extra credit

On the 13th we got to visit with a couple guys named Dave and Eric who had started a while back their own design firm called the 13th floor. They were from southern California and they visited us at The Dickson Street Theatre. They were two graphic designers who did jobs for many different companies and seemed to have a lot of reservations when it came to business. Like they wouldn't do work on speck, I think is what they called it. Which means they had to be paid for their work even if the client didn't like it. They warned that us students need to build up our portfolio and that we didn't have much choice in the matter, but still they talked about a lot of business aspects that I didn't even think about when it came to selling my work. They also talked about working up fakes like for fake companies to put in our portfolio. The guy Eric said it would be wise to call up design companies, tell them that I'm a student, and see if they would allow me and another student to come visit and see how they did their work. I think that's a good idea because after this exposure to the design world through them it's obvious to me I need to have some more. To see if this is what I really want to do. Because after they discussed all those business aspects and money and bad deals and good deals I became nervous about weather or not I should get involved in something that in a way is so cold.
Another thing I learned from them is the idea of keeping things custom, though at the same time I would like to keep it original. It can come out of your head all you want but if what comes out of your head still looks like clip art it doesn't really matter. So, it seems to me the trick is to expose oneself to all these ideas and images and come up out of the ashes after burning them all with your own idea that is nothing like the others.
We got stickers and posters. Reminders to me about stuff in the design world I need to give more thought to.
And I on a side note had a strange encounter with a middle-aged man when I got back to the parking lot. This encounter would over shadow the rest of my night and cost me my umbrella. I don't know why I always get into such strange situations with people who need help but I assure you if I had not been there that man would have been stuck in the parking lot all night. Because a person like me is the only one dumb enough to help them.