Doing it myself, for myself
Oh dear. What have I gotten myself into?
Somehow, you can know what’s to come and still be stunned like a deer in headlights when it comes. I had seen a previous student design campaign and knew it was on the agenda for the second semester, but getting a brief to create a brief was...different.
The research we had done was going to guide the building of the brief to which we would respond once completed. Setting parameters and understanding the final aims and objectives proved to be a lot more challenging than I thought. It became less overwhelming as our lecturer, Dr Snaddon, took us through each step and guided us through individual research themes and topics with the help of developing Miro boards and mapping ideas.
The approach was really helpful as it was a simple process that provided results. Answering simple questions about the topic from the research that was already done and mapping out ideas using Miro, potential themes and “areas of need” became evident. It was shaping up.
When in doubt, trust the process.
I enjoyed the process and engaging with the content but after many weeks of researching, reading and discussing COVID-19, I started to feel the heaviness of the content. Surrounded by a world of negativity, the little snippets of joy were becoming fewer and farther in-between. I was constantly reading articles about death rates, hospitalisations, vaccination hesitancy while also having to navigate friends and family getting sick. Compounded by new ways of working, I had to adjust to a revised work schedule and maintain sanity amidst all the chaos.
Trust the process, right?
We hadn’t had a creative brief to unpack in a while so I took a break, snapped on my headphones, flipped open my visual journal and took a fineliner to my feelings. I wanted to get away from the news of death and sickness, so I drew inspiration from Frida Kahlo:
"I paint flowers, so they will not die."
Making time for myself and creativity proved to be more fulfilling than I expected, I handled the negativity much better and found a way to trigger joy when I felt low. Taking some time in the day to give to myself filled refueled my creative juicebox and I was able to tackle the brief with fresher, calmer eyes and am looking forward to the opportunity to answer a brief I developed myself.
Trusting my process.
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