Chepooka

Ok what, you don’t like American Idol blogging?

Yeah I know my only post this week was about Amerian Idol. I’m aware that I’m extra lame.

I’ve been working on understanding some programming and scripting thingeebobs so I can do some cool stuff for work. It’s not that I don’t have the aptitude to do computer programming, it’s just that I’m trying to skip about a thousand steps. I took programming in college, but it was very basic (actually, it was literally BASIC), but that was long ago as you know. And I even though I loved the shit out of that class, I didn’t take it any further. I had engineers and computer-electrical-rocket-science types all around me—it was not an art school, but an engineering school, where those types of classes got real tough real quick past the entry level courses. Trust me, I stopped begging to get into classes that required calculus prerequisites that I didn’t have very early on.

I’ve never been one for patience, but if you want to learn something, you do have to start from square one. Here I am again, trying to “catch up” and “skip steps”—same old delusions of grandeur.

So yeah 18 year olds (i.e. me) don’t know jack shit about what to study in school for the most part, and those that did, those are the 24 years olds out there right now kicking my ass. I’m devouring everything they write and listening closely. In the world of web design, there are a special few that hold the keys to the future. They are curious, they are tireless, and they are excited. Me? I’m just trying to keep up the best I can.

Who knew that 13 years out of college I would wish that I spent my time in school studying other things. Things that would be so useful to me right now. I used to laugh at the art students carrying around their tackle boxes and markers. Like, get a real major why don’t you. Now, here I am, a designer going on half a dozen years now and I have to go back and take classes or self-teach to pick up all that junk I missed. I have my drawing portfolio and “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” tucked underneath my coffee table in the living room. I have books upon books spralled out all over my office and bedroom. Sometimes I have ten books going at the same time.

I studied stuff in school that is very related (communications/advertising) but I’m still for the most part self-taught. And dammit if it isn’t the tougher road. Kids, don’t try this at home. Being a self-taught designer is very different than buying a copy of Dreamweaver one day and the next, printing web designer on your business card. My version of self-taught is just as challenging as any formal education I’ve ever had, if not moreso.

Designers should always be learning. But for me, I have to keep pace AND go back and study the fundamentals if I ever want to be as good as I want to be. Which will be never if I’m lucky because complacency is not what I’m after either but I digress.

So, I’ve been busy. My work site is in the planning stages for a major revamp. “v2” if you will. So, I’ll probably be talking a lot about things like American Idol and many other ridiculous things ... because it’s that or DOM Scripting and Ajax, yo. Unless you want to talk about that stuff. Yeah, didn’t think so.

Posted by chepooka on 04/21 at 09:45 AM