Respect

With that said, there are many people who have helped me throughout the process of creating this site – be it through support, critique, guidance, and of course development; this project is finally complete. I’m extremely grateful for those of you have contributed: Jen Lula, Jon Christopher, Scott Nadeau and most importantly JR Tashjian who undertook the task of complying to all of my development needs.

Purpose

Ultimately, this site will serve as a galley for me to display the work I’ve been creating, but more importantly a place for me to vocalize and document the every day challenges that I face as a designer as well as the solutions that keep me moving forward. Over the past few years I’ve learned that if I don’t take the time to resolve the obstacles faced in the world of design, advertising and management, they will inevitably creep up again at a later point.

This blog will play it’s part in my accountability and commitment to the subjects mentioned above, and will hopefully result in an insightful resource for myself as well as other designers/developers. If interested, considering subscribing to this blog for update notification. For the time being, I’ve purposefully omitted the feature of public commenting, but don’t let that deter you from contacting me via email (encrg.others@gmail.com) to give feedback, express an opinion or comment on my portfolio. I welcome and look forward to feedback from all.