Being #blindlybold and making progress
It’s a bit funny when I look back and think about it now, but at the time I was being blindly bold, ended up totally frustrated, fully embarrassed and seriously on the verge of giving up. Ever been there?
Back in May of 2019 I decided to take an Intro to Digital Typography course, knowing full well I hadn’t done intensive courses in a bit, and without any knowledge of any of the programs or technology required for said course. I mean it. I had NO iPad digital typography knowledge at all… like I had just bought the iPad Pro THE DAY BEFORE the course began, and had never used the app ProCreate ever before I’d installed it that morning.
I honestly don’t know where I got the guts to go in guns blazing and just try, but for some reason I wanted to see where it would lead me. I got there and realized I was totally out of my league. Almost everyone there had been using the iPad for a while and some were seriously pursuing getting certified in digital typography design, taking the course as a primer to their next step of applying to the typography design program. I was a waaay past 39-ish designer who had dropped out of the scene for a while because of #mommylife. Quite a few of my classmates (and possibly a professor or two) could have legit been my children. I was however not only overwhelmed, but there was no way I could keep up with it at all, and my expensively manicured nails were not helping me a bit with all the new quick tool gestures and such.
It was a multiple day course, and I did my best. I stuck it out, staying up into the wee hours each night just to complete and absorb the topics we were introduced to in class. Of course I had a knowledge of the history of typography, and I had travelled and studied with some of the best, but that didn’t mean a hill of beans here. I needed to just slug my way through it, to just dig in and do the work.
I barely finished all of the projects, and was super shy about sharing my final piece among the folks who clearly had much more experience with it than I did. The reality though was that they all started somewhere too, and my start was just a bit more like jumping off a cliff and hoping for the best, rather than taking a slow ride with training wheels attached. Thank goodness they were all super kind and supportive; I wasn’t totally alone in the weeds. By the end of the intensive weekend, I DID actually have something final to show and started my art dedicated Instagram page. I learned so much. The fear, frustration and late nights were all worth it. While it was difficult, I had honestly had a lot of fun. I left with a basic knowledge I never thought I’d have and it just snowballed from there.
Fast forward to 2021, and I can look back gratefully at that scary and frustrating time. It jolted me out of my comfort zone, I got to meet some pretty cool peeps, and now I have a skillset that I’ve used to create artwork ever since. Am I a digital typography design guru? Nah. Not by a long shot, but that course definitely built up my grit and perseverance. I didn’t give up. I’m hella glad I didn’t. Today, many of my illustrations, murals and surface designs are started in ProCreate and my typography is indeed better for it because of the practice.
I can look at my first digital typography “creation” above, and see just how much progress I’ve made in all those months. I wouldn’t be at this point if I hadn’t just leaped like I did. (I even found that I’d written myself a little note of encouragement along the way.)
Have you leaped into something that was undeniably not what you thought it’d be? I’d love to hear how you got through, and what you found on the other side. Let’s share our blindly bold moments below.