#learn design

Added more pages to my website and worked on the layout some more: now there is a now page, about what I am doing, like Scott Boms put it on his own now page, now‑ish, a page about which tools I use to stay informed and mostly secured, and I have added a page linking to my friends.

That last part is sort of important, because of how important my connections are to me. Currently, most of the people on that page are from my graphic design study, but this will expand, with time, of that I am equal parts hopeful and certain.

I am also currently excavating the milieu around the book Creative Code by Maeda, with my eye already on Design by Numbers as well.

Autumn is here, with the Spätsommer’s last rays of a kinder sun, and as the outside air wafts in through heavy green curtains, I briefly understand that all things change, before I type on.

I wanted to write something about how it has been a long time since I have worked on my foundations for drawing, painting, and illustration, but I won’t.

I am moving on from judging, instead. I have been judging all kinds of things in all kinds of manners, and I am frankly just plain bored by it.

Have been playing Cyberpunk 2077 a lot, and I plan to play a lot more of it in the upcoming days.

I even bought two books about Cyberpunk: the artbook, and the pen and paper RPG called Cyberpunk RED.

10 Do’s and Don’ts of Wireframing

Wireframing is one of the first steps in your design process and arguably it’s one of the most important ones. It’s the time when your ideas start to take shape. Despite the fact that wireframing looks simple, it can be done well or poorly, and this can have a significant impact on the outcome of the final product. This article describes the right (and wrong) ways to wireframing. The tips mentioned in this article will help you build better wireframes for your web and mobile experiences.

LuvstarKei talking about how fun it is to have your own website which you can put anything on.

I personally believe that what I would call fake professionalism (that’s the one where you pretend to be different from who and how you actually are) will destroy your creativity quickly, so to thine self be true.

Yeah, sure, having a portfolio website is all cool and sh*t, but I believe that if you like to make friends and get to know cool people in your field (and in others) giving them what is basically your business card after a cool hang is mental.

I will have a portfolio section, sure, of course, but come on! How drab would that be! I am not building these fun little things so that nobody gets to see them because I could possibly confuse my “customers” in my “niche”.

The music, the artwork, the lore, is just right: a well‑designed world with well‑designed elements, all fitting together.

And you know what? Playing a game mostly played by dads and moms is a relief: maybe, after all, there is hope for adult media offering mature entertainment through its themes, rather than its visuals and scenes.

A ‘complete package’ in what I would call recreational (electronic) media (after the Irem rebranded meaning) has always interested me the most: a solid art direction is invisible, because it makes a thing complete. Roleplaying games, tabletop games, video games. Nerd stuff.

Incidentally, on the topic of video games, I have been looking for ways to get into R-Type (finding archived manuals has been fun) and a variation of Mega Man as well, but that is one of those slower processes.

Slower processes are slow because if you try to speed them up, they end up consuming so much energy at once, you are basically incinerating yourself. I prefer catalyzing at room temperature.

This isn’t a first. This is not even one of the firsts. But I hope that it is the first next.

Hello, my name is Mario and I want to communicate better than I did before.

So now I want to put myself right. I want to know what I’m saying, so that you know what it is I’m saying. I used to make lists of things I’m not, and then write those lists out. Thinking about that, it makes me wonder if I then claimed to be all the things but those I said I wasn’t?

If I never said I wasn’t a hare, how would you know?

And if I was a hare, wouldn’t it be nice to just say that?

I’m a graphic designer. Making graphics interests me. I study to learn how to make better graphics than I did before. I struggle with applying more time towards that goal. I am interested in fantasy and sci‑fi illustrations, especially that sweet spot occupied by book covers, be they books or graphic novels/comics.

I’ve learnt a lot during my years studying for my degree, but I feel dissatisfied with my own knowledge: I think I know too little, and I suspect that I am alone in this among my fellow students from years past.

I want this blog to serve the purpose of communicating what it is I am doing, what I am studying at the moment, to honestly leave a trail and I cringe at that thought: maybe years of being a punk have left me with an unhealthy view of working? But that is why I wanted this, why I even brainstormed a name for this blog, a name different from my own name: to maybe work through this strange feeling of lacking the knowledge, the craftsmanship, the skill, the talent, to really feel like a graphic designer.

And maybe arrive at a new understanding of myself and what it is I want. I tried being cool online when it was all about coming off as cool. I tried self‑marketing, and I quickly quit doing that, because, you know, that too felt as fake as trying to be cool. Couple of other things, burnt out on these too.

And now? Now I want to communicate with my own voice. I wonder what that’s like.

I put together my study plan for this week, and I managed to study three days out of six so far. Imagine, before I put that into words, on my screen, I’ve felt like a failure because of that. I tend to ignore the sheer amount of stress and maintenance in my life, so when my own lofty plans for myself do not succeed completely, I beat myself up over that. I think some people call that perfectionism, but I think that is just a noun meaning many things to many people.

I think my issue is my own inexperience with dealing with myself in a constructive manner that’s holding me back.

This is still my first life, so I want to keep the study going. I don’t know if I want to work as an illustrator but I sure would like to be able to capture someone’s likeness and communicate an emotion.

To me, graphic design is what I do. Not only what I do, but also. Maybe that is a good way for me to look at what it is I am doing and how I’m doing it. And now I want to know what is next.

Some graphic designers have all the talent. Some are in magazines. Some drive nice cars, and like sports.

I like to study design, and do studies. The world just might be large enough for me to allow myself to exist as such a designer as I am.

Consider this me turning on my own lighthouse. Who knows for whose benefit? Who cares? Right now, this is for my own benefit.

I just know that I need to be myself. Kind of forced to, really.