Bees Knees?... Not so much.

Zuzanna Milancej
Illustration and Visual Media.
Design is not noticeable with ones bare eye. But once you look at the world through a magnifying glass, you realise design is what makes our world. Everything we see, touch and experience has been thought through and created for the purpose to attract or engage by designers. Looking at jobs and finding internships I have learned more about my own style and practice unlike ever before, as well as finding new approaches to illustration and the discipline this carries nowadays. Although there are a lot of creative jobs out there, it is impossible to do something that is 100% you, something that I knew was true at the back of my mind but something I never acknowledged. This really put a comma in my motivation and naivety I had when thinking about the DPS year. One of the hardest parts was having to overcome this and moving forward, trying to find a job that is more of what I want to do and learn, something that I would enjoy and not be asleep at my desk each morning. As well as this, I have learnt a lot about the industry, people and how to be resilient even in the hardest times when you need to find the will to get up in the morning and send another 100 emails that you know that no one will answer except for the odd few saying they don’t want you. Design seems to be everywhere like bees. You see it everywhere when you’re not looking, and once its actually an important part of your life and you need to find it, turns out its pretty much extinct.

Being in an arts university you forget about the outside world and the naivety of people towards design. You struggle to explain what you do. You try showing them but they just tell you to put your phone away and they don’t care. You’re just a children’s book illustrator or a website designer and everything else is just empty words that come in one ear and leave the other straight away. It is hard to not become just an “artist” or “hobbyist” in other people’s eyes. But just like the bees, your motivation will have a come back and we will escape the feeling of dread and unfulfillment and will join the rest of the world and create for the Earth.
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We can despair for our unstable lifestyles, but we will always know that design is needed everywhere and everything is design. Even if the rest of the world doesn’t know. We are like the silent heroes of our age. Ones that only now start to be slowly recognised, and ones that will always be needed and used. I will always try to carry on doing something that is in line with my manifesto and belief to fulfill my ambitions throughout this year and I know it is going to be hard, but I know that it will be worth it in the very end.

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