Things to Achieve

1. Be a confident designer.

2. Draw more and accept that I can draw.

3. Stay positive.

4. Learn how to create type that is beautiful.

5. Absorb all design that is around me.

6. Be bold with color.

7. Design well and claim it despite lack of experience in years.

I'm sure there are more that will come up, but these are the things I think about that hold me back as a designer. I need to continue to try new things to push myself as a designer. I'm excited to soon be dedicating all of my working hours in the day to design and all that it entails.

Understanding Myself as a Designer

"Most to-do list creatives cannot drop everything to spend days 

lost in monk-like focus."

"Creative work is not a task to be checked off a 

next actions list. If you decide that you need to complete a particular project by the end of a block, for example, you're likely to either be frustrated 

by your lack of progress or rush out something mediocre."

"When you face a block of time dedicated to finishing a milestone, your mind avoids detours 

as they might delay your progress. When you instead focus on process, your mind is free to follow the path most important to eventually producing high-quality output."

I just read an article by Cal Newport that really makes me feel better about the way my brain works. I think one of the biggest challenges of being a graphic design student is being surrounded by so many people who work differently from you. It makes you feel really inferior when a classmate can crank out a genius piece of work in class and it takes you hours just to find the right direction. Reading this article I think will definitely help me not become frustrated as easily at my mental process of developing creative work. I suggest that you glance it over, especially if you are a "to-do list creative." Above are a few of my favorite pieces from the article.