No way...

...I'm blogging two days in a row?!!!

Yea, get a good look cuz it's never going to happen again (most likley)

So a year ago I was in the awful unemployed time in my life where my bank account balance was getting into the 3 digit area (yikes!) and I avoided social outings, not so much from money issues but more to avoid the dreaded question "Did you find a job yet?" Bah! I'm sure everyone can relate to this feeling. I wasn't prepared to find a job in my field. I didn't know where to look. I had no one to help me! My whole family is comprised of engineers and accountants. For about a year, I struggled to maintain my sanity and find a permanent job. I went on a lot of interviews, got a position as a designer at a fashion pr company and then a job at a marketing company. Neither really went anywhere but it wasn't wasted time.

My biggest hurdle was maintaining an optimistic view otherwise I would give up and either succumb to endless tubs of Ben & Jerry's cherries garcia or slit my wrists. Instead, I looked at my unfortunate unemployment as a chance to learn something new!

I fell in love with the work by Swedish fashion illustrator Cassandra Rhodin. Love love love love! I would gladly pay an obscene amount of money for a piece of hers to hang on my wall! I loved the light ink lines mixed w/ watercolour washes, the flowing hair, the eyes, the high eyebrows, the heavy lids, etc...I admire her individual style that was so recognizable to me that I had stopped dead in front of a store that had her artwork in it and knew, without a doubt, it was hers.

Here's some of of favourite works of hers:

I had to limit how many I added because otherwise I'd be going all day!
Don't you just love finding another creative individual that inspires you as a fellow creative? I dusted off my long forgotten watercolours and used her work as my jumping off point and trying to find my own style. I don't think there's anything more flattering than if someone saw my work (design , photography, illustration) and it inspired them so much they started doing it too.

Here are 2 of my own pieces that I just uploaded to my Flickr:

Sharing Is Caring Manifesto

Do you ever have things that you mean to do but never get around to doing it because you keeping saying "Oh, I'll do [insert whatever you want to do] as soon as I....." For example, I want to write more often in my sad, lonely, little blog but I keep saying to myself "I'll write more frequently in my blog as soon as I design the header." That was....a hypothetical example of course ;)

Sigh.

Will it ever happen? Tune in and find out if Teri ever gets around to doing half of what she wants to do. Although, apparently I've accomplished practicing the annoying habit of talking in the third person.

Sigh x 10.

So many excuses. Oh, I work all day so I'm tired. I have to exercise. I'm busy. Blah blah blah. The world is full of excuses but don't beat yourself up over it. Just try to do one thing a day and then celebrate the small victories of life! This is my small victory of the day, writing this blog. It is a promise to myself that I will TRY to write once a week. Then maybe I will write twice a week, and so on.

When I think about the kind of person I want to be, a big thing is, I want to be someone who does what they say they're going to do, 100% of the time (not just 50%). I also want to be dynamic and inspirational! No, I don't have Mother Teresa, or ever Oprah-like, aspirations. I just want to share. You live, you learn. A lot of the times we're going about our own lives, caught up in our own problems and feel so alienated and isolated, not realizing that there are tons of people experiencing the same problems and it would really help if we just shared more. I am, by no means, a wise person, but I may know things that other people do not and that's why I want to write this blog. To share what I've learned yearly, monthly, weekly.....whatever! Whether it's featuring a photographer that I find inspirational or an exhibit that was interesting or a book that was hilarious.....knowlege should be shared! No matter how trivial.

I am an information monger. I crave knowlege! I want to know! Questions will pop in my head and I will go on the internet and type it in a search engine to find the answer. Curiosity at it's finest! I not only chase information, but I greedily hoard it into a nondescript moleskine. In Stefan Sagmeister's book Sagmeister: Made You Look, he said that one of the smartest things he ever did in business was keep a business diary. So in my moleskine, I write down everything: ideas for future projects, how I feel in my job, my aspirations as a designer; as a creative individual, company profiles that I admire, artists, how to give a good interview, how to prepare for a portfolio review, etc...

