38 in....Design

It's been 38 days since I've arrived in Sarasota Florida and have left my viciously frozen home in Toronto Canada.

Things are going well. I've adjusted to the work load—or rather have come to accept it. Ringling can be a good school if you're already on top of your work and come with a good foundation and strong mind to focus and do good work. The projects are very interesting and if you spend a lot of time perfecting your work, you will have a lot to show in the end. The class hours are definitely a lot but they keep you in the work mode constantly and remind you that you just cannot slack off because you have to do your homework for the next day.

I love all of my teachers. I have learned so much with just one month of study here. I've learned many tips on using Dreamweaver CSS, Image Ready Slices and InDesign typesetting, grids and styles that I had already taught myself to a good extent but I was assigned projects where I could explore these skills and apply them accordingly. They classes are designed in a way where you are shown how to do certain technical things and spend time producing work to show you understand how to do something.

I have three projects already completed that I believe are good enough for my portfolio just because I spent alot of time working on them with the tight time line. I will be having a lot more to add to my portfolio once I finish my semester here. It's great.

But don't get me wrong. All I do is homework, every day. Students are demanded to produce work here. If you are not dedicated enough to producing good work, all your work could easily end up as trash. And believe me, it's very easy for that to happen when you constantly have to produce. Your creativity gets sucked out of your brain and you become like your surroundings.

I'm an outsider so I see things differently.

I'll be posting up work along with their descriptions very soon.

Oh, and the AIGA group here is shining. Today we had a meeting and we are going to be going on 4 to 5 field trips around Florida: Orlando, St. Pete, Miami and one more place I forgot. I'm super excited. Unwillingly becoming an AIGA from a writing competition that I was not even eligible to enter because I was not in the US looks like is going to work to my benefit after all.

Brian Collins the Executive Creative Director of Oglivy and Mather Worldwide is speaking tomorrow at the school. He's also agreed to a smaller "meet and greet" later in the day with AIGA members. Let's see how much he talks about branding advertising and corporate culture.