It's the end of the semester and you know what that means. It's Finals week! If it ain't called finals week then it's some type of stressful end of the year crap students go through all the time. My face was breaking out terribly during the month and I nearly got down with a bad cold. I may not have written exams like the rest of America, but it's just as important. At an art school, we have an end of the semester presentation. Each major has some sort of variation where students show the best of their work from the semester in the form of a show. In the end, you still have to submit all your work you did for the semester and that includes revisions as well. You can't just abandon a project because you didn't like working on it. Unfortunately I really wanted to abandon one of my projects.
For Professor A's class, I had chosen to design a book. It was an intense research project that I began in January and became extremely immersed in it. However, it was my weakest piece and I am so embarrassed to show it to anyone. My book was just highly unorganized and looking at it now, it doesn't even look that cool. Other people made much nicer books than mine. My problem was that I was focused on so many of the wrong things and those things contributed to the unorganized content. When Professor A and I sat down for a one on one crit, we started finding out a lot of the problems that was wrong with the design. I'm thinking to myself "What was I even thinking?" The good thing was that we were able to identify the problems and start finding solutions. Unfortunately it isn't fine tuned to something worth putting in a portfolio. I had to shift my attention to revising my other projects and this book project was put on hold.
My other projects included a website and mobile design and a calendar. These two worked hand in hand, but the most frustrating thing was putting the files together. These were extremely large Photoshop files that lagged my own computer really badly. I'm beginning to wonder if my own computer is starting to run slower as a result. Nothing seems to close as fast as it used to be. I'm worried I may have attracted some viruses. My revisions drastically changed each time and I was deeply worried that I wouldn't be able to finish on time. As a commuter, this put on a strain especially because it meant coming into school on weekends and days I don't have class. I have to take into consideration the amount of time I spend on the road and how much time I have left within a day.
I didn't think I would ever do well in Professor S's class because each week when I brought in work, he didn't like it. I was really depressed week after week even on the verge of giving up. But being me, I don't drop out of classes just because I can't do something. I was getting frustrated with my work and would come up with something new each week. Finally one week the idea went through and Professor S's feedback clicked. Looking back, the perseverance that I had really saved me. My more successful pieces came from his class. I am able to pick up my own mistakes more quickly and have a keener eye for design. Just what is design? Ask any designer and they would respond that it's something "beautiful" and "innovative" at the same time.
That last week before our official presentation of all school work was some serious crunch time. I didn't chat with friends or do anything but work my ass off. I was on the computer at least 6 hours a day to the point that I hated looking at a computer screen. I wanted to smash my own computer and wake up the next day in a garden. I was physically tired and mentally tired of being surrounded by computers. I spent a lot of money on printing and a lot of time mounted my prints on matboard. My hands hurt from cutting so much matboard.
The day when the presentation began, I went to school 6 in the morning. I couldn't sleep the night before and I was dead tired in the morning. We had only two hours to put up our stuff for the show and I had completely forgotten that we had a two hour deadline. Luckily I planned ahead and knew exactly how I wanted to set up my presentation so no time was wasted. A lot of things that went wrong did go wrong in the end. While pinning up a backdrop, it looked crooked to me no matter how I did it and I spent a lot of time fixing that. While I pinned my mounted pieces, a couple of them fell and the corners got banged up really badly. This never happened during my previous presentations and I was getting furious. I smoothed them out as much as I can and hid the corners behind the pushpins. For a podium that I build out of leftover cardboard, I was naive to think that it would stay together. So at the last minute, I chose to use masking tape as the strongest way to bind the box together. Wrapping black paper was a nightmare. It didn't wrap well even though I had pre-creased the paper the night before and it just looked terrible crinkly. The backdrop was smooth but that friggin podium was terribly wrinkly looking. I had no time. The guards were shooing us out because the two hour deadline was up. I did final touch ups and rested my business cards on the podium. I wasn't too proud of my business card design, but I needed something to offer to people.
Despite being such a terrible week, I followed a couple of my own strategies to manage my own stress. First you must plan out everything you do. I literally plan out when to wake up and how much time I should take to eat in order to catch that early bus. In turn, that early bus will transport me quicker to the school labs where I will work endlessly. I also plan out what my priorities are. Projects A, B, and C are all important, but project B needs to get revised first due to reason D, E, and F. It's things like that that build up and you end up saving a lot of time and money.
Second, it's good to work at a good pace. Do things quick, but not sloppy. Think things well, but reach a well rounded conclusion in time rather than spinning in circles over a minor issue. For me, I like to work with music in the background. Generally I find that I work well with fast paced, energetic music in the daytime and ambient music at night. Music puts me in a productive mood and it tells me to stop worrying about the result.
Remember to take breaks in between. Sitting at a computer for more than an hour is already bad and I'm doing that for 3 hours plus. Relax and stretch. It clears your head for better ideas and you can recognize your own mistakes. If I have food nearby it's even better. Re-hydrating yourself is very important and you don't want to get sick because you haven't rested and replenished yourself properly. Food gives you energy and takes your mind off of your work.
I would also suggest that occasionally stop from your work and talk with someone. I don't have the luxury of talking to people, but I do chat online with a particular person and that person takes my mind off a lot of things. We go off tangent and discuss things like trends and mundane things, but rarely about work. It takes off a lot of mental pressure and I feel much better afterwards.
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