| Start Time |
Transcript |
Speaker |
| 00:00:00.0 |
What shape, symbol or image, for you, would represent your graphic education and what size would it be on this sheet and where would it be on this sheet? Shape, symbol or image that represent your graphic education. |
IJS |
| 00:00:19.2 |
I came into graphic education very…very early in my life. I came into art school when I was seventeen, having not really done it, um, previously. So we can kind of divide us in terms of a life – lifespan… |
158 |
| 00:00:34.5 |
Okay. |
IJS |
| 00:00:34.9 |
…80 years or so. Sort of take a fifth, sort of twenty, where I am now, so… Or a fourth, a quarter. Um. So probably take about that much. So probably start about here. And then it started off fairly kind of…not really building to anything. And then building a little bit more as I began to understand more about the context of graphic design, the methodology behind it, the thinking behind it, more and more about graphic designers themselves and what they do. I had a better idea of context in terms of work that was going on in other institutions and in other practices. So that kind of varied quite steeply when I got into my second year of study. And then I did an internship in [another city], um, over…over the summer between second year and third year. And that’s really when it went, in a very short space of time, up like that, representing this graphically and thinking quite linearly here. |
158 |
| 00:01:34.9 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:01:35.3 |
And then it kind of levelled out but still from that process on, still beginning to understand more and more about the industry… |
158 |
| 00:01:44.9 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:01:47.1 |
…but that’s really the point where it kind of skewed off and started to do something different. |
158 |
| 00:01:51.3 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:01:51.6 |
And then in my third year I started to do more and more and started to skew off more like that. [rustling of sheet] And then I had a funny time in my practice about six months’ ago where I was involved in the branding of our degree show. |
158 |
| 00:02:09.2 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:02:09.6 |
Uh, in which perhaps my public profile went up. And although I didn’t particularly learn anything, I just sort of gained experience, so it was going along more like that. |
158 |
| 00:02:20.3 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:02:21.0 |
And then the off shot of that wasn’t very positive and then your opinion of your own work went down. |
158 |
| 00:02:29.8 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:02:30.3 |
And then I got an internship within about a week and it went up again. |
158 |
| 00:02:33.5 |
Okay. |
IJS |
| 00:02:33.9 |
And then… sort of since then I’ve sort of been losing touch a little bit more. It’s never gone back down to the bottom. |
158 |
| 00:02:41.8 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:02:42.3 |
And then I’m trying to think about where it’s going next, and I think that’s the difficult part. |
158 |
| 00:02:47.9 |
Right. |
IJS |
| 00:02:48.6 |
I think it always… A nice way to put it would be everything always kind of [rustling of sheet] comes back to itself, so you’ve kind of got this kind of grand shape that’s kind of always going round and you’re always relating back… |
158 |
| 00:03:01.1 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:03:01.4 |
…to what you’ve got here. So it’s kind of a constant circle. |
158 |
| 00:03:03.6 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:03:04.0 |
But I think things kind of tend to go off and…and this circle can move. So I mean, in a few years’ time it could look something… I mean, hopefully, in terms of my aspirations, I want to either work abroad, work in London, work in Glasgow again… |
158 |
| 00:03:19.5 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:03:19.9 |
…so hopefully that will kind of bring my knowledge, my experience, my contacts up… |
158 |
| 00:03:26.2 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:03:27.0 |
…further and further, always taking kind of dips in terms of sort of personal highs and personal lows and things like that. |
158 |
| 00:03:33.4 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:03:34.0 |
But still always kind of moving gradually upwards, kind of learning new things, start a family, which sounds a bit… |
158 |
| 00:03:44.0 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:03:44.7 |
…and then start to kind of become more established in industry, going up again. So I mean, that’s very kind of tentative and hypothetical at the moment, but that’s hopefully the way it kind of goes. |
158 |
| 00:03:56.3 |
Okay. |
IJS |
| 00:03:57.0 |
And then hopefully you’ve achieved enough of a kind of impact in the industry that you’re, you know, up here at the high end of the scale, but still it’s important to kind of represent that everything’s still [rustling of sheet] tied back sort of… [rustling of sheet] We’ve got the graph at the moment and then we’ve kind of got the shape. |
158 |
| 00:04:20.8 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:04:20.9 |
They come later on. |
158 |
| 00:04:22.6 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:04:22.9 |
So… And the shape can kind of move, so depending on where we are and six months’ ago, that line might have been somewhere in there… |
158 |
| 00:04:30.5 |
Yeah. |
IJS |
| 00:04:31.1 |
…but in six months’ time it’s somewhere up here. So that shape constantly changing… |
158 |
| 00:04:35.8 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:04:36.1 |
…changes depending on kind of where you are and where you’re going. |
158 |
| 00:04:38.8 |
Yeah. |
IJS |
| 00:04:39.1 |
But I think it’s kind of… I mean, you can see the sort of, the uphill kind of struggle, which is the uphill movement of where things are going. |
158 |
| 00:04:46.0 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:04:46.3 |
So it’s very much a kind of… And you take… Things kind of happen very, very suddenly. So like here, for example, you gain one piece of experience, you go somewhere, meet a certain person and it kind of skews up… |
158 |
| 00:04:59.7 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:05:00.2 |
…in a very good way. |
158 |
| 00:05:01.8 |
So, this is time. |
IJS |
