First Step
In a sculpture class I took in college, I had to watch a video about Frank Gehry. He is a really cool architect that designs buildings as abstract sculptures that move and morph through the space they exist in. In the video, he said that he starts every project with fear and doubt. He questions whether his new building will be original. He wonders if it will be beautiful. He fears that it won’t be able to support the residents inside of it. He questions his ability before each project, which I do the same.
Even with all the self doubt we carry into a given project, we just take a deep breath and jump into the beast. As the project unfolds, we experiment with various elements and learn about the monster. We build a deep enough relationship with it that we understand it through and through. Then knowing our enemy, we create our design, whether its a museum or a website (which in a lot of ways aren’t that different).
I speak of these things because I was doubting myself a lot this weekend and my girlfriend helped lull me out of the slump. One of the things she did was send me a link to some cool typographic presentations of even cooler inspirational quotes. The quote that meant the most to me was:
Do one thing every day that scares you. Taking risks takes practice.
I liked it because it reminds me of this blog. This blog is meant to be a safe place where I can play around with things I’m not comfortable with and that scare me. I can be quite a safe designer at times (safe designs solve problems very well) but I know I need to be able to push me safety zone. Some of the greatest artists and designers pushed the boundaries of our safety zones and transformed our culture by doing so. Yes they eventually turned the outskirts of normality into their safety zone but hopefully I won’t do the same.
That’s why I wanted to make a piece that symbolized a scary thing. I also wanted to make a nautical piece because I went to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach on Saturday (it was a blast). I hope you like my creation using those two goals.
