At the beginning of my BA course, we (students) were told that this year the course will focus on creativity more than during previous years.

Despite not guaranteeing high conversion rates in advertising (at least according to David Ogilvy in “Ogilvy on Advertising“), I believe that creativity and creative approach is important to find the right (design) solution. Creative approach should be integrated part of any design process (”creative” doesn’t necessarily mean unusual and weird) and that the (creative) way in which the message is communicated can help to differ from competition and crate the right image (brand).

First lectures of the course were dedicated to creativity exercises. The goal of one of the exercises was to create three different stories from a photograph – a sitcom, drama and conspiracy. I could tell you how much fun we had brainstorming ideas, picking the right ones and developing them into a stories, above photograph of three old naked men playing golf.

While I was quite confident in developing ideas for drama and conspiracy, my contribution to the sitcom wasn’t very good compared to the colleagues in our group, partly because I don’t know many English sitcoms (because I don’t watch TV too much). My colleagues started mentioning various sitcoms and TV series I never heard about (ie. Golden Girls). I felt a bit lost and I realized, that with this social-cultural gap, I have a disadvantage when developing ideas connected in some way with English pop/culture. (Though fictional drama and conspiracy was absolutely fine for me). I guess, in real world situation, this social/cultural gap can be overcome by careful research, and I look forward to the opportunity to try it out.

Through these exercises (the other one was dedicated to branding fictional products) I enjoyed lots of brainstorming with other students, mind-mapping, quick sketching of ideas and storyboarding. It was great change to my standard creative process, because I’m the only member of the creative department at work.

Looking forward to next sessions!

After being 6 years out from the university premises, I’m going to start the BA Graphic Design Course at the Calderdale College tomorrow! I think I don’t need to say, how excited I am!

So, how it all happened? First I have to say I’m self-taught designer. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it and plenty of great designers out there doesn’t have formal education. I studied marketing at uni, which helped me to understand the communication between the customers and the service providers, how to analyze, what the image and brand is, what is it all about and lots of other things.

But it didn’t help me to understand, how to make the product (website, user interface, advert, brochure, book, annual report…) and how to get the message across (visual communication & advertising) in user friendly way (interactions and user experience).

I learned a lot through trials and errors, from books, magazines, websites and from colleagues. But I felt I still need to learn more and more about graphic design. Well to be honest – about everything. I’m the sort of person who just loves learning new stuff all the time).

I read design / communication / advertising related books, magazines and blogs almost every day and the more I learn, the more I feel I need to learn more I found it’s possible to learn lots of stuff this way, but I believe that the discussion and interaction with teachers and other students can broaden my horizons, to open me to new opportunities and to meet interesting people.

Since I came to the UK 3 years ago, I was thinking about studying Graphic Design on part-time or distance-learning basis, but I wasn’t able to find suitable course, which will allow me to continue my great job. But finally, I discovered the evening BA Graphic Design course at the Calderdale College (with the Leeds Met as degree awarding body) and after an interview there, I was taken on board.

I’ll do my best to publish here the most interesting stuff from the course in the future, so stay tuned!