| 00:05:03.0 |
Uh-huh. Yes. |
158 |
| 00:05:04.0 |
That axis. What axis is that, then? The up… You talk about going up, advancing more, dropping back. |
IJS |
| 00:05:18.7 |
[rustling of sheet] Achievement of ideas and knowledge up that axis. |
158 |
| 00:05:34.7 |
Okay. It seems to me that you’ve been productive during the period when you talked about doing the degree show branding. |
IJS |
| 00:05:43.1 |
Uh-huh. |
158 |
| 00:05:43.4 |
Um, so you’ve been productive, but you weren’t getting achievement of ideas and knowledge at the same…? |
IJS |
| 00:05:52.6 |
Perhaps productive comes into it as well. I think it’s… [rustling of sheet] I mean, so many things can come into your practice. |
158 |
| 00:05:59.3 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:06:00.6 |
[rustling of sheet] … you kind of put an endless list on there of things that you do through your practice and you… you sort of learn them all the time and I think achievement in terms of kind of, sort of, they’re more like, kind of benchmarks of where you… where you reach and where you go and then the ideas, it’s how you think as a person and then your ideas get stronger from brief to brief… |
158 |
| 00:06:21.7 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:06:22.3 |
…and then your knowledge is just gradually growing over time. And you can still be productive and that’s when things like kind of achievements come, whereas ideas and knowledge might not necessarily kind of, um, move on. Perhaps you kind of need more than one graph. Perhaps you need… |
158 |
| 00:06:38.8 |
Well I’m going to ask you… |
IJS |
| 00:06:39.9 |
An achievement graph. |
158 |
| 00:06:40.8 |
[laughing] Yes! Um. I think this is going to be quite a challenge for you in this format if I ask, if that is your graphic education… |
IJS |
| 00:06:57.3 |
Uh-huh. |
158 |
| 00:06:58.0 |
…then um, we have certain parts of our graphic education, certain divisions of it, and it’s different for each person. So some people might see the divisions of their graphic education from a conceptual viewpoint. Some may see it from projects they’ve achieved. Some may see it by year. If I ask you to divide your graphic education into parts, what would be those parts or divisions for you, of your graphic education? |
IJS |
| 00:07:30.8 |
Um. I think the divisions kind of… I deal with…I’ve dealt with my education since coming out of school in almost six-month segments. Um. And those six months might not necessarily be kind of straight half-years. They could be five months and a month of something else and then moving onto the next, so it’s very much in terms of semesters. So I don’t know… You…you can’t tell me how to visualise it obviously, but I think it’s… I mean, on this graph, I mean, is it worth kind of adding something onto this graph, in terms of…? |
158 |
| 00:08:09.4 |
It’s…it’s about when I say, um, what…what are the parts of that graphic education, it’s what’s meaningful for you. |
IJS |
| 00:08:16.9 |
Uh-huh. |
158 |
| 00:08:18.2 |
So, um… |
IJS |
| 00:08:19.3 |
I think the meaningful parts for me would be, um, the internships. |
158 |
| 00:08:24.9 |
Okay. |
IJS |
| 00:08:25.8 |
Because if we divide that up, then that’s an internship time… [rustling of sheet] So internship times are really valuable because, um, they… I think you learn so much in such a short period of time. |
158 |
| 00:08:53.7 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:08:54.1 |
And I think that especially when it’s your first internship you start to get such a better idea of, um, where you want to go with your practice in the future, um, professional skills you learn a lot more of. It gives you just a clearer idea of the kind of work you love and the kind of work you want to aspire to. |
158 |
| 00:09:11.8 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:09:12.5 |
And it focuses you in a way that graphic education, I think, doesn’t because in a very big way you’re almost sort of, you’re just…you’re just a kind of, a, a spot in the ocean through there. You’re just somebody else. |
158 |
| 00:09:24.3 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:09:24.7 |
And I think that, um, when you’re in the internship, you’re either going to be one or two, like, of a kind of group of a relatively small studio. I mean, the studios that I went to are sort of five or six people. |
158 |
| 00:09:39.1 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:09:39.3 |
And I was either the only intern or one of two interns. |
158 |
| 00:09:43.5 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:09:44.0 |
And the amount of time you can kind of… they can invest in you, it’s great. Um. But they don’t have to… you don’t have to tick boxes in an internship, which I think is great. In uni, you have to tick boxes. |
158 |
| 00:09:56.8 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:09:57.4 |
And that’s very important to consider because a lot of your time and your effort is focused on doing things that are going to make sure you pass, rather than the things that are going to make work successful, make work beautiful, make work meaningful, things like that, in all sorts of different ways depending on the context of the brief. So I think that that’s something you don’t need to worry about with internships. You can focus on making the work as successful as possible, rather than on particularly showing your process or showing research and just ticking boxes. |
158 |
| 00:10:27.1 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:10:27.6 |
So I think that that’s why you kind of learn so much… |
158 |
| 00:10:30.5 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:10:30.9 |
…in those weeks. And you can see on the graph just sort of where… [rustling of sheet] where these things happen. |
158 |
| 00:10:38.2 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:10:39.2 |
And how they happen. They happen within a very short space of time. |
158 |
| 00:10:42.8 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:10:43.0 |
You’ve got a surge of kind of achievements, ideas, knowledge, productivity because you’re squeezing so much into such a small amount of time. |
158 |
| 00:10:50.5 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:10:50.9 |
