In general i’ve always been the “plan and then scrap the plan” kind of organizer when it comes to a creative process. No particular reason, I just find that my best ideas are at 2am when i was sleeping, instead of conscious and actively trying. This time was a touch more agonizing as I had actually reached the end of a project… thought I saved it properly as i’d never had a problem with my typical saving technique.
But I didnt
and the file broke, never to be properly opened again.
It was Jason’s first project of winter quarter, the animal typography illustration. I made dozens of brushes all different colors, sizes, and letters. And I layered them to make a realistic, glowy, ethereal leafy seadragon that has so many object brushes that it slowed down every single program on my laptop as well as add an intense lag when painting more brushstrokes in illustrator.
the patience needed to complete the project was as close to meditations and spiritual work as I’ve ever been.
Ive had plenty of adobe files crash on me.
Just from general stupidity when it comes to using the program as an ill trained high school newspaper editor. Specifically in indesign. But due to the multiple file failures and 3am bloodshot eyes throughout high school i’d luckily already learned to save progression files of my documents as I start to reach the end of the project. I had all my brain storming, and brushes documented as well as a slightly lower fidelity pdf version of my final thanks to the adobe creative cloud, so Jason took mercy on my soul thanks to my proof of documentation and project completion. I’m still devastated on how the highest fidelity version has been lost but im so grateful to past me for having documentation. Overall my desperate pdf of the lower fidelity one still garnered a great response from both jason and my classmates from both cohorts, it’s a unique situation as each person who saw it knows the pain of making it so they knew just ho wmuch effort it took to even reach the point i turned in, but having completed this process i’ve realized the importance of understanding/keeping track of file size, as well as allowing more time in saving due to said file size.