Black-or-white

Black-or-white

That day, when I first entered to the classroom, I could smell the ominous premonition stemmed from the turbid, damp atmosphere. Trying to ignore the symptom of chest tightness, I pressed my heart and comforted myself that I would be right. However, it was manifest that I could not breathe well as my frequency of breathing was significantly increasing. Therefore, I decided to quit all lessons and find my doctor.

“You are taking too serious on your work.” Yeah, that was how my doctor explained to me. 2 weeks before, I stressed myself and worked until morning for 2 days with 3 hours of sleep per day, which gave a heavy work load to my heart. Wait, I know you might also work all day long for numerous weeks but you have never been through this. That is why I am special. With a long history of illness, I discovered that my body would be weaken whenever I had a strong emotions. For instance, I would have a stun if I got really angry. And this time, my pressure flood all my veins.

Where my pressure came from? Well, let’s start from the most obvious cause. Time.

Other than a creative media student, I am a flute, mandarin teacher, an IT in charge and graphic designer for 2 community centers, a freelance designer and a vice-chairman of a non-profit making flute ensemble organization – Gavotte Flute Ensemble(GFE). Yeah, I know the large amount of identities make me seem like an octopus. What will happen if all the jobs collide with each other? It was what exactly happened 2 weeks before. I was handling an application system changing project, all promotion designs of a flag day and 10^th anniversary activities, which included all posters, the flag, booklets, etc. What was more, I also needed to design the pull-up banner, business card and the change of the old application form in a week for a public performance of GFE. And do not forget that I am also a student who also needed to work on academic papers, design proposals and programming works. Obviously, it was an impossible mission to finish it all within a week. Limited time became an immense challenge

I might not admit myself as a perfectionist but I always push myself to do the best. In the design industry of Hong Kong, it is not difficult to work with the clients who know nothing about how to promote their message efficiently and still want to control what you design. I, as a designer, always try to find the best balance between the commands from clients and my design beliefs. For example, the flag design. I was being told to design the flag as heart-shape. Oh my god! Heart-shape is no different from the fake usable floor area stated in the booklet by the land agent. Although it looks great, heat-shaped can never deliver the message well with the tiny rectangular area in the center. On top of that, they also embraced a vain hope that it could contain 2 logos, 2 names and a bible sentence in such area! In order to persuade them to forgo the use of heart-shaped and the bible sentence, I designed 2 kinds of flags to magnify the weakness of heart-shaped. Here I am, I would stress, force and compel myself to think out of the box and do out of my limit whenever I design. That is how I work.

I completely understand what would happen to my health if I continue to stay in this way. However, the identities generated chances and my belief prompted improvements. They are the one who depicts who am I today, which is the reason why I am not going to change. This is me.  

(627 words)