And because uni is so gradual, the kind of briefs you’re tackling. I mean, I’m just started in [final] year now, been here for sort of seven or eight weeks, and the amount of kind of physical work you’re doing, especially because you’re hand-in technically isn’t until the start of June, so the amount of physical designs you’ve produced in comparison to five weeks on an internship… |
158 |
| 00:11:18.5 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:11:19.1 |
…in comparison to the amount of work I’ve produced in the last five weeks here… |
158 |
| 00:11:23.1 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:11:23.3 |
…it’s nowhere near as much. Because, um, I think you’ve got kind of other things to distract you, other things to focus on, and that’s when your study and your process begins to slide a little bit. And I think you…you…you miss that when you’ve…when you’ve had that kind of surge of…of the things that make you feel good. |
158 |
| 00:11:39.0 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:11:39.6 |
And then it tapers again ’cause you’re in a much broader environment and you’re in…you’re in a much more complicated environment. |
158 |
| 00:11:48.0 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:11:48.5 |
Um. Kind of having to please all sorts of different people and interact with all sorts of different people who sometimes aren’t in it for the same reasons as you are. Um. You know, some of them might be lecturers, some of them might be lecturers in other areas you have to contact with. All sorts of different things. You’re constantly sort of distracted and I think that on an internship you go in, you do your work and then you come out again… |
158 |
| 00:12:11.8 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:12:12.1 |
…and you’re constantly part of that process, which is really, really helpful. So I think that’s why you have that constant sort of search. |
158 |
| 00:12:18.9 |
Okay. Is it the rarity of them that creates that? I mean, could you have a sequence of internships and you could have…another internship here and another here? Would you expect it to come up at the same exponential rate? |
IJS |
| 00:12:38.2 |
I think, um, I think hypothetically, um, kind of if I was to imagine what it might have been like if I was to do another kind of internship, let’s say after this one, then I think the start would be the same. I think it would be something like that. [rustling of sheet] |
158 |
| 00:12:53.2 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:12:54.3 |
And then I think you would always continue to learn. You’d always continue to learn. But I think the… once you’ve done that first one and especially having to immediately adjust to a different environment is always going to be a little bit more difficult… |
158 |
| 00:13:08.3 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:13:08.4 |
…so although it will perhaps rise at a steeper rate than you’re going to have in… in your university practice, it’s still going to, uh… it’s not going to go quite up at such a stark rate, so if you divide them up, [rustling of sheet] then it might look something more like that. |
158 |
| 00:13:27.4 |
Mm. Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:13:28.7 |
And then on and on and on and then, um, kind of have another one. I mean, that’s just like I’ve enjoyed a lot of my internships but, um, I know people who haven’t. I mean, it can go very, very differently. And it can be detrimental. So this is just me. I mean, it’s a totally subjective… |
158 |
| 00:13:51.4 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:13:51.7 |
…kind of thing to think about. |
158 |
| 00:13:53.5 |
Okay. They’re clearly highlights for you the internships. [coughing] Thinking about what challenges you have as well, and how you would you represent those on there? |
IJS |
| 00:14:06.9 |
Um. [sighing] I think challenges, you start to lose the practice a lot. |
158 |
| 00:14:12.1 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:14:12.2 |
And it starts to become blurred very… can I rub them out? So you start to get the lines kind of basically… they start to go in all sorts of different directions. You don’t know whether you’re coming or going a lot of the time. |
158 |
| 00:14:24.9 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:14:25.4 |
I mean, right now in the start of [final] year, I’ve come out of an internship kind of going down a little bit and now, I mean, the lines of sort of beginning to blur a little bit and you sort of don’t know where you’re going, and there’s always going to be times like that. And then it starts to sort of merge into this mush where you just don’t know where you’re going and what you’re doing. And I think there’s always going to be little things like that. There’s always going to be times like during the degree show process. Um. The night, for example… |
158 |
| 00:14:51.4 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:14:51.5 |
…um, kind of wasn’t particularly well received and things like that. So you’ll always have sort of mush-up areas. There’s going to be sort of things that happen and opinions you get and sort of downfalls. They come sort of all the time, you know, somebody doesn’t like x piece of work or that sort of stuff, and that’s always going to come. Um. But there’s always going to be these sort of hazy areas as well. But this is sort of the first time… I mean, apart from here where sort of, I didn’t really know what I was doing anyway, and if I can reflect on how I’ve drawn that line, I think it would probably be wavier than I’ve drawn it… |
158 |
| 00:15:24.8 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:15:24.9 |
…because I didn’t really know where it was going. But then it’s this distortion you start to get. |
158 |
| 00:15:30.0 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:15:30.3 |
And you just… you’re sort of… you hit this mess in your process where you don’t know where you’re going. |
158 |
| 00:15:36.0 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:15:36.7 |
And I think that’s probably the most difficult… |
158 |
| 00:15:39.6 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:15:40.1 |
…because everything from internship onwards has been so steady and then you’ve suddenly kind of hit this wall… |
158 |
| 00:15:45.9 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:15:46.2 |
…and I think that it just… the line, if we’re talking about kind of achievement and process and things as a line, the line isn’t there anymore. It’s about kind of finding that line again. |
