An Eye For Design
We all love to see good things. Nobody wants to wake up in the morning to see a one eyed monster without nostrils sleeping next to them.
The human mind always craves good things and in every human being there is a deep longing for such sights pleasing to the eye and a serious repel for anything otherwise.
Despite the "bad" in our world today, truth is we are surrounded by so many beautiful things, natural and artificial. From the splashy waves of the sea to the crisp brown leaves falling from the trees in the dry season and the very green ones enjoying the sun glow during the rainy season, life in itself is beautiful. I’m driving through the streets of Lagos, Nigeria and I see wonderful architecture, my eyes will definitely stay glued for a while.
Bottom line is we live in design, our world is design and we are designs in ourselves.
But one question is if we all love nice things and we even make up nice things, can we all create nice things?
We’d probably never get an answer to that as the abilities that lie within us will never come alive unless we put in some effort. While some people require more effort than others to release these abilities, it is not to say that certain people are incapable of delivering beautiful products.
I cant say for certain when I fell in love with design but I guess, I’m one of the few who require little effort to create something beautiful. Maybe I have an eye for design.
For a few years, I didnt take any course or program to help me understand principles of design or to know colour theory or how to ensure good design balance using negative space yet I somehow learnt how to use a few design tools on my own and kept delivering what I thought were awesome designs. Well, every designer thinks their work is the bomb until they realized it is not. The truth is not until I took the initiative to actively improve my design skills with professional courses and interaction with mentors did I really start making good designs.
Right now, I can clearly see that most of my previous designs were fairly above average. I guess my personality, meticulousness and attention to detail made me subconsciously follow many of the design principles without knowing them-and my eye for design too. Somehow, with such a primitive knowledge of what design is, my designs were something to be proud of. There were a few instances my work was picked over that of people who were obviously better professionals than myself.
Yes, theres always that starting point where you just keep mixing so many things together and hoping it would come out fine and because of that, I would spend days on a design that should take a few hours if I actually knew what I was doing.
Trying to combine different colours was hectic and choosing the right font was a colossal disaster. Yes, I said what I said but I have to admit that though my growth was slow, I improved. You would hardly know that i had taken no lessons on design.
Some 8-10 months ago, I had to work on a project with some people and despite the fact that i was able to flow and deliver my work, it dawned on me that I had a lot to learn. They started mentioning grids, layout and all sorts to me and I was constantly confused. It was like I dodnt know Jack! For someone was all about using their eyes to gauge positions and what have you, it was really a rollercoaster ride for me delivering designs that they made a few iterations to and still being confused about the whole thing.
After that experience I embarked on a journey which I would say was the actual beginning of my design career. All I did before then was Foundation or whatever you may want to call it *chucks*
The significant growth I made in a very short while was impressive. I consciously began to watch videos looked into design elements and principles and my designs got better.
Within the last few months, I’ve been able to land my first design job, though not high paying but its something I’m proud of.
This year I enrolled in HNG internship and I was surprised I made it to stage 5 before leaving due to unforeseen circumstances but I made up my mind to keep getting better.
I enrolled at WeJapa jnternships a few weeks ago and the experience has been amazing.
I’m looking forward to pursuing an amazing career in design.
I’m better now though I still have a lot to learn but my old designs and current designs can speak for itself. The growth is massive.
While my eye for design got me into the design world, somehow it couldn’t take me very far. I needed a brain for design too.
