Sandra

I am certain I mentioned this in my reflective report but this is important anyway. I feel like a lot of times, people audit their skills by using a 1 to 5 degree system, but they assign those degrees themselves so it becomes more of an opinion of themselves, which is fine but it sort of becomes a measure of... confidence? And confidence is really important in terms of this industry where it is about how well you sell yourself but for me, I find that system faulty which is why I am not using it. I want my work to speak for itself, and of course, I am able to sell myself, but I do not need this system to audit my skills. I feel like the quality and type of projects I use in my portfolio are enough evidence for it. In summary, because I have already spoke about it in the report: I feel like my skills have gotten better in terms of art direction. Am I able to use technical skills and software better? Of course. Do I have a weakness? Yes, video and it is a skill I intend to work on, but otherwise, I feel like my work speaks for itself. 

Get into VSE’s Arts Management course

Apply before April 30

Take the czech B2 exam

Finish the application: it is online and it needs a cover letter

Get in touch about the reading

Find the books needed

Read them

Make sure to be in Prague mid-june

Ace the entrance exams

Take economics and business classes on the side

Attend open lectures about contemporary art at charles 

Take The Public into real life, specifically Syria

Find someone to code the website

Polish it up so it is accessible on mobile and is resposponsive

Make it actual detect data entry

Polish up the interactive map

Take it into http://artresidencealey.com/index.html (Syria)

Take it into http://www.allartnow.com/ (Syria) Currently the space is being used as shelter.

Take it into http://www.atassifoundation.com/projects (UAE) This sets the space for SAF collab 

Learn SL

This is actually very simple, I sign up for SL classes in prague 4. I don’t want to do this professionally yet.

Establish stronger grounds for Ordinary Day mag.

I am finishing up an article for it.

I have one more person to interview.

I am taking the magazine to different places in the world

We need to figure out a more set schedule, more promo

Launch date in June! We brought on someone to do the promo

I think we need to expand the article content, so maybe it is something to pitch as a project because we need help with marketing.

Pursue an art residency in SAF

I think for SAF I want to work on a concrete project, literally, so my first step is research.

I booked a concrete sampling appointment, and a visit to the concrete factory in Al Ain.

I am going to research construction site  through two companies.

I am also going to spend more time at SAF exhibitions to fully understand how the residency works there. This includes talking to Reem Falakanaz and Tulip Hazbar AND Salem Al Qassemi. 

Continue with 3arabizi research

I want to update this with a more accurate version of the interview in it.

GOING WILD WITH FLAG DESIGN. the submissions I have are all over the place. Can you believe this is my work space? 

Still struggling to complete the twenty thoughhhhhh. It’s time to ask friends of friends. 

FGP stuff too lol. wouldn’t work as promo if it was not relevant to uni work, right?

suprisingly this is such an early thought that I had, the republic is made up of the public. it translates well and I feel somewhat confident in executing this project this way. It’s hard though because contacting so many people is proving to be difficult. People are enthusiastic about participating in the project, but they don’t really DO much. Not even my parents. I guess having a three part exercising is kind of long. I need to figure this out, somehow edit it. For no, I present you my three part design exercise that I am crossposting to literally every channel I know. Friends & family, the internet like insta, reddit, tumblr and twitter. Mom says I should not send this to my Living in Syria contacts because it might be dangerous. (lowkey afraid).

But it is getting somewhere. I am also asking people to do it in person. It is much more effective imo. George suggested that I hold a workshop and I see it as that. I think it would be the best outcome. But I am not at a position where I think I can do that. 

Some screenshots of the presentation... 

My notes from yesterday’s class:

 100czk/hr paid internship

Cartel behaviour?

Third party products, typefaces & shutter stock

Licensee for the typeface IF you buy the typeface for the client.

Working for free is bullshit. Commercial work demands commercial compensation. UNLESS you are learning something and the compensation is valuable.

Spec work suitable for students, for practice.

NDA’s: yeah, im working on something cool but I can’t really talk about it now

Czech designer membership? 2,8k/year

Creative outwork — union of graphic designers

Licensing depends on where you pay taxes?

Pro-bono with creative freedom is better than low money

We also worked on creating an estimate for the NGP redesign (a competition), and this was our estimate. It was difficult to assign a price for everything but we got real close to the right price. However, I was pretty surprised to hear that the winning studio said that they would charge wayyyy more than the competition budget. 