158 |
| 00:15:56.8 |
Mm. Uh-huh. Graphic education, um. Putting aside profession at the moment, I want us to look ahead. Um. But leaving profession aside. So I’m thinking of things, uh, hopes, aspirations [clearing throat], personal, spiritual, cultural, creative, family. That kind of arena. |
IJS |
| 00:16:25.3 |
Uh-huh. |
158 |
| 00:16:26.0 |
But putting profession aside. When you look ahead, do you see anything there? |
IJS |
| 00:16:29.9 |
Do I see anything in… hmm. |
158 |
| 00:16:33.9 |
Outside of profession. |
IJS |
| 00:16:37.1 |
I think it’s difficult for me to say. I know a lot of people who, um, are very kind of set on where they want to go outside of their profession. A lot of people know that they want to have a certain amount of ideals and the kind of family or social life that they have. I think that for me it’s… it’s much more… it’s much more confused because if I was to represent, um, my kind of relationships with people, then it would be much more sort of like that. [rustling of sheet] |
158 |
| 00:17:01.9 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:17:02.9 |
Because [rustling of sheet] there are people who I’ll speak to one day and they won’t speak to me for a month… |
158 |
| 00:17:16.6 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:17:16.8 |
…and there’s people I talk to a year ago and are completely not in contact with them. And the only people I’m really in constant contact with are the people I met through industry. So that’s why naturally, in terms of my kind of social existence and my family existence, I focus so much on who I know in the industry. |
158 |
| 00:17:34.3 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:17:35.1 |
So that’s why, kind of, the professional side of my life is so important. In terms of the social aspect, I mean, in a year’s time I don’t know where I’ll be working. Probably not in Aberdeen. I know a lot of people in the studio who do want to work in Aberdeen or who do want to stay in Aberdeen with, you know, boyfriends, family, everything like that, whereas me, it’s a much more confused line. And there’s never really been any definition in terms of kind of where I want the other half of my life to go, the sort of, the… the personal side of my life. Because it’s much more unpredictable… |
158 |
| 00:18:07.2 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:18:07.5 |
… in terms of who you need and who you lose contact with, who you fall out with, things like that. Um. It’s… it’s… it’s much more sporadic. So it’s kind of… It’s kind of strange for me in my own head because I have such a fixed idea… |
158 |
| 00:18:21.0 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:18:21.1 |
… of where I’m going but yet this is so confused, what’s going on here. And sometimes, especially when this starts to happen – this and this – I mean, if we were going to… going to visualise sort of [rustling of sheet] social or personal life… |
158 |
| 00:18:38.9 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:18:39.0 |
… in line with the, uh… in line with the professional life, I mean, here [rustling of sheet] is just a kind of mush and then [rustling of sheet] sort of like that. And then you start to level it out. When you start to get a better idea of where you’re going, this starts to level out. And then this starts to kind of level out as well and when you have the upshot of that you’re feeling more confident in yourself… |
158 |
| 00:18:59.8 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:19:00.0 |
… you’re starting to have more of a… um, more of a confidence in where you’re going, so this becomes less hazy and a bit more linear. |
158 |
| 00:19:07.1 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:19:07.5 |
Um. So I’ve take a line thing and this becomes more linear and a little less hazy. But it’s still… it’s always going to have… it’s not going to have that definition that the professional line’s got. And then little things start to happen and then things sort of level out. Then around Christmas time it usually gets better and very linear and then sort of mix it all up again. A lot of people I was in contact with, uh, went to live in Germany, for example. |
158 |
| 00:19:32.8 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:19:33.9 |
Um. But you start to focus on new things. And I mean, this whole time I was focused on one brief, working outside of the university in terms of my, my studio space. So, um, it was… it was… it was much more linear in itself in terms of who I was speaking to on a day-to-day basis and who I was making the effort to speak to outside of my professional life. So this was probably the most linear time I was going through. [rustling of sheet] So this was probably the most…the most linear time and then it starts to, um, sort of become.. stay linear, and then when you start to move here, it starts to become more drastic. [rustling of sheet] And then this is when you get things merging. |
158 |
| 00:20:13.4 |
Mm. Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:20:13.8 |
And then it starts to become tricky because when your person… when your professional life starts to kind of rupture a little bit and it starts to become more difficult for you, then everything…you can’t sort of focus on anything and everything kind of becomes intertwined and things like that. In terms of the future, it’s really just kind of this shape because of the unpredictability of it. [rustling of sheet] |
158 |
| 00:20:38.3 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:20:38.8 |
And I don’t have any plans. I don’t [rustling of sheet] know if I’ll settle down with anyone. If we’ll have kids. |
158 |
| 00:20:44.5 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:20:45.2 |
Anything like that. |
158 |
| 00:20:46.2 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:20:46.7 |
There’s no definition. And I think that in a way that is dissimilar to your professional life, you tend to reflect less on what you’ve had in the past in your personal life, in terms of getting influence off it and things like that. I think you’re always going to get influence off the internships you’ve done. |
158 |
| 00:21:06.9 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:21:07.2 |
