A designer cert

My colleague, C, needed me to help him do his school project because, as he put it, he couldnt finish. He is currently studying part time in a so call design school, that I am sorry to admit, that I dont have respect for.

I graduated from temasek poly design school, and I can safely tell you that even if I am not the most promising designer around, my school did give me a near perfect education.

Let's not exaggerate and say "perfect". "Near perfect" is humble enough.

I hold a certain amount of regard for design institutions like Nafa and Lasalle, but probably because of the pride I feel of and for TP, it had always been well accustomed among my friends that I constantly boast that TP is the best design school in singapore.

Really. IT IS THE BEST.

So when this C asked me to help him out with his school project, I agreed upfront because I understand the frustration of being stuck in one of the mental blocks and you cant churn out design no matter what you do.

Then I regretted it when I realised it is not one or two drawings that he need me to do. He actually hadnt even have a design brief in mind, not to say concept nor theme.

*Note: Once I start to talk about design I cant stop and this entry will be too lengthy. I'll write up about design in my next entry ok. Meanwhile you just try to understand that as a design student, you have to write design brief.

He actually needed me to finish one whole stack of drawings, but the thing is, as of the moment, there is no distinguished outline of his project yet!

This cant do.

And to make things worse, I understood later, from another colleague who is taking the same course, that this project had been assigned since aug/sept, and hence it had been a good 25 weeks. And this project is stipulated to be submitted by 31st.

Great, just great.

Honestly, I know it is going to be a lot of work, but I dont mind doing it if I am thinking of it as a chance to do a school project again. I tell you, nothing beats doing school project, where you neednt worry about the cost implications and you amend structures of building when you like it (but remove columns at your peril, because we will need to roughly study the load distribution and then erect new structures to compensate the loss.)

And already, when he told me about the project brief, I began to form a design brief in my head. I have some ideas in mind but I will need to find a comfortable time to sit down and sketch.

(Please remember: After OT = not a good time to sketch.)


But while I am interested in the project, I cant help but to feel pissed at C's attitude. This project was given such a long time ago but nothing had been done about it. We all lament we dont have time, but honestly as a designer, we have it slightly better than others because 80% of our worries come from mental blocks.

And such mental blocks is easiest cured by exposing ourselves to new stuff, like visiting new places, reading new books, learning something new. And we can do this at any time of the day as long as we make a conscious effort.

We can have fun and work at the same time, imagine how good that is. Haha. But you wont want to be a designer if you know better.

Designers usually cant enjoy ourselves because we are too engrossed in the little details of things around us. We look at lighting effects, we stare at the design of the coaster, we examine the material of the lounge sofa that we are sitting on.

So as a designer, there is a need to constantly recognise brilliant concepts, recall our design, map ideas into the design, fine tune the concept to flow seamlessly with our earlier designed, and then 'save it'. Keep looking and keep trying to map ideas and concepts into the design, and keep looking out of ways to solve design problems.

Hence while it is true that this course only on part time basis, it might actually be more beneficial to a designer because he will have more opportunities, in this prolonged period of time, to come up with more ideas.

While C should have done his own project, he didnt and he is expecting me to do help him. I will hate to see someone receive a undeserved grade on a design course, especially because it hadnt been easy to get my design cert.

My design diploma is soaked in tears and sweat and blood and lots of medicine. How can I be doing a design for someone who is going to get a cert not based on his effort?

My design diploma is one of the proudest things I've achieved in this life of mine, and even if I dont go around bragging about it, everyone already know that a design cert is one of the quite-unattainable qualifications. Do I want the streets to flood with a lot of these part time design diplomas?


I can either not do it.

Or do it so supremely great that the lecturer immediately know that it is not done by C.

So what should I do?