For today’s afterlife session we had Michael C Place who owns and is the creative director of Studio Build. I was inspired by his talk it has really got me thinking about where I want to be in the future and what I could achieve even without moving to London. One of the main points from his talk was the idea that you don’t have to be in London to design you don’t have to be in London to become a credible designer. This is something that has inspired me to think about what I can do in my area as a designer. Also Michael spoke about clients haven’t once asked are you based in London, as long as the work is good they won’t matter where you are based.
Hearing how Michael had found his way into the design industry really interested me because he had almost stumbled across it by accident. His influences came from music, that’s where his passion for design and creative stemmed from. This was another point that I thought was important was to look at influences not just from design but other areas of life. This is something that I have been told before on one of my own placements but hearing being said by another designer shown me how I need to continue to do this.
His work is really experimental and this is something that I found interesting. There is this perception sometimes that designer have to create pretty design but his work has started to inspire me to be more adventurous with some pieces of work. Also, I found it really interesting seeing the range of work the studio has done across the years and how they aren’t sector specific they have worked with a range of clients, everything from branding to exhibition design. Michael said that this has both its positive and negatives but gave them opportunities to design things they haven’t had the chance to design before. The saying “do good work for good people” stuck with me and will be something I aim to remember.
A really interesting point that Michael gave was to remember that design isn’t everything and it’s important to take a breathe and have a social life. Getting to the point of burnout will not help you or anyone. This is something that I think is really important especially right now in the current climate. Working from home it can become easy to just to slip and not take proper breaks.
This talk with Michael has really inspired me to think about my process, practice and future within this industry. Potential starting my own studio in the future is something I have thought about and hearing his advice on this has really helped me think about this, especially the idea about working for someone first before moving into venture like that.
Abbie Louise Williams 