Being so unbearably slow in writing this blog, the best solution I found to get back on track is to compress the last three workshops (and I still miss a couple, to be honest) in this post and make myself free again to talk about whatever comes to my mind. Pretty unfair tough, considering they were all extremely interesting, but perhaps it will ended up in something better than a bare report.
So, three workshops, I said, and three different tutors too: Typography/Paul, Ideas/Catherine (for Darren) and Sketch books/Karl.
Just above three samples of my personal outcomes, that quite resemble the way the workshops went:
1 - Amazing subject, I just love typography and I tried my best.
2 - The great failure! One of the most disappointing day ever - in my whole life, I mean, not just in uni.
3 - Cool, better than expected.
First of all, the tutors: they just make me happy, not the slightest issue with them, different approaches to the subjects, but no complaints to make. It is not a real news, all the people I met in LCC - tutors/technicians - since 2008 are just great to work with (to be honest there have been just a couple of exceptions in the past, but nothing relevant, at least they gave me something to make fun of...). Someone could think I am trying to please them, but if any of you, dear readers, ever studied in Italy at any possible level of education, you would understand where my present appreciation comes from, trust me.
Let's try to analyze what happened in details then, it could be useful.
Typography is one of my favourite subjects, even though my knowledge of it is nowhere near I would love it to be. The day itself, apart for the unbearable heat of the room as usual, went on very smoothly and productively. It just was so positive I have not much to say about it...
The Ideas workshop was instead the complete opposite: nothing went right from the beginning to the end, actually it kept getting worse, I left uni in such a state of stress, disappointment, even anger at some point. I am a slow thinker, that is the point of it, and I hardly fit in a group when it comes to produce something. I am not shy of suggesting my ideas to other people, but perhaps I am not really sure of them myself and just too lazy to fight to impose them to others. Creativity has always been an issue to me, not that I do not have any, however it takes time to me to have an idea I consider worthy. Quite an issue in such a fast paced business, I reckon. To sum up the day, we worked in groups on three projects: the first one, a poster, was just a bit dull and lacked originality, but was not a total failure, the worst part being a poor organization in the group itself; the second one, a website, was actually quite fine, certainly not awesome, but still a good try; the third one, a much more open assignment on how to deliver a given message to a target audience, was utterly disastrous and made me ashamed of myself. The group was not working at all, in sheer anarchy, not concerned by the time management, not able to carry out an idea/project/brief, lacking technical skills... And personally I added up my own uselessness giving up on it pretty soon, not being able to see since the very beginning any potential in it. Indefensible behaviour.
Finally, the Sketch books workshop. If there has ever been something I am hopeless at doing is researches. I could easily blame my previous education for it, and plain laziness on my personal share, and I would be safe enough, but it would be too easy. It is just something I do not get along with, like collages, I guess because collecting loads of stuff of any kind means getting quickly untidy at the end of the day, then it will mean tidying up and definitely occupying some of my living space... It just makes me nuts! Ah, on top of it, after all these years working and studying I still do not really understand the concept itself of a sketch book. What I mean by this is: not everyone's mind works in the same way as other ones, so if it is useful for someone to physically collect and file stuff, it is not necessarily good for each one of us. Of course I find useful to study things/images/texts, taking pictures, drawing, sketching and whatsoever is part of a more or less conventional research, I just do not find of any use to collect and file them, because I never go through them a second time, seriously.
Considering this nice statement, I was happily surprised by the outcome of the workshop: as a group - and this is even more cheering - we created a quite comprehensive and pleasantly looking sketch book, it took us less than the hour given to make it and it was pretty effortless too. Piece of cake!
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