This is the first time I leave class upset and frustrated. It really NEVER helps when someone keeps making off-handed comments. I understand that people get frustrated, I mean I was also frustrated but it never makes the situation better. BUT I am happy that we have this figured out now, and I think the majority is happy with the outcome. 

My notes from the session with Marketa. I lowkey really love that she commended me on saying ‘no’ to things, it is something that I am working really hard on;:

Budget: jarno and Gabriel

catering: ilduza and lukas, do not get beer in bottles, get a local brewery, draft beer

Floor plan and organisation: Rebeca and jin

Party manager: zuzanna (time, details, food, etc., letter to neighbours, music)

Equipment organisation: Simon

Speech: Sandra and Gabrijel

Moving, cleaning and construction work:  ??

Presentation to marketing department: Juliana

Insurance: Patricia

Art director: Sandra, Maggie

Poster: me

Web design, domain: ruslan, google page for events, even bright?

I uploaded all the needed material to the drive and we will be using ONE blank poster:

And each one of us will be creating an insta post so our campaign will be digital:

We even have a insta story frame ;) (that needs to be edited on manually bc we can upload filters :/ 

SO from the previous posts, you should know that I am dividing this into two sections. Sandra // Diasporous. 

Here are some slides from my interim that display my potential content:

I keep reading on flags and all that jazz but nothing is sticking in my head. I think maybe an animated timeline will work, but ugh, where do I get the story from. I have found some interviews that are worth it but I sort of dont want to use someone elses footage for my project. I did that in LPC.

Wild: how those did not upload in the right order. Wilder: how it’s basically a more varied version of this previous timeline?

Sean said a timeline is great, but what I should really work with is what comes after this blank slate. What’s next? What is the future? How have things changed?

So, uh. This. This was a mess for interim. I couldn’t really come up with anything and I was STUCK on the idea of a LOGO. I kept thinking that damn, I need a logo and I couldn’t come up with anything. I thought, okay, I could use the brackets. And yeah, it’s a good idea but HEY??? our identity show is the same??? And I came up with it. So. Sandra? What is this? 

Clearly... not the best. Ondrej said that is wasn’t new and I know that, I am okay with that. But after the presentation, it occured to me. I do not NEED a logo, I could just... not? Just have a nice system, organisation. The logo can just be type, that’s all. So now... my visual identity is maybe this? The orange is a working color, nothing final because I want to print this on two layers. A blank/white/off-white layer with the info and then a colored frame as an accent. I am thinking that I will be printing stuff in the frame, different things, and if it’s printed with a digital printer then it should be easy to have variety...  maybe just two things that separate Sandra and Diasporous...

Anyways here is the draft:

AGAIN, self-branding is HARD. 

I think the first thing I needed to consider is who am I, and what does my work reflect?

My initial take on this was the following: 

I wasn’t too excited about using my name because it’s too long, sandrA Abdulhakova, two a’s next to each other? uhhh, not the best.

One option was to entirely brand as the diasporous series that I am doing but I still want to keep my graphic/commercial work. I genuinely love the achjo.work and it is such a mood but I think this one is going to be saved for something different.  

This was really tough to do because it turns out there are no words for my positioning, I am not just a graphic designer, I do not want to be a graphic designer. I understand how important it is to be a graphic designer and I appreciate the income I get because of it, but I have a lot of moral conflict with this line of work, and it is not what I enjoy the most. I want to research, to study, to examine and to archive. I really enjoy the social and cultural aspect of design, how visual communication integrates into cultural identity. I think that is the direction I am moving in. 

From class: 

I am: 

a graphic design graduate (?) working on cross cultural projects that examine identity and culture and their relationship with visual communication

a tactile designer with project planning and execution experience

a graphic designer aiming to become a cultural curator

a fresh design graduate looking to work on socially impactful projects

a designer interested in research based projects

a graphic designer aiming to work in the art and social aspect of the market

a graphic designer with event planning and merchandise marketing skills

a conceptual designer

-

a tactile designer with project execution experience

an art director working with visual culture and identity

a conceptual designer looking to work on social narratives

As a statement: 

I am a tactile designer with professional project execution experience, working on a variety of editorial (? whatever projects i am working on) and print projects. I am looking for an art direction position at a collaborative collective where I can focus on the visual aspect of culture and identity in terms of social integration and curation. Additionally, I am enthusiastic about working with non-profit government organizations seeking to impact society through visual narration, both digital and print.