Especially in the design industry and the internships you’ve done, the briefs you’ve done. You can use those in your folio and your CV, things like that. They’re always going to have an impact on what you do later on, whereas your life outside of that profession is always going to be just all the more difficult. |
158 |
| 00:21:22.6 |
Mm. Okay. Let’s get… That’s the personal side of things. Professionally then. |
IJS |
| 00:21:29.9 |
Uh-huh. |
158 |
| 00:21:30.5 |
What shape is that? ‘Cause I think is that where you are now or is that the end of…? |
IJS |
| 00:21:37.7 |
That’s now. |
158 |
| 00:21:39.1 |
Each year, yeah. |
IJS |
| 00:21:39.7 |
So that’s now. |
158 |
| 00:21:43.4 |
So you’ve got an expectation of that. So where’s professional life starting here and what does it look like? |
IJS |
| 00:21:54.3 |
When you say ‘professional life’, do you mean just how, um, how I’m functioning in different jobs and that sort of thing? |
158 |
| 00:22:02.9 |
Well if, um, you say you’ve got, um, some more months left here… |
IJS |
| 00:22:09.7 |
Uh-huh. |
158 |
| 00:22:10.1 |
… life after… |
IJS |
| 00:22:11.6 |
Life after. |
158 |
| 00:22:12.5 |
…that. |
IJS |
| 00:22:13.0 |
Okay. Um. |
158 |
| 00:22:14.9 |
[clearing throat] |
IJS |
| 00:22:15.8 |
I think again it’s my aspirations for what that’s going to be are very…are very linear, but what I actually expect of that is going to be very, very different. |
158 |
| 00:22:25.3 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:22:26.0 |
But it’s not quite as…it’s not quite as perhaps frightening as the black stuff in the sort of…you know, the sort of…this screams a danger to being unpredictability, whereas there’s a certain amount of control to your personal life because, you know, there’s…uh, your professional life, because it, um, it sort of…you can control it a little bit better, I think. It’s not dependent on other people quite as much. |
158 |
| 00:22:50.4 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:22:50.5 |
I think it depends more on yourself in your professional life. |
158 |
| 00:22:54.3 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:22:55.0 |
But, um, I think if I was to visualise that in a line, then it’s going to look probably something more like that. [rustling of sheet] |
158 |
| 00:23:04.9 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:23:05.8 |
Because still linear in terms of I know kind of what I want to do and where I’m going… |
158 |
| 00:23:12.1 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:23:12.6 |
…but things can change, things can…highs and lows. |
158 |
| 00:23:16.1 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:23:16.5 |
Working with different people, working in different places. So in terms of, um, sort of the movement of that line, it’s going to have the same kind of characteristics as that, in terms of it’s not…it’s not straight, it’s not going in one kind of constant direction but it’s always…it’s got some form of direction, some form of control. |
158 |
| 00:23:34.9 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:23:35.5 |
Uh, because I can feel as if I can kind of control my professional life a little bit easier. |
158 |
| 00:23:40.8 |
Yeah. I mean, it looks to me as though it’s on a trajectory. |
IJS |
| 00:23:43.7 |
Yeah. |
158 |
| 00:23:44.2 |
Uh-huh. But you don’t know the detail. It’s wavering. Yeah. Okay. So we’ve got, um, education, uh, personal life ahead, professional life ahead. In graphic design I think particularly [clearing throat] we talk of the industry. |
IJS |
| 00:24:05.9 |
Uh-huh. |
158 |
| 00:24:06.2 |
I want us to have a think about the character of that industry. So if I was to say, ‘Where does industry belong on here? What form does it have? What does it look like? Where are its boundaries? What do its edges look like? Um, is it easy to access? Is it difficult to access?’ and also, ‘What is the name of the industry that you’re in?’, so where does that belong on this? |
IJS |
| 00:24:38.0 |
I think the industry… |
158 |
| 00:24:40.0 |
[coughing] |
IJS |
| 00:24:40.4 |
…encompasses everything that I do. Um. Not necessarily represents everything that I do but certainly has an impact. So I think to represent the industry you kind of need to consider this…this whole graph… |
158 |
| 00:24:54.5 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:24:55.0 |
…’cause everything fits within it. |
158 |
| 00:24:56.2 |
Okay. So how do you… |
IJS |
| 00:24:57.8 |
So… |
158 |
| 00:24:58.7 |
…represent that? |
IJS |
| 00:24:59.7 |
I’m thinking about there’s a huge hierarchy in the industry. Um. I think because [rustling of sheet] graphic design is a subjective activity in a lot of ways. Um. And I think that in many ways you can look at a traditional hierarchy as being this triangle. |
158 |
| 00:25:21.9 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:25:22.7 |
So in business you could have something very kind of, very ordered. You’ve got a certain payroll at the bottom and then moving up and moving up and moving up and then you’ve got your executives on the top. Um. Whereas in the graphic design industry there’s almost kind of going to be different peaks to that. So there’s kind of going to be, um, the peak of, I think, um, advertising, which I think controls everything. But I don’t necessarily think it controls me. So a peak for advertising might be kind of a peak for someone else, whereas it’s going to be a lesser peak for me. |
158 |
| 00:25:57.4 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:25:58.0 |
So if I was going to look at the peak of advertising, um, it would probably be [rustling of sheet] somewhere like that. |
158 |
| 00:26:08.2 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:26:08.5 |
So it’s a very kind of sharp peak because it’s got a lot of, um, it’s got a lot of, um, definition within the industry. It controls a lot within the industry. It’s very powerful. It makes a lot of money. But isn’t necessarily particularly important to me. |
158 |
| 00:26:21.1 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:26:21.8 |
