My first impression of AUB was that it was a warm and welcoming community – everyone was so friendly.
I enjoy the campus; it's nice, clean, and easy to get around. My favourite thing is the moss ecosystems that grow on the rooftops. My course tutors also created a welcoming environment, which helped build a community for our course. Being an international student, this was comforting. I'm so far from home, so having this community was super important for me to find and has helped me adjust to living in England.
My first impression of the course was that our tutors were knowledgeable in what they were teaching; I love that they're also passionate about design. Learning from passionate people makes your passion grow, which is one of the reasons I'm here. On the BA (Hons) Communication Design and Strategy course, one of the topics we've been focusing on is typography, which I've enjoyed. We had a workshop on the letterpress, which I found interesting and helped me better understand type essentials, like kerning and leading. Understanding the original system behind these has helped me better understand type overall, benefitting my digital designs.
My creative process has changed drastically during my two months at AUB; I still don't have a solid process because I'm trying different methods to find it. However, one fundamental part has changed, and that is research. Research has always been part of my creative process, but learning more about good research and its project requirements has helped me. Before, I would research one idea and write it on a sticky note, but now I dedicate time and pages in my notebook just to research. I also make sure I research all my ideas instead of the one that I think is the best. Doing detailed research has improved my final designs, which I'm proud of.
I love art, design, and crafting, so I have a million different hobbies. One of these is embroidery – I've been working on embroidering words, which has turned out to be helpful on my course because it ties in with typography. While embroidering, I look at the anatomy of different fonts and how the pieces work together to build a whole font, which has helped me appreciate type more.
There are so many things that I want to do that it's hard to narrow down, but I know I want to be an art director at an advertising agency or in the print industry. I would love to work at a big agency like Ogilvy or &Walsh. I would also love to start my own agency – I already have a name picked out! I hope to narrow down what I want to do throughout the course. One thing I know for sure is that I'm going to stay in the UK after I graduate.
