As first time attendee of GraphikaManila and being part of the largest gathering of creative individuals in the field of Graphic Design and Multimedia, it was an eye-opening and inspiring experience for me. Since its inception way back 2006, GraphikaManila has been hailed as a premier event for professionals and design students providing inspiring talks and success stories of individuals and group who made their way through the design and multimedia industry.
The event took off with talks from Create.ph, Jerome Austria and JP Cuison who all shared their experiences on how they started, their struggles and what they have learned along the way through their careers. Christian San Jose of Create.ph cited how perseverance helped him land a seat on the stage from being a guy who started out seating at the back of the conference in 2006. Jerome Austria, a freelance Creative Director, added that by putting more than 10,000 hours in doing what you love can get you somewhere far; the same idea that photographers used to enhance themselves at their craft by producing 10,000 photos before calling themselves as professionals. To culminate the morning session, JP Cuison, a graphic designer who also works in advertising, provided insights about how one’s passion can become a driving force to become a better designer.
The afternoon session started with a talk by Hydro74, a US-based graphic designer who is very known for his vector illustration and prints, simply expressed that one should “never give up on doing what he loves doing as this will define who you are and what you are capable of”. I like how he shared his workflow in creating the illustrations using just a pen tool from Illustrator. Furthermore, Droga5 talked about importance of collaboration as expressed in this quote “It’s about going to a place where you feel uncomfortable, and challenging yourself.” Droga5 and PSYOP showed the technical workflow of how their company handles a new project.
We were also impressed by GMunk, the guy behind the UI, visual effects and motion graphics of TRON Legacy. He added that by analyzing your previous work and finding those little mistakes can be a great help to improve your future projects.
At first I thought that the event should have given us the time to know other participants but having heard all of these inspiring stories and learning a lot from the Speakers, I think that is enough for a day. After all this, it has been, not only inspiring but also a constant reminder to myself on why I must continue to do what I do today, why I must find that passion and re-ignite it all over again, why I need to constantly battle against myself, in order to become better and be an asset to the company.
Let me borrow this time a quote from Jerome Austria, “dont ever think you are good enough because if you do, you might stop learning”.
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