The life of an ex-Graphic Design Student

I know what I'm doing, but I just can't seem to concentrate....

I guess things could be worse. I could be staring at empty sketchbooks aimlessly!

I love my parents, but they want me to do EVERYTHING as well as get a first in this degree.

And with my instability at the moment, the one thing I'm going to get out of this is more mental breakdowns.

seriously. They expect me to do everything when my brother does SHIT ALL. 

My brother didn't have to do ANYTHING when they went uni and they aren't expected to do anything now.

while I'm expected to clean and tidy and go to work and study and be a group leader, organise group meetings, and teach my parents how to use a computer (which is a lot harder than it sounds), design something to make teenagers appreciate the damn world that's handed to them, write my dissertation. And that doesn't even include social stuff and counselling/time taken to control my mental craziness.

To the people who say art and design is easy and that anyone can learn how to do it in a week, you don't know the half of it. The amount of thought and theory and concepts and care that goes into solving problems of clients and larger scale problems is immense and draining. And when you're doing 4 thought provoking things at once with 2-3 of them actually trying to change something in the world, it tends to take over your mind.

I know this is probably just... it sounds so self centred. There are people worse off than me. There are people who are coping a lot better with so much more shit in their lives. But everyones different right? and when I come home from uni at 2100 or a shift at work to do more uni work, and they start telling me to do things, or having a go at me for things being a mess, and I say "I'm tired from uni, ask my brother", and they tell me "oh but your the girl, it's better you do it, boys don't do anything"

I genuinely want to scream and cry and yell at them

 IT'S NOT FUCKING FAIR THAT YOU EXPECT ALL OF THIS FROM ME

WHILE YOU LET HIM SIT IN HIS ROOM

AND MAKE HIM FOOD WHEN HE ASKS FOR IT

AND TIDY UP AFTER HIM.

HE'S FUCKING OLDER THAN ME!!

WHY ME?

WHY NOT HIM!?!?!

and then I shut down because my mind isn't strong enough.

Art

"From an early point in his career Elliot Eisner was worried that most schools, by failing to properly appreciate the significance of art, were offering an unnecessarily narrow and seriously unbalanced approach to education. Moreover, he began to recognize that many of the then current conceptions of cognition - because they lacked proper attention to artistic modes of thinking - were inadequate (Uhrmacher 2001: 247). Later, Howard Gardner, was to make a similar point within his argument for attention to 'multiple intelligences'. Elliot W. Eisner made the case for developing a proper attention to the cognitive in art rather than it being only driven by emotional and what were termed 'creative' forces. Uhrmacher (2001: 248) comments that Eisner 'stressed that environment shapes artistic attitudes and that art education has unique contributions to make to growing children'. Eisner was also to argue strongly for a concern for the critical and aesthetic in art education (see below) - and for a better exploration of historical context. He was later to argue that approaches which simply gave children arts materials in the hope that their creativity might flow resulted in programmes 'with little or no structure, limited artistic content, , and few meaningful aims' (Eisner 1988). Uhrmacher judges that 'in large measure due to Eisner's advocacy, art education has become a content-oriented discipline.

Part of the reason for Elliot W. Eisner's influence has been his involvement in key projects and initiatives. These include the Kettering Project (begun in 1967) providing curriculum materials for new and untrained elementary teachers (and based around his theories) and the Getty Center for Education in the Arts (he served on the advisory board from 1982 on). The Getty Center is well known for its advocacy of what has become known as 'discipline-based art education' (DBAE) (see Alexander and Day 1992). DBAE also had it roots in Harry Broudy's advocacy of aesthetic education during the 1950s. It emphasizes four main content areas (disciplines): art production, art history, art criticism and aesthetic enquiry.  

A further element in Elliot Eisner's influence has been his obvious enthusiasm for the artistic activity of others. Both he and his wife Ellie are known for their support of the arts."

Impacts and Insights from Three Case Studies drawn from Artspace Project’s Earliest Developments

What's Bad

When users were asked how various aspects of online ads affected their Web experience, they rated the following attributes most negatively.

Design Element Users Answering "Very Negatively" or "Negatively"

Pops-up in front of your window 95%

Loads slowly 94%

Tries to trick you into clicking on it 94%

Does not have a "Close" button 93%

Covers what you are trying to see 93%

Doesn't say what it is for 92%

Moves content around 92%

Occupies most of the page 90%

Blinks on and off 87%

Floats across the screen 79%

Automatically plays sound 79%

I haven't been able to do anything is weeks now.

And I just hate yoyoing between moods!

I try to concentrate, but then one little thing gets me angry, or upset, or for small moments, I drift off and become really dettached from reality.

This year is going to prove very interesting in several ways.

Back in the early 1980s, Dieter Rams was becoming increasingly concerned by the state of the world around him – “an impenetrable confusion of forms, colours and noises.” Aware that he was a significant contributor to that world, he asked himself an important question: is my design good design?

As good design cannot be measured in a finite way he set about expressing the ten most important principles for what he considered was good design. (Sometimes they are referred as the ‘Ten commandments’.)