Whether it is creative writing or graphic design, there are some key guidelines and methods that play into the order of my process. Design is just as much a practice of improving efficiency of a work as it is designing a solution to a process. While mechanical efficiency can be described as finding the minimum number of parts possible to make a solution function, it must not be forgotten that the goal is found in solving a problem, not in the extremity of minimalism. Therefore, I take in to account that minimalism can generally be the right path to begin a project with, but never the end goal.

   I feel that everyone has difficulty processing criticism when it is a piece they hold near to them. Generally I don’t take criticism personally if the work was created for another person or for a professional project. I may disagree with some of the criticism, but that’s necessary, otherwise I wouldn’t be thinking critically of what changes should or shouldn’t be make to serve the end product appropriately. If the criticism by a client or coworker provides a better solution than one I have chosen, I generally take it and apply it to the work.

   I start my design with the notes and instructions a client has given me. While I do have several styles that I may fall in to when designing a piece, I generally look at the end product’s purpose to find which path my design should take. Although I am very comfortable with motion graphics and therefore use a lot of minimalistic shapes and vectors to animate with, since getting in to designing for print in mind, my craft has taken on a whole new personality. Common issues my work has run in to in the past with posterization and compression affecting quality, as well as planning for motion, have been replaced with thinking about color in terms of CMYK, considerations for edge printing and bleed, as well as legibility and deciding whether or not to imply motion in static design. Since moving to working with print, my craft has become a lot more versatile, and I only plan on incorporating and learning to work with more mediums in the future as there are a lot of transferrable skills and methods across graphic design and media.