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Lessons to take forward – By @mazzystar81

By Mary Kerr

 

Lessons to take forward

 

Sometimes in life there are lessons that you can’t learn or that you just don’t take on board until you really go through the ringer. A week post D&AD – we’ve dusted ourselves off and are ready to go again, but wow it got hairy. The sound of deadlines swooshing past my ear. 
The lessons I learnt:
Trust your gut. The idea I eventually went with was an idea I had had a week and a half earlier. At some points I abandoned it for fear of credibility and at some points I abandoned it for fear it wasn’t a big enough idea. In the end I did it all in three days and if I had just trusted my gut earlier I would have executed earlier and been able to see where the holes were and what could have been edited and restructured.
Don’t wait for something better to come along.
I believed every day that a better idea was just around the corner. Sometimes better ideas will come along but they will just as likely come along whilst you are executing and another idea rather than doing more research praying the better idea falls into your head. A good idea with enough time to execute it well is far better than an amazing last minute idea badly executed.
Execute early. As I said above. I’ve always found art and drawing painful. I get frustrated that what is in my head bears no resemblance to what appears on the page. So what? Who cares? Just go through the pain and get it down on paper. At least then you can show someone and ask for help rather than keeping it as a protected idea in your head. You will go further when people can help you from seeing something tangible.
Know who to listen to and trust the reactions of your classmates. My idea was the one idea everyone reacted to more than anything I’d come up with, yet I still doubted it and thought it could be better. Start on it. Get it out there early and show them where you’re getting stuck. 
Often in the problem lies the answer. Remember this as it will open the door to many solutions.
Have confidence to fuck up. You’re at school where you’re meant to learn. You can’t learn if you get everything straight away. 
Write SMPs and welcome the pain of the “not quite there yet” “you’re not getting it at all” feedback process. You are creating a new muscle. A new way of thinking. It’s like any new skill – riding a bike or skiing – it’s fun but its rare that you’ll get it straight away no matter your age. And even when you think you may have got it, if someone takes a video of you it’s embarrassingly painful to watch. Sit through the video – listen to what you can adjust and then get up the next morning and go again.
The copy scores 79.7 in the Flesch Reading Ease test

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