So in the spirit of sharing (and for the benefit of other information mongers) I am writing this blog. Even if I'm the only one reading it ;P

xo
T

Fear & Dealing

When you're afraid, whether it be fear from performing a ridiculous duet in front of an auditorium full of people or from not finishing a big project on time, or whatever, I have some advice.

Let yourself feel it.

Don't repress it. Don't shy away from it. Don't try to be anything other than what you are in that moment. Be afraid! Allow yourself a minute (or five) and feel that fear as much as there is, full force! Do whatever it is you do when you're scared, cry, laugh, whatever works. But only allow yourself that 5 minutes then take a HUGE breath then quickly let it whoosh out (yes, "whoosh" is the scientific term). Then do what you need to do.

The thing about fear is that we have to face it, eventually. That's why we're so afraid. It's inevitable. Whether we're afraid or not.

Secrets

Man.....

I need a read diary to write in.

Holding so many things in can't be healthy.

.....

T

Blog 2.0

So yea...
I know no one reads this blog and I don't even post the link up anywhere for bored facebook stalkers to find but I have a lot of things I want to share! I just get so inspired by things all the time that it's all spilling out of me but nothing productive gets done with it. I'm in this really interesting time in my life that would be so much more helpful if I posted it here. I have a whole moleskine filled to the brim with information, research, inspiration, artists, designers, etc...and I've actually, on occasion, photocopied sections of it for friends to help them with their own job search. Posting that information here is just more efficient. I think I was reluctant to share this link with anyone b/c what I posted before was too personal, like I was writing a diary for people to read and in the end, it's not really all that helpful (or interesting) to anyone but me (that's a lie, I get bored w/ myself too).

wow! It takes me a long time to say a whole lot of nothing.

I promise I'll try to be more succinct from now on as I attempt to transform myself into a social networking designer extraordinaire!! Yeah, good luck with that, right? In an effort to ensure that I blog more often than every couple of months (because then what's the point) I intend to design some sort of header or look for this page. That's the thing though. What good are intentions if that's all they end up being?

xo
T

Rinse, Lather, Repeat Repeat Repeat!

I almost gave up on this blog because I started to feel embarrassed about getting personal and revealing my vulnerabilities. But I'm not in high school anymore and I have to push past that feeling because I believe that even something that is insignificant to 99.9% of the world, if anything I can say can bring at least a minute bit of clarity or inspiration to their own situation, then it's worth it. I will now climb off of my soap box.

I really enjoy writing. It is my thought process. As a creative-minded person in the field of art and design I think it is a natural assumption that I am a notebook sketcher, doodler and thumbnail-expert but I rarely draw when I'm figuring out a visual problem. I mostly turn the idea into words, write it out and plan the solution out verbally. That's the writer in me. If I didn't get into OCAD (that to me was the school to get into at the time) then I wasn't good enough to pursue art and design and therefore I was going to attend another institution for creative writing. This is probably why a big part of good design to me is based on smart and funny copywriting. I like coming up with tag lines for ads and creating a story/narrative for a brand. When I look at companies that I admire and want to work for, I look at the background and culture they have created.

I'm still searching for how this all fits into the bigger picture.

What is my niche? Graphic design is visual communication. Writing is another way of communicating. What area is equally dependent on the written as the visual? I guess the real issue is Where do I fit in? I hate the transition stage. Transition stage= finished school, looking for a job. It's just a whole lot of existential chow-chow that occupies way more brain space than it should. I always wished there was some kind of truth machine that could give a brutally honest breakdown evaluation of who I am; my strengths and weaknesses, so I could stop second-guessing. I'm the kind of crazy that only accepts a compliment when someone says it to someone else who never meant me to hear it. When I succeed in something like I get a good mark, I always manage to rationalize it and I'll think "Oh...it's just because the teacher gave me a random mark." I have issues and knowing me I won't figure them out until very late in the game if at all. Oh yea. I can figure out everyone else intuitively but when it's me I have these weird distortion goggles.

Anyways, I've procrastinated enough. Back to reality.

p.s. I'm signing up for a novel writing course. Proaction at it's finest.

word to the wise

If you can't be a highway, be a trail.
If you can't be the sun, be a star.
It isn't by size that you win or you fail.
Be the best of whoever you are.

~Rebecca McCann