2016: My Year in Design

Accomplished in 2016:

• Obtained my MFA.
  
• Redesigned my landing page to include a p5.js sketch (which is, apparently, very difficult).
• Learned how to do brush calligraphy.
  
• Wrote and designed a design book. 
• Opened a wedding invite shop. I designed more than 5,000 permutations of invites in September — just want to remind myself of this because that’s rad.
  
  
• Started a new job as a web and multimedia designer.

Goals for 2017

• Become a more deft coder. Fortunately, work is giving me the opportunity to learn while on the job. We’re doing a redesign of our website and I will need better coding chops to do this.
• Self publish a design book. I wrote and designed two freaking books. They need an edit (of design and writing). I’m contacting the University of Minnesota Press first, since these are scholarly works.
• Redesign my blog and portfolio, coding a theme from scratch. Ideally these will have the same theme and my site should look like one cohesive site. The portfolio was never meant as a permanent solution, but I created it as a class project and stop-gap. My current blog theme is of the same vein.
• Learn a new design technique each month. I’m continuing my monthly creative challenges. Since I work for a design school, work encourages my curiousity to  learn new techniques (and I have time to do so now). I also have access to a screenprinting and letterpress studio, among other things.
• Become a better typographer. Particularly I want more skill at pair typefaces. I’m re-reading Robert Brighurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style to start.
• Add new designs to wedding invite shop. Although the sales are low, I’m not abandoning this. I may change the venue and include an e-commerce section with the redesign of my blog and portfolio. It seems appropriate given that I blog about a lot of the stuff I make. Managing the sales myself would probably be less expensive and would get people looking at my other work, rather than at other stuff on Etsy.
• Get involved with the local design community. The Twin Cities are flush with design. We have a very active AIGA chapter. We have multiple design schools — I work in one. We have a center for book arts. I plan to have a regular pow-wow with our graphic design faculty (some of which graduated from Yale and RISD, and one is responsible for inspiring me to write and design books).

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What are your professional goals for 2017?