A book about researching my creative anxiety
This book is an extract of my MA Major Project that I did at Kingston University London. The motivation for taking this challenge came from my everyday life. As creatives, designers we often feel the pressure of maintaining a constant supply of fresh ideas. Personally one of the most common things that I used to be and still I am much afraid of before starting a project is the possibility of creating something ugly or flippant. Sometimes it makes me so anxious that I can't start designing or in this case I couldn't come up with the "perfect" Major Project topic idea. I decided to force myself into a situation where I can’t avoid creating, hoping that it will teach me new things about myself and about the nature of creating and creativity. (It definitely did.) I decided to use the power of obligation and pressure which was simply the fact that I have to hand in something as my Major Project at the end. My rule was to do something every day for 7 weeks, document the process as deep and broad as possible and publish all the mini projects even if they look odd or I don't like them. Fun fact: the project started with 2 weeks of deep procrastination. Creative block, success, sadness, fear, happiness were all part of this experiment.
104 pages printed digitally on Munken Pure — handbound.
— MA Major Project at Kingston University London Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, 2013
Surprise bag
On the 30th of July I went to Shepherds London (paper and bookbinding material shop) to choose paper for my book.
For this day I didn’t plan any projects. I spotted a box under the table with small paper bags. They were called surprise
bags, some kind of ‘Pig in a poke’ bags. I bought one. When I arrived home I found a lot of papers and stuff in it so
I started to categorize them because it was too messy. Later I decided to create small cards out of the content.
The most I enjoyed was the categorizing part.
27.07
Photos I took by mistake with my phone.
Unknown artist
I decided to stay in London after finishing my MA studies. I have to move out on the 8th of September from my
current room so I have to find a place where I can stay after. I visited a friend’s flat in Wimbledon, as a potential place
to move in. I took this photo on Wimbledon Bridge on my way home. This is the window of an abandoned store.
It caught my eyes because for me it looked like a painting. Since then I am searching for other random art pieces on the
street and I am planning to create a zine out of my collection one day.
~
Unknown Artist, 2013
Untitled
White paint on glass
Wimbledon Bridge, Wimbledon, London, UK
Butterfly on my scanner
There is the cliche saying that things will happen when you least expect it. I didn’t have to do anything special but
pushing the scan button, the butterfly did the rest of the job. At the end I created a picture of all of the scans.
Who is in my bag?
I had exactly 25 minutes to use the dark room in the Central Saint Martins College London. This was the last day of a one week long dark room summer course where one of my friends was involved. I accompanied him on that day. I’ve never been to a dark room before, and my friend told me that when everybody is going to have lunch I could try out something if I want. So when we stayed on our own in the room I decided to try out the photogram technique. I had to be quick because I had around 35 minutes so I decided to experiment with the objects I found in my bag. I had to improvise. Probably during the one month this is the project I enjoyed the most! I realized that if
I don’t have too much time to think and I am working with a new tool or technique I haven’t used before, I enjoy it a lot and surprisingly good things come out at the end.
Very bad day
This was one of the worst days during this project, one of those very very deep days. I was
procrastinating the whole day long when I came across a tumblr blog called Content aware
typography. ( contentawaretypography.tumblr.com )Their rules proved to be pretty convenient to follow.
Oh, Baby
Celebrating the Royal Baby. I cut out all the Royal and Baby related things from the Metro
Newspaper on the 23.07.2013 in London. Please turn the book to vertical position.
Digital Hi5!
Probably I spend too much time in my room in front of my computer.
This is how we digital hi5 with a fiend. Two digital scan merged.
Random 01
My daily projects are based on a certain feeling, story, object or experience of the day. Usually the
time I spend on the projects are somewhere between 2 minutes and 2 hours. I am doing these daily projects -
with more or less success- since almost a month now, but I just got to the point when I feel blocked.
These blindfolded random drawings are made with magic pens on SRA3 120 gsm paper while listening different types of music.
Generated
I was searching for good priced plane tickets almost all day long. There is something
strange about a website that tells me such personal toned messages.
Shopping lists
Recently I started to get interested in collecting shopping lists. I like their personal attitude. I am planning to
do a project about them but I haven’t had any idea so far. These are the first four pieces of my collection.
Paperface
Surprise or not, I was stressful again. I was about to draw something but I didn’t like anything I did. More and more crumpled paper, that’s what I've produced. I realized that crumpling the paper has a good effect on my stress, so I started to produce more and more.
