PPP: THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU — FINAL PRESENTATION

This afternoon, I presented my final presentation reflecting back on my 3 years of the course, where i've been and who I am becoming and plans for the future. It felt really weird to think it's nearly all over, but none the less it was a enjoyable afternoon seeing everyones next step and their journey.

Feedback


John sent out some feedback on the presentations which is detailed below, this was really insightful and encouraging with some of the issues and concerns raised in the presentations 

My personal summing up on the presentations and things I feel are worth remembering. Firstly, thank you all for the work and thought you have put into the presentations, it illustrates the evolution you have achieved from Level 04 and your journey to Level 06. Highly professional and the content has been informed from experiences saved and evaluated on your PPP Blogs, exactly what they are for. Well done. I am confident that you will now have the base to increase your networking skills. Each one of you has illustrated your personality as a creative including tone of voice, humour, confidence and the willingness to share your practice as is, and as a growing mix of ambitions and dreams. Your development as a group of ‘friends’ who have grown together and formed strong bonds that should last for years to come, hopefully. It is hard to fit three years into 10 minutes, but the majority achieved just this even in the face of tight time constraints…'professional' I would call it. Now, is the time to complete your portfolio, final show content and blogs, all which can illustrate to those to there in the creative community who and what you are, and the potential you have to become ‘Top Gun’ creatives. I am pleased to have played some part in your PPP journey and so pleased how you have engaged and see the benefits. Identity: This is a big part of your career, not simply a mark nor a 'hook’ to hang your practice on, but a visual Manifesto of what you want to achieve and offer. Which means by defining yourself, you are informing your life and your practice. Both will change and evolve over the years to come. Maybe simply your name, but what you see yourself as. A dreamer of dreams, a fulfiller of wishes? Expectations and dreams: Your expectations are also informed by your practice and this can manage your dreams for the future. Dreaming is good. Fail? Failure is good too. By failing once and a while it focusses your wants and needs to develop and grow your practice through research and evaluation. Recognition of the synergy you feel with those you network with and contact. Reasons and outcomes hand in hand. Collaborations: Sharing loves, wants, needs and ideas with those you admire and want to work with, is something I personally find healthy and the future of our industry. Collaboration with others in other disciplines, from technology to medicine, engineering and many others.This will broaden and enrich your knowledge and data base that again I feel the direction of our industry for the coming decades. Lifecycle of a creative: As I said, we are not like caterpillars, we do not evolve into pupa, chrysalis and butterfly, but from the caterpillar,to a horse, to a fish to a gorilla…meaning we have the opportunity to change constantly to address the needs of our profession. Strengths: By examining our weaknesses, we can see where our strengths actually are and how they can be developed. Questions: Always question everything, never take anything on face value and it will help evaluate what you want or wish to achieve in your life and practice. Be true to yourself: Be true to yourself before others, if you are, it is easier to know yourself and your position in your career and always have opinions that are YOURS and not simply to keep the peace of conform for conformity sake, Your life is all about YOU. Travel: Even though we are ‘global’ practitioners and can work from wherever, with whomever, whenever, take time to travel, feel the air of another country on your face, shake hands, share a meal with and not be confined to a ‘virtual’ world. 'See' cultures, experience lifestyles and foods, it will inform both your life and your practice. Always. Portfolios: See Aaron Draplin on Vimeo/YouTube on portfolios. your portfolio should be YOURS and please you above all, you should be your own harshest critic.You WILL visit so many studios who will all have differing responses to your portfolio,you will be changing it for years to come if you listen to everyone. Decide on who’s advice you appreciate and why? Tell them, they will be pleased to mentor you. Network, Network, Network: Make friends everywhere and use them as advisors (take on board what they say), not simply those within our own profession, but those outside. Follow your heart. Your head will follow for all the right reasons. I have people in my network I have had for years and we keep in touch, collaborate and appreciate. Passion: Show passion, people love it… both in your practice and in your life. It will illustrate who you really are.