Whereas if I look at sort of minimalist graphics, Swiss graphics, which I’m very, very interested in, perhaps doesn’t have the same amount of, um, prowess in terms of making money, um, being particularly known for its attributes and values outside of the graphic design industry in the way that advertising is. People…the every man can appreciate advertising, whereas it’s much more difficult for…for someone to kind of appreciate and understand that. So I think the peak of that is much…is…is kind of much less rigid, much less controlling, it’s much softer. So if we were to visualise that, then it would be a lot bigger, [rustling of sheet] a lot more controlling in terms of what I do, but perhaps much softer. |
158 |
| 00:27:03.9 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:27:04.5 |
Like that, but still kind of connected. Everything’s connected, so they all link up. |
158 |
| 00:27:12.4 |
So that…that’s advertising… |
IJS |
| 00:27:14.3 |
Yeah. |
158 |
| 00:27:14.6 |
…for you. That’s Swiss design and Swiss aesthetic. |
IJS |
| 00:27:19.8 |
Mm. Um, and then there’s other things like photography, which perhaps is a little bit more accessible, makes a little bit more money commercially. |
158 |
| 00:27:27.6 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:27:28.0 |
So it’s slightly more peaked, slightly bigger aspect of my life but not as big as that. |
158 |
| 00:27:34.1 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:27:34.7 |
And then you have other areas like illustration, which is kind of a really sort of soft peak. |
158 |
| 00:27:39.5 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:27:40.3 |
Not a big thing for me, don’t make a lot of money necessarily, but it’s a very kind of sort of personalised activity. It’s an expressive activity. Um. I’m trying to think of something to go on there. Um. I mean, you’ve got editorial design is bigger. Probably slightly more peaked. |
158 |
| 00:28:00.7 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:28:01.3 |
Um. Like that. [rustling of sheet] |
158 |
| 00:28:08.3 |
Okay. Can we add those on, maybe? |
IJS |
| 00:28:11.0 |
Yeah. |
158 |
| 00:28:11.1 |
There’s advertising… |
IJS |
| 00:28:14.4 |
[rustling of sheet] |
158 |
| 00:28:37.0 |
It’s quite interesting because we could classically put editorial, illustration, um, photography, advertising. You could classically put ‘industry’ on the end of those. Um. Whereas Swiss…um, design aesthetic, classically it’s a bit more difficult to stick ‘industry’ on the end of that. So… |
IJS |
| 00:29:13.1 |
It’s more of a style, isn’t it, I suppose, yeah. |
158 |
| 00:29:15.7 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:29:15.8 |
How do you…how do you express Swiss style in terms of industry? |
158 |
| 00:29:20.4 |
So is it a field? Is it a… Is it an aesthetic? Is it a school? Is it… It’s clearly very significant to you. Um. |
IJS |
| 00:29:35.9 |
I think it’s [pause]… I think it’s a field and/or [rustling of sheet]… I think it’s a field and/or aesthetic. |
158 |
| 00:29:55.6 |
Uh-huh. Okay. ‘Cause it feels as though you could…borrow this. Borrow some of its maths from all the other industries you’ve got around as well. |
IJS |
| 00:30:14.2 |
Mm, yeah. I mean, there’s sort of numerous industries that I kind of probably wouldn’t even know about. |
158 |
| 00:30:26.9 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:30:27.5 |
Things like film and television. |
158 |
| 00:30:29.5 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:30:30.1 |
Which perhaps have more of an impact but less in my life, perhaps. |
158 |
| 00:30:37.3 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:30:38.3 |
Um. I mean, you’ve kind of… Probably the best way to visualise it is to sort of visualise a sort of constant peaks. [rustling of sheet] That I sort of don’t know about. |
158 |
| 00:30:54.2 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:30:56.1 |
They all kind of, sort of, are more important. And they sort of… If you’ve got these, like, mini-peaks down here [rustling of sheet], then they’re quite anonymous but they still show us an awareness of what’s going on around you, even if they sort of… You’re aware that there’s kind of stuff going on but… |
158 |
| 00:31:17.0 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:31:17.5 |
…you wouldn’t necessarily focus on them in terms of your practice, which is why they’re kind of…they’re all sort of mushed in together. |
158 |
| 00:31:25.0 |
Mm. Alright. [coughing] When you’re close, you can see particular mountains. It’s like a mountain range, isn’t it, that’s distant, um. That’s what it reminds me of. But people do manage to survive, don’t they? |
IJS |
| 00:31:43.7 |
Uh-huh. |
158 |
| 00:31:44.5 |
By sticking into these particular fields or aesthetics. Um. Rarely you have… In design you do have people that become known in this field. It seems to me, though, that they are very often the people that are, um, maybe have the agency or develop their own agency, their own [unclear]. |
IJS |
| 00:32:15.4 |
Yeah. |
158 |
| 00:32:15.5 |
Is that something that interests you? |
IJS |
| 00:32:16.6 |
Yeah, I think so. |
158 |
| 00:32:18.6 |
Or studio, rather than agency. |
IJS |
| 00:32:20.0 |
Um. Yeah, I think so. I think in a big way, you could kind of… a house atop a hill… so you’ve kind of got ownership over it or something. |
158 |
| 00:32:35.1 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:32:41.0 |
So you’ve got ownership of that field. It’s kind of where you’re…you’re focused. |
158 |
| 00:32:47.4 |
And you said, ‘We live here.’ |
IJS |
| 00:32:48.1 |
Yeah. |
158 |
| 00:32:48.7 |
But we will come and visit you over there! [laughing] |
IJS |
| 00:32:51.5 |
Yeah, exactly. So you can… |
158 |
| 00:32:55.8 |
Yeah. |
IJS |
| 00:32:57.9 |
So you can go and there might be other people living on advertising… |
158 |
| 00:33:01.7 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:33:02.2 |
…perhaps more people living on advertising. |
158 |
| 00:33:04.4 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:33:05.5 |
[rustling of sheet] Like that. |
158 |
| 00:33:11.2 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:33:11.7 |
And less and less people living over here. [rustling of sheet] On this peak. So you’ve got a kind of constant community around you… |
158 |
| 00:33:32.6 |
Yeah. |
IJS |
| 00:33:34.0 |
…but there’s always going to be more of a community in things like… [rustling of sheet] TV, less community in illustration. |
158 |
| 00:33:45.9 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:33:46.4 |
Photography perhaps has got some community. And your’e always kind of…you’ve perhaps maybe got a sort of zip wire or something… |
158 |
