After doing some reflecting, I realized many of my blogs do just that--reflect. And although I find nothing wrong with this, I wanted to cut the pattern and write a blog that is more specific.
In September, I submitted one of my projects, the "Typographic Songbook", to the AIGA Nebraska SHOW in the student publication design category. Shortly after I submitted it, I was notified I had gotten past the first round of judging and my project would be exhibited in the SHOW exhibition where it would go through a final round of judging.
I was absolutely thrilled to hear this news, but I was quickly disappointed to realize I was leaving Nebraska for fall break and would not be able to see the show. Regardless, I was excited to get this far and for the opportunity for others to view it.
After returning from break, I came to learn that my songbook received a silver award for student publication. I truly couldn't have been more surprised.
Afterwards, I was looking for new files of my song book for my portfolio and site and stumbled upon my first draft of the book.
After seeing this, it is pretty funny for me to even think about how the final product came out of these drafts. Although they clearly were first drafts, there are many projects I turn in and hardly have the opportunity to do more iterations than this.
I think what fascinates me the most is thinking about a scenario where I never pushed my designs further than this point. If I ignored my instructor's and classmates' feedback. I don't mean this to imply I would have never gotten the AIGA award, but that there would have been far less satisfaction I would have with myself and with this project knowing how much time and energy I put into it. The AIGA award is just a tangible reward for the hard work I did before.