Looking Forward
Well It appears to be that time… we are closing the door on 2008, and preparing to enter through a new door entitled 2009, what lies beyond this door we can not be 100% sure of. What we can be sure of is that there will be new adventures, new challenges, new successes, and most definitely new failures.
Progression
This last year held all of the same and as I look back I am amazed at how quickly things can change over time. From responsibilities at my job, to starting a blog, and pushing towards the goal of doing what I love on my own terms. Starting TIAL was just the beginning of a path that I hope to travel for many years to come, and it is off to a great start thanks to those of you who read, support, and interact on this blog. I look forward and am motivated to write relevant, helpful content that contributes to the design community as well as provides great opportunities for discussion, and growth.
Looking Forward
I am very excited to see what the new year holds, in an effort to provide better articles I have enlisted the editing services of Jacqueline Geary to assist in making sure that I am actually making sense when I am convey the chaos that ensues in my mind, be on the lookout for her blog launching in the beginning of 2009.
I plan to continue to write for other blogs such as WAJC and Local Search News(Launching Beginning of 2009), as well as guest posts as they become available.
I hope to find new balance between personal endeavors, and work(which is another article in itself) along with the goal of implementing a firm understanding of standards, good experience design, and quality progression to our team, it is not enough to simply see and express frustration, we must work to make it better for ourselves and those we work with by being flexible and communicating effectively.
I plan on failing, it is a necessity for quality growth and learning.
If we intend to improve in the new year we must fail, and use our failures as a launching pad for progression.
The new year provides the opportunity to learn, to grow, and do things better than the year before, I look forward to seeing where the new year takes us, and again thank all of you for your support and interaction on this blog.
What are your plans? Do you have any? I would love to hear what you a plan on improving, and even more so if you have any suggestions on how TIAL can improve.
~ Aaron I
I am currently running through some plans for the new year. I know of one right of the bat. Run with my blog (TIKL) at full force in 2009. Starting with a fresh new design with help from none other than Aaron Irizarry himself.
Others will come in time I guess.
Thanks for sure a great article.
Kyle Reddoch’s last blog post..New Years Resolution
I am planning to improve my own design skills. I want to better understand the principles of design and get a firmer grasp on designing with a grid (and different kinds of them). I bought Grid Systems this year and darn it, I’m going to make that $70 well spent! I also want to improve my understanding and use of typography and I purchased The Elements of Typographic Style to help me there. Now to actually get to reading these books…
As for TIAL, I would enjoy reading about your business experience as it relates to design (and hopefully other’s in responses in the comments). How do you educate clients? How do you tactfully tell a client to shut up because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about?
What have you learned that you can pass on to a younger designer? How do you cope with your aesthetic standards vs. client demands on a design? I love reading about these kinds of things because you don’t learn about them except through your own and others experiences. And please, please, PLEASE don’t do any cheesy ‘inspiration’ posts that are just visual dumps (double entendre intended). Those are getting too ubiquitous and to me, they are just overwhelming and unhelpful (in the real design world)!
Happy New Year, Aaron!
LaurenMarie – Creative Curio’s last blog post..New Blog Friends!
@Lauren
Thanks for posting. There are no plans for top lists, or “inspiration posts” not that I don’t enjoy them at times, but plenty of people are doing a great job of those posts already. The focus of this blog is to write about more of the things that we learn about from experience.
Thanks again for posting and interacting on the blog.
~ Aaron I
Very nicely conveyed Aaron,
Failures certainly do have a way of inspiring us to do better or at the very least teach us what not to do next time. (in theory)
As far as the plans for this upcoming year, well I’d like to make some graphical and functional improvements to both my sites.
Sit down and actually focus on writing some effective and inspirational blogs so I can get more sleep (the wheels don’t stop) I regret. And of course try to continue learning and gaining inspirations from people I admire and trust. I’d also like to develop a sunshine plugin for Fargo like you have.
And finally and most importantly this year, I’d like to find a way to disconnect myself from this keyboard more often to spend time with my bride and my girls as this continues to be my biggest failure.
A very Happy New Year to you and yours Aaron!
Peace,
Robert “Butch” Greenawalt
@Robert
Thanks for the new years wishes! I have realized that it is definitely key to “unplug” sometimes.
Thanks again for posting and your consistent interaction on the blog.
~ Aaron I
I’d like to do more manual stuff this year maybe silkscreen, bookbinding, stuff like that. I built an AM-FM radio last year, and that was fun. This year I plan to take a friend up on photography lessons, no more point and shoot. And I got a really nice box of colored pencils for X-Mas. I want to use them a lot this year.
Jeff
@jeff
That is awesome that you built an AM/FM radio! it is awesome to so something that is challenging, as well as outside of our normal routine!
~ Aaron I
Hi Aaron,
A great post here, i have just posted my review of 2008 at http://www.andykinsey.com ….
the same place your amazing guest post is going to be posted on Monday (12noon gmt).
Talk soon
SEO Manchester’s last blog post..Links for 2008-12-16 [Digg]
@SEO Manchester
Thanks! I appreciate the comments, I am excited to have my guest post there.
~ Aaron I
Aaron,
First off, happy new year. I hope you and your family brought in this new year wonderfully.
Yet somehow it doesn’t feel all that different to me.
I look forward to keeping in touch with you and reading what new content you put out here on the web. I think you have a great insight and have a great niche for putting in to words the lessons you’ve learned.
As for me, I can’t say I have any real clear direction on where I’m headed in this new year. I could make assumptions about where I’d like to end up, but that might not be the best for me. So I plan to keep my eyes and ears focused on God and follow where He leads. At least that’s the plan.
Take care.
kyle steed’s last blog post..the gift of receiving
@Kyle
Thanks for the holiday wishes! I am excited to see what comes in the new year. I hope that we have the chance to colab on a couple of projects. Roll with whatever comes your way, and enjoy the adventure in the new year… with your outlook you cant go wrong.
~ Aaron I
Hi Aaron,
I look forward to reading more about what you will getting up to for the remainder of the year.
My company is trying to take strides forward in building a better user experience by tracking users actions.
One challenge that eludes me, and maybe you could enlighten me with how you deal with it is that two similar design projects, can take vastly different amounts of effort depending on whether the customer likes your proposals or not. How do you deal with pricing with projects like this.