| 00:33:57.7 |
Yeah. |
IJS |
| 00:33:58.1 |
…I don’t know, between photography and what you’re doing here. |
158 |
| 00:34:02.4 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:34:03.0 |
‘Cause it sort of depends so much on it. |
158 |
| 00:34:05.2 |
Yeah. Good. Okay. Great. Industry. So these domains then. We’ve got education, we’ve got wider life ahead, um, we’ve got profession and then industry. Um. And I’m thinking industry terms. You said you started quite young with graphics. |
IJS |
| 00:34:33.2 |
Uh-huh. |
158 |
| 00:34:33.9 |
Uh, but there was a time when you weren’t in graphic education. |
IJS |
| 00:34:38.0 |
Uh-huh. |
158 |
| 00:34:38.4 |
What did that threshold feel like and look like when you came from whatever was before graphic education into graphic education? |
IJS |
| 00:34:50.4 |
I think it looked almost very meaningless. |
158 |
| 00:34:55.6 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:34:56.4 |
Because I think in yourself when you’re at school, I think there’s not as much… It’s…it’s kind of a little bit more superficial feeling for you ’cause you sort of, you go in and you feel as if you’re just there for that day. Whereas now, you… I think you focus more on the bigger picture and you focus more on kind of where you might go and what you’re doing from day to day, rather than just what you’re doing on that day. You think very much in terms of the present when you’re at school. And I think that there’s very much like a sort of, a brick wall that you’re just sort of constantly climbing from day to day, so I think at the start of this process you’ve kind of got… [rustling of sheet] So you’ve got this kind of brick wall that… And it’s a brick wall in the sense that when you’re hitting the brick wall you’re just sort of… |
158 |
| 00:36:02.5 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:36:02.8 |
…you don’t know where you’re going, you don’t know what your ideas are doing. |
158 |
| 00:36:05.1 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:36:05.6 |
And perhaps just kind of… perhaps it’s about… you see, I would say dismantling the brick wall, but it’s not a kind of gradual dismantling. I think all the way through school you’ve kind of had that. It wasn’t until you absolutely left that that just deserted you. |
158 |
| 00:36:24.7 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:36:25.3 |
So I think it’s very like all of this kind of comes along, not so much like a cons… like a gradual dismantling, but more like a sort of wrecking ball or something. |
158 |
| 00:36:34.8 |
Right. So it’s a totally different paradigm then, when you leave school? |
IJS |
| 00:36:43.0 |
Yeah. |
158 |
| 00:36:44.0 |
You just step into something… |
IJS |
| 00:36:46.4 |
Uh-huh. I think… I think there is a huge sense of ‘that was, this is’… |
158 |
| 00:36:52.2 |
Yeah. |
IJS |
| 00:36:52.6 |
…in terms of… |
158 |
| 00:36:53.1 |
Okay. |
IJS |
| 00:36:53.6 |
… looking back then, it’s not somewhere that particularly has a huge amount of influence on my life in terms of my professional practice and things like that. Um. I, in a personal sense, I don’t really talk to many people from school anymore. I went to school near Glasgow… |
158 |
| 00:37:09.3 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:37:09.6 |
…so, um, I’m never usually there. It’s kind of very much a distant… It’s almost like they put this thing up to represent your childhood and then when you leave, it just sort of… that’s it. It’s broken and it’s gone and I feel that in many ways it’s that part of my education’s gone. Because many of the things that I learnt and things like Higher Maths and stuff all gone. Physics, all gone. |
158 |
| 00:37:35.0 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:37:35.3 |
Geography, all gone. |
158 |
| 00:37:36.4 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:37:36.8 |
Art, not so much perhaps. English, perhaps not so much. |
158 |
| 00:37:40.7 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:37:41.4 |
But, um, I think they’re just… they’re… The things that I’ve learnt in Art, any of the things that are meaningful to me now are things I’ve learnt since the start of university. |
158 |
| 00:37:53.0 |
Yeah. |
IJS |
| 00:37:53.6 |
So it’s very much just a complete sort of removal of what happened before you were seventeen. |
158 |
| 00:37:59.1 |
Okay. Okay. That was coming in. I’m wondering now, you will be going out. |
IJS |
| 00:38:04.9 |
Uh-huh. |
158 |
| 00:38:05.4 |
Um. So sometime here… |
IJS |
| 00:38:11.5 |
Uh-huh. |
158 |
| 00:38:11.9 |
… is the threshold out of here and into this. What does that threshold look like? What does that, um… |
IJS |
| 00:38:23.2 |
Mm. |
158 |
| 00:38:23.5 |
… feel like to you now? |
IJS |
| 00:38:27.4 |
I mean, there’s kind of the obvious. I’m thinking about here this sort of constant, you know, almost pyramid idea of where you’ve got steps going up and steps going up and steps going up. |
158 |
| 00:38:43.6 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:38:43.7 |
But that to me is kind of just representational of the ideal, rather than what actually goes on. |
158 |
| 00:38:51.1 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:38:51.6 |
And I think that for me moving forward, I think it’s not so much a brick wall but it’s almost like a sort of cloud of ideas. [rustling of sheet] So moving on, you’ve kind of got like a cloud of ideas and it’s this kind of idea of constantly moving. |
158 |
| 00:39:13.4 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:39:13.9 |
And it’s kind of moving up and down and it rains sometimes, in terms of [rustling of sheet] you lose things, you bring things, you have good days, you have bad days. Um. And things kind of, I think, if we’re talking about the modern sense of a cloud, in terms of, um, that sort of, you know, getting information… |
158 |
| 00:39:33.6 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:39:33.9 |
… in terms of a technological cloud, then you’ve kind of always got things going in and going out… |
158 |
| 00:39:39.8 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:39:40.3 |
… and going in [rustling of sheet] and going out. So it’s a kind of constantly flexible object but it never really changes. It’s always a cloud. So it’s kind of always your…it’s always your life but it’s got also, so then things coming in it. It needs to unload and it needs to change and all sorts of things like that, but it’s always got that identity. |