I stopped at around 100 pieces and I took a photo of them. I opened Photoshop and started to play with the photo.I liked the pattern of the papers, so I thought that I could draw something with it. I ended up with a sad face, I don’t know why, but I was ok with the result, so
I published it on my tumblr blog. On the next day I opened my Facebook messages and actually what I saw made me smile. A sweet response with the same image but smiling. It definitely cheered me up for the rest of the day. During this project I get so many energy and courage from people around me. I am really thankful for them.
I wish I was there
Someone who is close to me spent his vacation in Florida while I was working on my Major Project in England.
He sent me a photograph on a rainy day. I decided to take a photo from where I sit (my room) and send it back.
I merged the two photographs and created a digital postcard out of it.
Sketchbook
Bad day.
Cat photo
One of my first days of the challenge. On my way home I found this cat sitting perfectly set.
Papaya
I went to Waitrose. I bought a papaya. I photographed it. I liked the colours but papaya is one of the most tasteless fruits for me. At the evening I was thinking about if I will seriously end up with a papaya cut in half as the project for the day so I started to think about what to do with it. The colours really inspired me. In my head I pictured a beautiful aquarelle painting. So I started to paint and I got really ambitious about it. The expected beautiful painting didn’t happen despite the fact that I was trying really really hard. I ended up with frustration and some lame paintings that I didn’t like at all. "Not to force what is not going" I said, so I just started to use the colours without concentrating on the shape of the fruit. I started to like what I saw and created some papaya patterns. The satisfaction gave me enough encouragement to start again and finally paint a papaya, I didn’t want to give up on it but I am not sure about the outcome.
Tutorial and park
In the morning I woke up stressful because of the fact that I am going to have a tutorial and I don’t have too much to show.
I ended up having one of the best days. After the tutorial we went to St. James’s Park to have fun. It made me totally forget about my daily projects and my duties. I went home, I cooked and around midnight I realized that I haven’t done anything for the day. So I grabbed a pen and started to sketch the people I met during the day. I usually think that I am bad at drawing. Or at least I can draw ok but if I just feel so. These quick drawings took me exactly 5 minutes to do. The most interesting in this experience was how free and good I felt while drawing. Probably the drawings are not the best but I still liked them. During this project I learn a lot about myself. Today I learned that I should go out much more often having fun, without feeling guilty about it, and don’t let the stress to be the boss. I have to work on it but at least I know. Probably this is really obvious for everyone, but I feel that I can start changing things if I experience first.
It socks
Two socks in front of the laundry room. They are there since 4 days.
Balcony
It was a hot summer afternoon in Budapest. My Mum was gardening.
Cabbage
I bought a cabbage. I took photos of it. I didn't find it interesting and I thought it's constrained,
but at least I made something. I don’t know what else I could say about it.
Random 02
Blindfolded paper tearing made with coloured papers and Canon MG 3150 scanner.
Paint
I tried to paint.
My first screen printing experience / I feel absolutely amazing
Typographical illustration printed on different types of paper and plastic.
iPad garden
My Mom got an iPad mini for her birthday. I took some photos with it in the garden.
Restart
I feel that I haven’t done anything meaningful so far.
Self research
My mood swings during the experiment.
T h e d a i l y f o r m
Researching and observing myself is not an easy thing. In addition to write down my personal experiences in short stories
I wanted to record myself each day as objectively as possible. In order to achieve this, I came up with a form that had to be filled out every morning and every evening. I tried to focus on questions that were as objective as possible, however there were some points with emotional attitude. The form served the function of recording general information about myself, reminding myself of my daily duties, making myself inspired (random things I saw) but it was the place for writing down my ideas and thoughts as well. I wanted to make things a little bit more organized in terms of my thoughts and ideas because usually I am not.
M o r n i n g
Where?, When?, Weather, Dream (yes, no), Sleeping hours, Current mood, One random word,
Today’s color, List for today, Today’s outfit, Drawa line, Inspirational quote
E v e n i n g
Where?, When?, Time spent usefully, Time spent on the internet, Running, excercise (yes, no), Places I went today, People
I talked to, Current mood, Positive feedback (yes, no), If yes, who?, Food and drink, 3 random things I saw, One sentence
I h o p e y o u e n j o y e d i t !
♡ A
