Posted some ‘hey all, here’s me, let’s connect!’-messages to some local telegram groups
Watched a few ‘things I wish I knew before becoming a designer’-videos
Researched a company I want to apply to
Worked on a CV design in Figma
Feels like a productive day. I’m a little disappointed I didn’t finish this CV design - but man, arranging words on a page can be hard!
Nothing much more to say, it seems. My head just wants to solve these layout-challenges - do I emphasize this heading with font size, font weight, background color or all of the above? I wanna keep it minimal but then I also wanna have a color shade between these other 2 colors, so I can… etc. thimgs b complex (tm)
Now that I think about it, in the next session I might take all the colors out and just focus on the arrangement and information hierarchy. Unfuck the cluster I kind of got myself into and work in greyscale for a while. I love it bright and saturated, but I also like it simple and doable :). And I can always add colors later.
(Credit for my ex-co-worker Felix for telling me about this tactic and for Refactoring UI for introducing it to us (I keep mentioning this book, because it’s the only hands-on design book I’ve read. I’m not affiliated with them)
Read about type (as in typeface): learned about how to choose the right type for the occasion, the OpenFont standard, types of numerals, and some basic vocabulary like cap height and tracking
Worked hard on my CV design: continued with the simplified grayscale version, tried out some different ways to group information, and added content to the Values-section. Made some screenshots of interesting CVs for inspiration
I emphasize that I worked hard, because it felt like that: spending lot of energy to little effect, fiddling with details without being clear about the message that I want to convey. This was hard work, not smart work.
Working on a CV tends to bring out some deep-seated conflicts within me. This happens almost every time I do a redesign. I come back to some fundamental questions:
Do I focus on getting a job ASAP or getting better at designing? - Should I go with a template or invest some time in learning how to do a layout?
Should I follow “established conventions” or do things my way - like maybe be radically honest from the get-go?
And the kicker:
Should I even be investing all this effort into achieving a goal which I’m not even that excited about (working at some company, possibly full-time)
The answer is probably no. But something in me is stuck and doesn’t see an alternative. Hm hm hm.
Redesigning My CV
Hyper-insecurity. A vibe of “my whole life has been a failure and I am nothing.” Skipping the ’Work Experience-section, because (feeling like) there’s no work experience worth talking about. Trying to fill in the resulting white space with something. Looking at the whole and only seeing a mess. Deciding to embrace the mess and be honest: mention depression in a section called My Story! Coming back the next day and feeling like that’s the most ridiculous and unnecessarily exhibitionistic thing in the world. Doubting the whole be-radically-honest-plan. Maybe I should rewrite everything? Maybe I should put depression in like the footer of the cover letter?
Not sure if I have anything to say. Feelin tired, maybe I didn’t sleep all too well.
I’m having a naughty kind of fun with my CV. Writing it in a ‘normal’, ”standard”, '''expected''' way kind of stresses me out. But I’ve found an antidote: Being honest. Like, advertising-that-I-am-a-mess-kind-of-honest. And then all of the pressure of presenting myself falls away, and I can start making something interesting.
Not sure if I’ll actually send any of these drafts, but they definitely help with getting me past the blockage. After I get my juices flowing, I can always trim down the crazy. Or at least how much I show of it :).
Wrapped into this is the question of what kind of work and work relationships… do I want… are possible… are desirable… are realistic… are healthy? etc. etc. I feel split between ‘I love you as a colleague, but don’t call me after 6’ and ‘y’all my peeps, let’s do thimgs together, why not also after work?’