158 |
| 00:39:57.9 |
Uh-huh. So here, so here… |
IJS |
| 00:40:04.0 |
Uh-huh. |
158 |
| 00:40:04.3 |
… involves a journey through this. |
IJS |
| 00:40:06.3 |
Yeah. I think that when… when you kind of come out of… when you come out of school, you’re almost sort of like you’ve left the brick wall behind. Perhaps the cloud’s sort of trapped underneath the brick wall or something. |
158 |
| 00:40:24.4 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:40:24.9 |
And then the brick wall’s removed, this starts to move and things start to happen… |
158 |
| 00:40:28.4 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:40:29.1 |
… and the cloud starts to begin to sort of begin a… begin it’s journey, almost. |
158 |
| 00:40:32.3 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:40:32.6 |
And then that’s when, you know, things start to kind of move in, move out. Things start to happen very, very quickly. Things change very, very quickly. |
158 |
| 00:40:41.6 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:40:41.8 |
This is almost like a sort of… I mean, sort of the first, um, seventeen years of my life didn’t really change that much. |
158 |
| 00:40:48.8 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:40:49.3 |
And then things will change every five months, ten months. |
158 |
| 00:40:53.8 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:40:54.5 |
You know, twelve months, eighteen months, whatever. Things will change so, so quickly. |
158 |
| 00:40:58.7 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:40:59.1 |
And sometimes it’s kind of that’s… that’s… that could be a dark cloud. |
158 |
| 00:41:02.4 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:41:03.1 |
So sometimes your cloud can be a sort of [rustling of sheet] a cloud that doesn’t really know where it’s going. And sometimes it’ll clear up and you get a kind of better picture of what’s happening… |
158 |
| 00:41:19.3 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:41:19.6 |
… and sometimes it can be kind of dark and dense and… |
158 |
| 00:41:22.0 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:41:22.4 |
… and, you know, pretty unnerving. |
158 |
| 00:41:26.4 |
Mm. |
IJS |
| 00:41:26.5 |
And there’s that anticipation of when it’s going to rain and, you know, ‘Shall we all get our umbrellas?’ and sometimes there’s a lot of sort of anticipation in life and your professional life and you’re, ‘Shit, am I going to get this job? Am I going to, you know, is this going to work? Should I do this? Have I made the right decision?’ and that’s where that kind of anticipation idea comes in. |
158 |
| 00:41:46.4 |
Uh-huh. Okay. So a… a… a period of anticipation. Um. And it’s coming up in a few months. So given all this, I’m wondering in these next few months, what’s the very best use of your time now? The remaining time here. |
IJS |
| 00:42:08.3 |
Um. Conceptually with the cloud thing, use an umbrella. |
158 |
| 00:42:12.4 |
Okay. |
IJS |
| 00:42:14.2 |
So sometimes it rains and sometimes we need an umbrella. |
158 |
| 00:42:20.8 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:42:21.5 |
So on this journey, kind of where we are now… [rustling of sheet] |
158 |
| 00:42:26.6 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:42:27.2 |
… this is sort of, this is umbrella time. |
158 |
| 00:42:30.7 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:42:32.1 |
So that’s when we need to shelter ourselves from the rain. |
158 |
| 00:42:34.2 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:42:34.9 |
And shelter ourselves from that kind of… The anticipation will still be there. Things will still happen, but you’ve got to react to it. |
158 |
| 00:42:42.2 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:42:42.5 |
You let it rain on you but you need to, um, prepare for it and that’s about having an umbrella. So in a very real sense, it’s about, um, we’ve got a deadline for the start of June. We’ve got a degree show to prepare for. We’ve got essays to hand in… |
158 |
| 00:42:57.1 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:42:57.9 |
… and in a very real way, doing work, forming relationships, doing what you need to do is that umbrella, so that kind of protection from the rain, from the bad things that are going to happen. And then, you know, your… your… your kind of… your world will change so very much, if your… if your life is represented by this cloud, then that kind of cloud, your life going on around about you will always change. You can’t help that. But you can deal with how… whether or not you’ve got a rain jacket. |
158 |
| 00:43:25.0 |
Yeah. So you’re talking about developing, using your remaining time to develop extra capacities of resilience. |
IJS |
| 00:43:36.6 |
Uh-huh. Yeah. |
158 |
| 00:43:38.2 |
For… for whatever is to come. It’s not… It doesn’t imply that it’s going to be terrible but it’s… you want your resilience for whatever. |
IJS |
| 00:43:47.6 |
Yeah. Uh-huh. |
158 |
| 00:43:48.5 |
Yeah. Good. |
IJS |
| 00:43:51.8 |
So that could mean two umbrellas! [laughing] |
158 |
| 00:43:53.4 |
Yeah. |
IJS |
| 00:43:54.4 |
One in each hand, I don’t know. But uh, yeah, I think it’s a good way to think about it because I think I am in anticipation of what’s going to happen. |
158 |
| 00:44:01.6 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:44:02.4 |
I’m very kind of precious about my work and I think that a lot of people are like that. It’s… it’s… I mean, you’re always sort of… you’re always worried if this is going to go right. I’m running a workshop next week and I’m thinking, ‘God, will anybody turn up?’ |
158 |
| 00:44:14.0 |
Uh-huh. |
IJS |
| 00:44:14.3 |
And I don’t know whether you have that same feeling kind of going around all these art schools, but you do have that anticipation that you kind of… you need to… I think you just get it into your own head exactly where you want to go and you start to process things in more of an effective way for you and for just the whole kind of event of kind of doing a… doing a course, a PhD or an Honours or whatever you’re doing and you start to put it into more of a method. You can… And that’s what that umbrella will do. |
158 |
| 00:44:43.8 |
Good. Good. Good luck with it. Thank you very much for doing this. |
IJS |
