Nuggets of my 2016

The main achievement was completing university, in one piece with the grade that I feared I would never get and after a tire replacement got to Carlisle to officially make the graduation ceremony. Here is me hiding the fact that I had been freezing in Hexham, pulling my hair out and had officially given up just 1 hour before hand.

The Begining of the year saw the release of my album of the year; David Bowie's Blackstar. Not a instantly blown away by it but as the year went on it took on greater significance when only a few days later he passed away. Me and Vincent (who has recently updated his website) made him the poster boy for the local indie night as a tribute.

I handed in my dissertation which was the hardest piece of writing I have ever had to do. It was painful for a number of reasons; 1) No matter how many revisions it never seemed to get more "academic" 2) It took so much time away from designing things. 3) The need to print out two double spaced 10+ paged documents costs quite a lot of money. The Feedback on the dissertation was just as painful to read (I got a 2:2) and in the other comments they said this;

I went on a Design trip to London to meet Young Minds to help produce the design piece I am most proud of "Young Minds Vs Uni Stress Zine". I met the wonderful and talented people that work for and with them and they have extended my knowledge of the plight of young people's mental health and to the real extent of the problem. It was a great trip to the big city. I took Phillip too and he seemed to like it. We nearly didn't make it back after Phillip made us late for the train but instead of missing it we caused a technical fault so the driver let us sneak on while he fixed it. Oops.

I have applied to 80+ jobs this year with about mere 15 replying to me at all and 4 interviews. With this volume of applications a sense of doubt starts to hit you; is it me or the job market? Naturally we blame ourselves but when you see more talented people than yourself struggling you realise that it's the job market. The market wants boring, clinical and functional designers so those with a bit of creativity or offering something different just get rejected. I am not saying I am exceptional but that is just based on what I have seen. I also saying this is not always the case; creative people have been snapped up into jobs too.

The country voted to leave Europe and America voted to let a satsuma with a toupe into the white house; both events I watched live. Things like these don't happen on the regular so made sure to stay up with beer and energy drink (the beer helps you get through the bits you don't like and the energy drink makes sure you get through it all). It's now traditional. Also my vote in the EU referendum didn't count and it hurts my soul.

 We gone made an Graphic Design and illustration exhibition at university. It was a lot of hard work by the half of the class that actually wanted to help with it. The final product was no where near anything that I thought it would be. We had paper leaves for reasons that no one explained to me. We has Coors instead of Becks for reasons that no one explained to me. but it was an interesting experience.

I got a placement at a media company who's boss is a polygamist and had a lecture about what it means to be a heterosexual male and on why Britain is a third world country. I also did some graphic design work for this associated companies (Go Marry and Treadmill Gym) and made some friends.

I don't often put value on a signed piece of merchandise but that was until I received a certain tube in the mail. Sent from Vincent Walden from Carlisle a few days after The Damned played the Brickyard. It was an honour to do the poster for the Punk legends but to have it signed by Dave Vanian and Captain Sensible! I could of cried. No photo will do this justice. Thank you Man!

I got a custom Nintendo Wii and GC controller from the exceptional talent that is Isaac Caplan Wilson AKA Design Out of Shield. I'd always been a fan of the Super Smash Bros Franchise but this man took my love of it to another level so kitted me out with a crystal Gamecube Controller with my logo on and an orange Nintendo Wii with the work of Andy Warhol and Sir Peter Blake on it, so that I could get good.