Partly cloudy, with continued self-loathing
The sun came out today. That helped, some.
I still don't know what to do about the problem of being absolutely convinced that doing graphic design is an utterly worthless pursuit. I know graphical stuff is used everywhere, I know many people are well-paid to do it, I know some people are better at it than others (and that the general public is likely to be horrible at it, and to use Comic Sans in primary colors), and I definitely believe that I'm better at it than many people. But somehow this renders me unfit to exist, in some vaguely Darwinian sense, and from that it follows that I should be suppressed for the good of the species.
It's irrational. It's annoying. It makes me hate myself, and almost certainly gets on the nerves of those around me. I have not, so far, been able to come up with any kind of useful work-around.
Also, I think I may shrivel up and blow away if I don't get to use some color in something pretty soon. It's been too grey here all month, and now at school it's all black-and-white. Possibly that's why I'm so unhappy about the idea of graphic design lately, now that I think about it. I know I'm capable of doing the things they ask of me, and doing them well. I can turn the crank and grind out questionable sausages of type and layout by the pound. But so can any other reasonably competent art student; it's what we're there for, after all. We're learning to produce on command, to the specifications of the client (or in this case, the teacher), and whether or not we're happy with what we've made is strictly irrelevant. We have to act convincingly like we've done it on purpose, because presentation is part of the grade, and exuding confidence is a large part of presentation.
I'm horribly good at presentation.
But the confidence is not real; it's put on for the occasion, and during the times when I'm actually working on the stuff, I have my own opinions about it, and they're mostly along the lines of this is not what I'm good for. I know not all assignments are going to play to my strengths, or let me really work with all the things I'm most interested in, but a lot of them just make me feel like all the best and most worthwhile parts of me are being suppressed and wasted. I feel like a crescent wrench that's being used to hammer nails: it can be done, if it's done carefully, and a wrench is better for pounding nails than a rubber chicken, but the wrench is likely to get scratched, chipped, or completely broken. And then whoever wanted the nails to get pounded in is going to be pissed off because their tool broke.
I still don't know what to do about the problem of being absolutely convinced that doing graphic design is an utterly worthless pursuit. I know graphical stuff is used everywhere, I know many people are well-paid to do it, I know some people are better at it than others (and that the general public is likely to be horrible at it, and to use Comic Sans in primary colors), and I definitely believe that I'm better at it than many people. But somehow this renders me unfit to exist, in some vaguely Darwinian sense, and from that it follows that I should be suppressed for the good of the species.
It's irrational. It's annoying. It makes me hate myself, and almost certainly gets on the nerves of those around me. I have not, so far, been able to come up with any kind of useful work-around.
Also, I think I may shrivel up and blow away if I don't get to use some color in something pretty soon. It's been too grey here all month, and now at school it's all black-and-white. Possibly that's why I'm so unhappy about the idea of graphic design lately, now that I think about it. I know I'm capable of doing the things they ask of me, and doing them well. I can turn the crank and grind out questionable sausages of type and layout by the pound. But so can any other reasonably competent art student; it's what we're there for, after all. We're learning to produce on command, to the specifications of the client (or in this case, the teacher), and whether or not we're happy with what we've made is strictly irrelevant. We have to act convincingly like we've done it on purpose, because presentation is part of the grade, and exuding confidence is a large part of presentation.
I'm horribly good at presentation.
But the confidence is not real; it's put on for the occasion, and during the times when I'm actually working on the stuff, I have my own opinions about it, and they're mostly along the lines of this is not what I'm good for. I know not all assignments are going to play to my strengths, or let me really work with all the things I'm most interested in, but a lot of them just make me feel like all the best and most worthwhile parts of me are being suppressed and wasted. I feel like a crescent wrench that's being used to hammer nails: it can be done, if it's done carefully, and a wrench is better for pounding nails than a rubber chicken, but the wrench is likely to get scratched, chipped, or completely broken. And then whoever wanted the nails to get pounded in is going to be pissed off because their tool broke.