Wednesday, April 27, 2011

I'm a Visual Creative Type

Like many artists, I am constantly trying to define myself. The world around us demands that we do this. How else can we be packaged and sold. I wrote about this process back on  October 9, 2010 and I suspect I will constantly return to this question.
It's almost freeing to define myself as a visual creative type rather than an artist. This definition encompasses all of the creative challenges I take on.  I can include graphic designer within this broader definition. Graphic design is not just something I do because it is similar to art and I can get paid for it, I enjoy doing graphic design.

Here is a recent example:
These are a few logos I designed for Rob, my son's friend (and my friend as well) who I've know and respected  for a long time. His father died of cancer a few years back and Rob's been doing the PMC challenge every year to raise money for cancer research in honor of his dad. This year his second "Rock for Joe" fundraiser will be held at Finz in Salem on May 7. 
The Unity is in the Process
Design is a graphic or visual solution to a communication problem.  A client tells me about the message they want to convey, and I create something visual (and sometimes verbal) to resolve the challenge. The difference between graphic design and art for me is that when creating art, I am the client.
I have an idea. Usually an idea eats at me for a long time–sometimes years. Then I decide how to best express that idea in a visual manner, choosing different mediums or approaches. The measure of success becomes how well my final product has been able to capture my original thought or feeling. I sometime test it on friends and family, but I am really my hardest critic. Only I can tell if the work has lived up to the expectations.
But I do like and need the positive feedback I get from my friends and family and I LOVE the different views they have share about my work. In fact this subject is in need of a whole post of it's own.
So to summarize: Creativity = Challenge + Solution
I know this is broad. But true, Right?

No comments:

Post a Comment